Find Wholesale Suppliers and Dropshippers -
Working Smarter not Harder

by Jules Boven

Published on this site: September 20th, 2006 - See more articles from this month

If your reading this you've probably already invested hours, weeks or even months of your time searching for products to sell on Ebay or your website. I've read that the majority of Ebay Powersellers make little profit.

This presents a dilemma, if the so-called experts aren't making a decent living how can you expect to?

The 2 factors crucial to your online reselling success are:

1. Finding quality products that will sell.
   
   
2. Finding these products at a cost that allows you to sell at a competitive margin.
   

Most people will use Google or other search engines to find these products. This method has a few flaws. Firstly it is extremely time consuming. But more to the point, the wholesaler's that will rank in Google will have search engine optimised their pages, ensuring your results are biased to the worst type of life form - the middleman.

Another popular method of searching involves contacting manufacturers directly and asking them to supply a list of wholesaler's in your area. This can be time consuming and difficult, but in the end can pay off.

A final and little discussed approach is to buy a wholesale directory. This technique is often written off, as these directories are typically out of date. However, nowadays some directories employ full time staff to research and present current and quality wholesale suppliers.

You might think, "Why pay for something I can get for free?" This is probably true but it depends on how much you value your time.

As always you get what you pay for. Don't expect to get information allowing you to triumph over your competitors for $20.

A great evaluation tool is http://www.ripoffreport.com/. You can see what (if any) complaints have been made against the company and assess the quality of the information.

In summery, work smarter, not harder: Assess the value of your time vs. the value of information and your computer-induced migraine might even disappear.

Jules Boven - is a professional auction seller and CEO of http://www.thewholesale-hub.com, an online resource connecting retailers to wholesalers.