Ok I know that good place to start when find a dropshipper is: http://www.worldwidebrands.com But how do I find a good wholesaler? I would prefer to stock my own goods and ship them. So how do I find the places to buy from? I would like to start small so keep that in mind.
Best suggestion do a search on google for them Honestly is the best way I have found to start, next from there you can visit trade shows, wholesale specialty sites that list companies who sell wholesale, etc. Sorry wont be giving links out on this subject as it's worth to much to me to do so
I have done searches. But as we both know 90% of what you get back is crap. Most of them are not real wholesalers at all.
That is not true, what types of products are you specifically looking for? It is hard work finding good wholesalers, I have spent countless hours and resourses on it in the past, hence the reason I and most others would not simply jump at the chance to give this info away for free.
When I said crap, I meant all the scams out there like people selling lists of so called wholesalers. I have seen several of these lists in the past and most of them turned out to be places which went out of business or never existed or just simply retail stores. I'm not completely sure what product I'm looking for. Something small since my space to store will be limited. Probably nothing dealing with electronics since they are so competitive.
Electronics is an area I realy haven't dealt with to much. However why don't you figure out what brands/types of products you want to carry and contact the manufacturer? Even if they do not sell wholesale to you, most will refer you to someone who will.
Now can the average person just go buy from a wholesaler? Or do you need an actual company, tax id, etc......
That depends on the company, and the state you live in.... Usually a resale ID or federal ID is required, you however need to be following your local laws anyways...
IMO, If they don't require a tax id and all that jazz you are gettting a junk supplier. When I'm looking for products to sell that's one of the first things I look for do they require a tax id or is this company going to sell to any wahoo that will devalue the product. It seems like now days a lot of drop shippers try to optimize their site for drop shipper of a specific product. You can go into Google and put in lets say drop ship electric scooter and some sites will come up, but even going this route many times get you junk results. I sometimes will just be browsing around on the net and come across a few sites that are selling the same products that starts to make me wonder hmmm? These guys must have a drop shipper. I look around their sites sometimes they will put the manufacturer or dropshippers info up not thinking anything of it. I use that same info to find their source.
Blonde that is a good rule, however even some manufacturers do not require a tax ID as it is not required for a retail license in every state. Usually a company name, and header, etc will then suffice.
I didn't know there were states that didn't require a retail license. What I'm saying is the companies need to require something like you said atleast a company name and a letter head. I've just seen too many of these people who claim to be legit drop shippers that are selling the products themselves. And allowing others to devalue their product by selling it so cheap either on ebay or on the net. You can't make a profit when they are doing that. I even have a product that I'm selling now that it upset me to see that supplier was selling under a differnet website name. Atleast they do a good job of keeping all their prices up. I figure you just have to beat them out in the serps.
When I was selling computers and electronics on line, I used D & H distributing (www.dandh.com). They have about 7 distribution points across the US. They can also drop ship for you if you want with a custom invoice slip for your company. I can honestly say that they were great to work with. My problem was that I did not have the volume to get the better buying discounts. Very hard to compete without willing to keep an inventory.