5th Supplier Type – Unconscious Suppliers

The 5th, and final supplier for drop shipping that I will discuss is what I call the “unconscious supplier”.

The reason for that label is because there are a lot of suppliers all throughout the world who simply are not conscious of what drop shipping is and how having a dropship program could benefit their business.

This is actually an opportunity for you!

Yes, an opportunity, because many times you can simply call these suppliers and educate them about how drop shipping would work. Some might say no and that’s okay. However in my experience, many of them say yes!

Once an unconscious drop ship supplier is made aware of the win-win benefits of having a dropship program in place they agree. They make more sales, which is what they want and you get what you want.

So in your search for suppliers pay attention to this opportunity because it can help differentiate you a bit more as an ecommerce business by providing you a wide range of products that normally are not on your competition’s radar at all.

When you contact these “unconscious dropship suppliers” be sure to educate them on the following:

1. Explain to them what drop shipping is.
2. Clarify the shipping expectations. That you would retail and they would store and ship.
3. Discuss wholesale pricing. This is the lower price you can secure with them so you can retail their products at a higher price.
4. Educate them about how they could establish a M.A.P. (minimum advertised price) policy. You could even have a M.A.P. template contract ready to send to them for them to customize and then send back to you to sign. If you’re not familiar with the benefits of working with M.A.P. suppliers read my article here about MAP suppliers.
5. Discuss any shipping and return policies and time-frames and expectations so you are clear about how to work with them successfully.
6. Talk about how their inventory is updated and how you will be notified.
7. Establish a point of contact and a smooth process for all incoming orders sent to them from you so they are shipped out on time and you are send confirmation and tracking info.
8. Ask them to send you or give you access to any data you need so you can add their products to your website. Request data like image links/files, pricing, SKU’s, weight of products, etc. Many times suppliers will simply say to access that info directly on their website so you can copy and bring over much of it to your site.
9. And finally reassure them you operate your business on a high level of integrity and that you look forward to creating a trusted relationship with them.

From there you’re set to go with adding their products to your site and starting to retail them!

Establish this type of relationship with the unconscious dropship suppliers does take a bit more time and effort, but again, the benefits usually far outweigh the extra time it takes to work out the details of a successful dropship relationship.