Whether you’re a complete newbie to the world of eCommerce or a veteran online seller, harnessing the dropshipping model will allow you to expand your business at a much faster pace and with less risk. By not having to spend capital on stock, storage space, or order fulfillment, you can allocate the saved funds to other more important areas of your business, such as sales and marketing. Furthermore, you can provide more choices for your customers and ultimately get that much-needed advantage over your competitors.
As popular as it is, finding a low-cost dropshipping supplier is actually a rather tedious and time-consuming task. It’s particularly tedious when you’re not really sure what to look for or where to start. Thankfully, in this detailed guide, I’ll reveal the top 5 most effective ways to find reputable dropshipping suppliers for your eCommerce business.
1. Use a Directory
Business directories have been around for decades, even before the birth of the internet, just in a different form such as a physical book like the yellow pages. Ultimately, a well-organized collection or list of companies, directories are designed to allow you to quickly find a suitable company or organization for just about anything. Since dropshipping has become popular, so has the rise of dropshipping directories, supplier lists, and B2B marketplaces.
While using a dropshipping directory is the quickest and easiest way to find leading suppliers, you should avoid paying a membership fee and stick with one which is free to use. Just as good, if not better than paid alternatives, several free directories such as SourceLow, Wholesale Central, or The Wholesaler UK contain thousands of top-quality suppliers and you won’t need to pay to access them.
2. Try Search Engines
Search engines are of course highly effective tools for finding dropshipping suppliers, but only when used correctly. Instead of doing a basic search, try doing an advanced Google search or enhanced Bing search which will allow you to filter the results by region, language, and other such tags to find much more specific results.
However, even when using an advanced search to locate suppliers, it’s important to input what’s known as long-tail keywords to further narrow down the results. Instead of simply searching for ‘dropshipping suppliers’, try inputting more specific keyphrases such as ‘kids clothing dropshippers UK or ‘beauty accessories dropship Canada’ and so forth.
Also, unlike 95% of people who use search engines, don’t be afraid to venture beyond the first page of results, the best options don’t always come first. In fact, usually, the sites with the largest SEO marketing budgets appear at the top of results, whereas little-known companies fall within the double-digital pages, overshadowed and unseen, but just as relevant.
3. Join Forums
Online forums are communities of like-minded people who openly, passionately, and publicly discuss, argue, and debate certain topics, ideas, or subjects. From TV shows to movies, video games, and even cats or dogs, there is a forum for just about anything these days, including dropshipping, eCommerce, wholesale sourcing and private labeling, as well as sales, online marketing, and advertising.
One of the most attractive aspects of using online forums is being able to get honest opinions and genuine recommendations from other more experienced users. Some of the biggest dropshipping forums on the internet often have passionate discussions about certain suppliers or companies, debating their pros and cons, as well as their products and prices. To point you in the right direction, here are some of the most popular dropship forums to start with:
UK Business Forums – Dedicated eCommerce section with many discussions on dropshipping, as well as eBay and Amazon selling
Warrior Forum – Most popular digital marketing forum with countless dropship topics
BlackHatWorld – Popular SEO forum with exclusive wholesale and dropshipping threads
4. Search YouTube
YouTube is one of the biggest free resources of information on the planet, with a whopping 300 hours of content being uploaded every single minute. It’s packed full of comprehensive videos on dropshipping, including guides on how to find dropshipping suppliers, as well as complete A-Z blueprints on building a successful eCommerce business. It’s certainly worth checking out, even to simply get an idea of where other successful dropshippers are sourcing their products from. Most videos, particularly from experienced gurus will show you exactly how to find, select, and source the best-selling dropship products.
5. Browse Quora
With over 300 million monthly users and more than 38 million questions posted in 2018, Quora is the biggest and most advanced question and answers website ever to have existed. Where others such as Yahoo Answers failed, Quora has succeeded, most in part to their unique ability to filter useful answers from the spam.
Not just for asking questions about the latest movie endings or plots, Quora is also packed full of thousands of questions related to the topic of dropshipping, most of which were posted by users seeking recommendations or information on how to find suppliers. Answers are then submitted by those who have the experience or know-how to point you in the right direction.
If for some reason you’re unable to find any useful existing answers, it takes only a few seconds to post your own question on Quora. It’s also free and very simple to do. Within a matter of hours, you should have some viable and helpful recommendations or answers to review, particularly if you word your question correctly and use long-tail keywords within the title.
The Conclusion
These are my top 5 most effective ways to find dropshipping suppliers for your eCommerce business, based on my 5 years of experience with running a highly successful eBay business. From using dropship directories to doing an advanced Google search or browsing Quora, implement the techniques outlined in this guide and you’ll find that perfect supplier in no time.
Keep in mind, before you begin trading with a supplier, do your research and due diligence to determine whether or not you’re dealing with a legitimate and reliable company. Your due diligence should include checking for a registered company, social media pages, and genuine contact details, as well as placing a test order. It will give you that added confidence before trusting the supplier to ship directly to your customers.
dropshipping boxes on conveyor -DepositPhotos
