Small home business and cottage industries have always flourished in the United States. With the development of wireless technology and the increasing sophistication and prevelance of the Internet, small home, or cottage, businesses have moved onto the web. We see not only a migration of business onto the web, but also something unique, the ability to generate income soley from Internet based means. In some cases, the means border on the gimmicky, such as through the promotion of payper click advertising on what amount to spammy web pages. In other cases, we see the proliferation Internet based retailing of physical goods. Such businesses are now often referred to as e-tailers.
E-tailing, or ecommerce, is our subject here. This is an increasingly popular solution to small home business, and eBay used to be a point of entrance into this sort of selling. EBay is still popular, but over the years has become anincreasingly competitive venue for the selling popular consumer items. It is still viable for unique cottage items where there isn’t a pre-existing mass market as is the case with consumer electronics.
One of the obstacles to selling physical goods on the Internet is where and how to source products. Although this is not as complicated as it may seem, for someone who is starting out, locating a viable source of wholesale supply can seema daunting task and is an area where assistance is often needed. Going hand in hand with wholesale supply is dropship supply. A dropshipper is a distributor who keeps the inventory on their premises and ships out orders as they come in under the business name of the account.
Dropshipping can be extrememly effective provided it is supported by a solid business plan. Locating a reliable wholesale dropshipper may take research, but should not be particularly difficult beyond the due diligence needed for research.I t is important to identify the difference between retail businesses masquerading as wholesalers who dropship and wholesalers and/or manufacturers who dropship. Confusing these two is a mistake that beginners and others make who haven’t taken the time to think through their business plan.
Looking at this in the broadest terms, it is generally best to do market research and work out a business plan so that the start up risk is properly understood. Sometimes this process is undertaken in reverse with the new business person looking for sources of wholesasle supply or dropship distribution before actually working out a business plan or understanding what it is they want to sell.
Wholesale directories, such as Salehoo (find out more at Free Product Sourcing Tips) can be useful venues of research into wholesale supply and worldwide wholesale products in general. Perhaps one of the most valuable features of some of the better online directory resources is the forum because this is where networking and connections can occur.
Living off the Grid and Sourcing Your Way to Freedom 