If you look through the archives of our blog, there are many mentions to the word niche and finding your niche market. So, what exactly is a niche? According to the dictionary one of the meanings of the word niche means a distinct segment of a market. When figuring out what you want to sell online, you want to find something that fits a certain niche. Your niche will allow you to zero in on a certain audience / market of people and instead of being a generalist, you become a specialist in your products.

Deciding Your Wholesale / Dropship Niche

1. Find Products You Are Passionate About

This will help you the most in your search to finding a niche. What kind of things are you interested in? Do you like things that involve the outdoors, indoors, crafts, do-it-yourself projects, lights, frames, customized clothing, or in the case of our picture, vinyl family car stickers? It’s important to first figure out what things you like and are interested in because once you have that down, you’re going to be able to commit the time and effort it takes to create a website and build up your business because you’re actually interested in what you’re doing.

2. Find Products You Know Something About

When your customers write to you asking about the products you’re selling, you’re going to want to have a little more in-depth knowledge of the products than the average consumer. Think about what kind of skills you have or hobbies you enjoy doing and what kind of materials are used to do those hobbies or what kind of materials can come out from those activities. If there’s a product or niche you’re really passionate about but you don’t really know much about it – expert knowledge – then do the research before you get into promoting those products, or promote others while figuring that product out. For example, if you wanted to do high fashion makeup – bright colors, thick pigments, etc. – but want to also get into the mineral makeup lines, you might want to just stick to what you know – the high-fashion products, but sell the mineral while you learn about it.

3. Make Sure Your Products Have a Market

Sometimes you could have an absolute passion for something, but not everything is perfect for the online marketplace. You need to do your research to find if there’s even a niche market for your products. You need to find out a couple things before deciding to base your whole business around the particular products you have chosen. In the case of our picture, I know that the family vinyl car sticker has a demand due to the large families in this area, and not a lot of places sell vinyl products with customizable family members on them. So, ask yourself these questions:

Is There A Demand For It?

If you choose a product that every store is selling, it might be too general to stand out from the crowd. For example, if you wanted to sell only camping equipment, someone would go to google and type that very phrase in and come up with about 9,330,000 results. If you have something a little more specific though like eco-friendly camping equipment, the results go down to about 261,000 results. You might want to ask your friends if you started selling a certain item if they would be interested in it, or if it will sink under the big chain stores who sell the same products. For example, if you wanted to sell soaps and shampoos and things like that, you would have to compete with Bed, Bath, and Beyond, Bath & Body Works, The Body Shop, just to name a few. However, if you sold custom soap molds, you wouldn’t really have to worry about those big name chain stores.

What Are People Typing In For My Products?

There are websites out there like wordtracker.com that will show you what people are typing in most often for your products. You also could look at eBay Pulse which will not only show what products are selling the most from each category but what people are typing in most often. Knowing this kind of information can show you how to create search engine optimization – SEO – when you begin to build your website.

Product Ideas, Uncategorized, dropshipping, make money online, online business, product research, selling products online, wholesale

As an eBay powerseller, I thought it was interesting when I logged in to my account the other day the information that eBay wanted to share with me. Usually, eBay has messages for sellers regarding things they’re promoting, what they plan on doing, and the like. The message this time however, was about updating their system for the holiday rush. As online retailers know, around September to January is the busiest time of the year due to the holiday season. One might think that September would be too early to even think about holidays like Christmas – I myself won’t listen to Christmas music until the second week of December -but it’s never too early to get your website in top condition for the holiday rush.

Preparing For The Holiday Rush

1. Give Customers Incentives

Previously, we have gone over the benefits of incentives for customers and what it means for your business. With the holiday rush, there’s going to be people shopping online for things that might not necessarily be frequent online shoppers. During the holiday season when everyone is holding some sort of a promotion, try not to miss that opportunity. If a customer comes to your site and finds a sweater they want to buy, and then find a similar sweater on another site for about the same price, which will they choose? Your site that didn’t do any promotion like free shipping, or the site that is offering free shipping. Depending on some other factors of course, people will go for the free shipping.

One of the new things eBay is implementing is free listing starting on September 20th for items like iPod / MP3 players, global positioning device systems (GPS), and DVDs, HD DVDs & Blu-ray. As long as you are selling in those particular categories (popular items during the holidays) eBay will waive your listing fees, which, if you’re selling a lot of items, could really amount to something.

Note: I’m not completely positive if these kind of promotions are solely for Power Sellers or if they are available to all eBay sellers. But for your own website purposes, these examples still apply.

2. Keep Your Listings Up-To-Date

Another feature that eBay is implementing is the ability to edit more items in bulk. They’re adding things like find and replace options, and even the ability to change shipping costs for several items at a time. Not only is this ability going to help you keep on top of the price game against competitors, but it will make editing a lot more effective and simple. In reference to your website, it’s important to always have the most current information listed – if that includes the price of the item, the shipping prices – sometimes you might want to hold a promotional for a flat rate for your items – and most importantly the availability of your items. No one wants to buy something for Christmas, just to have it showing up on their doorstep when you’re putting away your stockings two weeks later.

3. Keep A Good Amount In Your Inventory

If you have a great customer base or your advertising skills get people coming to your site and buying your products like hot cakes, make sure to not get behind on the game. The third interesting thing that eBay is starting – this one actually in August – is the Unpaid Item Assistant. As an eBay Power Seller, nothing is more frustrating than having someone win an auction and not pay for their item. It’s a pain to have to report, relist, and do the whole process over again with your item that the second place person wanted and was willing to pay for it. With the new Unpaid Item Assistant if sellers don’t pay within 16 days – still a long period to pay – then the item is automatically relisted. You can change the amount of time people have to pay, my specific policy is only 24 hours, but we do usually keep it under 3 days if possible, and you can add exceptions if the buyer contacts you.

With your own inventory, if you have an item that’s selling out, make sure to get maybe a little more from your wholesaler or keep your dropshipper close during the holiday months. It would be awful to not get the revenue that your company can build because you didn’t plan enough extra items. But also remember that while buying something wholesale, you really don’t know how much people are going to love it so don’t buy a lot of one thing, just to find out your customers want something else.

Education, dropshipping, eBay, online business, selling products online

In previous blog entries, we have gone over the importance of having a niche when starting out your dropshipping or wholesale business. With a niche you’re able to specialize instead of having a lot of random items that you might have some general knowledge and interest in, but no real in-depth knowledge. One of the most common questions I receive is “how to I find my niche market? How do I know what is going to sell and what people are interested in right now?” Today, I’m going to try to address these questions as much as possible to give you the keys you need to continue to update and grow your business.

Finding What Products Are Hot

1. EBay Pulse

I know that not everyone is going to be selling on eBay, but this is a good place to start out. They have picked out the most popular items sold on eBay and listed them on the front of their eBay pulse, as well as each top trending item by category. For example, if you’re just curious what most people are interested in today, you will see that the most popular searches are:

1. ipod touch

2. cricut cartridge

3. iphone

4. ipod

5. coach

6. laptop

7. xbox 360

8. wii

9. coach handbags

10. lot

Now, you can see that some of the searches are very similar which is why it’s important that if you do list things on eBay to make your headlines effective, but that’s another topic, which you can click on to view. Imagine that since you saw this list and know that people are interested in Coach purses that’s what you want to dropship or sell wholesale. However, remember that not everything is available dropship or wholesale – usually top name things like Apple and Coach fall into that category. If you were interested in selling baby products, you could click the drop down category to baby and find that the popular searches for today are:

1. baby clothes

2. formula coupon

3. baby

4. clothes

5. shoes

6. stroller

7. baby boy clothes

8. baby girl clothes

9. diaper bag

10. custom wall letters

These kind of items are really easy to find dropshipper or wholesale providers for. Even the last search, custom wall letters might not have been something you originally planned on including in your inventory, but since they’re so popular it might be a good idea to look into it. If you have a couple niches you’re looking into, check out the categories and go from there.

2. RSS Feeds and Mailing Lists

Do you have a particular website that has news RSS (really simple syndication) feeds? If there’s a news website you like, or a store that you’re trying to get ideas from, then subscribe to their RSS feeds and/or their newsletters. People send out the hottest trends and ideas via those avenues, so if you have access to them, it could spark some more ideas for you.

3. Check out the world

If you’re at the doctor’s office, grocery store, or really anywhere that has people / media, check out what they’re writing about, wearing, saying, or holding. Try to notice what kind of people are holding or using the kind of products you’re trying to sell online, and what you can do to match that audience.

Product Ideas, dropshipping, eBay, product research, selling products online, wholesale

With growing technology, people are able to view items, buy items, or simply research products through various mediums. For example, not only does e-commerce entail people simply on the computer browsing for things, but also the people on their cellphones, PDAs, etc. With the changing dynamic and growing expectations for companies who operate with the Internet, business owners have to know how to keep their business at the top of the game. Here are some tips to keep those customers and utilize the people on different operating systems aside from computers, and how to give your company an edge.

Adapting To The Commerce Everywhere Consumer

Find A Niche

We’ve reiterated this message in plenty of blogs, but it really is that important that I think it’s necessary to repeat it. To give you some ideas on what you can use for your niche market, check out our blog post, How To Brainstorm Products You Can Dropship For Profit. Niche markets will give you the edge because you will know the ins and outs of your product.

Improve Usability / Add Features

I offered some advice on what you should add for your retail site, but those tips can be broadened for any website. If we’re simply talking categories, things like sizing charts, features lists, color swatches (possibly even an idea of getting a picture of the fabric used so people can see the real color, or trying to simply find a color online that matches what the fabric looks like) are a good idea. Other aspects, like multi-media (video and images), and cross-sell and up-sell options, as well as customer reviews, ratings on products, are all good things to add to your site to make your customer’s experience the most effective. The more dynamic your website is, allowing customers to customize their searches to find the exact products you’re looking for, is a sure-fire way to have people not feel frazzled coming to your site or simply get tired of having to dig through your products to find what they want.

Making Things 100% Right 100% Of The Time

It only takes one bad experience for a customer to either drop your brand, question using your website, or simply just disappear. It’s important to have your products information correct 100% of the time. As a buyer on amazon.com, I always check to see why people leave sellers negative comments. One of the most common ones I notice is that they posted something as being available, when in reality, it was sold out. No customer wants to get excited about getting a product at a great price just to find out it’s not really there after they paid for it.

Check Out Product Content Managers

PCM is something that basically makes it certain that you do not have erroneous information with your products. Not only will it get the most accurate information about your product, but it will grab all the customer reviews about the product to add as well. PCM covers things like creation, aggregation, categorization, staging, publication and syndication to the assignment of attributes such as category, price and promotion eligibility, as well as integrates things like reviews, videos, etc. about products as well. These are the kind of things that are becoming a key feature in making your products accessible from various channels.

Uncategorized, dropshipping, eBay, home based business, make money online, online business, selling products online

Recently, one of my latest projects has been to find a dark pink dress. I just want a dress that hits the knee, isn’t too exposed, and is at a reasonable price. After hours of searching through site after site online, I have distinguished between the sites that I’m happy to look through because I can find exactly what I’m looking for, and the ones that I almost immediately click off of because of their disorganization.

The one thing that I notice most between the two different types of sites is the option of search categories. When it comes to searching, your customers want to be able to type in what they want, and have the results appear. Sometimes, in the case of my dark pink dress, I might want just want to see what selection they have of pink dresses. Having categories or more search options when your customers come to your website will not only help them feel happier because they’re finding what they want, it will deter them from jumping off your site and encourage sales. Today I’m going to focus on how to make your retail wholesale or dropship website the most effective for your customers.

Creating More Search Options For Your Dropship & Wholesale Website

1. Distinguish between genders and ages

One of the first things your customer should be able to do is separate your inventory based on gender and age. Sometimes, sites will only separate between genders, which can cause a problem. If you have a variety of clothing you are trying to sell, from ages 18-60, you will need to distinguish between the age differences. As someone who was born after the movie The Breakfast Club came out, I’m not necessarily going to be wearing the same kind of things things that people born twenty or thirty years before me would wear. If you have enough inventory to do so, the most common categorization is mens, womens, and juniors. Juniors could range from anything someone would wear between the ages of 16-30, and could be included in a “size” category under womens  if you prefer.

2. Styles

In the case of dresses especially, it’s important to try to distinguish between different styles. There’s dresses you could wear to a nice dinner, a day at the beach, and just out running errands. Having the different styles of clothing put into their own categories can help people find specifically what they’re looking for. Don’t forget to always have a view all tab just in case someone wants to, in this case buy a dress, but doesn’t know what kind of dress they’re looking exactly. The same concept can be applied to almost any kind of clothing. Sweaters or shirts can be categorized into the kind of sleeves they have, what kind of material they’re made out of, what kind of sweater they are – pull over, cardigan, etc. – the possibilities are numerous.

3. Colors

This is where you might essentially keep a customer that would otherwise not be interested in scouring through your merchandise.  Try to include along with your other categories of searching, a way for customers to pick what color they’re looking for. Simply having a standard rainbow palet (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple) along with other popular colors like white, black, pink, gray, and browns, can allow your customer to look through your products and find what they like because of the color. In the case of the dark pink dress I’m trying to find, I am relieved when I find a website that will allow me to search by colors so I won’t have to through fifty other dresses that I can’t order in dark pink.

4. Sizes

When you go to a department store looking for a new piece of clothing to buy, you’re usually not going to want to spend time looking in the section that is six sizes too big or three sizes too small. Some online retail stores allow their customers to search for items depending on the size that’s available. Although, the downside of searching by size could mean that a customer might not find what they’re looking for because the piece of clothing they wanted is simply out of stock in that size. It’s important to always have your inventory lists updated so that customers know exactly what they can, and cannot, purchase at that very moment.

5. Prices

Prices would be an appropriate search category if whatever you’re selling has a broad range of prices. In the case of shirts, most are going to be roughly around the same price. You might have a collection of shirts that are under $10 for example which could constitite having its own link to let customers know you have those inexpensive items. In the case of the dress I’m trying to find, dresses can range anywhere from $15 to $300 dollars. Personally, for the kind of dress I’m looking for, I’m simply not interested in anything over $100. When you have merchandise that has a clear range of prices, you could add search options like items under $50, items under $100, under $150, $200, whatever you think would have enough products in each category. You wouldn’t want to click on “items under $50″ to only find one product listed. Make sure to at least have five items or more available under each of your categories. It’s better to have categories that cover more products that say ten categories for dresses under $10, $20, $30, $40, and $50. The one tab of under $50 would cover all of that.

Overall, a good idea to see what kind of search options are available is to visit websites for major retail stores like Nordstroms, JCPenney, Macys, or other retail locations to see what they’re doing for their products.

Customer Service, Uncategorized, dropshipping, online business, selling products online, website design / help

In yesterday’s post, we went over how a blog could benefit your business, and today we’re going to touch the design and details of your blog that will make it the most effective at the goal you’re trying to achieve. There are only a couple of things to worry about because with templates and a mired of choices nowadays, it’s hard to address every single aspect of a blog, so here are some key points.

Starting & Designing Your Dropship Blog

1. Pick A Domain Name

The very first thing you will do when you sign up for your blog is create a domain name. The same kind of tips apply to creating a blog domain name as creating a website domain name. You want to keep it short, relevant, easy to remember, and avoid any trademarks. Let’s think of an example: if your website is devoted to selling fancy aprons and your storefront is named Adorable Aprons, you could try to see if that name was available, or adorableapronsblog – something that will have connection to your storefront. If you picked something completely different than your business name, people might be confused at how the two are connected. Keep in mind that if your first choice domain name is taken, you shouldn’t simply alter the spelling of the name to make it work, like making it adorablapronz. Not only does that look unprofessional, your customers aren’t going to make it to your blog because most likely they will forget you dropped the e and added a z.

Making a website name easy to remember doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be the most bare minimum thing you could write in the domain name to make it applicable. You could get away with having a slightly larger name by putting blog at the end of it, but it goes back to things like numbers, spellings, sometimes dashes, etc. that make it difficult to remember.

2. Keep It Clean

As you can see on our blog, we like to keep things nice and organized with headers. When people scan the website page they’re on, bigger font is going to catch their eye a lot faster than smaller font is. By using headers with key words, like thesis sentences, people who might not have a lot of time to spend on your blog can read the information they want and keep on going. It’s always a good practice to remember not to write novels in your blog posts. Think of these entries more like a newspaper article than like one of those essays you had to write in school.

When it comes to all your sidebars, footers, and anything else surrounding your information, make sure they too are nice and clean. You don’t want to have huge icons, banners (unless it’s your headline icon), moving clipart, and other things that could distract your customers from the information in the middle. It’s always good to check their font weight (boldness, font, and size) against your text to make sure it doesn’t overpower your blog entries. Your customers should be able to easily see what you’re writing and not have to dig through your sidebars that managed to steal the limelight.

3.  Add some gadgets

If you take a look at our blog on the right hand side, one of the first “gadgets” you can see is the location where you can join our blog via e-mail. This is a really nice item to include so your customers can get all the information they’re looking for without having to check your blog once a day individually. Another good idea is to add RSS (really simple syndication) feeds in appropriate locations to other blogs or news stories that could interest your readers, and show how connected you are with the subject you’re writing about. For example, if you have a computer store, you might have a RSS feed to technology news from the New York Times if it’s applicable to what you’re trying to sell. It wouldn’t hurt to include a link to your Facebook site, which you notice is right under our subscription area, and it shows actual pictures of real people so people can see how many people are actually interested in your blog, so they don’t feel like a lone ranger. Try to keep from adding gadgets that are pointless to your site – always have a professional mindset.

Uncategorized, dropshipping, internet marketing, make money online, online business

Once you get your e-tail dropship business up and running, there are many things you can do to get people to your website. We’ve gone over social media marketing in the last few posts, and have reviewed how to get your niche audience into your website to look at your products. The next step after you get your potential customers into your website is to make them feel comfortable enough to buy your merchandise. How many times have you gone online to buy something, click on a website, and it just looks so sketchy that you don’t feel comfortable enough writing in your credit card number that you ditch your online shopping cart, and never look at it again. Studies have shown that about 60% of all online shopping carts are abandoned, so let’s check out how to keep that number down on your website.

How To Avoid Abandoned Carts On Your Dropship Website

1. Customer Reviews

Whenever I am deciding on trying out a new product, I always always always look for reviews on things. I just got a new digital camera as a gift from my parents. I tried it out, didn’t like how slow it was, so the first thing I did was to check the reviews on it. Sure enough people said that a definite con of this particular camera was that it was too slow for someone who knows intricacies of cameras like I do. If I see an interesting commercial for something, saw something in the store, or just want to see what people think about something I check out the reviews. This is more often the case when people are putting in a small investment into the product. For example, a digital camera isn’t exactly inexpensive. I didn’t want to spend a couple hundred dollars on something just to find out that it’s definitely not want I wanted.

Adding reviews to your products not only will help customers be more excited or apt to purchasing it, it also gets customers involved with your store and keeps them coming back. People like to be heard and love to see when others comment on the same thing they did. It also can help with your inventory control – if you decide to dropship a certain item on your website, and you find out that people don’t even like the product, it might be a good time to reconsider offering it. The same can go for the other side – if someone loves something, and I see that comment, it puts more confidence in myself to try the product out as well. This helps with getting the items in the cart in the first place.

Another aspect of customer reviews are testimonials on your website. Make sure that they’re visible to see for people, but aren’t obnoxiously loud that your customer’s don’t believe their authenticity. If your customer knows that they’re not the first person to buy from your website, it’s a good idea. No one wants to feel like the guinea pig. It’s always best if the person lists their name and where they’re from – it could show diversity with your website and it might sway someone from that particular area to keep looking around your site. A good way to get testimonials is to send a thank you e-mail to your customers and offer some sort of incentive if they write a testimonial, or a feedback, with their purchase. This could also just be something available for them to write on your website in a form and you can give a discount to whoever you decide to post on the site like 10% off their next order – there’s plenty of options, but we’ll look into that another day.

2. Easy Checkouts

Something that I really dislike when buying products online is a fifteen page checkout process. It’s best to make things clear and easy to understand, but put it in enough pages so that your customer doesn’t feel like they’re taking a fifteen page survey just to checkout their products. You want it to be clear where they should enter their information, a place for promotions, costs, and a list of what they’re buying all in about four pages or less. With Amazon.com you can either do one click shopping which will show everything you need to checkout on one page – which was ideal for textbooks during college, or you can go through a three page system: shipping and payment, gift-wrap, and place order.

3. Make Them Feel Safe and Secure

Another way to keep from accumulating abandoned shopping carts is to make the customer feel like their information is going to be secure. There’s nothing worse than having a customer with a full shopping cart ditch out at the last minute because they don’t feel like their personal information is safe. With identity theft on the rise and credit card numbers being stolen, it’s understandable why people are especially careful now with their information than ever before. They’re not just going to tell you their name, where they live, and give you access to the money in their bank account without feeling that it won’t be misused. Putting in things like 30 day money back guarantee, full warranty, and listing privacy policies and practices at the bottom of the page so that they can review how exactly you’re going to use their information. Keeping your customer’s happy and feeling secure is always the key.

dropshipping, make money online, online business, selling products online

If you have a product that you would like to sell online, you may be wondering if dropshipping is the right product-sourcing option for you.  Let’s say that you want to sell chemistry sets.  Should you use a dropship supplier or purchase your products wholesale?

Questions to determine whether dropshipping is the best option for your product:

1. Is my product available through a dropshipper?

Not all products can be purchased through dropshippers.  For instance, Apple does not dropship, so you will never be able to dropship iPads and MacBooks.  By contrast, chemistry sets are an excellent product to dropship because they are often manufactured by small companies that are willing to sell directly to the retailer and willing to experiment with their method of product sourcing.

2. Would my product be difficult to stock?

Some products are easy to purchase wholesale, store at your house, then package and ship yourself.  Chemistry sets would be an easy product to stock yourself, so they are amenable to wholesale purchase.  Products you would not want to stock include anything extremely bulky and anything that comes in such a variety of sizes and styles that your stock would have to be enormous.  Shoes are an example of a product you would not want to buy wholesale.  You would have to stock so many sizes and styles of shoes that your entire house would be overrun.

3. Is my product likely to be returned?

Returns can be difficult when dropshipping.  Sometimes the drosphipper requires the product be returned to you, then forwarded along.  Other times the customer realizes they are returning the product to a different company than they purchased from, and are perturbed.  If your product runs a high risk of returns (aka swimsuits), drosphipping might not be your best option.  Chemistry sets are unlikely to be returned, so they are good option for dropshipping.

4. Does my product line require me to use multiple suppliers?

There is nothing wrong with using more than one dropship supplier, but it does occasion some difficulties in shipping.  For instance, imagine a customer logs onto your website and purchases a chemistry set, a board game, and a study kit, all from different suppliers.  Because these products are from different suppliers, your customer’s package cannot be amalgamated to lower shipping costs.  Your customer will also receive three different shipments from three different locations, a dead giveaway that the products were mailed by dropshippers.

You may prefer to purchase wholesale if your product line requires multiple suppliers.  However, if your product line consists of only one product, or a small variety of products that a single dropshipper can supply, you won’t have any difficulties with shipping.

Remember:

These questions are just a basic guide to determine whether your potential product can easily be dropshipped.  There may be instances where you can circumvent these issues, i.e. you may find an excellent dropshipper for refurbished iPods.  The point here is that not all products are suited for dropshipping, so you may have to deviate from your initial product idea or alter your method of product sourcing to make your business work.

dropshipping, selling products online, wholesale

So you want to start a business selling products online.  How will you find suppliers for those products?  What type of supplier will you use?  You’ve probably heard of a product sourcing method called dropshipping.  Could a dropshipper be the best type of supplier for your online business?

What is a dropshipper?

A dropshipper allows you to sell their products online, whether on eBay, Amazon, or your own website.  When you make a sale, you order the product from the dropshipper and they ship the item directly to your customer.

What are the positives and negatives of dropshipping?

Like any product sourcing method, there are pluses and minuses to using a dropshipper.

Positives of using a dropshipper to sell products online:

1. No large initial investment is required

2. There is no need to store inventory

3. Packing and shipping is handled by the dropshipper

4. There is no risk of getting stuck with a bunch of left-over products that won’t sell

5. You have the flexibility to add or remove products from your catalog whenever you like

Negatives of using a dropshipper to sell products online:

1. Not all products are available through dropshippers

2. Your profit margins may be somewhat smaller

3. You have less control over how your products are packaged and shipped

4. It is difficult to ensure quality control

5. It can be difficult to run certain types of promotions, like enclosed coupons / flyers or free shipping

6. If you use multiple dropship suppliers, your customer may receive multiple packages from different sources

Conclusion:

I often recommend using a dropship supplier if you are just starting out in e-commerce.  Dropshipping allows you to experiment with different products and sales venues without carrying any inventory.  You can also get started with less capital.

Once you’ve confirmed which products will be the most successful and built a steady business base, you might want to switch to purchasing wholesale to get the best prices on your stock.  Purchasing wholesale will also increase your flexibility in packing, shipping, and marketing.

dropshipping, wholesale

Mark Vadon, creator of Blue Nile, has just launched his next big e-commerce venture.  Zulily is a private shopping site for baby gear, similar to other membership-only sites like Gilt.  Mark Vadon’s new enterprise is yet another indication that private shopping sites are destined to be the next big trend in e-tail.

The benefits of running a private shopping site are obvious:

1. Having customers sign up to become members allows you to gather personal information you can then use in marketing campaigns.

Zulily collects the gender and age of the customer’s baby, so emails can be sent promoting appropriate merchandise.

2. Private sites create an illusion of cache and exclusivity

Even though anyone can become a member of sites like Gilt, the image is still one of glitz and glamor.

3. Private shopping sites operate on a business model perfectly suited to dropshipping

Because featured brands change regularly, you can dropship liquidation and clearance items, the format in which big brands are most often obtainable, without your customers becoming vexed about the constant change in inventory.

As Mark Vadon relates in his Forbes interview, consumers are not interested in choosing between luxury and value: they want both.  A private shopping site offers big brand names and an image of exclusivity alongside discount prices.  It’s a twist on dropshipping that any e-commerce entrepreneur would be wise to investigate.

dropshipping, news, selling products online