How you supply your products ?

[See you vader]

A fulfillment center or a dropship agent can help provide a beter user experience. Better shipping times, better tracking, removing labels, adding labels, using custom packaging or generic packaging...stuff like that. For me, the main thing is better shipping and tracking.

I mean you can have the supplier send the item directly, sure, but ePacket tracking is terrible and the label will be completely in Chinese not to mention the long shipping times.

If i find a good supplier I will have them send it directly sometimes after I ask how they package the item. It also depends on the item and margins. For example if I'm selling a phone case for $9.97 I'm not going to send it to a fulfillment center and then pay $6 for faster shipping. Not unless there is volume there of course.

Better shipping times can also seperate you from your competitors. Just look at Amazon when it comes to that.

But for your sourcing needs, a VA seems like a good soloution. Start with that and then decide if you want the supplier to ship it directly or use a FC.

Well said man...

Currently I have 25+ suppliers I deal with, some of them ship the same day, others withing 3 days. They remove the labeling, invoice/receipt or anything like that.

I sell my products for 20$ and they cost me 5.2$, the supplier ships directly to my customers( no labeling, no price no receipt etc...) from China to US, and delivery time is 25 - 30 days. If was to have my supplier ship everything to a fulfillment center first and have them ship to my customers, how much extra will that cost me ? How will the process and the pricing change with that ?

 

[See you vader]

Source your winners, than use a fulfillment center, to make sure your customers get an "amazon like" service, that can be a good way to scale if you believe those product are long term and not just a trend.

you can do a little research about 3PL (3rd party logistics)

There are companies that will get involved in all sorts of logistic work, some will also know or have agents abroad, that can help you with sourcing (for a fee obviously)

i am not sure its the most suitable for dropshipping since the nature of having many products and having them replaced, but thats defiantly the way to go with private labels or mono products, to help with branding (next day shipping)

Definitely a good idea when scaling. Do you have any recommendations for people whom you've worked with or you know people that worked with ?

 

[SocialEyez]

Definitely a good idea when scaling. Do you have any recommendations for people whom you've worked with or you know people that worked with ?

It all depends on what your'e looking for to be honest.

You can find a local 3PL, they will usually have cheap and fast domestic service, but their international capabilities will lack. Than you find one of those for each of your strong areas.

The other option is using a tool like ShipStation, it will not sort the logistic part for you, but it will sort the technological part of working with many smaller warehouses. you will still need to do more outreach than finding one reliable source for all EU for example.

The third option is Amazon FBA - if you run out of options, this is a good complete solution, it will be quite expansive tho. (you don't have to sell on amazon to use their FBA)

For your question, my last venture was in the UK, so i partnered with corefulfilment.com, and they are pretty good.