photo credit: Cliff Beckwith

Here at Wholesale Match we are dedicated to providing our customers with the absolute best service.  Besides our comprehensive database of dropshippers and wholesalers, we offer individualized attention, including doing the research for our members, providing educational materials, and having a customer service team on hand to answer any and all questions via phone, email, or livechat.  We will do whatever it takes to help our members be successful.  Because we have a 100% money-back guarantee for our services, it’s really in our own best interest   The following are testimonials from Wholesale Match members we have found quality dropshippers and wholesalers for, and otherwise helped them get their online businesses up and running.  (For privacy reasons I have omitted last names.)

“Hello, a big thanks!  Every request I sent was promptly replied to.  I am very happy with your services, the choice of suppliers, etc. Bravo!”
-Nadine S.

“Hi,
“Wholesale Match sent me 5 possible dropshippers for products I was looking for…They have lots of products that match what I was looking for.  I sold one of the products just days afterwards.  Thanks.”
-Judy D.

“I always dreamed of finding suppliers online who would be above board and those who won’t strike fear into your heart when considering using them.  Wholesale Match was the friend in time of need who provided the right suppliers at the right time.  Now I am on my way in my business, working with suppliers who are great to say the least.  Thank you Wholesale Match!  You saved the day!”
-David A.

“Hi, I just launched my website last week.  Thanks to Wholesale Match I found a great supplier that I think will work out beautifully.  Your support group was very helpful during my research for a supplier and pointed me in the right direction.  Thanks for all your support.”
-Barbara S.

“Wholesale Match is great!!!  I am new at starting an online business and found Wholesale Match.  It was the best thing I could have found!!!  Just about anything you can think of they have the leads you need and the tech support is fantastic.  From simple questions to confusing information they figure it out.  What a great team to work with!!! I’m now on my way to making a living at this.  Thank you Wholesale Match!!!”
-Deborah B.

“I’m just beginning the journey of starting an internet business.  Wholesale Match has been a tremendous help.  I called today and talked to the kindest lady who took time with me as a beginner and encouraged me along the way after a very discouraging day.  I’m so happy to know there is someone to contact with my most basic questions to get me over the hump and on my way.  She encouraged me to take advantage of your services and make my questions and requests known.  She also encouraged me to call when I need extra help.  It was very positive as I struggle to grow and learn.  Thank you.”

-Sandy K.

photo credit: Muneef Hameed

Yes, we’re tooting our own horn a little re-printing these positive comments.  But the reason is that we have a genuine desire to help our members be successful.  We want every online entrepreneur’s experience to be like the ones above.  We know we have great suppliers, great educational materials, and fantastic customer service and research teams.  If you are not currently a member, or are not taking advantage of the full range of Wholesale Match’s services, I urge you to do so.  Your success is our goal.

dropshipping, finding suppliers, make money online, online business

A properly designed website is like a Venus Flytrap: sleek, efficient, intoxicating (to its target audience at least), and able to snag its victim in the blink of an eye.  Website design is crucial because if your site doesn’t appeal to your visitor, they’re not going to stick around long enough to find the smokin’ deal you’re offering on organic diapers, or the oh-so-witty-and-informative article you posted on jumping stilts.  The following are some crucial website design tips that are unfortunately overlooked by many an amateur online entrepreneur:

photo credit: Sam Catchesides

Tip #1: Always format your website so it can be properly viewed on common browsers (Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera, etc.).  There’s no way visitors are going to download a new browser just to view your dropshipping website.

Tip #2: Make sure your site can be viewed at any resolution: use stretch layouts that fit any screen resolution so all your visitors can see your website as it was meant to be seen.

Tip #3: Ensure that your website loads quickly: preferably five seconds or less.  Minimizing graphics, flash, and scripts, removing unwanted tags and unused scripts, and using SSI (Server Side Include) files wherever possible can help decrease load times.

Tip #4: Never put an “Under Construction” notice on any of your pages. You are going to be continually adding fresh content, products, links, etc. to your dropshipping website.  Posting “Under Construction” is like broadcasting that your site isn’t ready yet, and implies there is nothing of value to be found there currently.  Many sites remain “under construction” for months, years, or forever, so visitors are unlikely to check back in the future.  Finally, search engines like Yahoo will reject your site if any pages have “Under Construction” posted on them.

Tip #5: Choose a theme. Bold, bright, simple graphics are the most pleasing to the largest amount of people.  They’re impactive without being overwhelming and they’re not so taste-specific that they turn off half your visitors.  Choose a color and graphic theme, then use it on each of your webpages.  This will give your website continuity and reinforce the message of your color/graphic choices.  The colors and images on computer screens are large and brilliant: a little goes a long way.  One impressive image, a few tabs, and a couple paragraphs of text are usually sufficient for the homepage.  Subsequent pages need not be much more complex.  Clean, white space is actually a good thing.

Tip #6: Keep your text simple. Plainer fonts like Arial, Times New Roman, Calibri, and Verdana are easier to read and provide the simple, professional appearance you are trying to achieve.  Further, a visitor has to have a font loaded in their system in order to see it properly, so if you use something really obscure people may not even be able to view it.

Tip #7: Don’t assault visitors with background music. Like animation, background music makes your site load more slowly and is annoying and unnecessary to many (dare I say most) people.  I often surf the internet while talking on Skype through my headset: when I click on a site that blasts music into my earphones drowning out my call, I am less than happy, and navigate away from that site immediately.  It’s even more annoying when the audio is some kind of sales pitch.  Many of your visitors will find your site while at work, talking on the phone, surfing with their speakers turned up, etc., where unexpected sound will be very unwelcome.  For an example of what I’m talking about, eat seven Krispy Kremes and then in a fit of remorse look up the Flirty Girl Fitness website where you will be subjected to cheesy pink noise, an extended intro, and the atrocity listed below:

Tip #8: Never use a “navigate away” box for a last minute pitch. Pop up boxes of any kind are Satan’s leprechauns and should be outlawed.  A box that pops up when I try to navigate away from a website shouting “Are you sure you want to leave this site?  We have an amazing offer for you!” will never, ever prevent me moving on.  In fact, I can’t imagine anyone who would be swayed by that.  It’s just obnoxious, and sounds like a desperate huckster in a Moroccon bazaar.

photo credit: cattardbezzina

These are primarily aesthetic and function tips.  As I’ve stated in other blogs, the real efficacy of your dropshipping website lies in its VALUE to the customer.  What are they getting when they visit your site?  Great deals?  Hard to find products?  Tips and advice?  Educational materials?  A belly laugh?  Community?  You have to give something in order to get something (sales and/or traffic that will make ads and affiliate links profitable).  Know what you’re giving as well as what you’re selling.

dropshipping, online business, website design / help

You need ideas for products you can sell online for gadzillions of dollars in profit.  I get a bizarre pleasure out of making lists.  Thus was born the third installment of Products You Can Sell Online For A Profit.  The following are products that we here at Wholesale Match have many, many dropship and wholesale suppliers for.  As always, these products need appropriate targeting and marketing in order to be successful: nothing is guaranteed.

photo credit: Bill Hails

Product Ideas:

African products
Baby Boomer products
BBQ sets and marinades
Beer-themed products
Cake decorating supplies and equipment
Children’s dress-up clothes (costumes)
Chocolate-dipped fruit
Christmas ornaments and wreaths
Collegiate sports-themed products
Diabetic products
Doll clothes
Egyptian products
Fancy aprons
Fancy robes (bathrobes, kimonos, etc.)
Flags
Fondue sets
Freeze-dried camping/emergency food
Geriatric care products
Gloves and scarves
Gourmet cookies
Gourmet popcorn
Greek products
Henna kits
Hiking products
Japanese Anime products
Journals
Juggling supplies
Karaoke equipment
Laptop bags
Left-handed products
Mailboxes
Manicure and pedicure supplies
Maps
Masks
Moccasins
Model trains
Musical instruments
Native American jewelry and belt buckles
Nightlights
Obama products
Products made from a particular material like cedar or stone
Puppets
RC toys
Robotic toys
Rock hunting supplies
Roller derby supplies
Scales
Science kits
Security and nanny cameras
Sorority and fraternity items
Swords and armor
Tarot, Astrology, and Palmistry supplies
Tea and tea sets
Tie-dye kits
Tropical/vacation clothing
Unusual or hand-made board games
Vegan products
Walking sticks and canes
Water bottles
Weightlifting supplements and protein shakes
Wind chimes
Wine accessories

photo credit: TheMarque

If you would like a list of dropshippers and/or wholesalers for any of these products, simply submit a Research Request to the Wholesale Match Research Team by logging into the website, clicking on the Suppliers button, and scrolling down to the lower left-hand side of the page where it says “Can’t Find What You’re Looking For? Submit A Research Request”.  Our Research Team will email your results in 1-3 business days.

Product Ideas, dropshippers, dropshipping, product research, wholesale

Finding a great supplier is one of the most important steps in setting up your online business.  Whether you’re looking for a dropship or wholesale supplier, I would advocate using Wholesale Match, since we have thousands upon thousands of quality dropshippers and wholesalers in our database, and we add new ones every day.  The Research Team will actually go out and find new suppliers for you if you haven’t found what you’re looking for in the database.  But even after we find you some solid potential suppliers, you’re going to have to do the work to get set up with them, including contacting the suppliers, setting up an account, and negotiating your terms.  The following are some common pitfalls would-be online business owners often encounter while getting set up with suppliers:

First: Explain clearly what you’re looking for when you call a potential supplier. I can’t tell you how often people call the customer support line and say, “You sent me a supplier for ping pong paddles, but I called them and they don’t dropship.”  Then the customer service team calls the supplier back to see if their policy has changed, and in fact they do dropship.  What goes wrong?  Often when somebody calls a potential supplier, they don’t really explain what they’re looking for.  Some companies dropship every day, but aren’t familiar with the term “dropshipping”.  Some will tell you that they only wholesale, but they have no minimum and can ship to any address, so they are in effect actually a dropshipper.  Communicate with your potential supplier, and take the time to learn about their company.  Don’t just ask one or two questions and then hang up the phone.

photo credit: alicepopkorn

Second: Be prepared to use more than one supplier. For convenience sake, many people want a supplier who can provide them with all their products in one place.  So if you were selling, say, meditation stones, yoga mats, and seaweed facial masks, you might expect your supplier to stock all those items.  However, they might carry only yoga supplies, or only spa items like seaweed masks.  You might have to use two or three or even six or ten suppliers to get the range of fantastic products you’re looking for on your website.  Sometimes you’ll get lucky and find a supplier who carries everything you want at a great price, but usually you’ll find a better deal shopping around, using a few different suppliers.

Third: Have your business plan ready long before you start supplier-shopping. Do your product research, plan exactly how you’re going to market your website, and have your budget laid out.  That way, when you finally call a supplier, you’ll sound like a professional and they’ll be excited to work with you.  Imagine for a moment that you were a distributor of soccer cleats, and some random guy called you and said, “Hey, I’m thinking about maybe selling soccer stuff online, but I dunno, I might do golf.  But probably soccer, at least for now.  Wanna supply me with cleats?”.  Not likely.  While most suppliers are happy to start a partnership with a new retailer, they want to work with solid entrepreneurs who have their stuff together.  They may ask you questions about your projected sales volumes, credit score, website, etc., and you need to be able to answer intelligently.

Fourth: Get your Reseller’s Permit and Tax ID Number. A lot of people try to get around obtainng their Reseller’s Permit and Tax ID Number by using suppliers who don’t require them, but the best suppliers want proper documentation, and anyway, it’s the law.  Spend the time and the little bit of money it will cost you: it’ll save you a mountain of problems later on.  A Reseller’s Permit is required to purchase products tax-free for resale purposes, and a Tax ID Number is necessary to submit your taxes at the end of the year.  If you want your online business to be successful, treat it like a real business and set it up properly, without taking short cuts.

Fifth: Be prepared to pay initial order costs. If you want to start an online business, you need capital.  Some e-business newbies believe they will be able to get their website up and running and start selling products for $100 or less.  The truth is, there are going to be additional costs.  One of these costs might be initial orders from suppliers.  While many dropshippers have no fees to sign up and will allow you to ship individual orders, others require you to make a large initial order or put down a deposit before they’ll work with you.  This is rare, but more common with certain categories of products like clothing.  After your first $100-500 order, suppliers are usually willing to do single orders, or a much smaller volume.  You could choose not to work with suppliers who require a deposit or larger initial order, but unfortunately you would be cutting out some of the best dropshippers and wholesalers.

dropshippers, finding suppliers, wholesale

Yahoo is working to make pay-per-click advertising more effective.  Yahoo is currently analyzing visitor behavior with a metrics system that could potentially make online advertising much more specific.  Instead of charging for advertising based simply on how many people click a link, measures could include “hover time” (how long a visitor stays on a page), and “friends” (how many people a visitor has in their social network and how likely they are to recommend websites to those friends).  This is part of a push toward more individualistic, intuitive results in search engines (remember Bing’s initiatives).  Yahoo hopes to customize online business advertising along with SERP (Search Engine Response Page) results.

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Many people view eBay as a stepping stone, the beginning step before you graduate to a website of your own.  In fact, eBay is much more useful than this.  You can set up an eBay store as a transition to running your own website, or as an alternative.  You may also find it helpful to continue to use eBay even after you have a dropshipping website up and running.  You may ask, why in the world would I do that?  Why would I pay eBay fees now that I have my own website?  The reason is, eBay auctions can be a great tool to drive traffic to your website.

photo credit: urbanwoodswalker

How can you bring traffic to your dropshipping website from your eBay auctions?

First, put a link to your website in your eBay account in the About Me section.  Many people who browse your listing will click on the link and come to your website.  Also, the inbound link will help your SEO.
Second, invite your eBay customers through emails or newsletters to visit your dropshipping website.  You don’t want to be obnoxious about this, but good customer service can include sending a thank-you email to your customer when a deal closes on eBay.  It’s not out of place to say “Thank you for choosing Sunshine Industries for your stationary needs!  We appreciate your business!  Please visit us again at www.SunshineIndustries.com.”

How effective is this marketing technique?

Its effectiveness will depend in large part on how many sales you make on eBay and how much your customers like you, but it certainly works for some people: there are website owners who get up to 95% of their traffic from marketing on eBay.

dropshipping, eBay, internet marketing

There are many resources you can add to your dropshipping website to increase the value and interest of your site.  This is important to bring in traffic and build relationships with your customers.  I’ve mentioned blogs, articles, product reviews, Tips of the Day, etc., many times as possible content you can add.  Now I want to talk about forums.  Adding a forum to your website is a great way to build a community of return visitors.  If you are using social media marketing (see “Marketing Your Dropshipping / Wholesaling Website Using Social Media“), a forum is particularly appropriate.

photo credit: Lindspetrol

What is a forum?

A forum is a web page where visitors can interact with each other.  They can leave messages and comment on other people’s messages.

What are the benefits of a forum?

Beside the aforementioned traffic and sense of community, it helps imbue your dropshipping website with solidity and professionalism.  Further, a forum can be extremely educational.  You always want to provide valuable content on your website, and with a forum, other posters will help provide this content by answering each other’s questions (this also helps your SEO).  Also, a forum helps you keep in touch with your customer base.  If you see people talking about a particular product or service, you can be sure to get it on your site.  Thus you can stay on top of the trends by reading your own or other people’s forums.  Finally, a forum is a good place to put a little subtle advertising in the form of banner ads, links, etc. to bring in extra income.

photo credit: Felixe

How do you install a forum on your dropshipping website?

Many website hosting packages actually come with an option to add a forum to your site.  If yours doesn’t, you can get a script that will set up and run a forum, and install it on your web hosting server.  Some are free; the more complex ones cost money.  Installing it can be a little tricky, so unless you are quite computer savvy, you will probably have to pay somebody to do it.  The easiest thing is to use a host who provides it.

photo credit: Sham Hardy

What are the possible negatives of a forum?

Besides the potential difficulty of setting up your forum, it can be challenging to build interest.  When visitors check out a forum with few posts, they aren’t motivated to add anything themselves or visit again.  Try and get friends and family to post on your forum to get the ball rolling.  It’s important to have a lot of in-depth industry-related posts because that is also how most people find forums – by Googling a question and finding the answer on the forum.  Finally, managing a forum can be time-consuming.  You want to restrict the posts as little as possible because people are unlikely to return if their post gets bounced.  Unless you have a family or children-friendly website, you probably shouldn’t delete posts for a little profanity or inappropriateness – save your veto power for the really offensive stuff.  However, you’ll get a lot of spam posts that are thinly-veiled advertising from individuals and spam bots, and you’ll want to remove that junk.

dropshipping, internet marketing, website design / help

I think I’ve established the point in previous blogs that you need to market your dropshipping website effectively or no one will be able to find it (no traffic = no sales = no money in your pocket.)  While there are many venues where you can advertise for free (see “How To Advertise Your Online Business Cheaply”), sometimes you have to shell out a little cash to bring in traffic.  One of the most affordable advertising methods is Pay-Per-Click advertising (PPC).

photo credit: BrianScott

How does PPC work?

Unlike many forms of advertising where you pay simply to post your ad, with PPC advertising you only pay for traffic that actually clicks on the link to come to your website.  This doesn’t mean your visitor will necessarily buy anything, but at least you’ve got them in the door.

What does PPC cost?

PPC can cost between a few cents and a few dollars per visitor; usually you bid for position on the SERP (Search Engine Response Page).

Where will my ad show up?

The link to your dropshipping website will appear on the top and / or sides of the SERP as a sponsored link.

How can I get the most efficient PPC advertising?

photo credit: miheco

First: Make sure you are in the top 10, or preferably top 3-5 spots on the SERP. This is necessary due to the Golden Triangle effect: people generally only read the top few listings on the SERPs, and then scan a couple more and stop reading.  If you’re not at the top of the SERPs, it takes a very dedicated searcher to find you.  To make sure you are at the top, you have to outbid the other people in your category.  This won’t necessarily cost a lot of money; you only have to outbid them by a penny per click.

photo credit: A Sweet Success (Laura)

Second: Put yourself in the right categories by using the right keywords. Don’t use keywords that are too general: you may end up with a lot of traffic, but your traffic won’t have a good conversion rate (your visitors won’t actually buy many products).  Use specific keywords that accurately describe your website and products so the people who arrive are actually interested in your site.  They will be much more likely to buy your products, and thus the traffic you paid for will be more profitable.  So if you have a cake decorating supplies website, don’t use general keywords like “kitchenware” or “bakeware”.  Use “cake decorating” or even “fondant”, “molds”, “cake stands”, “imprinters”, etc.  You can use keyword suggestion tools to help you select the right keywords (see “How To Find The Best Keywords For Your Dropshipping Website”).

Third: Make sure you only pay for PPC advertising through major search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.), and opt out of any non-search traffic. You want to make sure that the people visiting your site are actively looking for what you’re selling.

Fourth: Design a specific, attractive, and valuable landing page. Your landing page is the first page your visitor sees when they hit your link.  In a matter of seconds they will decide whether to start exploring your site, or hit the back button and keep searching.  Thus, you may want to have a couple of landing pages, each specific to the keyword they were searching for.  Your landing page needs to grab their attention and engage them immediately.  Besides website aesthetics, the best way to do this is to have something of value right on the landing page.  This could be a blog, a series of instructional articles, a Tip of the Day, a product review, etc.  The point is to suck your visitor into your website immediately.

photo credit: Flávio Eiró

Fifth: Try to keep in contact with visitors even if they don’t purchase anything. One trick you can use is to provide a free eBook or newsletter that requires your visitor to provide their email address to receive it.  Then you can send them other coupons or offers to help bring them back to your website.  If you do gather email addresses in this way, make sure you never resell them or pelt the person with spam.  In fact, you should tell them at the time of gathering their email address that you will send them future offers, and have a button to opt out of this, otherwise you may alienate the very people you are trying to woo.

dropshipping, internet marketing, website design / help

photo credit: evelynishere

In previous blogs, I’ve recommended link swapping as a way to build inbound links to your dropshipping website. Inbound links are definitely an important part of SEO (Search Engine Optimization), but improving your SEO through inbound links is more complicated than simply finding someone to swap with you.

For one thing, the ranking of the site linked to you dictates the value of the inbound link.  So if you get a website to swap links with you that has zero status and zero ranking on the SERPs (Search Engine Response Pages), than the link doesn’t do you much good.

photo credit: SAN_DRINO

Second, don’t ever join a “link farm”.  Link farms are vast networks swapping inbound links, and search engines like Google are sophisticated enough to see what’s going on.  If Google catches you joining a link farm, they will penalize your site and possible remove you from their search engine entirely.  To avoid getting hit for this, don’t accept links from websites that also have links to dozens or hundreds of other websites.

photo credit: lazha

While link swapping with quality mid-level websites like yours is okay once in a while, the best way to build inbound links to your site is to have valuable content that other sites will genuinely want to link to.  You can certainly solicit these links from other blogs and websites by letting them know about your content (in a non-annoying kind of way), but inbound links aren’t something you can get by simple begging.  The value has to be there on your dropshipping website.

dropshipping, internet marketing, website design / help

EBay is currently conducting tests on search results, including a  Store inventory format in the results of a small percentage of traffic.  This is a short-term test, so eBay sellers should not change their listing formats or practices in any way.  If eBay chooses to make a permanent or significant change to search results, they promise to release notification ahead of time.  To keep up with changes and announcements on eBay, go to eBay’s General Announcements page at : www2/ebay/com/aw/marketing.shtml.

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