If you are dreaming about dropshipping business, as you already know that you do not need to produce and store any goods, as a supplier will do this, but you need to know where to find such, this article will be a good helper.
The profit of a young entrepreneur in dropshipping depends mainly on his ability to create and promote the online shop and his ability to find suitable suppliers who can produce high-quality goods in the set terms and deliver them without delays.
Therefore, this article is about the second main task of the dropshipper.
A unique dropshipping supplier
Several types of suppliers are suitable for dropshipping: manufacturers, wholesalers, or sellers. Finding a supplier that will and can work in dropshipping business is a time-consuming job. Not all suppliers want to take care of small orders, take care of packing and be responsible for shipping. In addition to these qualities, the product quality, price, and brand reputation should be on a high level. So, all these features make dropshipping suppliers unique.
But do not be afraid, there are still many suppliers worldwide, mainly small companies. But potentially, finding them is challenging.
Two ways of finding dropship suppliers
There are two ways to search the dropship suppliers – manually and using special tools on the Internet. In more detail, we will discuss both with pros and cons.
For both methods, you can start research before or after you find your winning niche. That means in the first case, your niche will be determined by a qualified supplier, and in the second case, you will search for a supplier in your niche. The second option is narrower, but in the first one, you can follow the advice of other dropshippers more easily.
Manual search
If you have a lot of time but want to avoid investing money in dropshipping so far, you can search suppliers manually. For this task, you need only an Internet connection.
You can:
- Contact manufacturers of the products suitable for dropshipping. Their contacts can be easily found on the Internet. Unfortunately, many unanswered emails are guaranteed. But you, in the end, contact actual and legal manufacturers.
- Visit trade shows. If you live in a big city where shows with goods from your niche are presented, you can try to find the suppliers there. This option also is good for finding actual and legal suppliers. You can negotiate all supply terms in advance.
- Order from other dropshippers. If you know some excellent dropshippers, you can order goods from them, and on delivery papers and packing, you will see all the contact details of actual and legal suppliers. This method's advantage is that you can see the production and packing quality.
- Scroll dropshipping supplier’s sites (Aliexpress, DHGate, TopTenWholesale, Inventory Source, etc.). The most popular platforms are Chinese, offeringa massive range of products by niche. Some Chinese companies already have stores in the USA to shorten delivery time. Not all websites are free, but they all have feedback and reviews.
- Use search engines for various requests to find dropshipper supplier contacts on marketplaces and forums to find your qualified supplier. Unfortunately, if you are searching like this, you may find a Manufacturer or Seller without a legal entity and positive reviews on performed deliveries so far.
- Surfing onsocial networks. Nowadays, small companies try to promote themselves with Instagram, Facebook, and even TikTok. If you are a fan of such services, try them. The disadvantage is the same as in the previous bullet point: there is no guarantee that this supplier is trustworthy.
As you see, there are numerous variants for a manual search of Suppliers, but one day you will want this time-consuming task to be performed automatically.
Automatic search
For sure, even using software tools you need to control them. Most dropshipping software tools (Sell the Trend, Dropship, AliShark, ProfitBusters, Easync, etc.) propose the automation of several processes at the same time:
- Finding a niche,
- Finding suppliers,
- Repricing,
- Automatic ordering,
- Searching and creating listings,
- Updating tracking numbers,
- Tracking of stock availability and price change.
A tool such as Easync.io can even add automatically chosen products to your store. You can create with these tools a list of top-selling products, search for them suppliers and estimate the number of competitors. You do not need to decide by yourself what to sell, numbers, charts, and figures will tell by themselves.
Almost all software tools have paid subscriptions, but you may check the trial versions. The software tools should be chosen based on the target marketplace (eBay, Shopify, Scalehat, your own marketplace, etc.) and source marketplace (Alibaba, Aliexpress, BestBuy, Home Depot, Kmart, etc.).
Some target marketplaces have their application with an extensive list of suppliers corresponding to all platform requirements already. In addition, some applications are already having workable integration with leading target marketplaces (Oberlo, Spocket, Dropified, etc.).
The choice of automatic tool depends on the filtering, and sorting options of product research, how many products will be in your online store, do you need a detailed history of each product or not, etc. The more features the tool can propose, the more expensive the subscription will be. The advantages of automatic search are apparent; the only disadvantage is the price.
Remember that every search method – manual or automatic – needs verification. And the best verification will be your anonymous order to check if the chain works perfectly.
Conclusion
Dropshipping became a very competitive business, but more and more automation tools appeared that still helps newcomers to achieve high profit without time-consuming regular tasks. But this does not mean you can’t perform all tasks manually; this is an excellent start to dig into the details of this business and organize first deliveries without investments.
If you find suitable suppliers, you have already organized a dropshipping business for 50%. Do not be afraid of first failures; after trying several order fulfillments, you will become a professional dropshipper. Dropshipping is an excellent start for an entrepreneur career, where you can try different niches, different manufacturers, and markets and do not lose money.
It is a scalable business that can be easily transformed into a regular retail business in the end. With automatic tools, you can streamline several dropshipping stores to a profitable future without significant effort.
