Wholesale Info
I got an email a couple weeks ago from someone asking information about selling on the net here was his original email:
Hello,
I am interested in trying out a small niche site to get comfortable with wholesale, dropshipping, etc. I saw you recommend World Wide Brands. What do you looke for when you start researching dropshippers and companies that will work with a startup? I have a couple of ideas but I am not sure that I can compete.
I will keep reading sites and getting more information before I jump in. I like your website and have found your posts on Digitalpoint informative.
Thanks,
Ed
I emailed him back some info, gave him a link to an older post that I wrote,
http://www.webpuffs.com/2006/03/03/what-to-look-for-in-a-drop-shipper/ and I also told him I was sorry for taking so long to email him back. (I was a camp for 2 weeks.)
Ed just emailed back today with this email:
Hope it was a vacation! Thanks for the tip. I will check it out.
Quick question, in your opinion, would you focus on smaller dollar items or larger dollar items?
From my point of view, if I focus on selling higher priced items, there is potentially more profit per sale but will people hesitant to hit checkout?
I was thinking about going smaller because I am new to this and it will be my first attempt. I don’t want to break the bank. Do you have any experience on which may be better in the long run?
Thanks,
Ed
Here’s my reply:
I sell mainly high dollar items. From experience, most of my customers who are purchasing big ticket items will either purchase over the phone or via purchase orders. Most of my online sales are smaller items. Sometimes customers will purchase a $2,000 item online without asking any questions, but rarely. My question to you would be, do you have the ability to provide your customers with phone support? If not, high dollar items may not be the right thing for you to sell at this point. But then again, there are small dollar items that could require phone support also. If you don’t have the ability to provide phone support, no brainer items are the best to sell. If you sold something like underwear, for example, people wouldn’t have to ask questions. They would order their size and be off about their business.
I personally like selling high dollar items. If I sell 1 or 2 of them in a week, I’m set. But again, I have the needed phone support pretty much all worked out. If I were soley selling smaller items, I would have to have probably 10 times the amount of visitors to earn what I earn in a week.
When I first started out, it was more of a risk selling my large ticket items. What if someone didn’t pay off their purchase order? I could have been up a creek. Now, I have a customer that is 5 months overdue. They owe me around $1200. It doesn’t freak me out because we have plenty of profit just sitting in the bank that will cover our cost of the $1200 product. My advice is to go with whatever you are comfortable with. There are people out there selling small ticket items making loads of money. Follow your heart. Good luck with your venture, Ed.
Thanks,
Jon
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Great tips Jon. And especially good points on being able to provide phone support.
I would almost think that online support can be just as valuable. Such as if you do not want to set up a special phone for this website, you could setup an online chat support script that your cusotmers could use to communicate with you.