subject: Inventory Source has the solutions you need to sell Wholesale Dropship Products [print this page] Inventory Source has the solutions you need to sell Wholesale Dropship Products
Wholesale dropship product resellers are beginning to realize that 2011 is different from previous years, but do not worry. Inventory Source has the solutions you need to sell wholesale dropship products and gain a real edge over your competition.
There are more and more articles being written about wholesale backorder issues. When you manually list a product on your site, you have to check everyday to see what items have come in stock or gone out of stock as well as what prices have changed. A backorder is when you sell an item to your customer, but when you go to the supplier for order processing, that item has been sold out. Fortunately, you have a true solution available to you which most dropship resellers do not have, because Inventory Source can easily help you manage your wholesale dropship product inventory price and quantity updates automatically.
Do wholesale dropship products go out of stock?
It is important to note that there will always be products that go in and out of stock every day. For some of the larger distributors, this might happen for hundreds of items in their catalog every day. Some new resellers assume they can just take a product feed and dump it on their site or auction listings and sit back and relax. They might have spent hours or days formatting and loading their product details from their supplier account to their website, so once the products are listed it is natural to want to step away from their ecommerce site or at least the data management aspect. However, if you spent a week uploading your product details your supplier would have added new items, discontinued items, and had numerous products go in and out of stock which now have to be updated on your website again. With every product you manually upload to your listings, you are uploading a potential issue that you need to monitor every day, 7 days a week.
Are dropship wholesale products really going out of stock more often?
Nationally, resellers are noticing that more and more of their items are going out of stock at their wholesale supplier and getting placed on backorder status. They might have worked with a supplier on their own for years and felt with some smaller programs that they are able to keep up with the wholesale dropship product changes to price and quantity by working a few extra hours each day. However, noone goes into the wholesale dropship reseller business to spend all of their time updating product details and feed changes. You do it to sell more products and work less while enjoying the ability to service your customers and make a profit each day.
Why is this happening more often with wholesale dropshipping product catalogs?
It is always an issue that you need to address, and one we have been helping our members with since 2002, but one simple answer is the economy. Think about how you deal with the downturn in your own household. If you are like most people, you are watching your budget more carefully. These spending habits are also happening at the wholesale dropship product suppliers. For wholesale programs to stock large volumes of product SKUs in bulk, they need to know that money is coming in quicker then it is going out and being spent on a backlog of products. Rather then stocking 100 copies of the same Apple Ipad Case, a wholesale dropship product distributor might stock 30. They will reorder these items as the quantity gets too low, but they are playing it safe with their product counts and adjust to what is selling and moving out of their warehouses. Another reason for some lower stock changes, especially for electronic suppliers, is that many items as also going through more frequent upgrades and changes. As the pace of technology changes, so does the development of the next new gadget. New phones mean new phone accessories. Even with more people buying cell phone accessories, the increase in the number of new models means less of each item type might be sold. People might change their phone module more frequently or upgrade to the newest GPS or Apple devise meaning the pool of customers for a product type diversifies more as there are more models in the market. This can make it trickier for a wholesale supplier to gauge what the demand will be for a specific item or accessory for that item in 3, 6, and 9 months. These factors mean that the wholesale or dropship supplier needs to be more conservative with the number of items for a single SKU that they stock in their warehouse at one time. This means wholesale suppliers are letting inventory levels go lower in years past before refilling their quantities. While you, the wholesale dropship reseller, do not have to take on this risk because you do not have to pay for any products before they sell, the risk of selling an out of stock item on your site or dealing with a price change while trying to manually monitor your product changes every day is a risk that gets passed to you.and this is a risk your Inventory Source custom file and automation services can resolve saving you time and money.
The summer months are typically when dropship wholesale suppliers determine what the items they think they can best sell through the holidays at year-end. The earlier the wholesale product suppliers ramp up for the Holidays, the less that stock tends to cost them, and the lower your prices will be as well. After July, you'll start to see a reduction in the backorder issue as they have more stock before the holidays. Last, as you get farther into the holidays it will begin to occur again as inventory levels go back down for year-end settlement. Issues with quantity and price changes are somewhat cyclical, but it will always be a concern for anyone selling dropship products. So, rather then try to manually adjust your efforts every day or take on more people to help you monitor these changes, just get started with an Inventory Source custom file or automation service. Another great option is go through the Inventory Browser tool in your free account to view more suppliers that have similar products. If your primary supplier goes out of stock on a brand or product, it is a great idea to already have an approved account with another wholesale product supplier so you can use them as another source for your orders.
Your wholesale dropship product supplier is going to do what they need to succeed and so should you. The wholesale suppliers understand how difficult it can be for their reseller network to stay up to date with changes in price and quantity levels. This is why many of our wholesale product suppliers recommend our services to their dropship resellers, and they have been doing this for close to 10 years now. They understand how the custom Inventory Source tools can allow you to control your prices, categories, brands, and more while getting the most direct and updated details form their warehouse everyday giving you the time you need to respond to customer questions or market your website and product listings.
