Remember that when you're shipping products to your customers yourself, you should never let more than 48 hours go by before you ship each product. Customer Service is very important in your Home-based Internet Business; you need to be sure to keep your customers happy!
A word about Large Volume WholesalersI've mentioned Large Volume Wholesalers as being an important part of that critical Multiple Product Sourcing Method strategy, so let's talk about them for a minute. At Worldwide Brands, we use the term "Large Volume Wholesaler" to describe a wholesale company that does not drop ship OR "light bulk" wholesale. Rather, they are companies that we have investigated and found to be legitimate wholesalers who sell in larger bulk quantities, but are willing to make deals with you on an individual basis. Large Volume Wholesalers are VERY important to your overall product sourcing. If you'll remember from an earlier Chapter, Jay Smith wanted to place some inexpensive accessories on his web site that he knew were going to sell well. In the case of the actual person that the Jay Smith story is based on, he invested some of his profits in buying a slightly larger bulk quantity of these products, and the rest is history. Those products paid for themselves and earned a profit, he reinvested in more, and so on.
It's also important to realize that if you deal DIRECTLY with REAL Drop Shippers and Light Bulk Wholesalers, THEY are all actually General Wholesalers as well. They're General Wholesalers who are ALSO willing to Drop Ship and sell in Light Bulk Quantities, that's all. They will all be happy to give you better price breaks if you buy larger quantity from them to round out a product line that sells well for you.
There is more FREE information on this subject, and all the other subjects in this EBook, available in our Resource Center.
The Internet is loaded with so-called "suppliers". Everyone who has a couple of wooden birdhouses or glass figurines to sell wants you to think they are a real, live wholesale supplier. They use phrases like "Your Wholesale Source", "Direct To You", and "This is YOUR road to Internet Riches!"
They use words like "Ultimate", "Central", "Connection", and "Millennium". They give themselves clever names that sound similar to popular, well known companies like eBay, Yahoo and others. They are nothing like the companies they try to sound like. They make outrageous claims that they have tens of millions of products you can sell. That's not true.
If you let them huff and puff at you, they'll blow your house down.I often am not sure whether I should be amused or horrified at some of the tricks that these people are using to take your money.
When you open an Internet Store or sell through eBay Auctions, you obviously need products to sell. We've been talking about Product Sourcing in the last couple of Chapters.
The most critical thing to remember about Product Sourcing is that you NEED to be as close to the manufacturer of your products as possible. The more "middlemen" you have to go through, the more fingers are dipping into your profit potential. The Internet is FULL of middlemen, and they've all got their sights set on YOU!
Here are some of the things you should watch out for, in both Drop Shipping and Bulk Wholesaling:In order to earn the most possible profits on the products you sell online, you must work directly with genuine wholesalers. Anyone who gets in between you and a real, factory-authorized Wholesaler for ANY reason is simply turning your order around to someone else, and taking a profit from it. That profit should you yours, not theirs!
PERSONAL INFO RIP-OFFS DISGUISED AS WHOLESALE DIRECTORIESThere is a truly alarming trend recently that has to do with ripping off your personal information and selling it to others. There are now several so-called "wholesale directory" web sites on the Internet that look and sound very convincing, and sell you access to their sites at very low monthly costs. We at Worldwide Brands know that it's impossible to maintain quality directories of that kind of information and sell it so cheaply. We've been doing this since 1999, and there are certain costs that you just can't get away from if you want to provide real, constantly updated Wholesale Supplier information. So, we looked into what these cheap directories were REALLY doing, and we found out. We were truly disgusted when we got our answers. These online directories are nothing more than fronts for a much larger marketing machine that's dedicated to separating YOU from your MONEY. The actual wholesale information is largely outdated junk and links to fake wholesalers. All they are really interested in is gathering your personal information, so they can sell it to any Internet Marketer who will pay a couple of bucks for it. That's one way they make money.
The other way they make money is to give your personal information to "Coaching" companies. These are telemarketing companies who will call you repeatedly and brow-beat you into buying "ECommerce Coaching Packages" that SEEM to start cheap, but end up costing you THOUSANDS of dollars. These fake wholesale directory producers can make as much as ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS PER NAME if the names (like YOUR name) that they give these marketing scammers result in sales of "Coaching " packages that can cost as much as six to ten thousand dollars.
So, that's how the cheap providers of "wholesale directories" operate. Don't be fooled!!BROKER NETWORKS
Broker Networks can best be described as something similar to the Multi-level Marketing business model. In order to use this "Network", and take advantage of the "millions of products" they claim you can have drop shipped, you must first BUY thousands of dollars worth of products yourself (many times from large retail stores). Then you BECOME a "Broker" yourself, trying to sell those products to other "Brokers" within the "Network". You and those other "Brokers" in the "Network" (people just like you) actually become the "wholesale suppliers" these sites want you to think you're signing up with.
Many times operations like these will not even complete your "application" unless you can prove that you have several thousand dollars to use in order to start buying products, so you can become a "Broker". Be VERY careful with your credit card information, and ask a LOT of questions!
Not what you expected from the advertising on their front page, is it! If you're okay with that kind of business model, fine. Again, it's not illegal, or a scam. Just remember that this is NOT direct wholesale supply in any traditional fashion whatsoever.There are some Broker Networks that claim to be wholesale suppliers of tens of millions of products. To the best of our knowledge, there is no single wholesale supplier anywhere on the planet that is anywhere near that large.
There are some Broker Networks that claim to be wholesalers of a huge variety of Brand Name products. They are simply passing your orders on to the real sellers (other "Brokers" just like you, and even retailers, in some cases!) of those Brand Names, and taking part of your profits.
These companies also sell your Personal Information to dozens of other Internet Marketers, and make money that way.If you want the best possible profit margins, the transactions you make when you buy products to sell online should be between you and a Factory Authorized Wholesale Supplier ONLY.
TV INFOMERCIALS
The late night "Home Internet Business in a Box" TV Infomercial.
The ones that show you "Amazing Systems" that will make you "Thousands of Dollars a Week", with little effort on your part. They offer you "Easy, Step-by-Step Instructions". They want to sell you "Interactive CD ROMS that Teach You ECommerce in No Time". They offer to reveal "Amazing Secrets of the Pros" that will make you rich. They promise "Instant Web Sites"" and "Access to Thousands of Products That You Can Sell right Now!" They show you beautiful people lounging around pools, swimming in crystal-clear Caribbean waters, and sitting under palm trees while their "Businesses" magically make them all the money it takes to afford those things.
C'mon, folks! You and I both know better!It's extremely tempting to buy into the fantasy that there are "Secret Formulas", "Hidden Methods of the Pros", and "Businesses in a Box" that will make us rich with very little effort.
We at Worldwide Brands know these people. We've been in this business a long time. We're very good at it, and very we're highly regarded on the Internet.
Different infomercial people have approached us over the years, wanting us to endorse them and let them include our information and our Product Sourcing Directories in their half-hour trips to Fantasyland. We've had multiple conference calls with the owners of many of these companies. We've had conference calls with the people who handle their advertising, and produce their infomercials. We have turned them down, every time.
We will not allow our name and our reputation to be ruined by being associated with people who claim that getting 'rich' on the Internet is easy. Don't let your chance at a real business be ruined by them.We know the 'get rich quick' Infomercials. We actually do stay up late at night and watch them. In our experienced opinion, they are selling a white-washed fantasy that has little to do with the real business world.
They start out by telling you that their "Amazing System" costs only a small amount of money. Then, when they have you hooked, they tell you that you need to spend hundreds more on an "Upgrade". Then they tell you that you need to spend hundreds more on "Advertising and Email Campaigns". Eventually, they'll end up telling you bit by bit that you need to invest thousands of dollars with them if you want to be successful. We have heard from a tremendous number of people who have lost a lot of money to these operations. Don't let them fool you!
"WE WILL DROP SHIP THOUSANDS OF PRODUCTS FOR YOU!"Ever seen a claim like this on the Internet? There are literally THOUSANDS of so-called "drop shippers" out there who are acting as MIDDLEMEN for ONE REAL Drop Shipping Supplier. All of those thousands of so-called drop shippers lead back to the same supplier.
There is a big supplier of imported off-brand merchandise that does drop ship directly from their warehouse. They sell some decent products; I actually worked with them a few years ago. You won't find any well-known brand names there. Their line consists of several thousand widely varying gift-type products. Again, you won't recognize any of the brand names...it's all noname, imported merchandise, probably mostly from China and the Pacific Rim. We'll call this company "XYZ Wholesalers", for the purpose of this discussion. That's not their real name, of course.
You can sign up with "XYZ Wholesalers" directly and sell their merchandise on your web site. They do charge an "account setup fee". I worked with them few years ago, as I said. However, I no longer work with them. I found the products difficult to sell, for one very good reason. As I said above, they have been around for DECADES, and have signed up TENS OF THOUSANDS of people, who are all trying to sell this exact same merchandise on the Internet, as well as through Catalog Sales, Home Parties, etc. That kind of competition, plus the fact that there are so many more people (millions of people!) already trying to sell giftware in general on the 'Net, made it impossible for me to make any real money.
Now, here's the problem: along comes Joe Reseller. He signs up with "XYZ Wholesalers" as a retailer, and has the right to sell their products on the Internet. Then he goes out on the Internet and claims that HE ACTUALLY IS XYZ Wholesalers! He tells you to sign up with his web site. He'll drop ship all those products to your customers and make you rich. What he's really doing is sitting in his bedroom in front of his computer, re-sending your orders to the REAL "XYZ Wholesalers", and making a profit from you that you should not have to pay. He's set himself up as a "middleman", and is trying to fool you.
DROP SHIPPING AGENTSAs we warn throughout our site, there is one constant thing in Internet Drop Shipping that you need to watch out for. Over and over again, you are going to see companies who do their best to make you think they are real wholesale drop shippers, when they are NOT. Drop Shipping 'Agents' are a particularly interesting issue. You see, they DO provide access to one, two, or maybe a few REAL drop shippers. However, they are STILL a MIDDLEMAN.
There are two problems with using Drop Shipping 'Agents'.