distribution help!

[Cloughie]

I am in the process of writing a business plan for an online sports supplement store.

I need to figure out distribution.

Has anyone done anything like this before and preferably used a company to drop ship products you sell to your customer?

Where did you start looking and who did you first contact?

Anything else you recommend?

[jconley2]

Cloughie,

You can check out The Drop Ship Source Directory They provide an e-book full of distribution companies you can inquire with. They provide pricing, requirements, etc. Only downside is the $70 USD price tag on the e-book that is good for six months. Though I would think it's 100% tax deductible at the end of the year.

To your success,

Jim Conley II
Your Payment Acceptance Expert

[Cloughie]

JConley thank you very much for your answer.

From my research on eccommerce on this forum you seem like a very helpfull person!

I need to ask yuo a q i have added you to my icq list.

Hope to speak soon!

[Mail-Benefit.com]

this may sound a little odd but some things are best left to the professionals and press releases are one of them if you want to get the best covreage you will have to pay for it and in terms of paying for a business plan the best thing for you to do is ask for an advice although the eBook sounds like a good idea there is no substiture for good expreience froma professional

Matthew Taylor

[beley]

Personally, after starting an e-commerce business that is still successful, I would not drop-ship...

We stock most of what we carry, and we have about $50,000 in inventory. We do dropship, but customers don't like it and we never know when the order is actually going to ship out.

There are companies out there called "Fullfillment Firms" that simply warehouse your product and ship it for you, but that would also require you to purchase the product up front.

As for just dropshipping the product from a distributor or the manufacturer, I don't think you're going to find anyone to do that. Most distributors and manufacturers are set up to ship out in large quantity, not single orders to customers. When the ".com" rush came on they were intrigued by drop-shipping but quickly found that it was very time consuming to pack and ship individual orders and have since stopped.

If you can find someone to dropship all of your products that would be great, but I don't think you will. If you do they will probably require you to purchase the inventory upfront and then charge you a hefty fee to dropship the products.

Out of over 10 manufacturers we deal with, only 1 will drop-ship and they charge about $10.00 (on TOP of shipping costs) just to drop-ship. There are no "distributors" in our industry but I would imagine that would be about the same in your industry as well.

HOWEVER, you might be able to partner with a GNC or other sports suppliment supplier that already has inventory (a local store perhaps)...

They could give you a discount and you could ship the products... that would work until you could afford to purchase inventory. It would work for everyone!

[Cloughie]

damn what is it with you and dropshipping? lol..

Seriously though I am gonna research it as I jusr refuse to believe that the mass of online supplement stores out there hold most of the stock they sell..

I will get back to ya..