Behind the success of any Retailing or Dropshipping business lies good Product Sourcing! Now, what is Product Sourcing? This post will let you know the necessary details about it, especially if you are into it, or are looking to do dropshipping business!
First of all, Why is it Important? Below are some reasons;
1. You cannot do any selling/dropshipping business without the right idea about sourcing or producing the products.
2. Sourcing a supplier should be your first step while moving further in the dropshipping business. It is necessary the most if you are not producing/creating items yourself.
3. Right products at affordable prices can help you gain customers. So, this will lead your business as well!
It is not so easy to find the best or top-selling products at profitable prices from the desired supplier in this competitive scenario. Achieving this can help you grow your selling/dropshipping business.
What is Product Sourcing?
Retail buyers can benefit from contacting suppliers waiting or ready to get their products listed on online stores. In simple terms, it is a process for retailers to find the right or desired items, buy them from the suppliers, and resell them in their stores.
Yet, it is pretty difficult to find the right wholesale product suppliers for your e-commerce business since they are huge in numbers. You can’t expect each product from a supplier as per your business needs. You can search for a product supplier online either on online supplier platforms or Supplier websites.
Also, if you do a product search, you will end up with a big list of thousands or even millions of product results. So it would be laborious and time-consuming for anyone to explore different websites, and get the right items for a dropshipping business.
Hence, you can take the help of certain platforms (in the next section) to find online capable suppliers and hence product sourcing. The end result should match up with the need of a retailer!
How to Find Suppliers as a part of Product Sourcing Strategy?
The complete process flow of product sourcing can be made smoother by following these steps;
STEP 1: Research the Product
STEP 2: Contacting Potential Suppliers
STEP 3: Get Samples
STEP 4: Trail-run an Order with a Supplier
STEP 5: Analyze Supplier
How to do Product Sourcing?
The right product sourcing strategy will work for almost all kinds of eCommerce business models. By the way, you will need to continuously evaluate, and improve such strategies to nurture the growth of your business.
You need to consider the following points to achieve a right Product Sourcing for your dropshipping business;
1. Get the latest trends and search volumes for each product of its results. It can help you find the online demand for an item as a part of your basic market research independent of the size of your market.
2. You need to know the right category of your chosen product in terms of the market. For example, is it a seasonal, trendy, all-time, or long-term selling item!
3. Decide well about the price you need to charge for the product so that you can both win over the competition and make profits.
4. How valuable is your product to your target customers?
5. Are there any regulations or restrictions for your chosen product?
6. Location also matters the most when selecting products to resell on your web store. If a product you have listed on your online store is easily available even offline, be prepared for a big competition.
7. You should know about all of your target customers, their age, and where they spend their time. Hence, you can target those by having the best marketing plan for your offered items.
8. Durability and specifications of the product are also important. One should also consider the probability of returns or exchanges, shipping, profit margin, and more of an item.
9. After deciding on a product, you need to look for an experienced and reliable supplier. The supplier should fulfill all kinds of demand and supply needs.
10. Communicate well with the supplier about everything to avoid any future risks.
11. Analyze well how much profit will be there with you after neglecting the wholesale and/or shipping prices.
12. You can look for a relevant middleman that can act as a third-party logistics firm or fulfillment center.
How the Right Product Sourcing is Important for Dropshipping?
Dropshippers need a smart product sourcing strategy. It can help them avoid any money loss, save time, and help them expand their business while dealing with many varieties of products. They do not need to bother about managing inventory, packaging, or shipping. All such tasks of an order will handle by the supplier or wholesaler.
By the way, Dropshipping is one of the highly preferable Product Sourcing Methods. Many offline retailers are also inclining towards reselling business to expand their reach and earn more.
However, the two main hurdles in a reselling business are ‘to gain good profit margin’ and ‘to lead ahead in the underlying market competition’. You can have lots of product choices that you can choose to list on your website for reselling purposes. All you need to do is to research well, and evaluate the supplier properly before finalizing the one.
The brand/company of the supplier/wholesaler should be reputable. Products should be of good quality standards. And most importantly, the service should be backed with great client feedback and reviews. There are many other product sourcing methods. For eg, taking the help of Directories, Sourcing Platforms, Trade Shows, or even Product Sourcing Firms.
How to Find Trending Products to Sell?
Your main aim should be to know the upcoming trends and prepare your strategy to lead ahead of your competitors. It will help you to sell the products listed on your web store sooner than others. It demands the right skills of you to identify and monitor the trending products in the market.
Things become difficult when you research a new product without any data about its worth or to find its accurate longevity. Here are the different ways you can find hot selling products that are in high demand;
2.1 eCommerce Marketplaces
You can use some indicators available on major e-commerce marketplaces. You can use them to know the current or future probability of selling any product. They offer many filters for its customers like ‘Best sellers’. ‘Shop by trend’, ‘Hot selling items’, or ’Top seasonal items’.
Amazon: It is the largest and most popular online retailing platform to get suggestions for popular products. You can take the help of ‘Movers & Shakers list and ‘Best Sellers list’ to help you get an idea about the trending products.
eBay: Another popular e-commerce site with millions of worldwide users. You can type ‘best seller’ in its search bar and refine its results by adding a specific market and product in your search.
Shopify: It is an excellent content management system with a focus on e-commerce loaded with lots of exciting features. You can refer to Shopify’s trending product list to find the best-selling items.
Aliexpress: A well-known consumer marketplace in China. However, this e-commerce platform is currently in use by global consumers. You can use its ‘popular’ section to know the most-selling products from every category.
SaleYee: It is one of the suggested Dropshipping wholesaler or supplier platforms with many categories of items. Anyone can easily find the Best Seller items on it in US/UK region.
2.2 Social Media Networks
No one can neglect social media if it is about searching for people’s demands and so as the trending products. You should definitely use the following platforms;
Facebook: You can use many helpful features of this highly popular social media for product research purposes. It includes Facebook Ad Library and Facebook Groups.
Instagram: Due to the worldwide acceptance, not only people but businesses as well can benefit from using Instagram.
Pinterest: Anyone can pin their interest in the form of photos on this social media platform. Businesses can also get an idea about the current trends to make their strategy.
Youtube: YouTubers post Unboxing Videos of the newly launched and old products to be watched by their target audiences.
Reddit: It is one of the social forums where businesses can get informed about the latest news or trends.
2.3 Trend Report Sites
Many online market research tools can help you get a Plot graph to find the opportunities as per different search filers. It will help you identify, analyze and validate the falling or rising opportunities. Overall, these website services can help you get trending products quicker;
Google trends: Free and easy way to check Online Demand, Google Searches, and Featured Insights of any product.
Trend Hunter: A global online community including AI and human researchers to inspire and share the newer trends.
Springwise: They explore, curate, and evaluate the latest worldwide innovations. One of the best online services to get information about the latest trends.
TrendWatching: It is a popular consumer trend firm with a network of 1700+ spotters in various nations. The platform can help one find innovations and emerging consumer trends.
Ecomhunt: You can find trending products daily on this product curation website. It is one of the recommended product research tools for Dropshippers.
4 Best Product Sourcing Strategies
Many new resellers got confused about how to proceed ahead when they found different options to source products for their web stores. You should know the pros and cons of each;
1. Take the help of MarketplacesThere are many active and popular e-commerce marketplaces from which you can source the products for your business. It includes but is not limited to Shopify, Etsy, and Amazon. It is not so simple to find the right products from the right seller at the desired price on such e-commerce platforms.
After all, you need to raise the price of an item and list it on your web store to make more profits. Using this method, you can better get an idea about the current market competition, and hence you can create your strategy as per. By doing proper market research, you will come to know about;
- Top-selling products that need refinement in their marketing strategy,
- The highest price customers can pay for any product, and
- What all are the best selling items of all time, or for a particular season.
2. Dealing with Handmade ProductsIf you consider selling unique, rare, less-competitive items on your web store, you should deal with handmade items online. Many artisans are into this business and lots of buyers are also looking for handmade items online. You can have good control over your inventory and brand since there is little or no competition in selling DIY items online.
All you will need to focus on while dealing with this business is to manage your time and your business scalability. It is hard to find customers to sell a rare or unknown product in the market. You need to use some methods and tricks that can help you grow the demand for your products sooner. Additionally, you must also be prepared with a backup plan if things not going as expected!
3. Direct Deal with the Manufacturer
Many e-commerce retailers go straight to the producer of the product that they want to sell/resell online on their web store. Hence, they can easily cut out third-party trading firms or middlemen. At the same time, it is not so easy to build a strong relationship with the manufacturers.
It could also exhaust your time and effort in maintaining relations with producers of every listed product. Many manufacturers ask resellers about the MOQ (Minimum Order Quantities) of a product.
So it might be possible that you might need to deal with items in bulk if you are directly contacting the manufacturers of the products. So you need to have a good budget to handle it. There are many online and offline ways to meet with and connect to different product manufacturers.
4. Get support from the WholesalerIf you are into it or planning to deal with the products sooner that you will not create or assemble then choose this option. This choice will help your business to grow from a start small to a well-recognized e-commerce brand. You can add more products from different categories on your web store and expand your reach to more number of your target customers.
Make sure the products that you are dealing with are always available in stock. So that you do not need to wait for the products to be produced or get ready after getting a customer order. However, you need to be a bit aware of choosing the right products from a wholesaler. After all, the products that you have selected to sell in your store might already be listed on any other e-commerce platform. So the competition is obvious!
5 Tips to Improve your Product Sourcing Strategy
Making your supplier and product research strategies less stressful, profitable, and time-saver is a must. It can help you refine your technique to source the products for your web store. Product sourcing includes researching, calculations about the price & cost, and negotiations with suppliers.
You should know the right method to find the products to sell at a great price, that too of quality from reputable suppliers. Below are some tips to help you find the desired products for dropshipping at prices that can make profits for the business;
1) Good Relations with Trustworthy Vendors
The main factor that can affect your product sourcing strategy is ‘how strong is your relationship with the supplier’. Many businesses try to make good bonds with more than one vendor. So as a reseller you should always try strengthening your relationship with the supplier. It will help you provide a good experience of Order fulfillment and shipping to your customers.
2) Bulk Buying Options
You can check the online liquidation sources. Try to find whether the supplier has excess stock of any product. You can get such bulk items at a highly discounted rate from the wholesaler. Be cautious while doing this! It might be possible that an overstocked inventory will get outdated with fluctuations in the market pattern.
3) Market Research
A product that is available for you to resell at a good profit margin from the wholesaler does not mean it will also sell fast to your customers. So go with the product that your target customer needs even if you will get fewer profit margins on them. Make sure you have the solid data to validate your research!
4) Keeping yourself Updated with Trends
The market trends never stay stable! Hence, you need to be aware of the changing needs, priorities, and demands of your customers regularly. Your business would survive only if it will offer the products that thrive in the current or upcoming market scenario.
5) Learn from your Competitors
Product sourcing in all does not only means from where you are getting an item to resell. It is also about how you will get it delivered to your buyers. You can get a better idea about it by absorbing your competitor's behavior. You can order a sample product from your competitor's business and analyze how they handle it, their packaging, shipping, and more. You could learn much from them and even follow a good business model of your competitor, at least for a start.
5 Trending Products to Sell Online in 2022
While selecting any item to resell for your product sourcing strategy you need to consider these factors,
Whether that product can help you improve your business?
How much probability of profit could you make with this product?
Following are the most trending items that you can list on your web store for the success of your Dropshipping business;
Shelves– Every household needs shelves to place their necessary or fancy products. It could be either for decoration purposes or to keep things within reach. The aim is to save much of the floor space since shelves are generally hung on walls.Ottoman Storage Boxes– It is good to have multipurpose furniture in our homes and offices. Today we can opt for Beds having storage compartments and even chairs or benches with storage arrangements.
Food Scale– We all know how important it is for all of us to eat healthy food. So to measure the right amount of nutrition in our diet we can get compact food scales that we can easily keep at home or even during travel.
Grill– Fried food requires oil, either deep or shallow fry. So this method of cooking is not good for our well-being. It is best to have handy Grills in our households to enjoy delicious and well-cooked food even without using much oil in it.
Coffee Table– Small Designer tables always work to enhance the ambiance of our halls or rooms. Many people use to change or upgrade them with newer designs or materials to give a fresh look to their interiors.
Conclusion
It is pretty challenging to search for and find the desirable suppliers to get trending products you can offer in your web store. At the same time, the Quality and Integrity of every product are an essential part of your product sourcing strategy.
A supplier such as SaleYee can offer flexible service and integration of a web store with major e-commerce systems. They also offer customized packaging, complete transparency, and expedited shipping services.
It helps you improve your skill of product procurement at a price that can undercut your competitor's sales and help you gain profit per sale. Always try to make your business less complicated by choosing a convenient option among all!
New businesses come and disappear every day! So, you will need to have the right strategy or proper planning in advance to make sure your business will survive in the future.
