Hello all.
I thought I'd up this thread, as I'm also looking to sell items online. I've been reading over some of the previous threads and have gotten some good information from them. Thanks!
I'm a female singer/entrepreneur and I would like to sell alternative clothing through a dropshipper. The problem is that I can't seem to find any. I see sites claiming to sell wholesale, but they're just another online retailer drop shipping items. At this point in time, I'm not looking to have a large online store. More so, a small selection of of items that express my music and fashion style (Groove Rock) from the band site.
Since I am new to this, and I know I'll have more 'stupid questions', I was also wondering if there was anyone out there who is willing to be an online mentor.
Thanks
Satina
Hey satina, that's a sexy cool name!!
Glad to have you aboard!
Anyhow, there's not really much to starting a business online.
The real hard part is, making it successful.
See anyone can start a business. But only people in the know or connected in some way, get out and succeed.
Although alot more people are succeeding now by just doing a little bit of work, an eensy bit of work before hand.
You need to do an extensive amount of research about the marketplace first, make it a homework assignment. Find out how often it sells for what, find out why, find out who. It could take some time. You got to locate your niche like they said. Once you've got your niche down, such as alternative clothing, you want to find your source- and start to getting to know them. Know your supplier like you would know yourself.
Try this place for instance...
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See what you notice about them. Ask them good questions, thing that you would want to be asked if you were on the receiving end. Such as 'How long have you been around?' and 'What kind of shipping rates do you offer?' and of course, 'How old are your particular clothing stocks?'
You want to ask simple, straight questions and get good answers from the supplier. The key is to develop a trust based relationship with your suppliers, and if they give good answers, then you are on your way to finding a good supplier.
But if they don't give any answers or dodge the questions, you want to turn around fast. And you want to avoid getting scammed, avoid unreliable people, and most importantly...develop your niche.
Your niche will be your big success...like an extension of you, basically. Its a store right? So stock it with everything they want in that niche, and then send virtually everybody to that store. You'll be more than on your way, and you will learn how to take credit cards in no time.
(PS: Always a big issue online is address. You'll find you want to always make sure billing addresses match shipping addresses, like someone has with the bank, and you'd want to correct this often too. People try all kinds of fraudulent scams online, and really the only way to be protected, is to verify who someone is. Addresses do that most of the time. Its pretty hard for anybody to fake their address by US Postal mail, so you'll screen out virtually all the bad scams and be untouched.)