Internet Marketing Business Strategies

The two most common methods of obtaining products to sell on eBay or other online auctions are dropship and wholesale.

However, as they are often lumped together a lot of people are not clear about how each one is different from the other. So, in this article I want to show you what each one is and how to choose which method of supplying products is best for different business situations on eBay and elsewhere on the Internet.

1. Drop Shipping

With a dropship wholesale distributor, you do not actually handle the products at all. Instead, you first need to locate a trustworthy dropship wholesaler and set up an account. Once your account is set up you will be able to view images and descriptions of the wholesalers product range via a private access Internet site.

After you have chosen the goods you want to sell you can place images and information about them on your website or on online auctions and garage sales sites.

When somebody purchases a product you e-mail the order through to your wholesaler who then packs and ships the item straight to your customer’s address. The wholesaler will label the package with your business name and logo and dropship it to your customer. As far as the customer is concerned, the parcel has come directly from you.

Pros And Cons Of Drop Shipping

The advantages of drop shipping are:

• You don’t have to pay up front to buy products in bulk.
• You don’t have to handle the product yourself.

The disadvantage of drop shipping is:

• It’s more expensive than buying in bulk and shipping the products yourself.

When To Use Drop Shipping

Do not build your business entirely on the drop shipping model. Drop shipping should be used as a way to research the market and try out new products on your customer base.

2. Light Bulk Wholesale

Once you have found a product that sells, it is time to cash in and purchase the product wholesale to take advantage of the low unit prices you will get on bulk orders.

However, this can be a big step for a small home-based business to take, especially as many wholesalers stipulate minimum orders that cost several thousand dollars.

The key here is to find trustworthy wholesalers who will agree to ship you much smaller quantities of goods, but still at wholesale rates. We are talking about minimum orders of less than $500. Chris Malta of Worldwidebrands calls this kind of service “light bulk” wholesaling.

Light bulk product purchasing offers an intermediary step between drop shipping and full wholesale.

Pros And Cons Of Light Bulk Wholesale

The advantages of light bulk purchases are:

• You get products at a much cheaper rate than with drop shipping.
• You don’t have to commit thousands of dollars to a particular product line.

The disadvantages of light bulk purchases are:

• You don’t get the lowest prices that you get with wholesale.
• Whenever you sell a product you have to pack and ship it yourself.

Light bulk wholesale is a great way to build profits for reinvestment in your business. Check your inventory to see which of your light bulk products are the fastest sellers. Those are the product that you will now want to purchase in large volume wholesale quantities using the profits from your light bulk sales.

3. Large Volume Wholesale

When you know which products sell consistently well, take advantage of the deep discounts you can get on the cost per product when you purchase them in large wholesale quantities.

Make sure you have enough storage space before you commit yourself to this method of purchasing products.

Pros And Cons Of Large Volume Wholesale

The advantages of large volume wholesale is:

• You get products at the lowest possible price per unit.
• You will be able to maximize your profits on sales of these products.

The disadvantages are:

• You must commit yourself to purchasing a large number of items and storing them.
• You’ll have to pack and ship each order yourself.

The price advantage of wholesale far outweighs the disadvantages that are associated with it.

If you follow this progression from dropshipping, through light bulk to large volume wholesaling on products that sell well, you should be able to build a business around dropship and wholesale, offering productsthat sell, and make more money per unit sold while keeping unit prices low.

To find out more about how to locate a genuine dropship wholesale distributor, and sell light bulk as well as large volume wholesale go to Worldwidebrands.com.

David Hurley

David Hurley uses the Prosperity Marketing System to earn multiple streams of income from home on the Internet. What about you?