Hot Dropshipper Tips For A Successful 2010

So you’ve started running a dropship business using eBay or one of the many eBay alternatives. Perhaps you have even setup an internet storefront using your own unique domain such as “Armandosworldofgadgets.com”. Now what can you do to turn this low-cost supply chain management system (i.e. dropshipping) into a continuing profit generator?

Basically you want to optimize your product selection and marketing so you generate the most amount of traffic and sales from your limited time and manpower resources. Being that you are only one person, what can you do to be successful with the limited number of man hours you can devote to your new business?

Here are five quick tips to make sure you get the best feedback from customers while still remaining profitable and competitive:

For most product types, it is often important to buy a sample for yourself to make sure the product is as good as you are going to say it is.

You know your local customers better than anybody else, so you will have a good idea of how they think, what product qualities are important to them, and any potential usage difficulties they are likely to face with a particular product menu language, device feature set, etc.

You need to understand the product you are selling because there is a very good chance that one of your customers will ask you how to use it. While your supplier should be able to answer your questions, your customer may not appreciate the long time they will have to wait for you to get an answer for them.

While it does mean you have some inventory on hand, which seems to be counter intuitive with a dropship system, if you use the “buy it first” rule to only evaluate smaller gadgets and first time sourcing of a particular product category or new supplier, it will not cost you very much and will potentially save you a lot of later customer service headaches and ensure that your customers know you are looking out for them – which will generate continuing sales and profits for you in the long run.

Lets face it, if you want to sell almost anything this days, from athletic shoes to Cell Phones to Car DVD Players, these products are going to come from China, because that is where everything is being made these days! But which company(s) can you trust?

A little online research goes a long way, and in 2008 we did a blog on Finding A Wholesale Dropship Company, 10 Sites You Can’t Miss. Just type the suppliers name into review and forum sites and see what comes up.

Of course, if you are sourcing directly from a Chinese factory (which would be unlikely and more than a little foolhardy if you are dropshipping) then these sites won’t work, and we have put together a guide on how to spot the phonies in the blog Alibaba.com’s AliExpress Review, Buyers Tread With Caution.

How many sites these days are selling name brand sneakers? Or how about cheap MP3 players?

See, there are 800,000 results for the shoes and 10.3 million results for the music players! That is a lot of competitors!

Even if you are in Fiji, there are bound to be a lot of existing internet sellers. So what can you do to make your site more unique and engaging to your customers? First of all, stay ahead of the trends by getting into products earlier, such as LED Watches, Action Sports Cameras, 3D Interface Car DVD Players.

These give you two advantages, first, less competition, and second, since these are newer products, they command a higher resale price, meaning more profit for you!

Everyone says this, but you can really mean it by doing a few simple things to make your customers feel like you value their business. First, answer your customers emails quickly and always keep them informed of your progress whenever you need to do things like track a package or handle a product exchange.

A simple email like “the product left the China factory on Tuesday at 10:18am” or “Sorry for the defective USB cable, a new one will be sent out to you later this week” will go a long way to making your customers feel like you are someone they want to continue to do business with.

Don’t let your webshop get stale. Try to update it with new product offerings at least one time every week. Once you already developed your short list of reliable suppliers, you can make sure to visit their websites once or twice a week, subscribe to their RSS Feed or Email Newsletter, and then you will know about hot new products before anyone else.

Then you can quickly put these onto your webshop so that your customers are seeing that new “Iron Samurai” LED Watch on your storefront before they see it anywhere else. This is an easy way to get your webshop to be viewed as THE PLACE TO GO FOR NEW AND INTERESTING PRODUCTS.

It also pays to take a look over existing listings to make sure that your supplier does in fact have stock and it is something that we have tried to help with by releasing the Chinavasion Stock Update Feed.

By following these simple rules you should have no problems whatsoever raking in the money in 2010. So check out our Drop ship program and find out how you can turn 2010 into a very profitable year.