Things to Ask About when Researching Your Dropshipper

When selecting a dropshipper to work with, you should ALWAYS take the time to do your research. Here are some important things that you need to ask when researching:

1. What is the company's reputation like? Before you get started you have to know who you are dealing with. Take a little time to research the dropshipping company so you can eliminate any potential headaches before they start. You definitely want to take a look at how long the company has been in business, the quality of their services, their reputation with their customers, etc. You want to make sure you are dealing with a dependable dropshipper because if not it will back fire on you and you may end up owning money or having to deal with unhappy customers.

2. Can the company fulfill orders on time? You want to make sure that any dropshipper that you choose to go into business with has the means to supply your products as needed and are capable of shipping your items in a timely manner. Once again late shipments will ultimately fall back on you. Because you are using a dropshipper, your customers will more than likely not know anything about this so that means you will be held responsible for the dropshipper's mistakes. It may also pay off to just let your customers know that you use a dropshipper to be on the safe side.

3. Are shipped products packaged properly? It is extremely important that you find out how the drop shipper packages their products. You want to make sure that all products are packaged properly because if the products show up to your customer's doorstep damaged, you best believe you are going to feel the fire. Also if the packaging has the dropshippers logo or information on it, then you will want to let your customer's know ahead of time what to look out for.

4. Is there a start up fee that I would have to pay first? You need to be very careful of companies that require you to pay a fee in order to access their products. The reason you want to be careful is because just think about it, you pay the fee plus what ever you have to pay for the product before you can make a profit which can definitely be hard to do. So just stick with paying for the products itself without a start up fee attached to it.

5. What is the wholesale pricing, and is it in my range? The point of dropshipping is to purchase items wholesale at a low price so that you can make a profit from them. You have to watch the wholesale pricing, because if it is too high it doesn't leave much room for you to make a good profit. For example if you buy a t-shirt wholesale for $12.00 then you have room to make anywhere from a $1-$8 profit. But if the wholesale price is $19.95 then you don't have a lot of room for profit because there are not many people that will purchase a shirt over $20, and it would have to be over $20 for you to even make a profit. So be careful.

6. What is the dropshipper's hours of operation? You have to make sure that you are in sync with your dropshipper's hours of operation for the smoothest transactions. If you allow orders after hours, then make sure you have a notice or policy for your customers that states items will be processed during hours of operation. That way you won't have to hear anybody's lip about late shipments.

7. What is the dropshippers terms of service or policies? Make sure you have a good grasp on your dropshipper's policies so that you will know how to alter your own. For example, if your dropshipper has a "no return" policy then you need to have one too because if not and you accept returns then you will be the one losing on a great deal of money. And trust me you don't want to take those kind of loses.

8. How is the dropshipper's customer service? Make sure that your dropshipper provides acceptable customer service because you will have times when you will have to rely on their help and you want to make sure that have it available for you. Customer service is very important because you wouldn't want to get stuck with unhappy customers and have no solutions to offer them. I can tell ya that is the absolute worst!

9. How much do I know about the products I'm selling. If you are going to be selling the product then you need to know everything you can possibly know about that product. So do your research be customers will ask questions and if you don't know the product, they won't be confident in buying.

10. Will it be best to use more than 1 dropshipper? If I were you I would have a backup dropshipper just in case something should happen with your regular one. Things go out of stock, but that doesn't mean orders stop. So finding a second dropshipper with similar products and similar prices wouldn't be a bad idea. Just make sure that their fulfillment schedule will meet your demands.