This wholesaler I found, who seems to be pretty decent over all has a small thing that bugs me. they want 10$ charge PER order, on top of shipping and product costs. On any price order. Is that normall practice? Kinda high considering most products they sell are around 10-30$ range.
That is high! Most small dollar drop shippers will charge $3 per address or order on something that low in price. The other thing you need to look at is they may sell to discounters, and rather than increase the price of the item, they charge a higher drop ship fee to make sure that the discounter doesn't just add $10 to the price. Sort of a catch 22 for the new guy trying to get started, but they need to protect the value of a product.
Right. Thing is I went to their non-wholesale website and they charge 10-12$ for some products. Meaning there is no real way to beat their price at all. They do produce their own products, so they are the manufacturer per se. Ill check em out, but may need to find another wholesaler
The manufacturer is foolish to sell their items to the public low and expect to sell to a retailer that would have to charge more. If they are huge and are well known, and everybody already knows they can buy directly from them, then why bother with retailers.
I dont think they very well known. They have a store, but Im in the same field as they are and found them only after extensive searching. Ill list a few items in my store with the charge factored in and see if the customers bite Its so hard to find a good drop shipper these days =\
many merchants selling products at or near wholesale generally do so with the expectations to make money on the shipping and handling fees. Often prices can cost more buying them this way. For example, sellers on eBay selling CD's for $.01 and charging $9 for shipping.
Im thinking it will come out about the same If i order from them, pay shipping and then send to customer. Customer will pay the shipping anyways, so it really makes no difference to me in the end. As long as the customer doesnt know that there is an alternative with much lower price, ill be good!
update Found a much better drop shipper. 50% below their retail on 80% of products and 25% below on everything else. No drop shipping fee. Shipping 3$ + 2.5$ per item after that No drop ship fee and they seem to be very reputable.