Even before deciding on the type of products you want to sell on your website, it's not a bad idea to understand how the wholesale supplier system works.
But what is this:
It's not a well-structured system at all. This is a large number of random suppliers located all over the world. Some of them are great, while others are not.
Not long ago, there were hardly any websites that organized lists of suppliers, making it difficult for retailers to find the best suppliers.
However, the advent of eBay opened our AliExpress or Alibaba .
On AliExpress and Alibaba, you can search which types of products are popular and what to sell . Additionally, it allows you to filter products, view email list product appearances, find pictures, and find detailed supplier information.
Once you've decided on a niche, it's time to find out exactly what types of vendors are available. Seasoned e-commerce professionals will tell you horror stories about their encounters with wholesale suppliers, so this is a very important topic.
Overall, you are trying to work with reputable suppliers who deliver on time, provide reliable connections, and offer you some of the benefits of working with them.
Some e-commerce stores can choose large suppliers in places like China, but sometimes a unique brand (such as one selling vintage clothing or furniture) will have to choose a niche local supplier.
Regardless, your goal is to find the best, and that's what we're going to talk about today.
Find and work with the best wholesale suppliers
Your first step is to write down the way you want your order to be fulfilled . Some companies try dropshipping , which means that the supplier is responsible for everything including storage, packaging, and shipping to the customer.
Another option is self-fulfillment or partial self-fulfillment, where your company stores products in warehouses and ships them to customers. It's much more expensive, but you have more control over the shipping process.
Finally, we have one of the most popular fulfillment methods today, which involves working with a third-party fulfillment company. The most relevant example is Fulfillment by Amazon, where you can send all your products to a company like Amazon and have them store and ship them.
The reason why it's so important to decide on your fulfillment process in the first place is that you need to find out if the vendor can provide this type of fulfillment. For example, many suppliers are more than happy to sell you products at wholesale prices and ship them directly to your company. However, it can be a little tricky to find suppliers with the characteristics of dropshipping products.
If you are looking for a list of dropshipping suppliers such as Salehoo , Printful or Spocket you may want to visit our article on Best Selling Styles Drop Shipping Companies .
Therefore, we recommend that you always keep this in mind.
go to top
The best platform to find suppliers for your online store
While we also recommend attending trade shows and doing your own research on Google, these are the best places to find and work with reputable suppliers online.
AliExpress and Alibaba belong to the same company, but AliExpress is more useful for small online retailers because you can get wholesale prices, and in most cases, you can buy any quantity you want.
AliExpress / Alibaba
Salehoo