Home And Garden Articles

Better Than Sliced Bread… Drop Shipping, The New Home Business Craze

Many of you will probably remember the days when the only way to start a successful home business was to join some sort of multi-level marketing program or sell makeup at parties. In those days, people would have to buy a membership in the 'program' along with an inventory of sample products that they would then sell to friends and coworkers at 'parties.' Most people were not very successful at this and made very little money and usually alienated their friends and family. In the 1990's however, all of that changed for the better with the advent of the Internet and a retail delivery method called wholesale drop shipping.

Wholesale drop shipping is when a wholesale distributor or manufacturer agrees to send out single unit products to customers for a retailer. Many will also even include the retailers name on the invoice so that the customer is never even aware that they got it from anyone else but the retailer. This, along with the Internet has changed the whole dynamics of home businesses in America, making it easier and more cost effective to start your own business.

Home business owners are now able to launch a business without purchasing any inventory up front and are able to open a 'store' without ever having to find a place to setup shop. Millions of Americans have setup ecommerce sites on the internet selling everything from Personal Computers to lawn care equipment all using wholesale drop shipping. As a matter of fact, according to eBay over forty thousand people make their full time living on their auction site alone; many of these are using drop shipping as their main method of product fulfillment.

The only problem for today's small business owner is how to find wholesalers to drop ship. In general wholesale distributors don't make it a habit of getting out there and advertising; obviously the whole reason they are in wholesale and not retail is to get away from doing all of that work. So it makes it very difficult for someone who has little or no business experience to make contacts with distributors when they aren't even sure where to start looking.

To help out those small business owners I'd like to offer some advice for finding wholesale distributors:

• Look for trade organizations and magazines to help you make contacts. Many trade organizations out their produce some sort of listings of their members, many of whom may drop ship.

• Contact manufacturers. People don't realize that if you call the manufacturer they will provide you with a list of their distributors; so if you are looking for a particular product, ask the manufacturer. The down side of this route is that they may have hundreds of distributors that you may have to contact before you find one that is willing to drop ship.

• Find wholesale chat rooms and message boards. There are many message boards on the Internet today that are devoted to a wide range of discussions. You may find boards on wholesale, distribution, supply chain, etc. All of these may lead you in the direction of a wholesale distributor.

However, if you want to get up and running fast, or just don't have the time to go on a search for wholesale distributors much less ones that drop ship, then the way to go is drop ship directories. These are usually pay services that search out drop shippers for you then give you access to their contacts; there are many of these on the Internet today, and many are very good. As with anything on the Internet you must be very careful of the scams out there. Many drop ship directories will end up giving you an outdated list of wholesalers, or when you contact them you will find that they are a true wholesale distributor but they do not drop ship.

Here are some pieces of advice when looking for a quality drop ship directory:

• Stay away from the cheap ones! Obviously with everything else in this world you will get what you pay for. If you find one out their for three dollars, you probably are not going to get a good product. In general the one's that offer the best information are charging $60 or more for a six month membership.

• Look for one's that will do specialty searches! If you get into a drop ship directory and find that they do not have any products that you would like to sell, or think you can sell, then make sure they will go out and find it for you. If they do not do specialty searches then you will end up being stuck with whatever listings they have no matter what.

• Find one with a Satisfaction Guarantee! There are several drop ship directories out there that offer a guarantee that all of their listings are true drop shippers, but in my opinion this is not enough. If you get into their directory and find that they have five hundred listings for widget suppliers and they are all real wholesalers you are out your money and only have access to one product. Make sure they guarantee your satisfaction with their product no matter what, especially if you are going to shell out seventy dollars of your hard earned money.

• Look for ones that are going to help you out as well, not just give you a list. Do they offer articles and help material on starting your business or are all they just going to give you listings and nothing else.

However you choose to find wholesale drop shipping, keep in mind that as with anything else in this world knowledge is power. Try and find out as much as you can before you jump in to get your feet wet. It will make your startup smoother and help you get the profitability stage much faster.

About The Author

Tony Keeler is the founder and publisher of The Drop Ship Connection – www.dropshipconnection.com - The web's only drop ship directory with a step by step guide for the home business owner. He is also the owner of MAR Services which publishes these great sites:

2DollarSoftware – www.2dollarsoftware.com - marketing, advertising, and internet software.

DingleHopper.com – www.dinglehopper.com - Funny Name, Cool Products.

tony.keeler@dropshipconnection.com

Other Article Sites

findabook.com  moneycd.info  a-mortgage.info   about-lemon-laws.info  aboutstudentloans.info
all-about-publishing.info  auctions-articles.info  bestcollege-university.com  bestispconnection.com
biblefolder.com  blogger-website.com  books-used.info  brokers-guide.info  buywindows.info  cable-dsl.info
career-miner.com  carpel-tunnel.info  cashinaflash.info  cashloanreviews.info  casinobell.com  chat-house.info
clearmycredit.info  collegeloantips.info  crones.info  depression-articles.info   dirnic.net  dishguides.info
divers-below.com  expodog.info   financewizz.com  fire-insurance.info  getgood.info  handleit.net   it-idea.info
health-supplies.info  hosting-right.com  insidealert.com  insurance-facts.info  jobs-employment.info
justgood.info  lookgold.net   lowcost-travel.info  money-source.info  myhostzone.info  numisblog.com
peoplesearchfinder.info  pr-articles.info  realeas.com   refinancing-guides.info  spyware-remove.info
telelot.info  the-law.info   toppaid.info  travel-deals.info  travelcorrect.com  wedding-guide-site.com
your-blog.info  your-credit.info

MORE ARTICLES:

Chocolate for the Home and Garden ~ Chocolate Flower Farm Launches New Candle Division
Chocolate Flower Farm, a specialty nursery featuring dark foliaged and flowering plants, launches a new candle division with the acquisition of the exclusive rights to a distinctively different "Essence of Chocolate" candle. The candles along with their popular series of Chocolate Garden Seed Kits will be offered to retailers worldwide.

Add Rich Color To Your Garden With Blue Perennial Flowers
Blue flowers are some of the most striking plants around and can add a rich splash of color to any garden. Plant them in a cluster of all blue or mix them in with other flowers for a rainbow of color.

Fall Garden Chores for Spring Flowering Bulbs
As the school busses begin to rumble down the road again we are reminded that the gardening season is drawing to a close. For the gardener with an eye toward next spring, however, the season still promises plenty to be done in preparation of a showy spring to come.

Flower Gardening
Flower gardening is becoming more and more popular every day. Flowers can brighten everyone?s day, they smell nice, and are a great hobby. Flower gardening is simple, inexpensive, and loads of fun. Flower gardening can be done for yard decoration, simply as a hobby, or even professionally.

Flowering Field Farm of NJ Announces Association with Garden Spot Structures
Flowering Field Farm has announced a new business relationship with Garden Spot Structures of Lancaster County, Pa. The NJ farm is located on Highway 34, just south of the Holmdel border and Route 520. Garden Spot Structures of Leola, Pa. has been delivering fine, Amish-crafted structures for 30 years.

Making Memories with Flower Gardening
Flower gardening is not only about the present, but can be about the past as well. Although this article is ostensibly about flower gardens, it is really more about carrying memories forward.

Exotic Flowers: Luxurious and Impressive for Your Home and Garden Decor
There are several types of exotic flowers to best suit any occasion. And of course, depending on your personal taste, you will want to choose the best exotic flowers you can obtain to be the perfect flowers, the most adequate for the purpose they will be serving. For example: at someone?s funeral, you may want to choose bouquet of flowers that the deceased would have loved. Here are some other examples (after all, these flowers are for happy occasions as well as the more tragic ones.

In Bloom: Manbury Home and Garden Accessories Unearths Garden Delights for Gorgeous Homes
Manbury Home and Garden Accessories now features a variety of attractive, practical garden solutions at www.manbury.nl, where consumers can peruse and purchase a variety of garden tools and accessories.

Edible Flowers in Your Garden
Flowers can be an integral part of cooking. While most of us are aware that violets can be candied and nasturtiums can be eaten in salads, there's a bounty of flower varieties that are both edible and delicious.

Converting a Weed Garden to a Manageable Flower Garden
Recently I must have had sucker tattooed on my forehead because just when I thought my summer gardening season was winding down into a nice relaxed not hard labor kind of fall a friend baited me into a conversation about their landscaping and the outcome was I ended up helping them redesign a garden

The Flower Garden in August
Our flower garden in August can be brimming with activities we can do at this time of year, as we can for most of the year. We have some flower gardening tips to give you and some experiments to try.

5 Most Popular Flowers for Your Garden
When planting a garden there are many questions which you must ask yourself before you begin. Where are you going to plant it, do you have the garden equipment to do so and how big do you want your garden to be? When do flowers bloom and what are their heights? These are all very important questions, however they mean very little if you have not yet decided which types of flowers you want to plant.

Town & Country Conservatories Designs Custom English Skylight for Rockefeller Center's Flower & Garden Show
EnglishSkylights.com, a division of Town & Country Conservatories designs and builds a custom conservatory-inspired skylight for Rockefeller Center's annual Flower & Garden Show.

Enhance Your Flower Garden With Garden Edging
So, you've got your flower garden set up You've planted the flowers, some perennials here, a few annuals there