Finding Wholesale Products

Finding wholesale suppliers is not an easy task, but it is one that requires due diligence by the online retailer.  I can take many hours or even many days to locate satisfactory sources for products you hope to sell in your online store. 

As I have previously indicated (on the first page of this section regarding starting an online store), I found it useful to go to product sourcing experts.  Here's a description of three alternatives.  I belong to all three, although I tend to use one of them far more often than the others.

Salehoo:   Cost is $67 for a lifetime membership that gives you access to their ever expanding database of thousands of wholesalers (some of whom do drop shipping as well).  This is a very good value.  The only drawback is that many of your competitors will be using these same resources, which means that you can't get a competitive advantage by finding a source that nobody else is aware of.  I recommend this company.  Here's their link (opens in a new window):  Salehoo

DropshipDesign:  As the name suggests, they only handle dropship wholesale products.  I'm sure they would be happy to fulfill a larger order and ship a lot to your address, but you receive no discount for handling your own fulfillment (i.e., shipping, packaging, etc.).  Only their two highest options ($135 and $185, respectively, for an annual membership) offer genuine value.  If you can't afford that, don't even bother looking at this one.  If you can afford it, here's their link (opens in a new window):  DropshipDesign

Worldwide Brands:  This is the most sophisticated of the options, although at $299 for a lifetime membership, it's also the most expensive.  There is a temptation to say that you can always upgrade to this after you have some income.  On the other hand, you can get that income faster and with a higher profit margin if you take the plunge right away.

Worldwide Brands offers drop ship wholesalers, small bulk wholesalers, large bulk wholesalers (for when you've grown), import wholesalers and liquidation wholesalers.  What separates this option from the others, and the reason that I use them almost exclusively now, is that they also provide a competitive assessment of the product categories to provide a measure of your liklihood of success in selling that product.  Perhaps even more important, they offer lots of training materials related to product sourcing, much of which is included in the membership.  Here's their link (opens in a new window):  Worldwide Brands 

Based upon my experiences with these three top alternatives, I recommend Worldwide Brands first and Salehoo in second.