Stop Mechanical Product Selection + Testing and Establish Supply Chain Awareness

In the article discussing the importance of the dropshipping supply chain, we talked about several issues that could arise from neglecting the supply chain.   Link here

In this article, we will delve deeper into specific solutions for the problems of mechanical product selection +testing and how to establishing supply chain awareness.

Nowadays, information about hot-selling and winning products is everywhere, making it seem like orders will skyrocket simply by copying product images and descriptions into your store.

In reality, many people just copy products that are either highly ranked or very low-ranked in sales into their store, feeling happy if they sell well and switching to other products if they don't, repeating the above process without any other considerations.

The Drawbacks of Mechanical, Thoughtless Product Selection and Testing

1. Uncompetitive cost price leads to higher selling price or lower profit.

2. Uncontrolled logistics can delay delivery, lowering repurchase rates and increasing customer complaints.

3. Unchecked product quality can leads to higher return rates and complaints due to defects, poor performance and unmatched product description or images.

All these drawbacks can make your spending of time and money in vain. To avoid this meaningless repetition, and make every product test count, you should start to establish your own supply chain.

Why it Sounds So Grand? Establish Supply Chain?

Actually in previous articles we talked about what is supply chain. It includes a lot of links, but in dropshipping most links will be handled by dropshippers’ suppliers. So, for most dropshippers establishing supply chain = find reliable suppliers to build long-term cooperation.

How to Establish Your Own Supply Chain (Find Reliable Suppliers):

Before we start, you need to have a defined niche or product already. About how to select one, here’s a guide: link here

Find reliable suppliers online on platforms:

1. Find one of the most famous platforms with the most suppliers registered; avoid small platforms to reduce trial and error.

Although numerous suppliers makes the platform a mixed bag, some of them even found ways to bypass the regulatory system. With a little discernment, we can still uncover treasures from it.

2. After selecting products or niches, search for all suppliers of these products, literally all suppliers. Record the shop and the final deal price of the products you want to sell, and note if there is a minimum order quantity. This might be a heavy work, but it’s crucial to success.

And figure out the supplier’s shipping policy:

Use the shop information page to find the shop's registered address, find out where it located. It might influence the shipping time.

Here is a template excel table containing all the information you need to collect above,

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3. Record store ratings check recent reviews manually, and get to know about their service and product quality through real reviews.

If the shop is identified as a second-tier wholesaler but the price is comparable to or acceptable compared to the factory, rank them based on shop ratings and sales volume. For those with not very large order volumes, high-ranked second-tier wholesalers can also be a good choice.

Find factories offline and negotiate cooperation in person:

If you are an experienced dropshipper, already have lots of daily orders and ready to expand your business, finding offline factories to build cooperation is a necessary choice.

1. Get introductions from people who have already established solid cooperation.

2. Use online platforms to filter and find factory addresses, and conduct on-site inspections of their products, what niches are they good at, and what about their fulfillment services.

3. Attend trade shows.

All of these methods give you access to tangible suppliers and allow you to maintain control. However, they can be expensive to implement.

For new dropshippers, their niche might not be determined, by doing this, travel expenses, time investment, etc will increase their cost of trial and error. So finding factories offline is not recommended for them.

A method with less workload:

DSers provides a premium selection based on AliExpress, you can reduce your workload a lot with the Supplier Optimizer feature.

You can search by product’s URL or image. And filter, browse more conveniently, judge suppliers more easily, and add products you chose to the import list.

Once you decide which supplier you want to work with, you can directly search for the suppliers that meet your needs, then switch to new suppliers behind the existing listing without having to edit the whole listing again.

Find Better Supplier With Less Workload DSers Supplier Optimizer - One click to filter out the most proper suppliers for your products TRY DSers FREE

No matter how you find a supplier that meets your needs, make sure you always have such a search, screening, and continuous optimization awareness, and continue establishing your supply chain.

As mentioned, There are lots of links in the supply chain but suppliers handled the most for dropshippers. However, it doesn’t mean dropshippers don’t have to pay attention to those links.

In the next article, We will start by placing orders to our suppliers, and delve into the key areas of the dropshipping supply chain that we need to focus on and control as much as possible.