Week 2

This Week’s Objectives was:

• Learn how to find a supplier
• Learn about suppliers for business models other than merchants of products.

This week I learned how to Quantify and compare suppliers and choose a business model that works for certain criteria depending on what they have at hand Time/money/ talents. For me Personally,  I am not good at writing on blogs or news so doing the affiliate is not my thing. If I have to choose between having an affiliate marketing or drop shipping, then I will go with the second one, but that might change along the way.

Affiliate marketing or drop shipping?

Everyone is different, some have success with affiliate and some with drop shipping. I read that affiliate marketing tends to be a long-term solution that takes longer to generate initial revenues, unless you are really good at it. It also depends on the success of the company you advertise for. The way I see it is that I  have to come up with something exciting most (all) of the time to drag people to see my website then click on the referred  link to buy the product. Once the purchase is done the costumer will not come back to the site again to look for product to buy they will go right away to the store website you refers to.  The only way a costumer will come back to visit my site is because they subscribe for newsletter, deals, etc.  and my catch word better be a good one! otherwise they will skip my email or unsubscribe. The fun part is I have to consistently write in my site or blog, interact with the consumer to be successful which demand lots of writings which I am not good at, like I said before.

With drop shipping, it will also cost me lot of effort to initiate revenue. It requires research into every supplier to ensure reliability and quality. Also I have to build and maintain my website all of the time. Drop shipping could generate revenue faster than the affiliate, but there are risks. All of the convenience of not having to do any of the fulfillment work like keeping a warehouse, inventory, shipping, packing, comes at a cost. I might lose money or their business reputation if they are not careful.

They both takes time and effort, but building an online business takes more effort and risks, but the business is real it’s there. The great thing about it is I would have chance to build a long term commitment with the customer, and also could increase, grow, improve, change, ect. my business anyway I want it.

Which suppliers?

When it comes to choose which suppliers  to go with, here are some important criteria that I would suggest:

• Supplier on support for returns,
• Length of time that they have had a drop shipping program,
• Percent of charge backs.
• Stock availability because you don’t want to sell and item that turns out to be out of stock.
• Anonymity: because you want to advertise for your business not the drop shipper.
• Customer service.
• and facilities.