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Top tips for successful drop shipper relations

One of the most common routes for budding internet entrepreneurs to take is to work with drop shippers. Drop shippers are companies that hold stock and are prepared to carry out fulfilment on your behalf. The advantages of this are obvious- you remove the need for expensive overheads such as warehouses, you can test out different product lines without making a major investment and you are spared the nightmare of fulfilment! With so many people looking to work with drop shippers you need to know what you are doing in order to get a competitive advantage- here are my top tips for making the most out of your relationship.

Do your research

It will take less than two minutes to find a host of horror stories about working with drop shippers. You should not see this as a negative but a positive- it means that if you do your research it is easy to avoid the scams. There are several sites and forums which are dedicated to the art of successful drop shipping- these are great places to get a feel for how reliable the companies you are thinking of working with are. If you can’t find any good reviews then alarm bells should be ringing.

Never pay upfront to see a stock list

You will often see people telling you never to pay an upfront fee to work with a drop shipper. I, however, would recommend that this is advice which you should ignore. Several of the best drop shippers which I work with do require a fee, usually in the region of £50, to set-up an account. But I could see exactly what they sold before I paid a penny. What you should never do is pay upfront to see a stock list. It’s quite simple- if you have to pay in order to see what they have, don’t walk away, run.

Don’t take no for an answer

When I was searching for suitable suppliers for our range of dog beds I came across a number of companies that stated very clearly on their websites that they did not act as a drop shipper. Several of those companies now drop ship very successfully for us. Never underestimate the power of a personal approach. Another supplier which specialised in designer dog clothes refused point-blank to work with us. Once our site was up and running- and looking great- I went back to them. And surprise, surprise they couldn’t have been more eager to work with us.

These are hard economic times and if you can convince people that there is money to be made you can often change their outlook. Working with suppliers that do not normally drop ship also gives you a massive advantage over the competition who by and large will all be selling the same stock.

Personalize content

It never ceases to amaze me how many ‘entrepreneurs’ simply lift the product descriptions from their suppliers for use on their site. This is a big no-no. Firstly the content is normally of a very low standard- and definitely not optimised for your customers. Secondly you will be penalised by Google for duplicate content- and the battle for positions in the SERPs is tough enough without penalties!

If you want to go one step further, organise a day during which you can visit your drop shipper and take bespoke product pictures. Suddenly instead of having a range of identical products to all the other drop shippers, you seemingly have your own line. The online world is increasingly competitive- thinking of creative ways to stand out from the crowd- especially when you are not offering a unique product- is the key to success.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Victor Sameau .