How do you find a supplier?

About a month ago a registered a really good domain for a new product due to be launched this year. I have decided to concentrate a lot of my efforts on making this website big, and selling this product on it (or at least try to). Via adwords, seo etc.
I am planning on adding some content, but mostly making it a product selling website.

My question is, in this situation, how do you find a supplier? Am I attempting the impossible, can you only do this if you already have a supplier? Or are there ways of finding someone?

I would preferably like to try doing the packaging and stuff myself, so Id be directly buying large quantities from the suppliers, but I have thought about just doing affiliate sales. Has anyone ever tried setting up deals with affiliates where you sell the product on your page and just send an request to post the product to the supplier?

Any thoughts are much appreciated.
Pete

 

Look for drop shipping companies. You sell their product and they send it to the client as if it were your own.

 

Totally depends upon the kind of product.
As you said it's a new product which has yet tp be released, going direct to the manufacturer might be a good idea. Otherwise, I've found suppliers on other websites, on google, on ebay and from specialised websites such as: http://www.exporters.com.sg/

As nicknick said dropshipping is often quite useful (especially if you're lazy like me), but you might not be able to find one for your product.

 

Go to worldwidebrands.com. You can get dropshippers and wholesalers. They also have some neat tools to help you determine what is the best choice for your situation. It costs money to access their suppliers, but they have an excellent reputation of screening suppliers and only listing legitimate ones. I have been using about 20-25 dropshippers from their list on a site I have. In almost two years I have only had one problem with a dropshipper. I called WWB and the problem was resolved by the end of the day.

Jim

 

If you are selling from a single manufacturer you can ask them who their wholesalers are. Otherwise there are wholesalers for just about every industry. Some will drop ship, and some wont, it just just depends on the wholesaler.

Personally I would stay away from 'drop-shipping' companies, unless you know their prices are close to wholesale, and you know they are a legitimate company.

 

Check out this link DSM56,

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/0,4621,306132,00.html

If you are interested in drop-shipping you should really take a look at this and also pay close attention to the third page titled with,

Avoid These Common Drop Shipping Scams

Paying money to access a list of suppliers is in my oppinion not the way to find what you are looking for... unless your trying to get yourself set up to be scammed.

Good luck!

 

I would only go down the road of dropshipping if I didn't have enough capital to buy the stocl (they take a cut of your profit) or if I wasn't 100% I could sell a product (probably better to focus on a product you 100% believe in)

Check out www.alibaba.com

Has some interesting stuff on it

 

Then you have never dealt with worldwidebrands.com
This is not a "fly-by-night" list someone cooked up from taking them off a search. You should take a look at the company.

Jim

 

Since i am living in Thailand i can just step out on the street and see new stuff i want to sell all the time. To much stuff to little time.. or should it be girls...

 

I kinda fancy doing the whole packaging thing for the fun of it
Something new every day...

I will check out these websites tho...thanks guys.

Anyone got any cosmetics suppliers they might be able to put me in touch with?

 

yes, it is true that drop shipping can be scary situation in case compnay os folded or closes the shop. So please study carefully before signing with anyone

 

Jim Guinn wrote:

As a rule i would do researching on my own especially with all the scams out there regarding drop-shipping but worldwidebrands.com looks like a company with integrity after looking them up on the bbbonline.org website.

I have noiced so many obvious scams so therefor my first reaction was as stated before...worldwidebrands.com may be the only trustworthy site out there on the net.

I'm wondering if there are also resources that i can use for the Netherlands

Would be interesting though

 

How do most online retailers on here get there own contacts?

Is it mostly that they know the right people? e.g. you know someone who supplies super organic shampoo so you try and sell it online (that would be my guess)?

 

A lot of online companies started as retail companies. In their case they usually take their supplier contracts with them on the web. Most manufacturers wont sell directly to a retailer unless the retailer is huge. They have wholesalers that sell to the retailers. The wholesalers usually sell from several companies at a time.

Example:
Mountain Bike Parts are wholesaled through QBP. QBP sells to almost every bike shop in the US. If you go straight to Shimano, they will tell you to contact QBP. The same thing goes for most manufacturers of anything. Unless you are a huge company that is planning on buying a ton of products you have to contact a wholesaler.

The tricky part is that most wholesalers will not sell to internet only businesses. By selling to these businesses they piss off their retail business customers because internet business can undercut the retail prices due to their lower operating cost.

Drop-shippers came about for 3 reasons, and are in-between a wholesaler and a retailer. I'm referring to a business that exists for drop-shipping products, but is not a wholesaler by contract. First they scam unknowing business owners (Non-legitimate drop-shippers). Second, they provide a lot of different products, usually more than a wholesaler. Third they ship products for a business. They will normally sell to internet businesses.

So to get products to sell you have 3 options.

1. Go straight to the manufacturer. (Only works if you are selling products from a single company). You will almost definitely have to keep an inventory. Normally, only small manufacturers will sell directly to retailers.

2. Go to a wholesale company. You can probably get a list from the manufacturer. Many wholesalers drop ship. If they don't, you have to have your own inventory.

3. Find a wholesale company. Slightly more expensive than the other options but they will obviously drop ship for you. Just don't get burned in the process of finding one.

 

excellent post jestep...thanks!

 

I also stand by worldwide brands. They have been around for several years. I have an account with them although I havent used it in quite sometime. I found a dropshipper for electronics which I used to sell over ebay, but now dropshipping on ebay is a joke. :-/

 

Did you make any profit from that? Ive heard its pretty impossible on ebay...

 

It was about 3 years ago that I was using them and I was selling the Home Theater stuff, like Speakers, DVD Players, TV's etc. I was making about 15% profit per deal which isnt bad cuz I always got the money first then had the dropshipper send it out. But now, I have yet to find any dropship company that can beat the prices on ebay.

The way to go would be to find excess and obsolete inventories and flip those if you can. Used to do that in electronic components but that market took a dive in 2000

 

Figure out what you want to sell. Find the manufacturers of those products. Ask them to setup an account.

Unless you are a real business they will probably not work with you. What I mean by real is.... Corporation or LLC. Time is money and they don't want to waste time with people who aren't serious about business like them.

Larger manf. only sell to distributors, who then in turn sell to retailers (you). Unless you are large enough to buy a large amount they will send you to their distributors.

Logistially if you are doing business on the Internet and don't want to keep inventory, some manf. will drop ship for added $. You can always have a facility close to your manf. to keep shipping cost low to you. Then ship to your customer. Plus increases turnaround time to your customer.

 

Just out of interest...what quantity are we usually talking if you go to the manufacturer?