Sometimes the dropshippers that charge a small monthly fee are the best ones to go with... not always, but from what I've been digging up, usually their the ones with the best prices. They charge the monthly fee so they don't have to jack up the prices or hike them up as much as other drop shippers. When you see drop shippers that don't charge fees, a lot of the time, their price is up to 30% or more than the wholesale price or price that other dropshippers charge.
I was reading an article on something like this the other day. Said something to the effect of...
Wholesalers/Distributors are out to make money. The reason they can give cheaper prices to companies that carry stock is because they buy in larger quantity. If they buy an item for $9 and sell it for $10, and a wholesaler buys 1000 of them, they've made $1000 profit on that sale. But if they sell that same $9 item to a dropshipper for $10, they only make $1 on the sale... not worth their time and energy to sell it to that person. That dollar doesn't even pay for the guy in the warehouse to box it up and get it ready to ship. So to make up for this, people who dropship usually get charged more... say $14 for people who pay a monthly fee... but most likely closer to $20 for those who don't pay a fee. They have to recover their money from somewhere.
Also, something else I found out about a lot of wholesale and dropshipping companies... They aren't true distributors. They are middlemen. They get it from the true distributor and sell to people like us.
Don't only use SaleHoo for possible distributors. Do you're own research. I've found several that aren't in SaleHoo yet. I'm planning to test some of them out and go from there. A lot of the distributors I've found are true distributors... they require proof of business before they'll even consider doing business with you. That's another sign of a true distributor and a middleman... the middlemen usually don't care if you have a tax id, business license, etc.
Google can be your friend... start searching for stuff you're looking for. It might be worth finding a wholesaler that you can afford the minimum order and buying some stock. In the long run, you'll end up with more profits, and if you're lucky, you can find an item you can buy super cheap and sell for a decent return to build up capital.