The Wholesale Forums

[dave_turbo]

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[anotheruser]

to the forums, dave_turbo. I can answer from the "new trader" perspective, if that helps. I'll be retailing, online only, consumer and commercial electronics through dropshippers only, in the first instance. I've got as far as registering the company and domain name, signing up for a bank account, which I expect to get details of in another week to 10 days, and registering online for VAT, which I expect to take another 7-11 weeks to get the number. So I could be trading in a week to ten days, i.e. as soon as I have a bank account.

I now have a shopping cart configured on a sub domain and am spending odd bits of spare time sourcing products and populating the site, so I could even be interested in your offerings.

What I'm looking for in suppliers, in no particular order, is:

Responsive delivery times. This includes some way of imparting stock levels to me, or warning me when a gap between running out and restocking is likely to happen.

Anonymity. I don't want my suppliers trying to steal my customers by advertising their products or even stating the fact that they exist.

Good prices. I'll only be trading on auction sites selectively, as a traffic driver to my main site, so I'm not looking for the ridiculous. Just competitive and constant. I'll just be looking for a few lines for, e.g. e-bay purposes and I've already got my eye on one or two suppliers on these forums for that.

Payment methods. Accessories can be very low cost, so if transfer charges are high, it can defeat the purpose of the exercise. Even for higher ticket items, simplicity and speed count.

Then there's the "simple" matter of establishing trust in the first instance. Checkable status with Companies House, WHOIS search and elsewhere, any trade associations and even better, contactable testimonials would be good, along with the ability to test the water with purchases of smaller items.

There are some good introductory articles around this site about starting in business and investigating potential suppliers. Above are the main things I'm looking for in the specifics of a UK based, dropship supplier.

Does that help? Let us know how you get on. You could send me a price list when you're ready, or point me to your web site. But you can't do a PM until you've done 10 posts, so get posting.

[Anthony]

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