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Front Page News
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Today I am going to highlight one of the best dropshipping tools that Wholesale Match has to offer: The $200 in a Day
video series. We have recently added a new video in this section of
the site that outlines the process of using our Daily Deals page to
sell products on eBay for a profit.
Here is what you can learn from watching these simple videos:
- How to take advantage of clearance items and coupon codes
- How to list your product on eBay
- Figure out a good price to start your auction at
- Why dropshipping is such a great way to sell online
- How you can use the Daily Deals, $200 in a Day videos, and the
Education center to make... $200 in a day, which is just about $70,000
a year.
- What dropshipping can do for you in your spare time
The best part of our educational videos is that once you learn the simple practice of dropshipping
they will teach you, you can immediately begin to apply these processes
and use them to create your own avenues in e-commerce business.
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Here are a couple of great dropshipping opportunities out there to sell products online. Two excellent digital cameras by Olympus and Casio combine for over $254 in savings! Dell Home has the Olympus Stylus 840 8-MegaPixel Camera for $110 after $80 instant discount w/ free shipping
Pay with Dell Preferred Account and receive an additional 3% discount - select “Credit Card” as payment option to see the deal
The Olympus Stylus 840 8-MegaPixel Camera features 2.7" LCD, TruePic III Image Processor, 5x Optical Zoom, and Digital Image Stabilization
Here is another great offer from our Daily Deals section: Buy.com has the Casio EXILIM EX-S10 10MP LCD Digital Camera in Black and Silver for $176 after $174 instant discount w/ free shipping.
The Casio EXILIM EX-S10 10MP LCD Digital Camera features: 3X and a digital zoom of 4X to capture crisp images of distant objects, 2.7" LCD wide TFT Color LCD, and built-in flash memory 11.8 MB.
New customers of Buy.com may take an additional $10 discount by clicking $10 Coupon, clicking on "Redeem Coupon" button, and searching for 206849012
Learn more about dropshipping these products on eBay with our educational videos... all available with our wholesale free trial!
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Here is a great dropshipping tip for people who may get stuck after finding the suppliers they want:
 Jim
has decided to sell products online from home. He makes a Herculean
effort to find dropshippers, scouring the internet for hours looking
for the products he would like to sell online. He finds one! Yes!
They look like a wholesale site, but dropshipping may be available, he
thinks.
What's next?
Here is where many online business people get stuck. The next step is contacting the supplier. So what should you say?
Here is an example of a simple explanation of dropshipping that may help you clarify your intentions with your potential dropshipper: (Remember, many people are familiar with the process of dropshipping, but not the term "dropshipping").
"I would like to resell your products on my site, but I'm
not able to hold any inventory right now. Would it be possible for
your company to allow me to advertise your products on my website, and
when I receive an order, you would ship it directly to my customer
instead of me? That way I can still resell your products, but would
not need to hold inventory."
This gives the supplier the appropriate information they need: you
resell products on your website, but cannot hold inventory, essentially
dropshipping their products. This relationship would be profitable for both parties.
Hopefully, the difference between you and Jim will be that you will
not have to search for hours at a time to find a great supplier. With
Wholesale Match's dropshipper directory you will have access to the
latest and greatest dropshipping suppliers in the business.
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As you may know, Wholesale Match has recently implemented a search
system in our Dropshipper Directory that will allow to sort our
dropshippers by country. This is extremely beneficial to those that
are looking to deal with only U.S. based dropshippers, for now it is so easy to weed out international dropshippers. AND, another great benefit of this new feature is that anyone can have access to it through our wholesale free trial.
What are the benefits of dealing with just U.S. based dropshippers?
- There are no extra customs fees and less restriction.
- Shipping is much more affordable.
- Little hassle, if any at all: no language barrier, no need to convert currencies, etc.
- There is less uncertainty about the validity of the products you
are purchasing. This is especially important when choosing products to
source from China. Read more about dropshipping products from China.
What are the negative aspects of dealing only with domestic dropshippers?
- You limit your customer base to just the United States.
- You also limit yourself to products that are only available in the United States.
These pros and cons of using U.S. based dropshippers can help you
decide what type of dropshippers are right for you and your online
business. Generally, the bigger your business is, and the more
spending power you have, the more likely it is that you will be able to
source some products from overseas. This may give your business a
unique edge over the competition because you will have a more varied
product selection for your customers to choose from!
Because Wholesale Match is allowing access to the dropshipper database through our wholesale free trial, anyone can find out what type of supplier is just right for them.
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At Wholesale Match, we know that many are interested in finding international dropshippers
for the products that they would like to sell online. In response to
this urgent request, we have now made it possible to search by country
in our dropshipper database!
So, what does this mean exactly?
Well, now you can open up your market to international buyers! While dropshipping is fairly new in countries like Australia and the UK, it is growing at a rapid rate.
Here are some ideas to make international dropshipping work for you:
- Implement a currency converter in your site to increase availability to international customers.
- Create pages of specific products on your site that are available to customers of certain countries!
- This way, you will be able to connect with international
dropshippers that will in turn connect to your international customers,
which will save on shipping and make your site more versatile.
To access this page, just click on the "Suppliers" page once you
login with your user name and password. On the left hand side, there
should be a menu that allows you to access a drop-down list of
countries. Click on one of these to bring up the dropshippers located
in that nation.
Whatever your dropshipping ambitions may be, Wholesale Match is continually updating and becoming a more integral part of your online business.
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The Daily Deals section of the Wholesale Match website has dozens of
coupons codes and discounts for online products. This feature is
updated daily and continues to be a great resource for people who are dropshipping products online.
This time, Wholesale Match has found a combination of four
electronics that combine to have $1,035 in savings off the retail
price!!! Now that Wholesale Match has helped you find products to sell online, all you have to do is sell them, whether that be on eBay, your own website, or through local ads in your area.
- Save $600 on the LG 47LG50 47'' LCD HDTV
- Save $220 on a Lexmark E350D Laser Printer
- Save $105 on the Mio C320 Portable Navigation System
- Save $110 on the Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-H7 Digital Camera
These items combine to over $1000 in savings!
The Daily Deals section where these coupons are located is available to all customers and all free trial users!
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At Wholesale Match, we receive many questions a day about the particulars of dropshipping
on eBay. We understand that breaking into this lucrative business can
be intimidating and confusing. This is why we've put together over 30
educational videos that will teach you the "ins" and "outs" of using dropshippers to sell products on eBay.
Here are some of the topics that you will learn about with the Education section of our site:
- Setting up and managing your PayPal account.
- How to create effective listings by creating good titles and using appropriate photos and keywords in your listing.
- eBay market research to help you find out what will sell online.
No matter what level of experience you have, these videos can be a
vital resource for those looking to make real profits by dropshipping,
especially on eBay.
Also, Wholesale Match members get a double dose of profit making
ability with their membership, because they also have access to the
Daily Deals section of our site, which posts new online coupons and
clearance items every day. Using these services together will prove to
be a killer combination!
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Wow. What a steal! This all-in-one printer from Lexmark comes with a $114 discount and free shipping!
This is such a great opportunity to make some quick sales on eBay.
With Wholesale Match’s eBay video tutorials and $200 in a Day Video
series… making a large profit by dropshipping on eBay is a breeze.  Buy.com has the Lexmark X6675 Professional Wireless All-in-One with Fax for $86 after $114 instant discount w/ free shipping.
The Lexmark X6675 Professional Wireless All-in-One with Fax features: Up to 25 ppm black, 18 ppm color printing; 4800×1200 dpi; print, copy, scan, fax.
ALSO… new Buy.com customers get an additional $5 off!!! Just click on “Redeem Coupon” button, and search for 208381888
Find more dropshipping opportunities and great deals like this that are available DAILY with your Wholesale Match membership! Alyssa Udall - Research Manager
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Hello all!
This is just a quick reminder to online business
owners to get your content updated for the upcoming Easter holiday!
There are a variety of ways that you can do this, and here a few
examples:  - Have an “Easter Sale” by offering a percentage off of your products this week… or free shipping.
- Update your blog content to include information about Easter gifts or other aspects of the holiday.
- Upload new seasonal products.
Whichever method you employ, your online business will benefit. Part of the business of dropshipping
is keeping your site information, products and blog all updated! This
is crucial to the success of your online business. Learn more about
the content of your site in the Wholesale Match Blog. Alyssa Udall - Research Manager
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When it comes to selling products online...
people have lots of questions - especially those that are first
starting to get into the e-commerce world of business. One of the most
common questions we get here at Wholesale Match is:
Do
I have to have a website to have a membership with your company? Do I
have to have a website to sell the products from your Daily Deals
section?
I have been answering this questions so much lately, that I've
decided to address it to all of you out there who may be thinking the
same thing... and more importantly... why you could not be more wrong!
I have centered many of my posts on the importance of blogging and
social networking sites to those who are looking to make money online.
The increased popularity of blogs, Twitter, Facebook and other trendy
sites has made selling products online
easier than it ever has been! Looking at my steps below on how you can
use these types of sites to your advantage will greatly increase your
money making ability. Even more importantly, this is a great place for
beginners to start, because you can always integrate these sites into
your own online business once you decide to take that next step.
Speaking of steps...
Here is how you can sell products online without having to invest the time and money into an entire website of your own:
- Creating a Blog:
- Blogging is one of the most important aspects of any online
business. Most businesses, from the smallest least-known cookie baking
site to giants like Microsoft, are taking advantage of blogging. So
what are the benefits of blogging? Blogs are free tools that you can
use to generate traffic to your other sites where your products are
sold. Start off by thinking of what kind of products you would like to
sell in general, and then create a blog revolving around that
industry. Learn more about making money with blogging.
- Join Twitter and Facebook:
- Twitter and Facebook are social networking sites that are being
constantly used by businesses in order to increase interest in their
products or services. Twitter is great because you can search for
related fields of interests and "follow" that person's updates. The
more people you choose to "follow", the more that will follow you! You
can use Twitter updates to post links about your new products, sales,
events, etc. You can also use Facebook to create a page for your
business where people can become of "fan" of you!
- List your Products on eBay:
- Now here is where you can list your products for free online
without a website. Auction sites like eBay will charge listing fees,
but are generally more popular. However, there are much cheaper
options like the homemade jewelry and fashion site called Etsy. This
sites charges much less for listing and allows you to keep your
products listed for 30 days or more... for no extra charge!
- Now: CONNECT THEM ALL!
- Here is the fun part! Now that you have joined all these sites and
are beginning to spread the word about your business, you can link all
of them together in order to generate even more traffic!
Here's an example: You've written a new blog post about some new
products you're selling on eBay. Now, you can announce that with your
Twitter and Facebook accounts, linking each post to both your blog and
your eBay listings! Doing this back and forth will generate mass
amounts of interest in your business.
Here is the most important thing that you need to take away from this post:
By utilizing new trends on the Internet and being extremely
diligent... you can sell products online without a website! Wholesale
Match has a vast amount of resources for just this purpose, like our Daily Deals online coupon section. 
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Many may look at the title of this post and think... "What? How can
you possibly use the Recession that the United States is currently in
to make money online?"
Well, what can we learn from this Recession? By examining market
trends (e-commerce and retail) we can get a better idea of what
products to sell online. Using current events, trends, holidays, etc
to develop your online business will give you an advantage over your
competitors.
There are so much information online about the economy right now.
If you keep up with current events and remain knowledgable about the
trends of the economy, you will have a better sense of what products to sell online. This will help you make money online because you will be able to adapt your business to your customer's needs!
Here are some of the industries that have seen increases in profits within the past year:
- Chocolate According to an article by U.S. News, some chocolate manufacturers saw a 30-50% increase in sales in 2008! This is most likely due to the fact that "when Americans are cutting their spending elsewhere, they feel more entitled to small indulgences," (see the article here).
- Job and Career Development Sites Many job sites and other
career related services saw great increases as well. This includes
other services like resume editing. More people are looking for help
in order to find a job.
- Movies and Science Fiction or Fantasy Books Movie rentals
and "escapist" literature has steadily increased in popularity. Many
Americans are cutting back on the movie theater by renting movies
instead. Books that take place in other worlds and rely on the
imagination have also become more popular!
What can we learn from these trends?
Well, it seems like American's can't find jobs, so they need to rely
on professional services in order to secure employment. While they are
in between jobs, they try to cut back on costs, which makes them feel
deserving of a few sweet treats now and then. With their increased
leisure time and decreased available funds (both due to lack of
employment), they decide to escape their stressful lives with a nice
rented DVD or fantasy novel, which they read while gorging themselves
on their well-earned chocolate candies.
Okay, I'll admit that this is probably stretching the truth a bit.
However, by keeping up with the news and trends in the market place,
you can connect the dots yourself in order to make money online.
Take the story above for example... what can you learn from this? What
type of products would you sell now? What topics would you write about
in your blog?
Be creative! Think of ways to increase your profits by using this
information. Good luck! And be sure to keep on top of all the new
happenings in the economy from now on... 
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From March 15-18, 2009, Wholesale Match was able to attend the Las Vegas ASD/AMD Trade Show, where we commenced in finding dropshippers to add to our extensive database. We would like to annouce that the trip was a huge success!!! We found many new suppliers to add to our dropshipper directory, and should start to see those results soon enough. 
 Wholesale Match attends trade shows
like these in order to find new dropshippers, stay current on market
trends, and keep our database updated. But, the thing that makes
Wholesale Match unique, is that we travel to these trade shows so that you do not have to! We make the effort to attend trade shows, and you reap the rewards of a database rife with new dropshippers.
We know how hard it can be for new online business owners to make the
effort to attend trade shows, which is why we make it a priority to
make sure that you can still have access to their abundant supplier
source.
Stay tuned for more information on the new dropshipper additions to our database!
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 Marketing one's online business can be a truly daunting task.
However, I am here to go over some basic information about the process
of blogging and how this simple process can help you make money online.
The purpose of your blog is to market your site
and drive traffic to your site. You do this by creating new and
updated content, advertising specials and sales on your site, etc.
However, it is also important to create inbound links to your blog and
website using other content, such as articles. For example, if you have a business dealing with baby products, (as
well as a blog), you will want to search for related articles and blogs
that you can post comments on. Through these comments, you can not
only stay in touch with the ecommerce sphere you are in (i.e. follow
trends, stay up to date on the competition, etc), but you will also be
able to promote your site by creating inbound links. To do this, you
will need to know some basic HTML code and general SEO facts, in order
to create relative links to your site/blog.
Here is a the general process of creating inbound links, which will
help drive people to your site, and therefore, make money online: - Search for relative content: Continuing with the example of
a site that sells baby products, you will need to search for relative
content. Do an advanced search in Google, Yahoo!, or other search
engine. Enter in a phrase that is related to your site and blog, for
example, "hooded baby towels", or "where to buy organic baby
products". Hopefully, this will bring up articles or blogs that you
can post
- a comment on. Make sure that part of the exact phrase that you are searching for appears somewhere in your blog/site.
- Write a comment: When you write your comment, be sure to
make it relevant to the article you are posting on so it does not sound
fabricated. Then, be sure to tie in a key phrase that will relate
directly to your site, for example, a direct phrase from your blog or
website. Do this two separate times within the comment. Link one phrase to your blog, and one to your main website.
- HTML Code for Inbound Links: Here is the basic HTML code that you will use to make inbound links to your site. Most sites allow comments to post HTML: <a href="http://www.YOURWEBSITEorBLOGLINKHERE.com/">The Text you Want to Appear in the Comment</a>
- Creating Your Links: The area in the code that says "http://www.YOURWEBSITEorBLOGLINKHERE.com/" will be replaced by the URL you want to link to, either in your blog or site. The section, "The Text you Want to Appear in the Comment"
will be the actual text that will be hyperlinked in the comment. Be
sure that the actual text or phrase that appears as a link in the
comment is also present in the page that you are linking to.
Although this may not seem to have a direct effect on your traffic,
it will in the long run. Having relative links and content all over
the internet will greatly boost your Search Engine standings, and you
will see the effects of it.
Here is an example post, to help you in your task:
Here is the actual text as it appears:
If you need to find dropshippers,
I would suggest enlisting the help of a professional. I've been using
wholesale match for about 6 months, and they have never led me astray.
They make dropshipping so much easier and more profitable for my online business. I seriously recommend that you try it out.
Here is the HTML version:
If you need to <a href="http://blog.wholesalematch.com/what-is-a-wholesale-dropshipper/1938/">find
dropshippers</a>, I would suggest enlisting the help of a
professional. I've been using wholesale match for about 6 months, and
they have never led me astray. They make dropshipping so much easier
and more profitable for my <a href="http://www.wholesalematch.com/">online business</a>. I
seriously recommend that you try it out.
Please feel free to post your questions or comments!
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After many questions and a little confusion about the $200 a
day section of our new Wholesale Match website, I am going to explain exactly
what this section is about, how it works and how to find products to sell
online to make you $200 a day!
First and foremost the $200 a day section is a monthly video
tutorial that shows you how you can select products to sell on eBay, and if
sold has the potential to make you $200 in one day. This video tutorial gives you
an easy step by step process on how to select the product, then how to research
the product on eBay’s completed listings to see how much the product is selling
for, so that you can determine your profit margin. It even shows you a simple
spreadsheet that you can create to keep track of the products and how much
profit is to be made so that you can meet your $200 goal.
Now, the question I get the most about this section is where
do I find the products to sell? To clear a little confusion, in the first video
tutorial that was posted on 01/07/2009 it was stated that they were in the $200
a day section about to select the products to sell, however, the $200 a day
section again is only a video tutorial and they were actually in the Daily
Deals section of our new Wholesale Match website. I had previously posted
another blog that explains all about the daily deals and how it can be used in
conjunction with $200 a day. This post is titled: Sell Products from Home For
Free!
Wholesale Match is dedicated to providing more to our
clients than just being a drop shipping directory. We want to keep you updated on
the newest trends, and give you the latest news in this industry. We also want
to provide other modes of supplementing your income with innovative techniques
such as $200 a day. If you aren’t a member already try us out with
a wholesale free trial, I’m sure that you won’t be disappointed.
Mani
mani@wholesalematch.com
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In my last post I highlighted the new daily deals section of
our Wholesale Match website titled: Sell Products from Home For Free. I would
like to continue on with that Title and expand into other avenues of the
ecommerce retail process that the new online entrepreneur would face and show
them different ways to keep their overhead capital to a bare minimum. With that
said, I want to show you how you can market your website, spending no money at
all. Therefore; Selling Products Online from Home For Free!
I'm sure that most of you who are venturing into this
business of ecommerce retail have seen that marketing and getting your website
out there can be a very costly task. However, this doesn't always have to be
the case. You can market your website for free simply by doing what is known as
blogging. Blogging is where you submit entries or material to a web-blog. There
are dozens of free blog sites where all you have to do is register and create a
user name and pass word, so that you can start submitting content. Search
engines like Google, like blogs because it is easy for it to find relative
content to a search. If you are looking to promote your website, blog about
specific specials that you are having, or highlight products that you carry.
Create links in your blog that will link back directly to your site. The more
often you do this and maintain fresh content the easier it will be for search
engines to find your site. You can also promote your site on free community
sites like Facebook and Myspace. Again talk about your website and products,
create links back to your site to make it easy for someone who comes across
your page to easily click on a link and be directed to your site.
There are many other ways to get your site out there, the
ones recommended in this post are for those who are just getting started and
don't have a lot of money to spend on marketing. Getting your website noticed
and generating traffic to your site is a key to success, hopefully this post
gives you a good idea on how to get started without paying the extra bucks.
Visit Wholesale Match and read other posts by our staff.
They will surely give you valuable information about your online business.
Mani
mani@wholesalematch.com
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I'm going to highlight the revised, new and improved Daily
Deals section of our website. Formally, "Deals and Coupons" the new Daily Deals
allows you to virtually sell products from home for free! We also have a new
section called $200 a Day, a monthly video tutorial that highlights a specific
daily deal that if sold, it could make you a healthy profit for your pocket,
but more on that in a later post.
This section of daily deals is a list compiled of
unadvertised coupon codes that are redeemed on the internet. The coupons range
from big screen tv's, computers, laptops, all kinds of consumer electronics,
and even jewelry. When you redeem these coupons online you can end up saving
hundreds of dollars on your purchase. To
resell these products you will never have to purchase the product and inventory
it before you sell it, hence the title of this post, Sell Products from Home
For Free.
Here is how it's done.
1.
Select a daily deal that you would like to sell
and that you think that would make you a good profit. (Again, to get a good
idea of how this works, watch the $200 a day tutorial.)
2.
Once you have found a deal that you would like
to sell, make sure that you click on the coupon and check the expiration date
of the coupon. (When listing on eBay you would not want to list a 7 day auction
if the coupon expires in 5 days. Make sure that you leave plenty of time before
the coupon expires, to place your order.) Also when you have clicked on the
coupon make sure that you bookmark that page so that you can easily find it
later when the product sells.
3.
Once you product sells on eBay, you will collect
the funds through pay pal from your customer. You are then going to go back to
your bookmarked coupon to redeem. Since you have already received the funds
from your customer, you will place the order redeeming the coupon and use your
billing information.
4.
After entering your billing information, make
sure that you check the box to have the product shipped to a different address
(Your Customer).
5.
Complete the order and make sure that the coupon
was redeemed correctly.
And there you have it. Now to be a little more specific and
relate how this process means money in your pocket. Say the product you were
selling was a tv that retails for $1500 the coupon you found offers $400 off.
You then advertise this product for $1300 on eBay giving the end consumer a
great deal as well saving $200. They purchase the product, and you redeem the
coupon for the $400 off. They have already given you $1300 for the tv so your
profit ends up being $200.
The new Wholesale Match is paving the way for new online entrepreneurs
with new and innovative ways to make money online.
Mani
mani@wholesalematch.com
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One of the most common questions that we get here at
Wholesale Match is, “What are the products that sell online?” While I can’t pin
point the exact answer to that question, I can recommend some good places to
look as well as where you can research for that answer.
EBay is inarguably the largest
e-commerce marketplace for selling products online. They keep very close tabs
on trends and products that are selling the best within their listings. EBay is
an excellent resource for people who aren't quite sure about what to sell, to
dig in and research so that they can make an educated decision on choosing the
products that will work best for them.
One of the places that I
recommend you check out is the eBay Pulse. This section of eBay is dedicated to
giving you a quick look at their current trends, hot picks and interesting
things that are selling on eBay. There
is a top ten list of products that are currently the most popular searches. When
you click on one of the items in the list it will show you all related products
listed on eBay. You can also filter this
search to show only completed listings so that you can get a good idea of what
the products are actually selling for. (This is good to know when you are
looking for dropshippers through Wholesale Match for the products, so that you
can compare the dropshippers pricing to what they are selling for on eBay.) If
the top ten doesn’t suit what you are looking to sell, then you can just select
the category from the drop down box and find the category that fits your needs
best.
As I have suggested in one of my prior blogs “What
to Sell?” sell the products that you know. With this feature on eBay you can
research and do exactly that. Setting up a successful business takes a lot of
time and researching products that sell online is definitely a key to that
process. Hopefully this article will point you in the right direction.
Mani
mani@wholesalematch.com
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As you know, Wholesale Match is an excellent resource for finding dropshippers,
wholesalers and affiliates. We have one of the largest online
dropshipper directories in the industry, as well as a one-of-a-kind
Product Research team that answers your specific product requests.
And, with the new WM web design, you have the most powerful dropshipping tool at your disposal.
I am going to go over some of the New Features of the WM site:
- Dropshipper Directory:
The new directory features a seamless, integrated grid pattern with an
enhanced search engine to make your searching easy and more productive.
- Education and $200 in a Day: This new educational series
feature exclusive deals that will allow you to make $200 a day online
through special discounts, auction sites and your personal website.
The other educational videos make selling on eBay a breeze.
- Research Requests: Research Requests are also in a new place, next to the Supplier Directory.
- Support: The WM support team is happily here to help you with any trouble you may be having with the new site.
- FACEBOOK: We are very excited to announce that WM is now on Facebook!
Check it out, and don't forget to become a fan. This will be a great
source of news, discussion, etc for members of the WM community.
We are excited to get going this new year and help you find the sources you need to make money online.
As always, let us know if there is anything we can do to help you. Thanks for reading.
Over and out.
alyssa@theshipper.com
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The recent downturn in our economy has turned everyday hard workers jobless and in a scramble to find a way to supplement their income. A lot of people are trying their hand in creating their own home based business by using dropshipping,a friendly solution to our pockets for those who are those facing financial hardships in these difficult times.
Dropshipping is an inventory-less way of stocking your store (website) with an unlimited variety of products to sell. The capital needed is much lower when using drop shipping, compared to the costs that it would take to establish a traditional brick and mortar retail location. With dropshipping you can sell products online from home for free. Now some drop shippers may require that you have a tax id or EIN number which may cost about 100$, but this is standard for anyone who is starting a business. Of course you also must have a marketplace to sell in, whether it is on Ebay or on your own website which may incur small fees, but that’s about it. Good drop shippers do not charge a start up fee, inventory fee, or any fee for the product until it has been sold from your site and you place the order to be shipped to your customer. These costs are all nominal compared to the tens and sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars that it could cost to launch a brick and mortar location, therefore minimizing your overhead, while increasing your profit margin.
Wholesale Match holds the keys for you to unlock thousands of drop ship suppliers, ready and willing to ship the products from their warehouse directly to your customer, all without hurting your wallets.
Mani
mani@wholesalematch.com
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Hello, Alyssa here! As you know, dropshipping is a very lucrative business and a great way to make money online. However, just as Mani just discussed in his latest blog, you need to be careful when sourcing products that sell online, especially when they come from overseas countries such as China. Considering all the pros and cons of overseas ventures, international suppliers can be profitable to your company, especially if you are looking for rare items, and this included suppliers from China. However, the main concern that I will talking about today is quality. Many online newbies who are looking to start their dropshipping business will automatically look for the name brand, popular items in electronics, clothing and accessories as their first choices for products that they want sell online. Despite these markets being quite crowded, they may still be profitable for some. However, most of the exclusive name brand products that are easily available through Chinese suppliers, who can dropship the items to your customers, are fakes and replicas of the real thing. Consider these factors: - Refer to Mani's blog for a list of pros and cons of international dropshippers.
- Most Chinese suppliers are genuine and willing to do business.
- BUT, if you are considering purchasing name brand, popular products from Chinese suppliers, you need to assume that they will be replicas or fakes.
- This will ensure that you do not mislead your customers or come out of the deal empty handed.
I hope this info will help all you internet business owners to approach to purchase of name brand products with caution. Let me know if there are any questions I can help you with, and thanks for reading! Over and out. alyssa@theshipper.com
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In the Drop Ship Industry there are a lot of suppliers that come from overseas. Most of the time the reason that merchants use these Drop Shippers is because they can get a low price for the merchandise so that it can be resold for larger profits. This can be true but there are also some things that you should be aware of. Here are some Pros and Cons of Dropshipping products from Overseas. Pros
- It is easy to set up an account with the Drop Shippers.
- Usually no tax id or business licensing is required.
- Low Prices
- True Drop Shippers; they will ship the product directly to the end consumers.
- Variety of different products offered.
Cons
- Shipping prices can be expensive and take away from the final profit.
- Shipping delays; I can take a lot longer for end consumer to receive product.
- Import fees; Most oversea drop shippers will not be liable for import fees.
- Name brands that are offered are more likely to be replicas advertised as the real thing.
I’m sure that there could be many more pros and cons listed, these are just a few of the more common ones with using overseas drop shippers. While the most attractive pro for people to acknowledge is the low prices that are offered, you should always look at the large picture and all of the costs that it might incur. Make sure that you chose the suppliers that you deal with wisely, especially when considering an overseas drop shipper. Til' next time, Mani mani@wholesalematch.com
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Selling products on Ebay is a quick way to make a profit, but before you go and just throw anything on Ebay to try and sell, you should do some research beforehand. Wholesale Match’s new website has a whole section dedicated to teaching new and even experienced sellers different and effective techniques to selling products on Ebay.
With over 5 hours of video tutorials under education on the Wholesale Match website, even those who have no experience at all on selling products on Ebay can learn to be a selling master once they have gone through these tutorials. The range of education starts with the most basic of topics with getting started with an Ebay overview, and covering everything that the beginner would need to know to get started. They cover product sourcing for Ebay, how to use the Ebay tools that show you “whats hot”, and how to conduct all sorts of market research. They’ll take you through selling, hosting your own images, and creating effective listings on Ebay. To more advanced options like adding audio and even video to enhance your Ebay listing to stand out above all others. The material covers everything that you would need to know on how to create successful listings time after time on Ebay. It’s priceless!
The new Wholesale Match is dedicated to not only providing the best drop ship directory in the world, but to also educate our members and give them the keys to become very successful entrepreneurs.
Again, as I always state in my posts if you have any questions or need any sort of assistance with our services, please feel free to call me via skype by clicking on support and then the “call me” link. You can also email me at mani@wholesalematch.com.
Till next time,
Mani.
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My wife made a $1,528.68 order with pictureframes.com on December 31, 2008. When the order was shipped and we received the picture frames it was all wrong. We called them to correct the order, and they were completely rude. They were not willing to work with us at all. They said it was our fault. They were very rude to my wife on the phone. Even though there own system is what messed up the order. They are very short on the phone. The person we talked to specifically at PictureFrames.com is Daryl. Way to go Daryl!!
I can tell pictureframes.com does not care about their customers. In fact here are some more negative things I found with this Picture Frame Company. Reviews were found on www.epinions.com
Miserable quality, overpriced shipping.
by patrick123321 ,May 19 '06
I needed four picture frames. I had not dealt with this vendor previously. I ordered one frame as a test. The quality was miserable. A child could miter corners better. The shipping charge is approximately twice that of other vendors. Unlike other vendors this vendor adds a mandatory insurance charge. I will not deal with this company again. Will not buy from them again, will not recommend to anyone
by thepab4 ,Apr 30 '08
I ordered 2 frames from them at $37 a piece, only to have musty, dusty frames sent to me, WITHOUT glass or acrylic of any kind, and without back boards. All I got was 2 frames that looked little like the pictures on the site. These frames looked liked they'd been made from cheap wood (very light weight) and had a filthy layer of dust coating every crevice. Just pulling them out of the packaging covered my hands in dirt.
To return them, you have to call first and explain why you want to return them and get a code. I was simply told that I was "welcome to purchase glass and backboards" for more money. Where on the description does it say that your price does NOT include glass/acrylic and backboard? When I asked if they refunded shipping (either way) since the site was less than honest in description, they said that was my obligation, not theirs.
I will never order from them again and will certainly be sure to keep anyone I know from ordering there, too. The moral of this story is to watch out who you do business with. Some online companies are great to work with, some are not. Some have good return policies some do not. Pictureframes.com is a great example of a company to not order from, because if THEY mess up our order, it is your fault.
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Many people who start an online business reach the point where they ask, "now what?" You've gone through the procedures of starting the business, getting a site, and connecting with online business education professionals, such as Wholesale Match. You may have even decided what you would like to sell and have starting connecting with dropshippers or wholesalers. But, now what?! In order to expand your profit-earning potential, it is beneficial to find your niche market. A niche market is a very specific area of products that is available to a limited customer base. For example, you are interested in selling health products. Once you research this topic a bit more, you find you would like to sell supplements or vitamins. Since this is still a broad topic, you decide to narrow it down to "green" or organic supplements. Narrowing down even further, you decide to sell organic heart healthy supplements. Because you have changed your product to a more specific one, you will have less customers who will desire to buy this product. However, any customer who is looking for organic heart healthy supplements will most likely go to your site! Many of the "big box" sites try to have a product for every need, but how many will have a wide variety of your products? Not very many. This is why niche marketing is so important for a small online business. Check out my next blog coming up on Monday, January 12th. I will go over the basics of finding your niche market. Until then, get started thinking of a more specific product line that you can sell! alyssa@theshipper.com
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Do you like it? Let us know if there is anything we can change?
We have completely redone our website to enhance our customers experience. WholesaleMatch has 5 STAR developers and designers, we higher the best in the industry. We are excited for this new year of 2009. Our team has many new features we will be adding this year to help you get the most out of selling products online. We are committed to being the best online dropshipper directory in the world. We are also committed to provide much more educational material to help our customers become experts with working from home and making enough money to enjoy a good quality life. Enjoy our new site, and have a great 2009! Steve Sonnenberg
WholesaleMatch Founder
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First of all Happy New Year Everybody! What do I sell online?
Just about every day I get an email, live chat, or a question over the phone about what to sell. What's the hottest selling item? what will make me money? The answer can be very simple, sell what YOU know. Why waste time in researching products that you really know nothing about. Consumer electronics for instance, you see that everyone is trying to sell them online and people are buying electronics all the time, so it must be a hot seller, right? Well, that's not always the case. The majority of people are buying their gadgets from large retailers who have buying power with the manufacturers so they can compete on offering the lowest price. Not to mention how saturated that market is. If a smaller end e-commerce retailer were to try that they would be eaten alive. So the smaller guys need to offer something other than the lowest price. They need to create a need for the consumer to purchase that product from them. Knowledge is power! If all you know about the product is that it plugs in, and it has a flat screen, and you can upload 50,000 songs on it, that information is obvious to the consumer and they are probably looking for something more. More that likely they will continue their search for an answer to their questions and when they find it, they will probably purchase the product from that site. On the other hand you have been a sports fanatic your whole life. You can name all of the NFL teams alphabetically, backwards. You know the starting lineup of every NBA, MLB and NHL team out there. Sports are your passion. You could talk about anything sports all day and not get tired of it. This should be your market niche. You should sell sports memorabilia, and because you have such a great knowledge about it you can sell it with success. Best of all, you can do what you enjoy! Things you should ask yourself, before deciding what to sell, should include: What are my hobbies? What am I passionate about? What do I know about the products? Can I answer the consumer's questions when the need to know more? When you answer these questions for yourself you will know what you need to sell. Till Next Time, Mani mani@theshipper.com
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By signing up for a free trial, you have taken the first step towards finding wholesalers, true dropshippers, and quality affiliate programs for the products that you would like to sell. If you cannot find the products you wish to sell submit a Product Research Request to the Research Team (Members Only). We will then email you the dropshipper results we find... now what? These are the steps you should take once you receive your Product Research results: - Browse the company's website. Let's say that you submitted a request for cookware dropshippers and you received 4 results. Take a look at the websites for each individual company. Take your time looking around the site. Take down some notes remarking what products you like, which you do not like, etc. Doing this will help you narrow down your future searches and make your searches more efficient.
- Check out the company policies. Looking at the "About Us" section of a company's site can be helpful because it will help you know a bit more about the people you may be dealing with. If the site has a dropshipper, wholesale or affiliate page, read over the company's description of their services. This will allow you to familiarize yourself with the company's policies that you may be restricted to. This is important because they will often answer some of your vital questions, like whether or not they will blind dropship, if they can ship internationally, and if they will require a Federal Tax ID # or a Resale License.
- Call, email or sign up with the company. Once you have familiarized yourself with the company's site, people and policies, you can decide if you would like to speak to them or email them personally to receive more information, or go ahead and sign up as a dealer for their products. Many sites are including a dealer sign up page that makes starting business with them quick and easy. Sometimes, when calling or emailing suppliers, it is necessary to fulling explain the dropshipping process and what type of business relationship you are looking to set up, as many employees are not familiar with the term "dropship". For more information on dealing with dropshippers, see Mani's blog titled "Negotiating With A Dropshipper." Once you decide whether or not to sign up with the company, follow the next step.
- Keep these results in mind when you submit your next Research Request. Once you have completed the above process for the companies in your previous Research Request, you can use that information you gathered to start a new search! By taking down notes about which products you are interested in, you can use this information to either specify or broaden your searching methods. For example, because your original search was for cookware dropshippers, which is a pretty broad topic, by looking through the results of this search you have decided that you would like to sell only cooking utensils. This method will give you more specified results from the Product Research Team, and will greatly benefit your business.
The Product Research Team is here to help you find the specific products from the specific types of suppliers that you are looking for. Please do not hesitate to email me with any questions you may have. alyssa@theshipper.com
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Hello out there, Alyssa the Product Research Manager here! When searching the internet for new products to sell, you may come across many sites selling eco-friendly, organic or even vegan products. These specialty products have reached extraordinary popularity levels among online shoppers. These products can range from organic clothing and baby items, to natural cosmetics and cleaning supplies.
I would like to take this time to exhibit an example of a true, quality dropshipper in this field. This company's name is Toni Natural. They manufacture, wholesale and dropship their naturally organic and biodegradable cleaning products in the United States, but they are also able to ship internationally if needed. Toni Natural charges no dropship fees for their service, and they even offer an affiliate program with a 15% referral rate! They will blind dropship their products, and even allow you to sell their items on Ebay.
Some the products offered by Toni Natural include: - All-Natural Laundry Detergents & Softeners
- All-Natural Dishwashing Cleaners
- All-Natural Household Cleaning Supplies
- All-Natural Citrus Commercial Cleaners
- All-Natural Shampoos, Lotions and Soaps
Toni Natural is not only a great resource for those looking to resell organic and natural products, but also for those looking for a true dropshipper that manufactures and distributes their own products directly.
Let this company be an example of a true dropshipper to everyone out there in the e-commerce world searching for that elusive dropshipper. Also, please remember that you can find dropshippers like Toni Natural in our directory or through our Product Research Team by joining Wholesale Match. Please contact me for any questions you may have! Over and out. alyssa@theshipper.com (Toni Natural, http://www.toninatural.com, info@toninatural.com, 812-623-2240)
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So you're a member of Wholesale Match and you think you have
found the perfect supplier by looking at their website. They have all the
products that you want to sell with a great variety and selection. Now all you have
do is have to call them! For some reason this step in the process seems to give
some people anxiety. However, I assure you that there is really nothing to
worry about when it comes to Negotiating
with a Dropshipper.
First thing that you want to do before you call the
Dropshipper is prepare yourself, make sure that you have all of your ducks in a row so to speak. Write out a business plan for
yourself include your goals and the things that you hope to accomplish using a
Dropshipper. Explain your website, (include the URL if the site is up) and explain
the products that you hope to carry on your website. Have this plan ready so that you can easily
reiterate these things when you are talking to the Dropshipper. It is also very important to obtain a
Resellers Tax ID or EIN number from your local government. If you don't already have one, apply for one
and let the Dropshipper know that you have done so. This is a very important step
because the majority of Drop Shippers will not work with you unless you have a Resellers Tax ID. Also if the Dropshipper requires you to supply some sort of
application, you can easily attach your business plan and legal documents
because you have prepared them before hand.
You are now ready to speak with the Dropshipper. Remember
that you are trying to establish a business relationship with them so be as
professional as possible. Make sure that when you call, ask to speak with
someone who can assist you in setting up a new Drop Shipping account. When you're
talking to the right person, again reiterate your business plan. Explain how you
feel that their Dropshipping business can help you and that your website will also
bring them revenue. You will also want to ask for a Price list for their products
as well as product images and descriptions that can be uploaded to your own
website. You will want to get other specific information from them as well such
as; shipping and handling fees, return policies, received damaged and defective
items, things of that nature so that you can coincide your own website policies
with that of your Drop Shippers.
You should be all set up with
your Dropshipper now and if you decide to expand your business or add new
products to your site from a different supplier, you will have the experience to
contact the new Dropshipper with ease. Till Next Time,
Mani mani@thishipper.com
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Hello again, this is Alyssa writing to you in this holiday season! Affiliate programs can be a great way to expand your profits in addition to dropshipping! An affiliate program is a marketing practice that gives a third-party entity, such as yourself, commission or other incentives for advertising a separate company's website on your page. How it works is like this: - You find a product line or brand that you would like to advertise on your site. (For example, Nike products).
- You contact their Affiliate Department, or management, and are given a link, pictures, or text from that company. (Such as a banner featuring Nike shoes).
- You then place this information in the form of a banner on your website.
- Then, when customers come to your website, click on the banner, and purchase from that company, you earn money!
Although you are directing some traffic away from your site, this gives you the opportunity to host a greater variety of products. This is especially beneficial when you would like to include some products that are not always available for dropshipping on your site, such as certain Nike products. You will be able to include their brand name in your keywords, and make your website more accessible to all those surfing the web out there! With our Product Research Team, we can help you find Affiliates that can give you 25%-50% commission on all sales that you generate! Go ahead and submit a Research Request for affiliate programs, and we can help you earn some extra cash. Thanks for reading, and please contact me for any questions you may have. Over and out. alyssa@theshipper.com
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Hello all, Alyssa here, the Product Research Manager. Blind dropshipping can be a very useful tool for those with e-commerce businesses! This is what the blind dropshipping process entails: - You set up your website with selected dropshippers, and advertise their products on your site. This is great for you, because you will not need to warehouse any inventory! You then receive an order for a product advertised on your site. What's the next step? Now you need to order from the actual dropshipper, who is carrying the product.
- The question is, what information is this supplier going to include in the packaging that is sent to your customer? A packing list? If so, what information will be displayed?
- The problem here is that if the dropshipper included the pricing information, such as an invoice, this would reflect the price that you purchased the product for, and not the price that you charged your customer!!!
- This is where Blind Dropshipping is extremely helpful. The dropshipper will either include an invoice with your business name and pricing information on it, or they will not include an invoice at all!
- Whichever way this is done, your customer will be unaware that a third-party was involved, and your privacy will be protected.
At Wholesale Match, we can help you find dropshippers who will blind dropship their products. Don't hesitate to ask! Over and out. alyssa@theshipper.com
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This is the question I will answer for you today. At firstglance Dropshipping seems to be an intimidating and complex process, but thatcouldn't be any further from the truth. Dropshipping has become one of the fastest growingindustries in the world. The reason for this is that any average person cancreate a lucrative online business from home, with little to no over head costsby using Dropshipping. The Dropshipping process is simple and it works as follows: - The Manufacturer builds or creates their productin their factory and packages them as cases. Most manufacturers do notdistribute to the general public, so they will sell their product to multiplewarehouses and vendors, or Dropshippers.
- The Dropshipper will then inventory the product andserve as a warehouse and shipping department, awaiting orders to be placed bythe E-Commerce Retailer or "E-tailer".
- Once the "E-tailer" (You) have established arelationship with the Dropshipper you will get product images and descriptions toplace on your own website that you have created with a shopping cart andmerchant account, so that the consumer public can view the products and make purchases. Once a purchase has been placed on yourwebsite, you will then place your order with the Dropshipper and give them theEnd Consumers information and shipping address.
- The End Consumer will receive their merchandiseassuming it has come from where they had made their purchase and never knowingthat it has actually come from a Dropshipper. They will be totally satisfied and spread theword of your website bringing in more revenue for yourself.
Now to explain how this process puts money in your pockets. Themanufacturer / distributor will sell their product (let's say handbags) in casesof 10 to the Dropshipper for say $100. The Dropshipper will then break up thatcase and sell the handbags for $15 each, they have just made $50 on that case.You the "E-tailer" will list and sell that same nice genuine leather handbagfor $40 to the End Consumer, a great price for a handbag that they willlove. You have made $25 on that onesale, but remember the end consumer? They told their friend where they got their handbag for such a great deal, and the cycle continues. As you can see Dropshipping is a very simple process, and with Wholesale Match we will connect you with those Dropshippers so that youcan start your own successful Dropshipping Business. Till next time, Mani mani@theshipper.com
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Hello again everybody! This is Alyssa, the Product Research Manager. Today I would like to address those tricky middlemen businesses out there. Firstly, just to clear things up, Wholesale Match is not a middleman. At Wholesale Match, we will link you directly to manufacturers who are also dropshippers, not to those dropshippers posing as manufacturers! Also, we do not take away a portion of your profits by taking overrides on every sale, like many companies do. We help you make the most profit by setting you up with the best, true dropshippers to help your business. These middlemen that I've been talking about can be dangerous! Oftentimes, people do not even realize that they are working with a middleman company. These companies are set up like Wholesale Match, but with a BIG difference: they will take away from your profits. How do they do this? - They take a percentage of every one of your sales and put it in their pocket. - They will link you to faux dropshippers, who do not manufacture the products themselves. These companies are also middlemen, and they should not be dealt with! - Sometimes they can even source the product themselves and sell it directly to you, charging extra fees for this "convenience". All in all, every online business owner should aim to cut out the middle! This is what Wholesale Match aims to do, as we connect you with the truest dropshippers out there. This is Alyssa, reporting to you from the Product Research Team, and I hope to hear from you soon! Again, please contact me with any questions or concerns you may have.
Over and out. alyssa@theshipper.com
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Aloha! My name is Mani, and I am the Customer Support Manager at Wholesale Match. I have over 5 years of experience in Customer Service and most recently, 2 years of involvement with product sourcing in the Dropshipping industry. During this time I have researched and studied the ins and outs of Dropshipping and learned what it takes to create a successful and lucrative online business. Wholesale Match takes pride in connecting our customer with Dropshippers from around the world. We have an online database with over 2,000 suppliers, as well as our exclusive product research team who will scour the internet and locate Dropshippers for the products you wish to sell. Here at wholesale Match not only do we strive to provide "A" plus Customer Support, but we are also a registered member of the BBB (Better Business Bureau). It is my goal to make sure our customers are 110% taken care of. Being a customer myself, I understand the importance of being treated fairly. With that said, I'm more than happy to address any questions or concerns our customers have and treat their issues with the utmost importance and respect. Before I sign off, I want to encourage you to visit our blog often for updates and news on the latest trends in the Dropshipping industry. New entries will be posted a couple times a week by myself, as well as our Wholesale Match team. In the mean time, please feel free to contact me with any questions. Until next time! Mani mani@theshipper.com
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Hello everyone! This is Alyssa comin' at ya from WholesaleMatch.com!
Everyone in the e-commerce business sphere can remember the first time they discovered dropshipping. I remember explaining the dropshipping process to one customer, who said, "So, let me get this straight. All I have to do, is find a product and advertise it on my website. Then, when a customer orders the product from me, I order it from an indirect supplier who ships it straight to my customer, and I never need to hold any inventory?! What's the catch?!" Well, here at Wholesale Match, I am the Product Research Manager. Basically, this means that I am the Master of Dropshippers, Wholesalers and Affiliates. The "catch" to this dropshipping business is what I call the "Elusive Dropshipper." This is a dropshipper that you desperately need for your business, that you know exists somewhere, and that you sometimes search for hours at a time and to no avail. This is where Wholesale Match comes in. Every day, I call and email hundreds of new suppliers to gather their information. This is how we've created one of the largest, most comprehensive Dropship / Wholesale databases on the web! Also, the owner of Wholesale Match, Steve Sonnenberg, travels to monthly Trade Shows around the world to discover the newest dropshippers available. The solution to finding that Elusive Dropshipper is in Wholesale Match. We use our expertise and up-to-date knowledge to fufill your supplier needs! Whatever you are looking for, I will search through our immense database of dropshippers and even expertly navigate the web to find a supplier for your specific requirements. Are you looking for Bow Fishing Equipment? We got it! Asian Gardening Tools? We got that too! All in all, we are experts in this dropshipping business. This is Alyssa with Wholesale Match. I will be seeing you a couple times a week. Feel free to contact me for any product sourcing questions you may have! Over and out. alyssa@theshipper.com
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Most people that sell online sell their products on there own website or eBay. Those are two great places you must place your products if you are just beginning to sell on the Internet, but having your own website or even selling on eBay does cost money. Here are some suggestions of free places you could list your dropshipping products and make a little extra money - Google Base (requires you get a Google Checkout account and give bank account info)
- Craigslist (classified site - pick the right topic in the correct city)
- Local Classified Ads (many times your local classified ads paper has online listings as well)
- Contact local shops (that relate) and see if they would want to sell your products for a commision.
- Contact realted websites and see if they would be willing to sell your products on a commision basis.
- Do a Google Search for "sell products for free" or "free auctions" and you can get a huge list of opportunites to market.
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Wholesalematch.com is now offering free dropshipping web conferences every week. Each web conference will be about 30 - 45 min long. The topics addressed will be: finding the right dropshipper, where to find the best deals, negotiating down your wholesale cost, and much more. At the end of the web conference you will be given a code to get wholesalematch.com at 50% off regular price! Can't beat it! Pre register to attend now before the conference is to FULL! To register go to www.wholesalematch.com and click on the link at the very top!
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- Haunted Hands Resist Him Painting
- Item
#: Unknown
- Auction
Result: The Painting sold for $1,025
This is the original haunted eBay Painting. Hands Resist Him was
painted by Bill Stoneham in 1979. It depicts a young Stoneham
standing in front of a door with a female doll. On the other side of
the glass paneled door, disembodied hands grab at the boy. The
painting was listed on eBay in February of 2000 by a couple who had
found it at an abandoned brewery in California. Taking a liking to
the painting, they brought it home. The couple’s 4 ½
year-old daughter complained to her parents that the children in the
painting were fighting and one of them even walked out of the
painting. After hearing this, the parents decided to watch the
painting at night, and claim to have witnessed the same thing. They
immediately decided to get rid of it by selling it on eBay. While on
eBay, it was viewed over 30,000 times, reportedly making some of the
visitors feel ill upon viewing it. Stoneham is skeptical that the
painting is haunted, but he does admit that both the owner of the
gallery where the painting was first shown and the first art critic
to review it died within one year of having contact with it, and that
he has no clue why it was left abandoned.
- Haunted Stricken Life Painting
- Item
#: 891732698
- Auction
Result: The painting sold for $610.00
This painting was found by a family after they moved into their new
home. Although they were well aware of the reason they got the house
for such a bargain, they weren’t expecting everything that came
along with it. Several years before they moved in Harold, the
previous owner, was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and given
only a few months to live. Distraught over who would care for his
bedridden wife suffering from Multiple-Sclerosis, he shot her in the
head, sat in his favorite chair and then used the shotgun to take his
own life. With this knowledge about what had happened in the house,
you can bet the new owners were shaken up to find this macabre
self-portrait of Harold behind some old boxes. After taking a closer
look at the painting, they realized that there were five faces of
Harold hidden in the red splatter, all which depict him in agony.
They also found a poem scrawled on the back, obviously written by
someone in deep pain. At the request of their teenage son, the family
decided to keep the painting, and even hung it on the wall. The same
night, the family awoke to their pet dog barking furiously at the
painting. In the next few days they began to hear strange voices,
experience electrical problems in their recently inspected house and
find the TV turned on to CNN, Harold’s favorite channel. To rid
themselves of the painting the family listed it on eBay with the
disclaimer: “We really do believe that this work may be
haunted, and that it is possible that any weirdness associated with
this work could be passed on to the winner. DON'T CALL US!”
- Ghost
in a Jar
- Item
#:
2931457201
- Auction Result: The top bid reached to over $90 million, but it
eventually sold for $50,922 (according to the seller, and we’re
not sure how reliable he is)
This ghost in the jar was listed on eBay by user teajay101 on May 26,
2003, with a starting bid of $99. According to the seller, while he
was metal detecting by an old church cemetery he came upon an old
rotting wood box containing two glass jars and a journal. One of the
jars was accidentally dropped, and when it shattered a black mist was
released. The seller took the second jar and the journal home, but
unfortunately, the journal fell apart before he had a chance to read
it. Since this day, the seller has claimed to be haunted by “The
Black Thing.” In an attempt to rid himself of the second ghost,
he listed the remaining jar on eBay with the warning, “Remember,
DON'T bid unless you are seriously wanting to own this as I WILL NOT
BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR ANYTHING THAT HAPPENS ONCE THE TRANSACTION IS
COMPLETE!”
-
Haunted Stitch Doll
-
Item #: 5566217149
-
Action Result: The haunted doll reportedly sold for $11,100
The sellers claimed to have bought this Stitch stuffed animal at a
small road-side gift shop in between Orlando and Daytona Beach,
Florida. Looking back, they realized that the clerk seemed just a
little too excited about selling the toy. At home the doll was placed
on top of the television with many other stuffed animals. Soon, the
sellers would come home to see that all of the dolls, except the
haunted Stitch, had been pushed off the television. At night the
sellers would hear strange noses and even woke up one day to find
their TV cracked. In their first attempt to rid themselves of the
doll, the owner put it in a dumpster outside the house, just to find
it back on the TV later in the day. The sellers started to take the
doll to remote locations and leave it, but somehow it always made it
back. Apparently, this eBay auction was their last attempt. Payment
was only accepted through PayPal and no return address was put on the
package.
Over
Priced Food
- Virgin
Mary Grilled Cheese Sandwich
- Item
#: 5535890757
- Auction
Result: The winning bid of $28,000 was made by the Golden Palace
Online Casino
In 1994, Florida native Diane Duyser went to take a second bite out
of her slightly burnt grilled cheese sandwich when she saw the Virgin
Mary looking back at her. Knowing she could never eat this religious
figure she put it in a plastic box, where it remained for 10 years.
Then, in 2004 she put it up for auction on eBay. She was sure to let
potential buyers know that, although no mold had grown on the
sandwich in 10 years (which is believed by some to be a miracle), it
was not intended for consumption. The item was viewed 1.7 million
times while on eBay.
- Doritos
Cheese Pope Hat
- Item
#: 5565234667
- Auction
Result: This holy chip was also bought by the Golden Palace Casino
for $1,209
The Chadwick family of Salem, Massachusetts couldn’t believe
their eyes when on a chilly March afternoon in 2005, they opened a
bag of Doritos and found the Pope’s mitre, or at least a chip
that looks like it. They immediately listed this miracle on eBay and
made an easy $1,209. What sucks about this story is that I’m
pretty sure I’ve eaten a few thousand dollars worth of Doritos
artifacts.
Celebrity
-
Britney Spears’ Chewed Gum Wads
-
Item #: several
-
Auction Result: The highest winning bid was $14,000
In 2004, there was an eBay craze for gum chewed by Britney Spears.
There were literally hundreds of listings, most of which went for
$5-$50, depending on level of proof offered. A piece of gum Britney
spit out in London went for $263 dollars. However, this is pennies
compared to the winning bid of $14,000 for gum the pop star spit out
after a 2002 New York concert. I’m not really sure what people
do with this pre-chewed gum, but hopefully they don’t chew it,
it could be ‘toxic.’
-
James Blunt’s Sister
-
Item #: Unknown
-
Auction Result: His sister found a husband
This story is actually very sweet. One day, singer James Blunt found
his sister Emily crying and distraught over not being able to make it
to a funeral in Ireland. Apparently, “the planes were on
strike, the ferry was out of season, and there were no trains.”
Determined to help his sister, Blunt made a listing on eBay titled
‘Damsel in distress seeks knight in shining armor,’ which
explained his sister’s predicament. Several bids were placed
and the winner ended up flying Emily to the funeral in his private
helicopter. A romance erupted between the damsel and her knight, and
after nine months of courtship the couple married.
Just
a little too personal
- 18
Year-old Girl’s Virginity
- Item
#: 5512586246
- Auction
Result: The winner paid the girl $10,000, but never claimed his prize
In 2004, British student Rosie Reid decided to auction off her
virginity on eBay. The 18 year old said she would rather sleep with a
stranger than live in poverty. She was nervous about money because
she was about to graduate from Bristol University with a huge amount
of debt. In three days her auction received 400 bids, with the
winning bid of $10,000. There have been several more attempts to sell
virginity since.
- Real
Shrunken Heads
- Item
#:289158639
- Auction
Result: The winner got all 26 shrunken heads for just under $25
This auction was for 26 shrunken heads from the Jíbaro Indian
Tribe of Ecuador. The heads ranged in color from dark brown to grey
and each had unique decorations. While on eBay, only 7 people bid on
these shriveled human heads.
-
A human soul
- Item
#: 5660982226
- Auction
Result: The soul sold for $504
In January of 2006, self-proclaimed atheist Hemant Mehta listed his
soul for sale on eBay. Mehta offered to attend several worship
services of the winner’s choosing. Minister Jim Henderson had
the winning bid of $504. He requested that Mehta visit a variety of
churches and write about his experiences on Henderson’s
website; Mehta agreed. Soon after a Christian book publisher asked
Mehta to visit several more churches and write a book. The title of
the book is I Sold My Soul on eBay and was released on April
17, 2007. Several more souls have been put up for auction on eBay
since.
- Serial
Killer's Fingernails
-
Item #: 127658711
-
Auction Result: These sold for $9.99
In 1979, Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris drove through southern
California on a killing rampage, of which there are five known
victims. Years later, someone listed the fingernail clippings of Roy
Norris tapped to the back of a Christmas card on eBay. They actually
sold.
Okay,
these are pretty cool
-
Ex-wife’s Wedding Dress
- Item
#: Unknown
- Auction
Result: The dress sold for $3,850
In 2004, Larry Star decided that instead of burning his ex-wife’s
wedding dress, he would try to make a little money for it on eBay. He
was hoping to get enough money for a couple of Mariners tickets and
some beer. To show potential buyers the dress in its full glory, Star
decided to model it himself. While on eBay, the auction got more than
6 million views. In the end, it sold for $3,850—It only cost
$1,200 new.
- Vampire
Killing Kit
- Item
#: 2961640885
- Auction
Result: Sold for $2,005.50
The Oklahoma seller claimed that this product was an authentic 18th
Century Vampire Killing Kit that was worth anywhere between $29,000
and $51,000. The velvet lined wooden box contained one wooden hammer
(9” long), four stakes (each 7” long), a prayer book,
crucifix, knife, picking scissors, eight bottles of holy soil, holy
water, anointing oil, holy incense, garlic, red serum, blue serum,
secret potion, wooden cross and a metal syringe box. Even if you
never have to use these tools against vampires, it’s a pretty
cool conversation starter.
- USAF
Hughes AIM-4D Falcon Missile
- Item
#: 150118191
- Auction
Result: Reserve never met
This U.S. air force missile was listed for sale on eBay in 1997. The
missile is 6’9” long, weighs 145 lbs, and can travel
approximately 7 miles at the speed of about 1,500 mph. Of course, it
was disarmed prior to the auction. Although the bidding reached
$3,950, the reserve was not met, and the item never sold.
- Russian
Test Space Shuttle
- Item
#: 1178647016
-
Auction Result: The reserve for this craft was never met.
The Russian Bor-5 VKK spacecraft is a 1/8th sized model of
the Russian Buran space shuttle. It is 16 feet long, has a wing span
of 9 feet and weighs about 4,000 pounds. The Bor-5 was made to test
the aerodynamic characteristics and the affect of high altitude and
extreme heat on the bigger Buran shuttle. It was launched into outer
space, from the Russian test ground, on June 22, 1988 from a two
state SL-8 rocket. In 2001, this item was listed on eBay with a
shipping & handling price of $5,000. Although bidding reached as
high as $25,000, the reserve was never met and the test shuttle never
sold.
Lame
-
Moller M400X Skycar
-
Item #: 250036057352
-
Auction Result: This item failed to sell, twice.
Desperate and running out of money the Moller company put the only
M400 Skycar prototype up for auction on eBay in 2006. This Vertical
take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft has been in development since
1974. Its current proposed features include a cruise speed of 305
mph, a max speed of 579 mph, a max height of 10.8 km, an ascending
speed of 1.4 km/min, a max payload of 340 kg, a max take-off weight
of 1088 kg, and the ability to go 8.5 km/liter of ethanol. The
highest bid for this item was $3,000,100, which failed to reach the
reserve price of $3,500,000. This is the second time the company
failed to sell the M400 on eBay, the first failure being in 2003.
-
Boeing Sky Commuter
-
Item #: 220188946461
-
Auction Result: This Sky Vehicle sold for $131,700
In January of this year, the last Boeing Sky Commuter in existence
was listed for sale on eBay. Only 3 of these 400 pound ‘cars’
were ever built and only one made it through the testing stage in
once piece. In the late 80’s, after the first two prototypes
crashed before getting even ten feet off the ground, the company that
produced the sky commuters shut down. This unique item sold for
$131,700, and will soon be placed in a museum.
-
The Meaning of Life
-
Item #: 200000461555
-
Auction Result: This elusive answer sold for $3.26
Since the seller of this product would only ship within the United
States, it seems as though those living outside the U.S. will never
even have the chance to know what the meaning of life is. The only
information given about this item by the seller was a picture of a
rainbow on the auction site. The answer to all of life’s
questions sold for a whopping $3.26.
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We compiled a list of top eBay users for your reading enjoyment. If you would like to get
access to products that you can sell online through eBay too, you are more then welcome to check out our inventory
through our FREE eBay selling trial kit. *Free Live Web Conference October 29 & 30 2008 7:00 PM - Learn how to make money and have true eBay success Click Here, it's Free! - Register Now before it is to full 1.) David Wirtenberg
David Wirtenberg is a 28 year old eBay
powerseller who has sales of over 10 million dollars per year.
His business is selling Engagement rings, wedding bands and other jewelry.
His eBay userid is outrageousauctions, and he utilizes eBay to generate
new traffic. Most of his auctions set out at $0.99 and he claims
that he often loses money as a result of trying to offer his customers
the lowest possible price with the highest degree of customer service.
David went into selling jewelry online without any prior knowledge of
the industry and is now one of eBay’s best success stories, literally
making millions of dollars per year.
2.) Marat Denenburg
Marat was a Rutgers University student
who got into eBay through his own desire to purchase cheap electronics.
By discovering a cheap resource in overseas refurbished disk drives,
Marat started making a profit by adding value to the disk drives with
new covers. Today, Denenburg does between 50 and 80 sales per
day and averages over $4,000 in sales. By further negotiating
volume shipping discounts, he has further increased his profits and
is able to offer free shipping. He sells under the eBay power
seller name, narro.
3.)Eran Dekel
This 30 year old man operating under
the eBay powerseller account decolofashion has made a name for himself
in the discount designer menswear business driving over 2 million in
sales per year. By selling his clothing at below retail prices,
but still at a hefty profit, Dekel is able to drive sales he was never
able to see offline. While he admits there are many difficulties
to selling clothing online, he brings repeat customers by doing as much
as possible to ensure risk free shopping. Like many other eBay
entrepreneurs, Dekel was able to drive additional traffic and sales
by creating his own website which has increased his success exponentially.
EBay Tip #1
Making Money By Utilizing Overseas
Resources:
4.) Amy Mayer and Ellen Navarrow
Amy and Ellen approached making money
off of eBay from a fresh perspective, choosing to start their online
store as a depot for consignment of individuals and high-end retailers.
They sell the unsold or slightly used expensive clothing of their customers,
who drop it off on location to their storefront. They then sell
the items on eBay for a profit that both they and their clients benefit
from. With over 1.4 million dollars in sales, these girls continue
growing their business by offering eBay selling classes, and by franchising
out their business plan. They operate under the eBay account expressdropchicago.
5.) Jay and Marie Senese
With the eBay username jayandmarie,
this couple is famous on eBay for selling CD's starting at one cent.
They have the highest possible feedback rating of any ebayer, as the
result of gathering over 250,000 unique satisfied customers. Bringing
in millions of dollars in sales per year, Jay and Marie were able to
eventually sell their eBay business for a hefty profit of $5 million
dollars. Not surprisingly, the business sale took place on eBay,
becoming one of the highest amounts paid on the site.
6.)Chris ad Lisa Rush
Operating under the eBay name hifisoundconnection,
this duo has sales of over 8 million dollars per year. With a
demographic of 15-25 year olds, they cater to a generation of consumers
who don’t want to wait. By providing them with good service,
their home and auto stereo eBay business has continued to grow and is
currently one of the biggest selling teams on eBay. These young
millionaires also stress the
importance of growing your brand and
reputation online in order to induce repeat business
EBay Tip #2
Niche Markets & No Reserve = Big
Business
7.) Tiffany Tanaka
Another great example of an eBay power
seller who took a different approach to making money off the site is
a woman from Hawaii named
Tiffany Tanaka, 24. Operating
under the eBay seller name weselthings4u and the website wesellthings4u.com,
Tiffany owns an eBay drop off store that sells things on consignment.
Her primary customers are those who understand the power of eBay to
sell products, but don't have the resources or desire to sell the things
themselves. Tiffany's business makes her and her customers money.
With sales of over 2.7 million dollars, Ms. Tanaka is poised to be one
of eBay’s greatest success stories.
8.) Diane Bingham
Diane Bingham, after coming out of
rehab in 1998, decided eBay would be a great place to start her own
online business. Now, with over 2 million dollars in business
every year, Diane's company, From Global To You, is the largest antique
furniture dealer on eBay. She has grown her business organically
and credits her success to customer service, a trend echoed by nearly
all successful eBay entrepreneurs.
9.) Crystal and Steven Holt
The Holts own Movie Magic USA, based
in Denison Iowa and operate under eBay id moviemagicusa. This
couple sells videos and DVD's online and specializes in hard to find
movies. In September of 2002 they started selling videos and movies
they found from a distributor and started making a profit. While
scared to be full time entrepreneurs, the Holts continued to grow their
business and currently do over a
million dollars in sales a year.
The Holts secret in selling harder to find movies is that they have
built themselves into a niche industry, and have become known as the
go-to providers of anything obscure or unique.
EBay tip #3
As long as it’s unique, anything
can be sold on eBay:
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1.)Garmin Golf Logix
http://www.golfgpssource.com/Garmin-Golflogix-GPS-p/garmin.htm
This amazing piece of golfing technology helps you know the
exact distances to different hazards as well as the hole. It will
greatly enhance your club decision making. Golflogix continually tells
you the distance to every target and totally eliminates the guesswork
out of determining yardage. 
2.)Wireless Laser Pointer Presenter
http://us.kensington.com/html/11190.html
This
laser pointer is also a USB key and has built in 2.4GHz wireless
communication built in. It allows your favorite CEO to control their
presentations from over 60ft away, signal to important points, and save
all their valuable information--all at the same time. It is the CES
2007 Innovations Honoree Award Winner, and was distinguished an
"ingenious design" by Laptop Magazine.
3.)Verizon Wireless Broadband Access Device.
www.verizonwireless.com
Sure,
blackberry is nice, but its just not the same as being able to get
online anywhere with your laptop. Get your favorite CEO a Verizon
Wireless BroadbandAccess device for his/her laptop, and let them stay
connected wherever they are. For only $59.99 per month, your CEO can
get access to the internet over the Verizon Wireless 3G network almost
everywhere. At throughput speeds up to 200kbs, you can be sure they'll
be fast and efficient everywhere they go.
4.)Sharper Image: Philips 7-inch Digital Photo Frame
http://www.sharperimage.com/us/en/catalog/product/sku__ON515
Let
your favorite CEO show off their family in a high tech way! This
beautiful 7in frame uses a very high resolution LCD screen with
brilliant colors and a built in PhotoEffect Wizard for adjusting
pictures. The built in sofware can display transitional effects, and
show slideshows in random, sequence or as a collage.
5.)The Aeron Desk Chair
http://www.amazon.com/Aeron-Desk-Chair-Basic-Color/dp/B00023SWVO
This
world famous desk chair is perfect for the CEO who needs a comfortable
place to sit. The Aeron is literally like no other chair. It is high
performance and the archetype of futuristic ergonomics. It comes with
a 12 year warranty and comes shipped fully assembled - which is sure to
please any CEO with little time on his/her hands. 
6.)Tamper Alert Luggage Locks
http://brookstone.com/store/product.asp?product_code=534925&search_type=search&search_words=airport&prodtemp=t1
Got a CEO that travels a lot? These brightly colored locks
can help your CEO find their luggage easily as they travel throughout
the country. They can also help your CEO know if their important
luggage has been tampered with or opened by the TSA. Furthermore, the
locks work with the Travel Sentry Certified system and allow airport
security to inspect and re-lock your bags quickly and easily.
7.)PowerPod Cell Phone Charger.
http://brookstone.com/store/product.asp?product_code=powerpod_charger&wid=19&cid=1906&sid=190601&search_type=subcategory&prodtemp=t1
What CEO isn't always on the phone? Give him/her this
awesome little tool and you can be sure he's never without power
again. The PowerPod will let your CEO charge his phone from the wall
outlet, the car, a USB port, or even a 9 volt battery!
8.)iTheater Hi-Res Video Glasses
http://www.amazon.com/iTheater-HR-High-Res-Video-Glasses/dp/B000PJ8IDW/ref=pd_bbs_3?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1197748433&sr=1-3
Let your CEO get his entertainment fix while traveling with
these great looking video glasses. These glasses offer a panoramic
view with unprecedented resolution and fantastic sound quality. You can
connect them to your iPod and watch hours of video of your favorite tv
shows and movies.
9.) Stephen Covey's Collector Series http://www.stephencovey.com/gifts
This year Dr. Covey has signed a limited number of his best-selling
books, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Book, The 8th Habit and
Everyday Greatness. This is perfect for your boss, co-worker or family member/entrepreneur.
One Book is $39.99 - 3 Book Box Set is $99.99 
10.) Bondurant Racing School
http://www.bondurant.com
CEO's who have a "NEED FOR SPEED" can experience the thrill of race car
driving at the World Famous Bondurant School of High Performance Driving. Truly
Unique & Exciting!
1-Day Private (1 on 1) Corvette or Formula Racing School ($5500)
4-Day Corvette & Formula Racing School ($4795)
3-Day Corvette Racing School ($4250)
2-Day Corvette Racing School ($2795)
1-Day Corvette Racing School ($1650) 
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If you have purchased The Shipper dropshipping directory and were not able to find the exact product that you want (or need) to sell on your website, we can still help find you that product. The Shipper has an area where you can send us a request to find dropshippers for products. You just let us know what you are wanting to sell, and we will do everything in our power to find a supplier. You can even call us up (toll free) at 866-494-4660, and tell us right over the phone what products you want us to help you find.
The Shipper attends several trade shows a year, and is always growing our database of suppliers. We also have a full time staff dedicated to researching out, and finding new dropshipping suppliers. If the product can be dropshipped, our team will find a company who will do it for you. As always, (if you needed a reminder) The Shipper is offering a FREE 7 day trial membership, and you can see if we have the products you are wanting to sell online before you ever pay. Join Today!
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For all of the thousands of individuals I have mentored when it comes to setting up a home business, the one question that gets asked the most is - "What is the fastest way for me to make money online?" I usually follow this up with, there is no true get rich quick opportunities out there, unless you are one of the lucky ones to hit the lottery. A true legitimate business opportunity takes time, hard work, money and dedication to make it successful. This is no different when it comes to a legitimate dropshipping opportunity. eBay is a huge dropshipping opportunity that all who own drosphipping businesses need to be taking advantage of.
With all that aside, one of the fastest ways I have made money myself, and seen others make it, is through eBay. I would suggest starting with the stuff you have in the garage to sell (no kidding), so you can become more familiar with the in's and out's of eBay. There is nothing better then just diving right into it, and learning the whole process, so when you start to list products that you have access to from a dropshipper, it is less intimidating, and you have more of a chance to make money.
It will take a little research, and I have narrowed down the 3 most important research steps you need to be taking in order to succeed selling dropshipping products on eBay.
- Search The Completed Auctions - The single best method I have ever used for research is the completed auction feature. There are so many companies out there that want to sell you eBay research tools, and products, but I have used them all, and for the most part they are all garbage. Nothing really beats the tools eBay offers you right on their site. Oh yea, and they are free. After signing into eBay you will see a link on the top right of the page that is called "advanced search" this is where you can do a completed auction search. Just make sure to put your item keyword, and select the "completed auction button", then hit search. The results you get are the most recent completed auctions. The prices in green are the ones that sold, and the ones in red did not sell. You can also see how much was charged for shipping. What does all this mean to you? It means a lot, it means that you have every single bit of information you need to find products that will actually sell online, and eBay. You then can go to your supplier prices and see with shipping and everything what your cost will be, and if you are going to be able to sell those products on eBay. Researching this way is also a good way for you to find out if the type of products you want to sell on eBay are even selling. If you see a long line of red prices in the completed listings, then no one is buying those products, and it would probably be a waste of time to try and sell them as well.
- Researching Other Sellers (your Competition) - When you use eBay to find completed auctions, it also helps you find your biggest competitors and what products they are selling. You can see what prices they are offering products for, and shipping as well as the most sold items. This may give you a better idea of the products that you can sell on eBay, and other auction, classified and shopping type sites (and be successful at it).
- Competitive Pricing - If your prices are not competitive, then you will never be able to sell products on eBay. Doing this research will give you a better idea of what you need to set your prices at. This can also help you be able to talk to your supplier about giving you better prices. If you can give them (supplier) your eBay marketing research results, and prove to them that you will do a better job selling their products with better prices, they will be more likely to listen. They want to work with those people who show them they are willing to do what it takes to sell products including this kind of research.
The bottom line here is to do better research then your competition, and not be afraid or intimidated by eBay, or selling on it. Many people have been turned into millionaires because of eBay. If you are looking for products to sell on eBay, The Shipper is offering a free 7 day trial membership that gives you full access to all of our dropshippers. JOIN TODAY!
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Something you may not have realized that you are able to take advantage of with The Shippers dropshipping list is purchases for yourself. I usually share these kind of (personal purchase) stories around the holidays because they are obviously more appropriate then any other time of the year. When you have access to thousands of suppliers you can gain access to more then just the ones you are using on your website. You can give them your business information and set up an account and do your entire Christmas shopping for about 1/2 of what it would probably normally cost you. A few birthdays ago for a sister of mine, I purchased a (retail value) $500 Kitchen Aid Mixer from a supplier that I gained access to through The Shippers dropshipping database of suppliers for only $180.00. The savings that were made on that gift alone paid for membership fees many times over. The point here is helping you understand why paying for a membership to The Shipper can actually help you save money in the long run. This is true for personal and all of your business expenses. Think about it, and if you are looking to sell products online, or even just want to save this holiday season, The Shipper can help. The Shipper is offering a FREE 7 day trial with full access to all of our product sourcing databases. If you are looking for dropshippers, manufacturers, wholesalers, trade show hook ups or anything else product sourcing related - we are your only source. JOIN TODAY AND SAVE!
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I love social networks and communities, and do not talk a whole lot about them on this blog, but I wanted to share a site with everyone that I have been testing out and using for a while. Most everyone who reads this blog has heard about Digg, a social network that shares stories with a community of users, and those same users vote for stories and have control which stories make it to the top, and which ones don't. Think about how that whole system of submitting stories, and voting, and dip it in green, and you get Hugg. Hugg is simply just a green Digg where you can submit environmentally friendly stories, videos, links and share green information with the community of users. I have seen Hugg become a great source of traffic and connection makers for those with green, or environmentally friendly websites. Social communities that are "niche" like Hugg give you very targeted link that you can't put a price tag on. Some of the connections I have made with new friends on Hugg have paid off in more ways they I can even describe in this post. If you are trying to market a site that is green, then you need to become a member of Hugg and feel the love! If you are new to The Shipper and are looking for environmentally friendly products, we can help. Join Today free 7 days, and find the products that are perfect for your green website.
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Just a reminder if you are trying to build up your blogging presence, and working to become a useful contributor of the community, you need to go read related blogs and post useful comments about the topics you care about. Just leaving comments because you are trying to link build will do you no good. You will probably get your comments deleted, or no followed. No one reading your comments will be interested, and they will not click to see who you are. If you are leaving useful comments that get people thinking, they are more likely to click on your link and see if they can find out a little more about you. Who knows, they may start leaving comments on your blog. For example; If I come across a blog talking about 5 ways to link build, and I find it interesting I can share what tips they gave that I have used, and maybe suggest some other tips to add to the post. You do not have to write a novel to be a useful commenter, but leave something that you would enjoy reading if the tables were turned.
You do not need to worry about anchor text, and your name so you get a link that way. Just use your real name, or the name of your company or website. Doing this will still get you a relevant link, and will do you some good because the link is a part of super targeted content. It will also not get you labeled as a comment spammer, but a contributor. I have seen on many occasions loads of traffic from comments that I have made on related blogs. Many people find out about your website this way, and start to link to you as well. This is a better way of link building, as it is more natural. Bloggers link to stuff they like, so if you have stuff that is worthy of being linked to, then its pretty much a no brainer you will get some links from your efforts. If you are curious to see how leaving useful comments on related blogs is working for you, then you can always opt to purchase some sort of Web Traffic Analysis tool that help you figure out what is happening with all of your potential customers and traffic on your site. I always think that is a good idea!
If you are reading this blog for the first time and are looking to get into a dropshipping business, The Shipper can get you access to thousands of product suppliers that will dropship products you want to sell on a website. Join today free for 7 days.
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I know there are many that read this blog that are very familiar with what a dropshipping list is, but I get questions sent in (quite a bit) asking me; What is a dropshipping list? So, those are the people I want to address with this post. A dropshipping list is a database of product supplier companies who will dropship items for you that is compiled by a company (like The Shipper) to make finding suppliers who dropship easier. You can do a search for suppliers online with ease, but figuring out which one dropships, and is legit is another story. Thats where a dropshipping list comes into play. Once you get access, our dropshipping list has a search function to make it easier finding the products you want to sell on your website. We even have a suggestion option, where you can tell us what products you are wanting to sell, if we do not offer them currently in the database. Since we attend multiple trade shows all around the world every year, its a pretty good bet that we will be able to find the products you are wanting to sell.
The list that has been complied here at The Shipper is full of legitimate dropshippers that have been pre-screened, and have been qualified so you never have to worry about working with a supplier that will take advantage of you. You are paying for access to a database of product suppliers that is years in the making. You never have to waste time finding suppliers on your own, and then worry if they are legit on top of the frustration. I hope this gives you a better idea as to what a dropshipping list is, and why one wanting to get into dropshipping would pay to get access. If you join The Shipper today, you can enjoy a free 7 day trial with full access to all of our products.
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I have been a big fan of Google Base, and other shopping solutions sites for as long as they have been open to the public. I have been reading so much about the future of Google, and what their future holds, and it makes me want to preach Google Base! Google Base has far less problems with spam then the normal SERPs, and its much harder to get multiple accounts (thus ending the "get banned, get new account" cycle similar to AdSense.). Google wants to give people the most relevant (spam free) content possible, and this is where Google Base comes into play. If you got something to sell, then Google Base wants to help you sell it. What do you think the SERPs are going to be filled up with soon? Spam, or pre-screened, pre- approved content? I think getting on Google Base will help your business get found much easier on mobile searches as well, or when people do a Google Text. If you have never used this feature from Google, its pretty amazing. If you are on the road and don't have that (no so handy) huge directory book on hand you can send a text message to Google (466453) with the business name, and city you are looking for. For example; If I am in Mesa Arizona and I am looking for the nearest Sonic to get my refreshment on, I would simple text Google - Sonic Mesa AZ and then wait for the text message results with the address. I then go to the nearest Sonic and get my refreshment! You have to be an idiot if you think that mobile searches, or mobile texts will not happen with more and more products (in the near future). Lets say I am looking for a kids furniture showroom, and I am driving around wondering if there are any others close by besides the one I just came from. Just do a mobile search, or Google text for what you are looking for and there you go! You are a part of the mobile search revolution! Here is the question though - How do you get your content (products) on such search results? If you are a part of the programs that Google is making more main stream like Google Base you have a better chance of being a site listed with results when people do a mobile search for you (or text search). You also need to register your business with all of the Local Search options as well like Google Local, Yahoo Local and Yellowbook to name a few. Google Base allows you to upload all of the products that you are selling on your website, and sell them right through Google with their interface. With Google Checkout, it can't get any easier to buy or sell products online with Google. They are so smart that it keeps getting scarier and scarier by the day!
Google is turning into a content hosting monster, and you need to make sure that you are changing the way you market your business too, so you are not left behind. With the inventions of amazing products like the Blackberry, and iPhone I think people are going to be just as amazed of how much is bought right through your phone, like all the naysayers of the past talking about no one buying online. If you are looking to set up a dropshipping business, The Shipper can get you access to thousands of suppliers with millions of product options. Join Today FREE for 7 days!
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As I was planning another trip for my family the other day I got to wondering how many (new) Internet business owners out there are taking advantage of reward style credit cards, like the ones offered from Plastic Rewards. I am always thinking of ways to make money with all the times I am spending money on my businesses. For example; getting free gas from all the gas I spend going to and from meetings with clients (from a gas reward credit card), or when I make purchases for my business and the money goes toward airline miles.
If you can take advantages of the offers available to you when you make business purchases, your money will go a lot further. If you can just pay your bills off on time, and train yourself to have good credit habits you can make money out of nothing. As a business owner, you probably understand better then anyone about expenses. There is always something that seems to come up, so do what you can to get some of that money back. Just wanted to give you this little tip that may make the next time you spend money (for your business) a little easier. Also, remember if you are a merchant that accepts credit cards on your site, you need to make sure you are up to PCI Compliance standards by Dec. 31st 2007 so business flows as usual.
The Shipper is offering a free 7 day trial membership that gets you access to our full line of suppliers with products ready to dropship. Join Today!
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I have a quick idea that I wanted to share with all those who already own Internet businesses, and who are dropshipping products from suppliers. Most of the time we get caught up in the products we are selling on our website, and tend to forget about other avenues to make money with our knowledge of how dropshipping works. If you know how to get access to products, then you already know that you can get access to any kind of products you want, especially if you already have access to The Shipper dropshipping directory list. You have the option to sell products not related to your website on Craigslist, eBay or any other shopping type site. Most forget, or think because they are selling a certain type of product on their website, they think they are locked into that product, and that product only. You are not locked into anything, and can sell whatever you want, for example you can take advantage of the current holiday season, like Halloween, and find a supplier for Halloween costumes, and sell them a month or two before the actual holiday! If you are wanting to find products you can sell on a website, or on a shopping type site, The Shipper can get you access to dropship almost any kind of product, for any kind of season, or promotional event!
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Just wanted to share a quick note with everyone, and tell about a new book that I just got done reading co-authored by Bill Zanker (president of the Learning Annex) and Donald Trump titled "Think Big and Kick Ass in Business and Life". This book is really motivational, and can teach you a lot about improving the way you do business, and run your life, and how you can mesh the two. Most everyone who reads this blog either owns a dropshipping business, or is thinking about starting one, which means they need to read this book! You will get many insights that can help you grow your business and take it to the next level. Anyway, if you enjoy reading about business, and self improvement, pick up this book because I recommend it! If you are wanting to sell products online, The Shipper can help you get access to suppliers that dropship the products you are looking for. The Shipper is offering a free 7 day trial for full access to our database. 
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Every year I run different holiday and promotional ads out of various local classified newspapers, and every year it has brought me a great return. Usually for a small time newspaper the ad cost about 30 bucks, and runs anywhere from one week to a month. I usually start running these ads in October, and finish up with my ads during the first couple weeks of December. If my supplier is offering me great deals on certain products they want to "blow out" after Christmas, then I will run some more ads towards the end of December, trying to hit the after Christmas shoppers. January is usually not as bad of an online month as you might think. The slow down begins in February when everyone starts to get their credit card statements in the mail from Christmas spending. A great way to track the effectiveness of your off line classified ads is to set up coupon codes offering a percentage off. When the order comes through, you will see if the coupon code was used, and this will give you a good idea which ads work better in which classified papers. You can also track conversion on your site with web analytics and conversion tracking tools depending on what analytics software you are using.
Running classified ads are a great way to get more exposure to your website that target a group of people who may not normally do their shopping online, or do a lot of online browsing. My number one tip would be to focus on the products that are more "gift" friendly for obvious reasons during these holiday months. You can even give your phone number to take orders for those people who may not like to order online. You can just place the order online for them, and the beautiful thing about dropshipping is that it works both ways. The Shipper can help you find the perfect (gift type) products to promote with classified marketing during the holidays. You can gain access to items that range from pearl necklaces to mattress toppers. The Shipper can even help you get access to seasonal items you can sell like halloween costumes. You have nothing to lose with The Shipper during our 7 day free trial membership. If you do not find the products you are looking for, your money will be refunded! Join Today!
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Most of the questions I get asked are related to dropshipping, and finding the best possible supplier that is offering the lowest prices. I love all kinds of questions, and will continue to answer any Internet business related questions that I can. Today I received a question about web design, and since I do not get many web design related questions (I am not a designer either) I would love to explore this question a little further. "Do you have any advice for those wanting a professional website design, but have little to no budget?"
I have the pleasure of helping many small budget startups (the kind that really don't have a massive web design budget) find products. They also have the problem of not being a web designer, and are often lost on that front, but they know they have a good idea, or product, but just do not know where to begin with web design. I want to offer them a few tips that could help. I always try encourage all my clients to find a designer who does professional web design if they can afford it, but with that said lets talk about some low budget ideas. - Find a Free Template - There are many sites out there like Templates Box, that offer free designs for the taking. You can find many by going to Google and typing in free web design templates. You will need to have some kind of a web design program like Dream Weaver, or Adobe Go Live, to hack up the template, but it can be learned fairly easily! Even paying for the software to help you is going to be a lot cheaper then having a web designer do it from the ground up. Please do us all a favor though and stay away from Microsoft Front Page.
- Use a Free Lancer - You can find many experienced designers willing to work for very little, or less then you would expect on places like Elance, Guru, or Get a Free Lancer.
- Get an Intern - If you go to your local college campus and head over to the computer administration building you can get yourself an intern that can build you a really nice site for free as part of their class. You can think of the obvious drawbacks, but I have used interns in the past and all have worked out pretty good for the most part!
- Find a Shopping Cart Solution - You can find easily all build in one shopping cart solutions that include templates that are really cheap. Some I have found as cheap as 30 bucks a month that really do look nice. Some draw backs to these kind of solutions could include things like un-search engine friendly features, and no control over any aspect of design. It could be enough to get you started, and your marketing could include paid listings, and when you have more money to invest into design then you can work on making a search engine friendly site. This is not ideal, and I really do not fully recommend it, but it could be the only thing you can do on a very limited budget. For a little more money per month you can find shopping cart solutions that are search engine friendly, but it really is up to your budget. You can Google shopping cart solution and get a better idea.
This should be a good starting point if you are curious as to "budget friendly" options for web design. I would love to answer any other web design questions that people have, or any kind of questions at all related to doing business online. The Shipper was started with the Internet business owner in mind. If you are looking for products to sell online, The Shipper is offering a free 7 day trial with full access to all of the dropshippers in our database. Join Today!
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I got asked this on a live chat with a client the other day, and I wanted to spend some time giving you ideas how you could research out your dropshipper, and the prices they give you. If you are brand new to dropshipping, the one thing you need to remember is that you are on the lowest part of the food chain when it comes to people the supplier is working with. With that said, you still have some power to negotiate if done right (but that is another post, another day). I just wanted to make it clear that when you are brand new, you really do not have a lot to bring to the table when it comes to negotiating better rates on your products. Here are some tips (first) to finding out how competitive your rates are -
- Is your supplier selling his own stuff on a website? Most of the time when you are working with a legitimate dropshipper they do not sell the products they are giving their clients. When you come across a so called supplier that is doing so, this is always a good tell-tell sign to find a new supplier. Who do you think is going to have lower prices, you or your supplier?
- Research eBay - If you can do a little searching on eBay for the products that you are selling, and you can't find any completed auctions for under the price that you have been given, then you do not have competitive rates. Just make sure that you read the listings because there will be some that go for way lower prices, and you just need to make sure that its not refurbished, or used (which always go for cheaper). You can always promote the fact that yours is brand new, and not refurbished or used.
- Research out retail stores - If you need to go to the mall, or major retail shops like Target or Wal-Mart, then go for it. This will help you get a better idea of what your products are selling for everywhere, and you can get an average and see where your price fits in. You may be thinking to yourself that you will never be able to compete with Wal-Mart pricing, and you would be right (for the most part), but believe it or not there are lots of places that don't have Wal-Marts and people look for products online everyday that you can just go down to Wal-Mart and buy. Some people will buy online just so they DON'T have to suffer through the crouds at Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart has cheap prices, but they do not have the cheapest on all products that people buy online.
These three tips should give you a pretty good idea if the prices you have been given are competitive. If you do the research and are not anywhere close to being competitive, then you may need to talk to the supplier about your findings, or look for a new supplier. Once you get bigger, and have more experience behind you (doing business online) you will be able to negotiate better pricing based on ranks (SERPs), traffic and volume of sales you could bring to the table if they worked a better pricing deal with you. I will get more into that side of working with a supplier at a later day. If you are wanting to sell products online, The Shipper can get you access to a dropshipping list with thousands of product suppliers with goods ranging from camcorder batteries, halloween costumes and point of purchase displays. Join The Shipper Today!
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I just wanted to do a quick post with a reminder that the Holiday season is upon us. I know, I know, I hate it too, when I walk through Target or Wal-Mart I am already seeing rows and rows of Christmas stuff. They do it for a reason, and you, as a business owner must embrace the holiday season too. A majority of sales done online for many Internet business owners are done between the months of Oct - Dec. I have experienced 4 - 5 times the normal number of sales during these next few months. It can make for a better February (online) if you make up for it now! What can be done? You can offer holiday promotions, free shipping and gift cards, just to name a few. My purpose today is not to come up with the idea for you, but to get you thinking about the holiday promotions you need to be offering on your site. Create some banners that clearly show the promotions you are offering on every page. You can write and submit a press release about HUGE SAVINGS going on during the holiday seasons. Whatever way you do it, just make sure it gets done, and that you are taking advantage of all the people online wanting to spend money for the holidays. If you are new to dropshipping, and want to start a business selling products online, The Shipper can help get you in front of thousands of product suppliers with access to millions of products just waiting to be sold in time for the holidays for that perfect executive holiday gift! Join Today.
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I often get asked the question - "Why would a dropship business owner need wholesale buying power in the first place?" While this blog, and The Shipper as a business model, puts a lot of focus and drive in growing the dropshipping part of the company, we ALSO can help a small business owner (or large) find the wholesale buying power they are needing. It does not matter if the business owner is new to wholesale, or have been doing it for years, we can help find some amazing wholesale contacts that will help in growing your business, not only on your website, but everywhere you can sell products online.
Selling on eBay - If you are looking to create a business model selling on eBay (or other similar type sites), then you will need to find products that you can purchase in bulk, and this is where the wholesale buying power of The Shipper comes into play. If you are working with a traditional dropshipper that does not offer products in bulk, then you will be paying to much per item. You will never be able to compete on eBay with the top sellers when it comes to prices if you are not working with a wholesaler allowing you to purchase items cheaper in bulk. Selling on a Shopping Network - Have you ever heard of Shopzilla, Shopping.com, Google Base, or any of the other thousands of shopping networks that people are using to sell the wholesale products the have access to? Besides being able to sell products on your website, you can make money selling products so many other places. The only problem is making sure you have prices that you can compete with. The traditional dropshippers usually do not give you as good of a prices as a wholesaler will. This is why gaining access to a wholesaler is a crucial part of your Internet business. It all comes down to growing your business. You have a number of people that will use Google and search out sponsored results to find products. You also have people who will use Google and only use the natural results to find the products they want. Besides these traditional ways of searching and behavioral targeting, you have these other powerhouses (mentioned above) that certain people only use (don't forget Amazon too), and if you are not a part of, will be left behind by the competition. They are using all methods online to make money, so don't you think you should be too? If you are looking to wholesale products online, The Shipper can help you find wholesale companies with products that range from cell phone batteries to latex mattress toppers. Join Today, and start dominating eBay this week!
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There are so many people out there that do not understand, or know what it means to dropship. I know this sounds as crazy as someone not ever hearing of eBay or Google, but there are some people I have talked to that have never even heard of those two online giants! If you want to learn more about what it means to dropship, or what it means to set up a dropship business, you need to first understand what it means.
About defines droship as - "An arrangement whereby a mail-order or
Internet merchant accepts orders for products, and then pays a
manufacturer or distributor to ship the product to the customer".
This clearly should give you a better idea of what it means to dropship, but I wanted to expand on this definition and explain how it can be a viable income opportunity run from the comforts of your own home. If you are not having to rent warehouse space, employ people, invest in insurance, get legal counsel and everything else that an off line business has to do, you are saving money that goes directly into your bank account. I love the dropship businesses that I own because I never have to worry about buying more product then I can sell, setting up shipping relations with UPS (or any of them), or ever have to dress up to go to the office everyday. I can run this dropship home business, like other home busineses online right from my couch - in my pajamas if I wanted to! A dropship business gives you the freedom to be in control on so many levels. You have more money to invest into the business (without all the added costs of an off line business), you have more time with your family (because you are not tied down to an office), and most importantly you are the boss and the one in control of all aspects of your life (hmm, I think I will take today off and go to the Zoo with my kids). If you are looking for products to sell online that range from adjustable beds to ups battery backup, The Shipper has thousands of product suppliers with millions of products that can be drop shipped almost anywhere. Join Today.
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One of the biggest hassles when ordering online is not knowing the current status of your product. You read on the website that you will be notified with an email, but sometimes you are not. You are told you will get the product in a certain number of days, and most of the time you do not. This is just the way things happen online, and you have to be prepared to deal with customers that want to know where their product is. I have no problem waiting a month longer for product I order as long as the company has called me and told me what was going on. There is nothing worse then not knowing what is going on with your products and the money you spent on them. My suggestions are as follows: - Make sure to offer order tracking features right on your site. Look at the way Rocky Mountain Mattress allows you to track mattress orders.
- Make sure you are using a shopping cart that will allow auto responders, and automatic messages sent out during all steps of ordering. People feel good about the email confirmation they get after ordering saying things like; "You will receive your items in "so many days", and you can "track your order by clicking here". By doing this you are making the customer feel at ease with the purchase that was just made. It can make all the difference in the world for charge backs, or order cancellations especially when you are dealing with high ticket items.
- Make sure you send follow up emails after the order arrives thanking for the purchase with customer service numbers, and any other important information. This also is a great opportunity to ask for testimonials and what they thought of the shipping process, and product (or how things can be improved).
These may seem like simple things, and you are saying to yourself "no duh", because you use these features all of the time on other sites that you purchase from. You might be surprised though, how many people who are running businesses online fail to take advantage of these features because of programming costs, or additional time it might take. Do what you can to make the shipping process easy, and you will almost eliminate the return rate. Customer service goes along way, so remember to not put the "cus" in customer service! To start selling products online from video camera batteries to pearls, and gain access to thousands of product suppliers, The Shipper is offering a free 7 day trial membership going on right now!
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First of all, if you have never thought about the need to keep an eye on your competition, consider this a reminder and first tip. As a business owner it is always good to keep a close watch on things the competition is doing, such as promotions, price changes, new products, announcements or other various items. If you are constantly checking out your SERPs (search engine ranking positions) like I am then you know who your main competitors are for certain keywords, but what about the industry you are in (in general)? Are you keeping a close eye on the new information that is available online? Here are some ideas for doing a better job watching the competition. - Google BlogSearch - keep a close eye on your industry by finding the latest posts done by the people who own businesses in your industry. Google BlogSearch does a good job of keeping the newest info in the top of the SERPs for its BlogSearch program. You can learn more about your industry then you know by keeping a careful eye on your competitors. You do not want them to gain the advantage with any new kind of "cutting edge" technology. You want people that visit your site to know that you are also up to date with the latest and greatest information if they are price shopping you and your competitor (and compare the up to date industry news and info of the two sites).
- SERPH - This is a great place to find news that is brand new, and as they put it - "track the buzz in real time". In many cases the info you find on SERPH has not even been indexed on Google yet. You can use this tool to make sure you take care of any negative press that could be done about your business too. I have used this site many times to see what people are blogging about with me, or my businesses and take care of what ever I need to before it becomes a problem, and gets indexed everywhere.
- Subscribe to competitions RSS - A great tool that your competitor gives you is sitting right on their site. It is the subscription button to their RSS feed. You can keep a close eye on what they are blogging about and any new press (or articles) that gets released. Many businesses will include their press and articles on their blog first before sending it anywhere else. So you will know of it as soon as its posted!
These should be enough to give you an amazing edge over the competition, and will be platforms for you learning other ideas and way to keep a close eye out. You need to be doing something to keep up to date with your industry, and the way I look at it is there is no better place to do this then with the people you are going up against. If you are looking to set up a dropship business, right now The Shipper is offering a free 7 day trial membership that gets you access to thousands of product suppliers with products ranging from pearl jewelry to batteries. Join Today, and start selling products online today!
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Just wanted to post a quick tip for all those dropshipping business owners out there who frequent this blog, and that is to make sure an register with Google Local. Google Local can be an amazing source of traffic, and its fairly easy to get your business showing up at the top of the SERPs (Search Engine Ranking Positions) with little, or no competition. You can also achieve these rankings at a fairly quick time frame. You do not have to play the normal "waiting" game of search engine optimization and rankings kicking in. Lets say you own a website selling pearl necklaces, and want to be found right away because you have product just waiting to be sold. You can register with Google Local, and once you are accepted, you will start showing up on the local search results for "pearl necklaces" when the town, or city name (that your business is registered with) is typed in with the keywords. You will also have less competition because most of your competitors are not doing this. For example; If you type in "Honolulu Hawaii pearl necklaces" you will see no local results (see pic).
Once you get listed - You will be above everyone for a very targeted local search result for your keywords, and this could bring a lot of business. NOTICE - If you type in Sandy Utah Mattress in Google you will see a different looking set of results (The Google Local Results): Rocky Mountain Mattress, the business I have spotlighted many times, comes up as a result (above everyone). This gives a map, and directions, and a link to the website. This is very good for local business.
Once you are accepted by Google Local your business will start to show up in the Local Results immediately, and this is with no search engine marketing or optimization done at all. This could be a great source of traffic for local searches (and local businesses), and in many industries, the competition does not know about Google Local, or where (or how) to get started with it. To get started, go to Google Local and and click on the add/edit business, and Google will walk you through the rest of the process. This is a must for any dropship business owner. This alone is not all you need to be doing for your marketing, but its a good step that many businesses overlook, and I do not want that to happen to anyone who reads this blog! If you are new to dropshipping, The Shipper is offering a free trial membership which gives you full access to all of our product suppliers. Join today.
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I got emailed a question about the content a supplier - dropshipper gives you, and how you should go about using it. I thought I had been hitting this subject hard lately with a few of my posts, but I feel it's a good time to talk about it once again. Here is the question that was emailed to me:
I heard it's not a good idea to copy exactly what the supplier says. why not? what should I write? Whoever you heard this from is telling you the right information. You never want to copy any kind of text your supplier is giving you. This includes website content, product descriptions, or image descriptions. I have seen some suppliers provide even more kind of content, but my best suggestion to you, if you are looking to obtain high search engine rankings is to not use anything the supplier gives you word for word. You will be using the same content that (who knows how many) other people are using, and when Google, or any other major search engine crawls the site, they could see it as duplicate content. If you have a site full of duplicate content, some of your pages can get de-indexed, or not indexed at all, and this gives you the in-ability to rank for them anymore. If you had them ranked, and they got de-indexed, then you have lost all rankings, and that could hurt sells. My suggestion has always been to hire a professional copy-writer and provide them with the keywords that you are wanting to be ranked for, and give them the suppliers content, and have them work your keywords in, while re-wording the content and making it unique. Including your keywords and business name even will give you a better chance of not getting nailed with duplicate content issues. You can find free-lance writers on places like: If you are not able to spend the money on a professional copy-writer, then you can always head to your local college and find some interns. You can find those in the English, or Journalism department. I have found these kind of workers some of the hardest working and eager to please folks on the planet. Oh yea, and they are cheap! If you are making your product descriptions unique too, then you have a better chance of getting your deeper product pages ranked too. That can help your conversion rate, and the money you make on your site as well. Studies show, if you can get people into the deeper shopping cart pages of your website with less then 3 clicks, you have a higher chance of converting the browser into a buyer. Even though making sure you have no duplicate content on your site makes the whole process longer, and more difficult it will be worth it in the long run. You will have more pages to rank, experience higher conversion rate and never have to worry about Google (or other major engines) nailing you with penalties that are hard to overcome. If you are looking to get into selling products online, The Shipper is offering a free 7 day trial for full access to our catalog that gives you access to thousands of product suppliers and millions of products. Join Today!
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There are many important steps that need to be taken for a successful dropshipping website, but I have narrowed down 7 things that must be done for complete success. - Amazing Product Descriptions - Your descriptions should be written as if you have no pictures to help you show the products. You do not want to be using the product descriptions that your supplier gives you. I would suggest hiring a professional to write the content for your pages, and product descriptions. If you are using the same content as all the others your supplier gives access to, then you are risking your website getting nailed and penalized for duplicate content. Give the professionals the keywords you are wanting to be found for, and make sure they are using them in the content. You can find a professional writer at http://www.elance.com or http://www.guru.com where you can get pages written for as cheap as 5 bucks! It will be some of the best money that you will spend, that will help out your conversions, and search engine rankings.
- Your Own Product Images - If you can afford to hire a professional photographer to take photos of your products that can brand them to you, then it will always help your website convert better. If you are not able to, then making sure you are using the pictures that are only the highest quality that your supplier gives you is a must!
- Offer Comparisons - If you are selling products that you can write comparisons for (the do so), then those who are comparison shopping for things like quality, pricing and customer service will get a better a better idea of why they should buy from you. The search engines will like the content that you create for the "comparison shopping" as well and help improve your search engine rankings for your products.
- Give Something Away - People like FREE stuff. Anytime you can offer something for free to enhance the potential sale you will experience a higher conversion rate. On my websites when I give something away for free I have always higher click through ratio and conversion rate. For example, on Rocky Mountain Mattress when you purchase a memory foam mattress you receive two free pillows. If people are shopping around and find the the same products at similar prices, but you are offering something free, they will go with you every time!
- Free Shipping With Every Order - If you can offer free shipping then you will always get more consideration when people are shopping around online, and comparing the bottom line cost. If potential buyers can see what the total cost is going to be right there on your website, they will not be worried about hidden costs upon checkout.
- Testimonials - There is nothing easier, then having someone else sell your product for you. I would suggest going back to some of the satisfied customers you have had in the past, and ask them if they would be willing to write up a favorable testimony. You can link to the product (with keywords) they are recommending in the testimony too.
- Trust and Security - If you can join the BBB, and make sure that you are SSL protected to do transactions online then people will feel safe giving you their credit card information. I can't tell you how many times I was asked on my websites (before I got approved) why I was not a member of the BBB, and how come I did not have the logo on my website. Potential customers do notice these kind of things and it does make a difference in the trust they will give you.
These are the most important tips that I can give any dropship business owner. I have been involved in dropshipping businesses since 2003, and have seen it all. Those who focus on what I have suggested with these 7 tips will succeed, and have an advantage over the competition! If you are brand new to dropshipping and are wanting to gain access to products to sell online, The Shipper is offering a FREE 7 day trial for full access to our database that will get you connected with thousands of potential suppliers, with millions of products.
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A good number of the drop ship (and regular Internet) business owners that I chat with that attend Social Media, and SEO conferences where they are taught to "use Digg" because it will be an "amazing source of traffic" and will do wonders for your back links and traffic etc. are lost. That puts it mildly. I remember the first "SEO" conference I ever attended in New York City back in 2005 I heard so much "buzz" about Del.icio.us and Digg, and that everyone needed to be using them, but no one, and I mean no one was giving specifics of how to use them, and use them in a manner where it will benefit your business. NOTHING MADE SENSE!! I, like many of the people who read this blog, (and ask me questions about DIgg and Delicious) was lost when figuring out how to make these sites work for me (with an SEO benefit). I am still amazed in myself that I did not give up on these sites back in 2005 with no guidance. I am glad I did not, because they are a powerful source of link building and traffic, and can mean the difference between you beating all of your competitors. I want to share some tips that could help you use Digg (and you can apply the info to Del.icio.us as well) in a way that will benefit your link building campaigns, bring more traffic, and turn your site into an authority site almost overnight. (no kidding) It might also turn you into a power DIGGER, which also has some negative side effects, but that is for another post, another day! Here is what they fail to explain to you in these "conferences" - To make Digg work for you, you must become a trusted user with many friends that are submitting the same kind of stuff as you.
- It takes some time to build up a trusted account, but not as long as you might think!
- Find and submit stories that are related to your industry.
- Do not spend time submitting stories that are already found on Digg.
- Look for the stories that are not already submitted.
- You can use this tool - Social Media For Firefox to help you find stories that have not been Dugg, but are popular on other major networks such as Del.icio.us, Reddit, and Stumble Upon.
- Find the users who are submitting the stories you like (that have hit the homepage) and make friends with them, and all of their friends.
- Vote for the stuff (that you like) that these new "friends" submit, and they will notice you are taking care of them, and they will return the favor.
- Don't submit your own stuff, if you become a powerful Digger, there will be plenty of people you can find who would be willing to submit your own stuff.
- After spending time on Digg you will get a better idea of what stuff will make the homepage, and what will not.
- Don't waste time submitting stuff that you really know will not make the homepage.
- Don't email your stories to all of your friends all the time, and have the same group of friends submit the same stuff every time.
- It is ok to have friends that are Diggers and have them scratch your back if you are scratching theirs (submitting each others stuff when its worthy). (Don't even trip on this one, you all know you do it too, I don't care what you say)
- Everything you write is NOT Digg-worthy. That is ok, because a site really only needs a homepage digg once or twice to change your momentum, and blow you past your competition!
This should give you a better idea how to use Digg, and benefit from it with links, traffic and more people knowing about your business. You might end up making some friends in the process. Any time you can build up friends and getting people to link to you, you will benefit from it. I wish I would have had someone spell it out for me like this when getting started with Digg. This will make your Digg experience much nicer then mine was in the begining! If you are reading this blog for the first time and are interested in selling products online, The Shipper is offering a free 7 day trial that gives you full access to all of the suppliers in our database. Join Today!
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I was talking with my brother today about people wanting what you have, but not willing to take the steps, and go through what you have gone through to get it. He compared this to something that I think is powerful, so I wanted to share it with all who read this blog. We may see what other people have an desire what they have; time with family, more money, traveling, toys, or whatever it may be. What you need to remember is that you did not watch this person take the steps to get where they are at. You do not know of the struggles, or hardships they have endured. You just see what is in the present. My brother compared this to body building. Have you ever saw a person with a perfect body, and thought to yourself; "I want that body!" I know other people out there have, and they go to the gym for a couple days, and they wake up on the third day with a hurt body, look in the mirror and say, "I do not look any different, and I hurt, so forget it!" They gave up after only three days, and were not willing to go through the years of training, and pain, and who knows what else to get such a perfect body! This is so true with home business and making money online. You may see what someone has, and want it, but are you willing to do everything they have done to make it happen. Stop looking at the immediate, and what they have, and take a look at the sacrifices they have made, and the money they have spent to be where they are at today. Growing a successful business does not happen overnight, and you need to remember that building a successful dropshipping business takes time, hard work, and dedication. Do not give up when you come across your first road block. Figure out a way to keep going, and make it happen no matter what road block are put in your way. You can have motivation to make things happen, but if you do not have desire then you might as well give up. Those who have desire to change their life, work at home, and create a successful business opportunity will change their life. They are the ones in control, and they will be successful no matter what! Consider this your encouragement for the week, and go and do! Stop complaining about the road blocks, get around them and grow into a successful business owner! I know you can do it! If you are new to dropshipping, and looking for access to products that you can sell online, or looking for the perfect business holiday gifts The Shipper is offering a free 7 Day Trial for full access to our dropshipping directory. Join Today!
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I was talking with a client the other day that told me The Shipper was "the easiest way to find suppliers" that he had ever come across. Of course, this is good news, but I am not just posting this statement to prove a point, or brag. I wanted to take this opportunity to explain, again, why The Shipper was created in the first place.
The Shipper was started because there was a problem with (clients) finding products easily when it came to a dropshipping Internet business. We have dealt with enough Internet business start-ups to know that if they can find products with ease, it makes everything else they have to deal with, when starting an Internet business a little easier. It also gives them the confidence to know that they can make it work, and see how they can make money if they could just get access to products. They see how they could start selling them on eBay, or other shopping sites for example, and the dream can start to become a reality. The point here is that The Shipper can help you find products to sell online with ease. Starting a business of any kind, is difficult, and I am not taking away from that by any means. I am just pointing out that The Shipper is making it easy for you when it comes to finding the suppliers, and products you want to sell online. The Shipper will also be there for you every step of the way. We offer a full educational learning center with video tutorials and access to webinars.
We are always adding to our supplier database. If you ever think about a product you want, but a supplier is not on the list, just email us asking for us to find a supplier for that product, and we will do everything in our power to nail down the right supplier for you! We attend trade shows all around the country including Hawaii, New York and Las Vegas to bring new suppliers to you. With all that The Shipper does when it comes to finding suppliers to add to our database, this really is the "easiest way to find suppliers"! If you are looking to start a drop ship business The Shipper can help you find the products you are looking for to sell online. Join today, and start making money this week!
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I have been getting so many great link building questions lately that I wanted to answer another one today. I love anything there is to do with blogging, so of course this one caught my eye!
"Can you really build links that will help out your search engine optimization campaign?" One powerful method of link building, brand awareness and traffic building can be found in the comments section of a blog post. I am talking about the comments that you leave on someone else's blog that is related to the products you are selling on your website. Most every blog that you come across will allow you to leave a URL that points back to your website in the comments area. You will also be asked for a name, email address (which is not published) and sometimes there is some form of spam protection like "What is the sum of X and X?" Most blogs that you come across really appreciate comments left that are useful, but they hate people spamming them with garbage, and links to some other site. I never let anything stay to long on this blog that I even smell the hint of spam (and no I am not talking about the canned meat). Every time you leave a comment, you are getting a link that is pointing back to your site which is in essence giving you a "vote" in the eyes of the major search engines. The comment you leave will not do you an ounce of good if you are not writing some useful content that goes along with the link they are giving you. This is true for the search engines, and true for the person that is moderating the comment. If they think the comment is spammy in any form and that you really did not care about the post they did, they will spam it, and it will not show up, and will not do you any good! I have found that useful comments that bring value to the post give you a valuable link, and can send you some decent traffic from people who may like the comments you are making. My suggestion is to find blogs related to your products (or service) and find posts that really interest you, and make you want to comment. When you can find these kind of blogs then the comments you leave are always more useful because you actually have a clue as to what is being said, and you can leave an intelligent comment. Just use your real name, or even your business name. I have found that bloggers tend to care less about the link they give you if the comment adds value to their post. The reason you do not need to worry so much about the "anchor text" that you probably hearing me preach about a lot on this blog is because the link is on a page that is related to yours, and it will pass you some juice and do you some good. You also will not be known in the blogging community as a spammer, which can be really bad for any of this kind of link building you might attempt. An example of how this could work out well is if you are leaving a comment on a blog talking about conversion tracking and you link to a company that sells web analytics software. Even if you just use your name, or the name of your business, you are getting a link inside content that is super targeted, and that is a good thing! If you are looking to start a dropshipping business The Shipper is offering a free 7 day trial for full access to our membership to sell products online. Join Today!
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For all of those who read this blog trying to find additional ways to market their dropshipping businesses, and for hints with search engine optimization it is your lucky day! I have been testing out an amazing tool that was developed to help Social Media Marketers how to build power accounts, and then be able to leverage those accounts in so many different ways.
97th Floor announced today the launch of the Social Media For Firefox tool, a tool that allows Social Media users to quickly view if a story has been saved to one of the major Social Networks including, Digg, Stumble Upon, Reddit, and Del.icio.us. This tool allows you to quickly find and save stories, and will give you the power you need to build an amazing account at one, or all of these major social media sites. One thing that a lot of the Social Media Marketers out there waste a lot of time doing if sifting through all of the hot stories, and which has been submitted to where. This tool will save you loads of time, and is so easy to use.
You benefit from having a power account because people will know about you, and you have links pointing to your products and information etc. If you do not leverage Social Media into your marketing you will be left behind. This tool can teach you what you need to know to get started with Social Media Marketing. I recommend anyone who is in the process of marketing their dropshipping website to download this tool immediately through the link above, you will not be disappointed. If you are finding yourself reading this blog for the first time and are interested in finding products to sell online, The Shipper is offering a free 7 day trial with full access to all product suppliers in the directory. Join Today!
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I just wanted to share a tip because of a conversation I heard yesterday from a client talking about the "content on their site". This client was told by his supplier that the product descriptions (supplied by him) were good enough, and all he needed to do was "copy and paste" them right onto his website. Let me be very clear - This is wrong, and probably the worst advice a supplier could ever give. I would never suggest such a silly thing. When you are writing content for your site, and building up the sites trust with search engines like Google you must create unique content for your site to do any good. If you are just copy and pasting content that a supplier gives you, then you are going up against the other hundreds of people who are using that same supplier, and adding more duplicate content on the web. Your site will have a hard time ranking for any keywords if you have nothing but duplicate content on it. You need to get creative with your content, and do your best to change up anything given to you by your supplier. Go to your list of keywords, and make sure to use them in the product descriptions your supplier gives you. Twist it up, and give it a personal feel and touch to you, and your business. The main point here is to get creative with your websites content, and make it your own, in order for your website to rank better. If you can create as much unique content as possible and use the keywords in it that you are wanting to be found for, it will do a lot for your Google love. Also use this same technique with your product descriptions and you are well on your way to having a website that is better optimized then the other hundred people that are just copy and pasting the content. If you have not started an Internet business dropshipping products online, and want to, The Shipper is offering a free 7 day trial of our product sourcing catalog that allows you to find products that you can sell online.
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I have been testing out some pretty cool tracking software that I wanted to share with everyone. Understanding the importance of web analytics is one area that many Internet business owners lack in. They lack in this area because they do not know how important it is, know where to get it, or feel it might cost to much. I have read many killer posts over at 97th Floor, (an SEO Firm) on the importance of website analytics, and I would suggest you check them out and add them to your RSS subscription list.
I have been been testing (and using and loving) tracking software from a company called Mint. The software is server hosted, so you do not have to fear about giving away information to major search engines like Google (Google Analytics). There is much debate going on in the search industry about how much information we are freely giving away to these search engines that could come back to hurt us. I love Mint because it is real time stats, and is cheap. It really is that simple for me. There is no reason for any level business to not run this tracking software. It is only $30 per domain, and that is it, there is no monthly fees. If you can't find it your budget to spend $30 bucks on site tracking software then you should not be in business at all!
Something interesting to point out is that since I have been running Mint I have found that Google Analytics was missing a ton of unique visitors, and referrers. I have thought for a long time that it was, but I have never tested something to it side by side to prove it, and this did. I have not been paid by Mint to blog about this either, I just flat out love them and wanted to share something I felt would benefit all the readers of this blog. Those who are small business owners who are on a budget. You do not sacrifice quality either by spending only $30. It is server hosted and secure, and like I said before, real time! Yes, there are other Bid Management tools out there that I recommend, but this one is pretty cheap, and could be a good solution for small time bloggers.
You will have to have some technical knowledge, because the software used is server hosted (on your server). They have great tutorials to help you get it taken care of so do not let that scare you. I just wanted to make sure everyone knew that it was going to require a little technical know how. If you are looking to get started in a dropshipping business so you can have a website to track, The Shipper is offering a FREE 7 Day trial to our full product sourcing catalog. Find products to sell online today, and start making money selling products online this week!
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I got asked this question the other day; "Well, I was wondering if you could maybe give me some tips or
suggestions on Link Building Strategies...Where I am struggling with it
that it seems that it takes a lot of resource to really break into some
major link building strategies...and currently I have a limited
resource and trying to find high quality links for a gardening website.
Any thoughts, suggestions, tips....I would love to hear from you!"
I think this is a great question because most of the people who are starting dropshipping businesses are in fact "niche websites", and have limited resources. I have some tips for finding high quality links that will not be a strain on your budget, but rather your time. If you can follow some simple steps, and not get your feelings hurt for being told "no", then you will be able to build some amazing links, and improve your link building strategies. - Tip One - Read the post over at the SEO Firm 97th Floor on building links with Google News and this will be an amazing starting place.
- Tip Two - Search Google for related niche websites that have articles that you could get a link in. Here is how you would go about it - On Google type in "gardening articles" or " keyword articles" obviously putting in your keyword where I say "keyword". I would suggest going several hundred pages back and finding sites with good content that are indexed on Google, and do not have many outbound links.
- Tip Three - If you are not familiar with "cache" or "indexed" as far as it goes with Google let me explain. You want to make sure the page is indexed on Google which means that Google knows the page exists. If it does not exist in their database then it will not do you any good if its linking to you. The final thing to consider is the "cached date". You need to make sure if it is indexed that the cached date is a recent one. If you find a page that the cache date is almost a year old, again the link will do you no good. If it is a recently cached page, then there is a chance it will be re-cached (re-indexed in a way) soon and the link will do you some good. To find out the cache date of any page type this in Google - cache:www.yourpage.com/articlepage.htm - make sure you put the URL you are wanting to test where I have the "www.yourpage.com/articlepage.htm" Searching out links this way, is good because of the behavioral targeting results that Google gives you. You will not find higher quality links that will do you more good with the search engines.
These three simple tips are a good place for anyone looking for niche link building strategies to begin with. The links you find will be high quality and targeted, and they will not cost you anything but the time it takes to do the research and ask for the link. This is also the point where you need to not worry about people telling you no. I get about 5 out of 10 telling me no, but the other 5 telling you yes, are worth it. If you can even build up a couple targeted links a day using this method it will be a good place for a niche website with limited resources to start with. If you are looking to sell products online through dropshipping, or looking for executive gifts during the holidays The Shipper is offering a Free 7 Day Trial with full access to the entire product database.
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People send me emails full of questions all of the time, which I love by the way (so feel free to anytime). I got a great question today asking me about all the places that I sell products online, or about places that I feel will actually do something for their business. I have shared many places in past posts, but wanted to talk about one that I never have yet on this blog. I want to talk about the money making potential with Squidoo (an amazing social network) for your dropshipping business. What exactly is Squidoo? Their about us information really does not explain what they are (in my opinion) -
"Squidoo's goal as a platform is to bring the power of recommendation to
search. Squidoo's goal as a co-op is to pay as much money as we can to
our lensmasters and to charity. And Squidoo's goal as a community is to
have fun along the way, and meet new ideas and the people behind them."
Let me see if I can do a better job telling you what Squidoo is and how your dropshipping business can benefit from it. A social community is built for members of the community to connect, share and find new friends. You can join them to learn more, find amazing information and products that you normally would not have. Squidoo is a social community that you can build website pages promoting your products or information on the things you like, which they call "lenses", and they host the pages for you. The main benefit that I can see from Squidoo is that they will allow you to name your own pages and they give you a static URL with your lens. This is a great place to take advantage of brand and reputation management as you can use the keywords that you want to be found for (or your brand) in the URL. They do a pretty good job or ranking too, as long as you can pass some links to the specific lens you created. You can also create pages to test any kind of behavioral targeting for your products, and you don't have to waste a lot of time marketing the page to test them because Squidoo already has a huge following! Squidoo makes it easy for you add some pretty cool "plugins" to your lenses too. Here is a list of things that I use and that you can use to build up your lenses: - Profile section where you can add as many anchor links as you want (within reason)
- Add as many RSS feeds as you want
- Flickr Photo plugin
- Del.icio.us tags plugin
- Amazon plugin (if you are selling your products on Amazon you can include them here)
- Add your own links
- Recommend Products
- Recommend and Sell Your Own Products
- eBay plugin
- Google BlogSearch plugin
- Add YouTube Videos
Not only can you add all of these things to promote your products, Squidoo will actually pay you for being a community member. You see, Squidoo makes money from advertising, and they will give you a portion of the money made when ads are clicked on, or products are bought through their affiliates. Its a good thing for you, and its a great thing for them. I would keep using Squidoo just for the additional help it gives me on the search engines, but making money in a bonus, especially through a social community! I have told you many times if you are only thinking about making money selling your products just on your website, then you are missing out on such a huge piece of the market. You need to start thinking about shopping sites, social shopping sites, and social communities to get the word out about your products. Getting started with Squidoo would be a great stepping stool into this other side of Internet marketing. If you are new to Internet business and are looking for products that you can sell, and promote on social communities like Squidoo, The Shipper is offering a FREE 7 Day Trial membership to gain access to all of our dropshipping products that you can sell online.
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I get asked all the time if people really make money online, and if its something that can really happen to them. Most of the time people are just curious and have their own thoughts coming into business online. Most of the time their thoughts are not good. They have negative thoughts about making money online because they just don't understand how the whole process works. I had a good conversation with my brother-in-law the other day about this very topic of making money online. He is really wanting to break into the industry, but his wife thinks its all a scam. When it came down to it after asking him probing questions (about his wifes true feelings) she does not think its a "scam", but just does not understand how people can really make money online. I want to help those who may be wondering this very same thing. Think about this example for a second - Lets say there are two roads that have billboards on them. One road is in downtown Los Angeles, and one road is on a remote stretch of highway in Northern Nevada (somewhere in no-mans-land). My question to you is; Which one of these billboards is going to cost you more to advertise on? This should be obvious, but for the sake of argument it would be the billboard in LA. The reason this is so is because the billboard in LA has more people driving past it (more traffic), and because of more traffic they can charge more money for the ad space. Now think about this example in regards to advertising and making money online. If you have a website that gets lots of traffic (thousands to millions of visitors per month) you will have people that want to pay you to be found just like on the road side. The person getting millions of visitors per month is going to be making more off their advertising then the person getting only hundreds of visits per month. Both will be making money, but you can see clearly who will be making more, and that making money online can be done. This is one example out of many when it comes to making money online, but this was enough to get my brother-in-law to understand how making money online works (so he could explain to his wife). I did give him one other example too, because he mentioned to me how his wife loved to shop on Amazon. I thought this was a perfect opportunity to explain to him other ways that people make money with dropshipping products online. I told him I sell products on Amazon (products that I get from my dropshipper) and that if she shops at Amazon then she probably has bought from one of these "people making money online" who she thought was a scam! People just do not understand how someone can make a living online because they have been doing something the "traditional" way for so long. I get that, I understand the thought process, so that is why I wanted to help give some of my thoughts about making money with an online home business oppportunity. Once you are educated, you start to understand that people can make money online, and make a decent living doing it, it not so much of an "unknown", and people will not think you are a "scam". I hope this gives everyone who may have had questions about how people really make money online some insight. If you are wanting to start a business where you sell products that are dropshipped on places like Amazon (like we talked about above), The Shipper is currently offering a FREE 7 Day Trial of our product sourcing catalog.
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So many people ask me on a daily basis what they can do to establish a better relationship with their supplier. They want to know things like how to get their supplier to give them better prices, or better one on one service (for example). For me, its very simple; When it comes to establishing a better relationship with your supplier give them a reason to trust you. You have to understand how many people come to the supplier wanting to start an Internet business and sell their products. Most never end up selling their products because they are not serious about making it happen. Dropshippers have to deal with this on a daily basis, and it ends up wasting a lot of their time. When you go to them asking for a hand out, this should give you a better idea as to why they won't listen to you. How to establish trust? If you are starting to understand and gain a better picture in your head now, you are probably wondering what can be done to establish better trust? You need to have patience. You need to establish your business online (with a little time), make some sales and obtain some amazing rankings that brings you traffic. If you can show your supplier some pretty amazing rankings, and they can see the sales you are sending them business they will be more willing to listen to you. You can explain to them that the only reason you are not making more sales (because you have the rankings and traffic to prove) is because they are not giving you the best possible prices for your product. They just need to see that you are serious and how it could effect them. If you pull away from them and try to find a new supplier they will lose money. Once you have found another supplier, you can negotiate better without fear of losing access to your products as well. The bottom line comes down to your credibility online and the trust you have established with your business. When you are brand new you can't expect the supplier to give you the world. They will eventually end up noticing you when you are bringing them sales, and they see you showing up all over online. When you establish the trust, then you have the power! If you are wanting to sell products online, The Shipper is offering a FREE 7 Day Trial of our catalog that gives you access to thousands of suppliers that you can start to build trust with!
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There are a lot that find this blog who are not even familiar with dropshipping, or what it is exactly. There are many names people call it; dropship, dropshipping, dropshipping, suppliers, wholesale dropshippers etc. but they are all referring to the same thing. I wanted to spend some time talking about what it means to dropship, and how one can go about establishing a legitimate dropshipping business. Lets first take a look at what it means to dropship. Dropshipping is the process where an online business through a website, classified sites, social networks or auctions sells products that are fulfilled by another company. This other company also takes care of inventory, shipping, labels and all other aspects of fulfillment. The person who owns the dropshipping business online does not have to carry a warehouse of inventory, worry about shipping or anything else related. Lets say I am working with a supplier who is providing me with (and) dropships the new HD DVD players. Here is how the process of dropshipping works - The order is made on your website, you then contact your supplier and order the product from them (once the money has cleared from your supplier and there is no fraud involved). Once the product is ordered with the supplier they handle the shipping, labels and everything from there to get the product (HD DVD player) to your customer. You never have to carry inventory, package up all your products and take them to UPS, or FEDEX and it makes doing business online so easy! It is also nice to work with suppliers that do not require minimum order amounts. If you work with a supplier that makes you purchase 100 units up front, what happens when you only sell 10, and can't seem to get rid of the other 90? You lose money this way because you just have to unload them (for cheaper then you bought them) if you want to get rid of them.
So bottom line here, dropshipping just means to have another company fulfill the orders that you get on your website, or that you sell in auction. All of this takes place of course once you have already established the relationship with the supplier. That is where The Shipper comes in. The Shipper can help you find the right supplier, and get you access to legitimate dropshippers, wholesalers and manufacturers. Right now The Shipper is offering a FREE 7 Day Trial for access to all of our products to sell online.
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I thought I would take this opportunity to share a wonderful marketing tip that was figured out by my 7 year old daughter while we were driving. I live in a newer community in the Phoenix area, and my daughter asked me the question - Dad, does who ever has the most flags win? I had to think about it for a second. While driving by some new planned communities going up she asked this question and it got me thinking. It got me thinking about so many things I can't begin to write them all down, but the main thing that impressed me was the marketing for houses that worked even on a 7 year old.
Everyone reading this blog has seen planned communities going up at some point or another, right? You know what it looks like, the model homes are all lined up with as many flags to draw as much attention as possible. KB Homes, one of the biggest home builders in the country even has people dancing with signs (like the people selling pizza) to draw in business. The point here is to think about what you can do to set your business apart from all of the competition that you are going up against. For the most part you are never going to find a business that will have no competitors. So you must start thinking of what you can do better then the people you are going up against. All this makes me think about Hal Wing, creator of the little giant latter system. Hal took a product that was already established and figured out what he could do to make it better. You have to have this kind of thinking and innovation to succeed in business today, and especially with an online home based business (like the type I have blogged about before). I had the pleasure of attending a conference that Hal spoke at during a BYU Hawaii business plan competition and he has a vision like no other that I have ever heard speak (business related). He tried to help all those who attended catch a vision about not having to reinvent the wheel when it comes to starting a business, but to think about what you could do to make yourself stand out. This takes me back to the flags and why builders use them to attract people to the model homes. They get attention of even 7 year olds driving down the road asking their Dad what its all about. That is marketing folks! You can't be like everyone else, you need to have your own "flags", or you will not succeed. If you are new to doing business online and want to start a business dropshipping products, The Shipper is offering a FREE 7 Day Trial of their full catalog that gives you access to sell products online.
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I have been debating and debating about the subject of free analytics software (being a good thing or not), so much lately, that I am about to burst if I don't write my thoughts down, and share with everyone my feelings (about what I feel are the "true costs") on free web analytics software like Google Analytics, SiteMeter and StatCounter (just to name a few of the big freebies). I have been reading so many negative articles and blog posts about the kind of raw SEO data that you are just handing companies like Google if you are using their free Google Analytics software. It really is nerve racking to think about all the data they are getting that could come back to hurt your link building campaigns for natural rankings, even if you are doing everything white hat. Google wants to make more money. What business doesn't, so I understand that! But think about all the debate right now going on about paid links, and Google giving you all kinds webmaster tools etc. (to "help out") it is starting to lead me to believe they could (if not want) to use this information against you. They want to find out the information that is going help them get more clicks on their Google Ads that in turn makes them more money. So again, I ask; What is the cost of free web analytics software? If you are using any of the examples I gave above you give up things like privacy (because your data is shared with everyone), you are asked for a site wide outbound link and your data could possibly sold to a third party company. I read a blog post the other day by Aaron Wall talking about the cost of free analytics too, and he suggested a server hosted web analytics software from a company called Mint which cost $30 bucks/ site. I think it is a good idea for webmasters to start thinking about finding a solution that is not free, especially from companies who could use the data against you. I am a big fan of web analytics software from companies like Omniture, but I realize they may not be the perfect solution for a small business. The point here is to start thinking about the data you are giving up and what it is used for (or could be used for). I am not going all conspiracy theory on you yet concerning Google, but I think it is a good time to start looking for alternative solutions (for web analytics) to the companies that give everything away for "free".
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I have been marketing websites for quite some time now, and because of that I am often asked about a number of things regarding directory submissions. First let me say that if the only marketing you are planning on doing is directory submission, then give up right now! Directory submissions are not the end all save all for SEO campaigns like some people think they are. They are only a small piece of the puzzle, and even then, only if they are done correctly. There is much debate going on in the search industry if directory submissions even do you any good anymore. I have done several independent tests on sites, and can confirm that submitting to the right directories, and proper submission (to help SEO purposes) can in fact help rankings (so it does do good still, in my opinion based on personal case studies). You have to remember that even if it does not work well for search engines like Google (as much as it use to), there are other major search engines out there as well as 2nd and 3rd tier search engines that submitting to directories could help gain rankings and increase overall traffic. I still think that Google does take into consideration passing link juice from high quality directories, or they would not suggest submitting sites to places like the Yahoo Directory. If you can find a directory that has been around for a while, and carries a lot of trust, and get a link with them it will do your site some good. How much good it will do you, is how you go about submitting. If you submit to the wrong category, or even a category that would work, but is not the best, it will not do you as much good. If you are wanting an easy method to find out how to get Google to tell you the best category/subcat to submit your site to, just follow this piece of advice; In the Google search bar do the following if you are wanting to find the best place to submit a site (on abilogic.com, which I do recommend) selling memory foam mattresses - "memory foam mattress" "abilogic.com" (If this does not make sense, click on the link and pay attention to how it shows up in the search bar). Once you find the best possible category to submit your site to, that is only half the battle. You need to make sure you are submitting the right information to the directory. The right information that will actually do something for you SEO-wise. When you are at the point of submission make sure when you are asked for the title to only use keywords that people would be using to search for you. Do not include the name of your website in the title either. Again, only use words that people are actually using to search (keywords). Rotate the keywords that you use as well. If you are trying to be found for the word "memory foam mattress", dont just use that exact phrase in the title for every directory you submit to. Use a variety of anchor text related to the word such as "memory foam", "foam mattress", "foam bed" and so on. I think that gives you a pretty good idea. I have found a pretty amazing list of directories that actually do something for you (SEO-wise) when you submit to them. I would encourage everyone to visit this site and submit to all the directories they recommend in the article. I hope I have cleared up the issue of submitting to directories being a waste of time or not. Granted, there are directories out there that are worthless and are a waste of time when you submit to them, but the list I showed above is not in that group. You will gain better trust from the search engines, and improve search engine rankings by submitting to powerful trusted directories, especially when you have submitted to them properly. If you are wanting to learn more about dropshipping and how to sell products online, The Shipper is offering a FREE 7 Day Trial membership that gives you full access to our dropship product database. Join Today - Sell Today!
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Another great dropshipping question came in the other day that I would like to address. Some supplier's don't give prices and leave it up to me to set them. How should I price my items?
If you are working with a supplier that is not giving you any ideas or help with setting prices on your products there are several things you can do to make sure your prices are set right. I went ahead and asked David Mink, owner of Rocky Mountain Mattress, an e commerce product site specializing in memory foam mattresses and adjustable beds to answer this question for everyone. I wanted to get a real insiders point of view. Heres' what Dave said when I asked him this question; "If the supplier does not set the prices that is actually a good thing. in fact, legally you can't really force someone to sell at a certain price. In order to come up with the best price you should do alot of comparison shopping. You need to get familiar with sites that sell the exact same product as you and chart all of the prices in a spreadsheet document. Find out what the low price is, the high price, and the average price. Then take a look at your selling advantages, i.e. does your site offer free shipping, or can you promote tax free shopping, do you bundle other items in with the purchase, etc. Based on your selling advantages in relation to your competitors you should then price the item accordingly. At the end of the day you need to compete price wise - but that means more than just the cost of the item you have to take account of all other aspects of the sale (taxes, shipping, upgrades, bundles, etc.)
I thank Dave Mink from Rocky Mountain Mattress for taking the time to answer this dropshipping question, because I think he answered it perfectly to clear up any confustion. If you are interested in starting a dropshipping business, The Shipper is offering a FREE 7 DAY TRIAL that gets you access to our full database to sell products online!
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Every business needs a slogan, or something catchy that people can remember them by. I am a big fan of the vitamin water, and before I saw any of the catchy commercials, or any of the funny marketing campaigns, my brother had given me one to try and I loved it. The point here (and with the vitamin water) though is I talk about the product to everyone, and share with them how funny what they have written on the bottle is. For example, the title of this post is the last of the "instructions" of how to use the product. It is funny and makes me want to talk about it to everyone who I am friends with. This is viral marketing at its best, and the reason these companies do what they do. A friend of mine is in the business opportunity profession teaching people how to create wealth with his home based business model, and his "catch phrase" at the end of most articles, all emails and on his website is; "Learn how to make more money in one month then most people do in a year." It is something that people will remember, and have reason to check out. Most of you reading this blog are probably interested how to make that much money in a month. Am I right? These are the things that dropshipping business owners need to be thinking about when they are building and branding their business. It does not matter what you are selling, or if someone who is selling a similar product already has created a "catchy phrase" you need to be thinking of how to make it unique to you, and the type of customers that you will be driving to your site. Once you have figured this out, then branding becomes much easier, and people will start to remember you. Having a company do some Graphic Design for you could help with branding also (the visible remembering part - think of the Coca Cola logo, or Pepsi).
The Shipper is offering a FREE 7 day trial of our product sourcing catalog that allows you to sell products online with a dropshipping business.
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How Do You Come Up With Ideas For Copywriting and Creative Articles? This is a great question as an Internet marketer (and Internet business owner) I get asked quite often. When people ask me whats the best thing they can do to get better search engine rankings on their website, the first thing I tell them it to provide the search engines with better content. The reaction is not good as you can imagine, because most people that I meet hate writing, and feel they are not creative enough to come up with content that people, let alone search engines will like. People who read this blog know that I hate writing too, and that I am full of grammatical errors, but the content that I provide is good enough that it keeps people (and search engine coming back and eating what I write up). Who knows - maybe someday I will be popular enough to have someone offer to proof read all my stuff before it gets posted! For now, you all have to deal with me and my errors!
Here are 5 solid ideas for coming up with amazing content that you can be sure people will eat up; - Search websites like Digg, Del.icio.us and Stumble Upon and find the stories that have been made the most popular.
- Search News Worthy Sites by going to Google News and searching for related keywords.
- Use Article submission sites (like Ezine Articles) by searching authors stories that are related to yours and see which ones have been viewed the most.
- Practice writing catchy titles, and test them out on family and friends. Ask them which one they would click on first. Write down the numbers and see what style wins.
- Do a search on Google for article writing and read up on what some of the masters of the game do.
There are many other methods, but I think these 5 are probably the best to start with. You will get the most bang for your buck (or time) so to speak. Content is not something you can just "come up with" in a matter of minutes. You have to think about it, get into it, do some research and really do everything you can to come up with ideas that even YOU would be interested in! You do this, and you are a step in the right direction already! The Shipper is offering a FREE 7 day trial membership that allows its members to gain access to products to sell online. Join Today - Sell Today!
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A great two part dropshipping question that I was asked that I think has some confusion with it. I am just going to break it up and go from there;
What are the ways you pay a dropshipper? Each dropshipper is different in what they prefer, but the norm is to use a credit card they bill when orders are made. How it works with all of my businesses, is I have my business credit card (cash back credit card remember I posted already about this) on file and whenever someone makes an order on my site, I log into my dropshipping account and place the order. They usually charge my credit card on a NET-30, which means however many orders I have made in 30 days I will get billed all at once at the end of the 30 days. There are some suppliers that will charge you immediately after every order is placed. You just need to talk with your supplier and see what their method of operation is.
How long does it take from when you get paid to when you get billed? You get paid right when the order is processed. If you have set up your merchant account and dropshipping accounts correctly, you do not wait to get paid. When someone goes to your site and places and order, the money goes directly through the merchant account into your bank account. This is where I think the confusion may have been with the question in thinking the dropshipper was going to be the one paying you. If you are working with a legitimate dropshipper you will not ever have them pay you. That is not how true dropshipping works. Usually at the end of the month if I have done 30k in sales, and my supplier charges me at the end I have all of that money in the bank for the full month. Now remember, you have to pay the supplier every month if set up on a Net-30, and its not all yours, but if you are even making 50% then you are left with 15k which is not a bad month!
Hopefully this gives you a better idea about setting up the payment options with suppliers. If you are new to dropshipping and want to sell products online, The Shipper is offering a FREE 7 day trial membership with full access.
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I had some great questions come my way because of the article I posted yesterday about MySpace, and I wanted to share the biggest question that people had. I guess I was not clear enough, so I am sorry about that! When signing up for a MySpace account people are asking me if they should sign up for a personal one, or make it a business one? For the purposes I am talking about (social media marketing), you need to sign up with an account for your business. Like I said in the previous post, if you have a business teaching people about travel reward credit cards, you need to be using your MySpace account to find friends that are interested in Travel and who could take advantage of such types of credit card offers you are promoting with your business. Find the forums and answer peoples questions, and leave relevant comments on peoples blogs who are talking about credit card rewards (for example). I really would not be interested in MySpace at all on a personal level. It is just not for me. However; I have figured out that it is a powerful source of targeted traffic for those who take the time to build up a community of friends interested in the same things as the business. Remember, The Shipper is offering a FREE 7 day trial membership to those wanting to sell products online. Join Today - Sell Today!
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I want to remind everyone who is marketing their dropshipping website not to forget MySpace in their campaign. Most people may think that MySpace is only a place for kids, but it simply is not true. Bands have been made and nobodys have got their name out in a powerful way through MySpace. Its all about the community and building up as many friends as you possibly can. Ask for people to join you on MySpace as well in your blogs, in articles you can write, and right there on your blog. Make it easy for people to know about your MySpace page. Once you get the word out enough people will be coming to you, wanting to be a part of your MySpace community. Why MySpace is powerful - Once you have built up a big enough community of thousands of followers, you can get your message out to all of these people easily with a click of a button with posting messages to all community members. You do not have to worry about spamming them because they are your members and have joined for a reason. There are people online that only use certain communities to find what they are looking for, and MySpace is one of them. You can build up the kind of community you want, by searching for the kind of people you want. This makes it much easier to promote the things you like when they community has similar likes. For example if I owned a site selling camping products I could search out all of the people who love the outdoors and add them to my MySpace page. You can often build up good community members by going to specific forums for these topics (related to what you are doing) and voicing your opinion or sharing some insight. Get people to remember you! Go and check out the competition on MySpace, yes I said competition. I promise you that you probably have someone building up a community that is into the same things you are, and are going to promote the same things you want to. Find out who they have got as friends and add them too. Have fun with it, and as always be a good community member. Don't forget, MySpace is one of many social networks out there you shoud consider joining. There are even targeted niche communities you can join too, like the bass fishing social community I posted about a while back. The Shipper is offering a FREE 7 Day Trial of our catalog allowing you to sell products online, join today!
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With all the questions I get asked about dropshipping, and doing business online, what to look for in a dropshipper is by far the most asked question that I get. When people are ready to invest their time, money, energy and complete focus to a business online, they want to make sure they are working with the right person. I could not agree more and I have some tips that may help when looking for the perfect dropshipper. - Are They Legit? First, If you found them through the dropshipping directory here at The Shipper then you can rest assured that they are a legitimate dropshipper. If you found them from another source, you can do things like look them up on the BBB, Google them to see if there is anything negative about them as a company, and follow up with their testimonials. If they are giving example of websites that use them, then go to the websites, and send emails to the business owners, and ask them how they like doing business with the company. Besides just look and feel of the site too, there are many tell tell factors of legitimacy or not. Just use some common sense when narrowing down a supplier and it will help more then you probably know!
- Will They Allow You To Sell On eBay? One of the most important things to me when looking for a legitimate dropshipper is that they will allow me to sell their products where ever I please, and this includes eBay. If they are not willing to work with me, and letting me explore all options of making money online, then I just want to move on. Besides selling on eBay, you want to make sure the supplier is allowing you to sell products on any type of shopping or buying solution site out there.
- Don't Spend Money On Product First. This is probably where most people get scammed in the dropshipping world. They find what they think is a great supplier with amazing prices and are told they have to buy a certain amount of product first (in order to work with them) and people send off the money, and product is never sent. They have been scammed. A legitimate dropshipper, with the right kind of business model set in place will never ask you to spend a ton of money up front on products. If you ever come across something like this - run, and then report them as fraud.
- No Minimum Order. Making sure the dropshipper you are wanting to work with does not have a minimum order amount is a big deal too. If they are a legitimate dropshipper then they will not care if your place an order of one, or an order of a hundred. They are ready for whatever you give them. Consider this - what happens if your supplier makes you buy a hundred of the "hot at the moment" toy, and then they no longer are hot. What are you going to do with all them toys? There is a potential risk when doing business this way!
- Are They Wanting To Make Sure You Are Legit Too? Most legitimate dropshippers want to know that you are a legal register business. If they are giving you access to all their product without even asking if you are a legal business, I would be worried.
- Are They Helping You? When you first get into a business like this, there are a ton of questions you may have for the supplier. If they are a legitimate dropshipper they will help you with every problem/question you have. They will give you access to product information, images, pricing and everything else you need to be successful. They will be there for you!
I just wanted to share a few of the things that come to my mind right off the bat when I think of a legitimate dropshipper. Hopefully this gives you a little bit better of an idea how to narrow down, and find a legitimate dropshipper.
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I really like selling products on CraigsList because of what it costs to list them - nothing! The thing that people forget to remember about CraigsList though, is the kind of people who use the website. If you have ever gone out yard selling early Friday or Saturday morning you can get a better appreciation for the "kind" of people I am talking about. They are savvy shoppers and frugal. They do not want to spend much money on anything as they are looking for the deals! Don't make the mistake of trying to sell all of your products at the highest end of your profit margin. Remember, since you are not paying listing fees, or Paypal fees on auction style sites like eBay, you can list the item cheaper and still make close to the same amount of money. So the number one tip that I can offer for those wanting to sell the dropshipping products they have access to on CraigsList, is to make sure and price them low. Don't list products that you can make money on, and make sure you are more conservative with your pricing and you will do much better every time you list something! You can figure all of this out by doing a little research on CraigsList and seeing what the average price people are listing the products you have access to at. Again, just don't waste time with products you can make any money on. The way I look at it - If I can even make only 10 bucks profit (and do it multiple times over) that is more money then I am currently making by not listing items at all! If you are looking to get into a dropshipping business so you can sell products on CraigsList then check out The Shipper product sourcing catalog. The Shipper is offering a FREE 7 Day Trial for full access to our dropshipping directory list.
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I understand there is so much to do when setting up a dropshipping business, and I know people can often forget (easily) as to why we even started the business in the first place. I wanted to share a quick thought as to why this business is worth it to me, especially because I have been there during those frustrating times!
I have 3 kids, and two of them I missed first "baby steps" because I was busy working away for someone else (and their hours they set for me). Well today, that was not the case with my third. Today, I witnessed him take all of his first, second third (and so on) steps. There was not a prouder papa on the planet at that moment then me! I would have missed this amazing moment if I had not overcome all the trials that came my way when setting up a dropshipping business. These are the special moments that most Dads miss out on because they are slaving away at a traditional 9-5. I wanted to get into a dropshipping business, and work online so I could spend more time at home, be with family, travel and make more money. I often read the home based business blog of David Allred, and am happy there are people out there working online for a living, spending more time with family, and living their dream. Thats what this is all about! There is your encouragement! When you get frustrated setting up your dropship business, just remember why you are doing it, and it will help you get through the down times. If you are looking to work from home, spend more time with family, travel or just make more money - The Shipper can give you access products that you can sell online, sell on eBay or do whatever you want with to make money! Right now we are offering a 30 day dropship Free Trial Membership - Join Today!
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With so many people finding this blog who are unfamiliar with dropshipping, and how the whole process works, I wanted to post some information (as I have done in the past) that could help clear up all confusion for those wanting to know what dropshipping is. I have even done my best to make it as simple as possible for you with 10 easy steps for understanding the whole dropshipping process. Before I get into the process, lets get a better understanding of the dropship supplier first. The supplier, also referred to as the dropshipper, has product they get either directly from a manufacturer, make them self or from some other distributor source. Their main goal is to push product, and lots of it. I get asked the question so many times as to why a dropshipper would not just sell the products them self online? That is not their business model, if they are a legitimate dropshipper. They make money from everyone else selling their products, and they can make a lot more money doing business that way. Think about how many stores Wal-Mart has, and how much money they make because of multiple sources of income. The drop ship suppliers work in a similar fashion. They have the whole process set up to work with as many people that can push their product as possible. They understand the selling power of the Internet, rather it be through eBay, shopping sites, classified sites (like CraigsList), or directly on a website. The dropshipper wants as many people as possible pushing their products because they will make more money because of it! They have a bottom line dollar amount to make, and as long as you are paying them that amount, that is all they care about. Now, to better help you understand the whole dropshipping process, I will show you how dropshipping works with 10 easy steps. I am giving you these steps assuming you have already set up the relationship with the dropship supplier company. - An order is placed on your website.
- The money goes through your merchant account into your bank account.
- You verify that everything is legit with the order. You can learn how to do this via your merchant (once you have set this all up).
- Contact the dropshipper to process the order that was just placed on your website. Something to keep in mind with this step is that every dropshipper is different. Some dropshippers want you to phone in the order, fax it in, call it in, email it in, or log into a back end system they have set up for you, and process the order that way.
- Your credit card, or bank account (whatever you have set up with the supplier) is charged for the order you just processed. Lets say that the order was for $500.00 on your website, and your cost of goods sold is $250.00, then the $250.00 is what you will be charged, and you are left with a $250.00 profit. It is ok that your card has been charged the $250.00, because remember you just got $500.00 deposited into your account when the order was placed on your website originally. My advice for this step, is to set up a business credit card that you can give your supplier for all orders you process. When you do this, you can just pay off your bills at the end of the month, and if you have set up a cash back credit card that pays you for every purchase you make (in money or airline miles) then you are benefiting from that as well!
- The order is processed by the supplier who takes care of the whole shipping process. Remember, when the order was placed the customer tells you what kind of shipping they want, and you relate that to the supplier when placing the order with them.
- Your supplier should be giving you a tracking number that you can email to your customer, or just keep for your information in case they ask for it.
- The order arrives.
- The customer is happy.
- You are happy with money in the bank!
There you have it. It really is not as complicated as some would have you think. These suppliers have done a pretty good job with making it easy on the people that are making them money! If you ever have any questions, the suppliers do not mind that you ask them. The more they can help you understand the process, the better you will do for them, and more money is made for everyone! If you are new to dropshipping, or The Shipper, we are offering a FREE 7 Day Trial to gain access to all of our products that you can sell online. Join Today!
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This is a step that most new to dropshipping miss altogether, so when I got asked this question I was pretty excited for the person asking it, because I knew they were brand new to dropshipping. The reason is its a big deal is you want repeat customers, you do not want to reveal the source of your product and risk being skipped altogether next time. If you are working with a legitimate dropshipper, like the ones found at The Shipper, then all you have to do is ask the dropshipper what steps need to be taken to get your packing material (literature etc) and your shipping labels on the boxes. Usually they have the capability to print them right there, and for an extra charge take care of the whole process for you. If they do not, (and you must ask them remember) then you really need to contact a printing place and have them make some shipping labels that you can then send to your supplier. Like I said, if they are a legitimate dropshipper, then you really do not need to worry about them accepting the labels. Most of them are 100% aware of how the whole process works, and will take care of you, IF YOU ASK THEM TO! If you do nothing, and ask nothing about the shipping labels, they probably will just use the ones they have already. That could be bad for repeat business for you. You want to make sure that the customer only knows about you, and the only reason they should ever find out about the manufacturer is if they have to send something back. I went through a horrible experience when I first got into dropshipping because of labels. My supplier was sending their catalog (and shipping labels with their address) with their prices (which of course were better then mine) with every order that I got. I was wondering forever why I was never getting return customers and more orders. I placed and order myself, and found out what the supplier was doing. They were basically telling my customers to buy from them next time! Needless to say, I dropped that supplier, found a new one, and that mistake has never been made again! Take the time, and spend the money it will take to get shipping labels with YOUR logo on it. It will save you money (and headaches) in the long run! A legitimate dropshipper will never hesitate to take care of you in the way I have described. The Shipper is offering a FREE 7 Day Trial of our dropshipping membership. Gain access to legitimate dropshippers today!
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When you are at the "adding product" stage of building your website these are a couple of questions that without a doubt will cross your path. One of the biggest mistakes dropship business owners make when adding products is just adding all the products without categories. The supplier usually has the best outline when it comes to categories. I would suggest just following what they have. If you feel the need to change a few of the category names around, feel free, but do your best to keep the same structure. Here is an example of how "not to" set up your categories: If you are selling electronics, and even more specifically - DVD players, if you add all of the DVD players under the main category of DVD players and forget to separate the DVD players into brands and then list them that way (DVD Players > Brand Name > Model Number) it could cause you problems down the road. You could even take it a step further and separate the DVD players into single and 5 disc categories too. It is very important to make it easy for people to shop. If you walk into a big electronics store, you will see how they have all the single disc dvd players in a certain section, then you will also see the 5 disc players (for example). My main suggestion for categorizing products would be "Product Type" > "Brand" > "Model" (DVD Players > Sony > DVC-500). If you are setting it up this way, it makes it easy for those that only like Sony brands, (or whatever brand) to find the exact product they are looking for. Most of the time this is the way the supplier has it layed out on their back end system. Just think of how you like shopping and what would be the easiest way for you to shop inside a store. The easier you can make the online shopping experience, the more sales you are likely to make.
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I actually received this question as a series of questions, so I will go ahead and show you the exact question that was asked. It is a great question, just to long to put in a title. What are the different ways to seal the deal with a dropshipper? - Do you fax in the paperwork, get from web site, or do you email them? How do different suppliers work with you from the start once you have found them?
Let me address each specific question: - What are the different ways to seal the deal with a dropshipper? Once you have found a supplier through The Shipper, you can contact them through any of the forms of contact we have provided for you. If you found a supplier that is not a part of our product sourcing database, then you want to follow whatever instructions they have on their website. If they have an online application to fill out, then fill it out completely. If they give phone numbers you can call and follow up as well. An of course you can always email them with any questions you have.
- Do you fax in the paperwork, get from web site, or do you email them? Yes, to all of the above in regards to suppliers listed in The Shipper. Each supplier will let you know exactly what they need from you. I would just call them up and ask them what you need to do to get started selling their products.
- How do different suppliers work with you from the start once you have found them? I think this question is a mix of the above two, but you really just need to give them all of the information they are asking for. Most of the legitimate dropshippers I have found online require an application. Once you have filled out the application (and are approved), they will give you access to their products, images, and pricing! That is where they fun starts for you with adding products!
Hopefully this gives you a better idea of where to go once you have found the supplier. The best advice I can give you is to simply talk to the supplier and ask them what they need from you. Tell them what you want, and they will tell you what they want. It really is that simple! If you are new to dropshipping and want to learn more about finding products to sell online, The Shipper is offering a free 7 Day trial membership to our product sourcing catalog.
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Most of the people I have had the pleasure of helping with online marketing tell me about the exact same frustrations (they have) when it comes to writing articles. First, they have no clue how to go about becoming a "writer", and second they have no real understanding of how writing articles can help when it comes to Internet marketing. I really want to share what I feel are the 5 most important tips for writing an article that will actually "do something for you". - Offer Something Unique - The easiest thing you can offer (with the most benefits) is unique is "unique content". If you are providing some information of value that people can learn and gain knowledge from, that content will get picked up by many other people. Having many people link to your article that is unique and full of good information builds up natural links which will help your SERP's (search engine ranking positions). Your article could eventually end up as "authority" article and send you loads of unique visitors and potential leads to your website each day!
- Use Varied Anchor Text In The Article - When you are writing the article I do not want you to be thinking of search engines and having to get an exact amount of links (or keywords) inside the content. You need to include the anchor text links inside the content where they are most appropriate. If you are really trying to be found for the word fixed assets, you need to use a variation of that word throughout the content that links to the page you are tyring to get ranked (fixed assets software, fixed assets accounting and so on - for example).
- Provide Some Link Bait - Titles are what makes people click on articles. If you do not have a catch title that makes people want to "click" you might as well not even try. If you are thinking to yourself; "I am selling pillows on my website, and pillows are boring, what on earth can be catchy about an article talking about pillows"? Think about it this way - "The Ugliest Pillow Contest", or "10 reasons why you may want to trade in your old pillow for a new one", or give memory foam pillows away (as done in the example if you follow the link)... Do you see the difference? If you do, you will benefit from even this tip alone!
- Create A Bio Section - After every article you write, you need to include a biography that tells the readers a little bit about yourself, and/or the products that you are offering/pitching. This is a great place to include links too, because if an article submission site picks up your article (or you want to submit to one) more then likely they are not going to allow outbound links inside the content, but only in the "signature" or "Bio" section.
- Make It Easy To Share - If you are familiar with Social Media Marketing (SMM) and Optimization of Social Media, then this will make perfect sense to you. If you are not, there are websites out there that share articles, and users "vote" on them. The ones that get the most "votes" always end up on the front page of those websites. Getting on the front page of those kind of websites could mean more traffic then your host knows how to deal with. A couple of the big social bookmarking, and article sharing sites are Digg, and Del.icio.us. These websites offer tools that make it easy for people to share your content with their community of users. You can include these tools right on your website to make it easy for people to share your content. Doing this will increase the people linking to your articles even more, and in the long scheme of things help out your SERP's.
Just writing articles alone is not going to get you the traffic you desire, but it is a great start that could help you see the potential. Also, just writing one article is not going to do much for you. You need to get in the habit of writing as many articles as you possibly can. It will improve the way the search engines crawl your site and increase your overall standings. If you are looking to get into a dropshipping business, The Shipper is offering a free 7 day trial of our product sourcing membership that allows you to sell products online. Join Today - Sell Today! **Update - I removed a comment earlier today talking about my bad punctuation. I have told everyone who reads this blog many times how bad it is. I am not a professional writer by any means, but I provide some pretty useful content, and that is what matters. The fact that the guy found me to leave such a negative useless comment shows that what I am saying works. So, thanks for that!
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This is another great question that I often get asked, but the first thing that comes to my mind every time is this - "What if you are selling a thousand products?" Ordering products from your supplier just to see what they are like, could get costly. I am not saying its a bad idea, but it is an expensive one that I think you could avoid by doing a few "simple" other things. With that said, I want to make it clear that I think its a great idea (even a must) to have a clear understanding of your product line no matter what before you start selling products online.
My first opinion is that it really depends on what product line you are selling. For some product lines, it may be easy (or cheap) to order just "a few" of the products and be able to get a pretty good idea of what the products are like. I do not think that will be the case for most product lines though, because what if you are selling furniture items that have an average of 700$? That's gonna add up, and quick! What you can do in those circumstances is simple - just research the product online through "review sites", or go and visit a store that is selling the same product you are, and "see what its like" right there, in store. It will be a lot cheaper in the long run and you have not wasted money on a product you do not want. I can't begin to tell you how many times I go into Sears or some other place and find the product I want, and make sure its what I want, and then I go online and find the best price. This is the power and beauty of the Internet.
However; there is even one more way you can look at it. If you really (really) want to order the product to test it out for your self, you can always re-sell it on eBay or Craigslist. Because you are ordering it from your supplier, you are getting the best deal out there, so you still will make some money even re-selling it. Any one of these suggestions I have given above would work to accomplish the goal, which is to get more educated about the products you are selling online. If you can accomplish that, then I think you have taken a great step forward to becoming an even more successful Internet business owner. If you are un-familiar with dropshipping, The Shipper is offering a FREE 7 day trial of our dropshipping directory list that gets you access to thousands of products to sell online. The Shipper can give you all the education and direction you need about what it takes to find the right suppliers for a dropshipping business.
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I get asked this question often enough that it's worth a re-post. I guess because I have been running dropshipping businesses for so long that some things become so second nature. I look back and wonder if I ever had questions about how many suppliers I should be working with at one time. I probably did, and I will probably be asked this question a hundred more times. Its ok, I will answer it that many more times too!
If you are one of the ones wondering how many suppliers you should be working with at one time let me clear things up for you - Work with as many suppliers as it takes for you to be successful at your business. If you find every single product that you are wanting to sell on your website with one supplier, and they have prices that are really good, (they have been doing business for a while and are established) then you may not have to look elsewhere. If you need to find multiple suppliers to sell all the products you are wanting to, then that is ok too. There really is not a wrong, or right number of suppliers to have in my opinion. Look at it this way - What happens if you are using (and only established relationship with one supplier) and that supplier goes under. Do you have a back up plan? This reason alone makes me want to have relationships with multiple suppliers. You just never know what the future holds. You want to make sure no matter what, you are able to fulfill orders that are placed on your website (without bumps). You do not want to risk losing an ounce of credibility with any customer. (remember they talk)
I think its good to have multiple suppliers so you can make sure you are always getting the best possible prices as well. Once you have been doing business online longer, you have more "weight" to push with your suppliers in making them give you a better deal. You can show them your rankings, your daily traffic statistics, and keywords that you are ranked for to help them know you are serious. If you have multiple suppliers to go back and forth with (showing them the info I just talked about), you will eventually win and find one that is willing to give you even lower prices. That means more profit for you! The number of suppliers is really not important (or even worth worrying about) as long as you have a back up plan. There is no law saying that you can't work with "X" amount of suppliers at any given time. If you ever come across a supplier that is trying to get you to work with them exclusively, I think you need to move on and find a better supplier (unless they can prove to you otherwise with years in business, and proof of the best possible prices for the products). I really don't think you will ever come across something like that working with the suppliers in The Shipper directory. Most suppliers realize that they do not have every single product you are wanting to sell and understand. Hope this info helps those with questions about working with multiple suppliers. If you are wanting to start a dropshipping business The Shipper is offering a FREE 7 day trial of our product sourcing membership - find and sell products online today!
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With all of the Harry Potter crazy-ness going on I wanted to share what we can learn from Harry Potter when it comes to a dropshipping business. If you go way back, and remember the first Harry Potter when the "wand chose Harry" you will find a lesson to be learned. You need to be the wand and chose the products to dropship that are right for you (and who you are). Ok, that may have been a little cheezy, but I am hoping you are getting the point! You can't rely on someone telling you what to sell online. It is your business, and you are the reason for its failure or success. I have helped enough people set up dropshipping businesses to see a trend when it comes to failure of dropshipping businesses. The main reason I see a dropship business fail is because the person that was running the business did not chose the right product. They were either told, or they sold something because "everyone else was making money on it". When you are not working in a industry that you are passionate about, you will not dedicate the time that is needed for success. I have learned this lesson from personal experience. I once started a site selling a certain electronic product because at the time everyone was doing it and seemed to be making money at it. I really had no clue about the product so I never was able to provide any decent information, and people just did not "buy" (in more then one way) what I was trying to give them on the site. I tried and tried, but after several failed save attempts, I finally realized I just was not into it. I needed to be into it, for true success. It is true that you can be passionate about making money but how to make money FOR REAL with a business is another story. I am very passionate about that indeed, so you need to find a product that makes you money, but you still need to find a product that you can get passionate about too. Eventually you will become a pro at selling products online and you might be able to venture into products that you are not familiar with, but when getting started you really need to stick with what you know, and be the wand and "chose the right business".
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The hardest part for new websites is building up the trust they need for success. I am talking about trust from other humans, as well as trust from the search engines that crawl them. How exactly do you go about getting trust though? Is it something you can buy? Can someone just give you trust? Silly to think of it that way I know, but trust is something that is gained over time. In life you gain trust from people you interact with, and online you build trust through the time that you have been online and the content that you are providing. There are tools to help you build trust in both respective areas. In life, if you want to know how to gain the trust of people, you can read books like "7 habits of highly effective people", "business at the speed of trust", or "good to great" (for example) - or you could get someone to help you with personal development I guess. If you want the trust of the search engines you need to make sure you have two things on your side, time and content. I don't need to tell you about building up links, because if you have content (or goods) that is worthy of linking to, your links will build up, and fast. I don't have a time machine, so I can't speed up time. I can remind you again how important content is, and the trust you get from it! (The only thing it takes is, well, you guessed it - TIME)
If you are providing something of value, people will read and search engines will want to crawl your site. For example, if you are selling electronics on your site, then make sure you dedicate a few pages comparing your products with the competition. Include things like user reviews, pricing, warranties etc. This is the kind of information that people like (it helps them make decisions). I have found that people get online to find information, and its the information that leads them to buy. So if you have a site that is just full of products to buy with no information, you will not have much success compared to the person providing all of the info! If you are looking to get started with a dropshipping business, The Shipper is offering a FREE 7 day trial of our product sourcing catalog that helps you sell products online. Join today, and start building up your trust!
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Just wanted to share a quick tip with everyone who is new to dropshipping (or business in general) about making sure they look for a business credit card that is a cash back credit card. When you are setting up your accounts with suppliers and you are asked for a credit card, you want to give them a credit card that will be earning you rewards like cash back, airline miles, hotel stays, free gas (and others). You need to make your businesses money work to your advantage. Let me give you a quick example of how I make the system work for me. I have a site selling products with a rather large price tag. I have set up a credit card that gives me airline miles every time I make a purchase. I am using this credit card with my supplier so every time an order is placed it is placed on that card and quickly paid off. The purchases are big which means I build up airline miles quickly. If I did not research out, and find a credit card that paid me back then I would have been missing out on all of that free travel. How would you like to take a trip to Hawaii for free? I have done it many times, and it is nice! I found a pretty amazing site (Plastic Rewards) that has done a lot of research for credit card rewards and everything they will do for your business, as well as personal uses. Check them out and find the credit card that is right for your business. Again, this is just a quick tip because I know that most dropshipping Internet business owners over look these kind of things with so much on their plate already. As always, remember if you are looking to start a dropshipping business then The Shipper is offering a free 7 day trial of our dropshipper directory.
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The other day I did a post about marketing budget(s)/time management and got so many emails (asking me) about how exactly it can be broke down, so I wanted to share with all! Try to take it with a day by day approach; Day 1, Day 2 etc., rather then on Monday I will do this, or Tuesday I will do that. I break it down into 5 days, and if one of the days is skipped I do not throw off my plan this way. At the very least you could break it down to 3 hours a day, 5 days aweek. That will give you 15 hours that you can easily accomplish a lot. I would work more hours in eventually, but most of the people reading this blog are working a full time job, AND setting up a dropshipping business. I want to help YOU. Here is how it would look: - Day 1 - Spend 3 hours a day adding product, images and content. This includes all re-writes of content, new photos and products.
- Day 2 - Spend 3 hours a day blogging. This includes writing your own blogs, and finding new ones related to your topic to befriend.
- Day 3 - Spend 3 hours a day working on nothing but Content. You will need content to post on other websites besides yours, content for articles, content for press and content for social media.
- Day 4 - Spend 3 hours a day working on Search Engine Marketing. This includes; Search Engine Optimization, Link Building, Social Media Optimization, Any kind of Brand Management and Search Marketing.
- Day 5 - Spend 3 hours a day maintaining the business. You will need time for financial aspects as well as general business running tasks that need to be completed weekly.
Of course, you will need to take time to fulfill orders, handle customer service issues, and anything else of that nature during the normal days as well! If you see where I am going with this, you can add to the days, list and hours. You will need to modify it, but this is the model that I used when first starting out. It seemed to help me manage my time better and accomplish 100 times more then I had in past. Remember The Shipper is offering a 7 day FREE Trial membership of our dropshipping catalog.
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Ok, you are not really an idiot, but I needed to make a strong case about how I feel about this subject. Did it work? One of the main reasons The Shipper was started was to help people find legitimate dropshippers, and avoid wasting money with any and all of the idiot scam artists (that call them self "product sources") that are online! Here is my very first rule of thumb, and its a pretty simple one - If you can walk into your local Wal-Mart and find a product cheaper there, then your supplier is WASTING your time and my advice is to - RUN!! ALSO, something else to look out for - If you are working with a supplier that is selling their own products
online, and not just distributing them to dropshippers like yourself,
errrg.... there may be a problem. Who do you think is always going to
win the price war? As they say in the Monopoly game, do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars! Just run the other way and leave them like a bad habit. You may have spent a long time to find a supplier with a specific product that was willing to work with you, and you don't want to let them go. I can understand that, but there are other suppliers out there, trust me, lots of others! In fact, better ones, that will give you better prices so you can actually have a profitable home based business. Here is something to think about; How good will the supplier seem to you in 6 months because you have not made one sale because your prices are to high? Most of these types of suppliers nail you with an application fee that is pretty stiff because they know you are never going to make them money. They have to try and make money somehow I guess. Do your best to avoid "so called" dropshipping companies like these, and when you are ready to learn how to find legitimate dropshippers, The Shipper is offering a Free 7 day trial of our product sourcing membership.
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There is, and always will be a lot of debate over directory submissions being a good or a bad thing for search engine optimization (SEO). Does a directory listing do anything for me, or not? There are so many worthless directories out there that I will never waste my time with and I am adding DMOZ to that list.&n | |