As a successful online business owner I know it can be intimidating to get started selling on the internet.  However, the idea of financial freedom and working on your own terms is enough for some to press on.  Your first, and most important step, is finding a quality supplier.

I’ve been in the drop shipping business for 4 years now. When I first started, I wasted months dealing with fake ‘wholesale’ sites, middlemen, scammers, and every other lowlife you can think of. Your product is the cornerstone of your business, and with a poor product comes poor business. I can’t stress that enough.

What I slowly found is that real wholesalers and drop shippers do not advertise on Google. In fact they are the ones supplying products for the middlemen that you do see on Google. Middlemen are people or companies that source wholesale products and have you sell them at their marked up “wholesale” cost. This eats into your profits heavily, and it’s also why most people fail at drop shippping. In this relationship, you do all the work and they make all the profits. To succeed in eCommerce you need original products and real wholesale pricing.

When looking for quality drop shippers you basically have two options:

OPTION 1:
Do it yourself. This was how I started out. I’m smart and extremely web savvy, I thought it would be simple to find products to sell. WRONG. I bought into some middleman cookie cutter dropship sites. I got scammed by Chinese wholesalers. I tried selling generic ‘wholesale’ products on extremely small margins. The end result was almost a full year of utter failure. It’s possible to succeed in this fashion, but I advise strongly against it.

OPTION 2:
If you don’t have that much time and money to burn, skip straight to business. Use a wholesale directory. When all is said and done, this is where you’ll end up. You need true wholesale pricing to be able to compete with the thousands of other eBay sellers and website owners.

If you’ve spent much time looking at drop shipping and wholesale sites online, you probably know that the sites you find in the search engines are middlemen. They offer ‘wholesale’ products and even offer to build and populate your website for you, usually for a monthly fee. They will sometimes refer to themselves as “Dealer Networks”. They make their money by getting in between you and the real wholesale companies. It’s really a great deal for them. They’re actually charging you to let you sell products for them! Been there, done that. It doesn’t work.

So How do I Find a Real Wholesaler?

I’ve tried many wholesale & drop ship directories in my time.  Most of them don’t deliver, some do.  So here you go, my drop ship review:

WorldWide Brands

·            Price: Currently $299 dollars

·            Good selection – around 8,000 wholesalers

·            Video lessons for beginners

·            A members forum

·            Live support

WorldWide Brands is one of the leading wholesale directories on the net. This is where many of the products that get sold on eBay come from. In fact they are the only eBay Certified source. You can be sure you’re dealing with legit suppliers, but the downside is that you also have a lot of competition from all the eBay sellers that use it. If you’re looking for real wholesale and dropship companies, it’s a great source. Overall, it’s one of the best.

Doba

·            Price: Currently $49.95 – $59.95 per month

·            Roughly 250 suppliers

·            All drop shipments

·            eBay and eCommerce training for beginners

Doba is a popular site for beginners because they make drop shipping easy. However, there are several major drawbacks to their service. First of all, you won’t get true wholesale pricing. Your margins will be small, making it difficult to justify the $60 dollar monthly payment. Second, you have a lot of competition. Doba is a popular site, which means you are competing with thousands of others to sell the same products at the same cost. Finally, there have been many complaints of products going out of stock without notice. Because they are a middle man between you and 250 companies, they have trouble keeping track of all the stock. This can cause serious problems when your eBay auction ends and you can’t deliver. If you’re looking for an easy solution, it’s not bad. If you are serious about succeeding in eCommerce, it’s not the best way to go.

DHGate

·            Free access

·            Suppliers come from China – BEWARE OF SCAMMERS

·            Many products are counterfeit

DHGate is a community of Chinese suppliers that advertise their products on the website. DHGate tries to deter scam artists, but they don’t do a very good job of it. The products are mostly fakes as well. In the end I was just too worried about getting ripped off from a Chinese supplier and never ended up ordering anything from DHGate. I’ve heard too many horror stories. Be aware that your product is probably counterfeit if you ever even receive it.

Alibaba

·            Free access

·            Suppliers from all over the world

·            LOTS of scammers

·            Suppliers do not drop ship and often require large bulk orders

Alibaba is a good source if you are looking to buy large pallets of product, but is jam packed full of scammers. You need to be very careful doing business on Alibaba. Many suppliers are from China and will request a money transfer via Western Union. Once they have the money, you can’t do much but cross your fingers and hope they deliver. I did get ripped off once using this site so be cautious.

Salehoo

·            Price: Currently $67 dollars

·            8,000+ wholesalers and drop shippers

·            A large community of members who have experience selling

·            Members can rate experiences with suppliers

·            Support from experienced professionals

·            Free training

·            All types of suppliers and all types of products

·            Top name-brand products

Salehoo is my go-to directory for wholesale suppliers and drop shippers.  I am currently running two eCommerce sites using sources from Salehoo and I make my living off of them.  Plus the price just can’t be beat for this kind of information.  The best part is that you can interact with other members and get reviews, ratings, and advice on the suppliers in the directory.  It’s the best of the web, I guarantee you that.