Monday, November 9, 2009

Preparing to Contact a Wholesaler (What to Do and Expect) - by Worldwide Brands

Article by Worldwide Brands - this is a series of 14 blog posts providing information on how to find inventory and products to sell on eBay from wholesalers with Worldwide Brands and their Product Sourcing Tool for eBay.

Article #7 - Preparing to Call a Wholesaler

If you are new to selling on eBay, you are probably facing that time when you must make your first call to a genuine wholesale supplier. You want to open an account with them. You need to begin a fruitful relationship where you will have a continuous supply of products to sell in eBay Auctions or via your eBay Stores. There are steps Worldwide Brands recommends you should do before making the first call:

What Must You Do Before Contacting a Wholesale Supplier to Open an Account?
It is better to do some homework about the wholesaler BEFORE you make that critical call. For example:
  • Have you done your market and product research?
  • Do you know what products you are going to sell and why?
  • Have you studied the wholesaler’s website?
  • Have you read their Terms of Use, Policies and Procedures?

If you haven’t done this research, you can now access information on wholesale suppliers within My eBay! Worldwide Brands has created an application to help eBay sellers find products and wholesalers. This new application is part of the new eBay Selling Manager Applications feature. Sellers can subscribe to the Worldwide Brands Product Sourcing Tool and access supplier, product and trend information. (See our previous Blogs on how to perform rapid product and supplier research.)

Prepare the Flow of the Call
Remember, when you call the wholesale supplier representatives, they are interested only in WIIFM [What’s in it for Me?]. When you make the call, there are a lot of things that you want to know,for example:

  • Does the wholesaler allow their products to be sold online specifically on eBay? [If they say no, ask why in an informative way.]
  • Do they have support for other online retailers?
  • Do they perform single item drop shipping?
  • What is included in the drop ship fee?
  • Does the supplier offer extended service hours?
  • Have they tested how their products sell online?
  • Will they open an account for you?
  • Will they provide a Confidential Price List?
  • How will they provide product images, descriptions and specifications?

Address the Wholesale Representative’s needs first. What interests the wholesale representative?

  • What products will you sell?
  • To whom will you sell them?
  • How many will you sell?
  • When will you start selling?
  • When will you start ordering?
  • In what order volumes?

What will the wholesale representative want from you?

  • Business credentials
  • Sales Tax ID Number
  • Trade References
  • Business Credit Card
  • Purchase Order

When you start by giving the wholesale representative information they need first, you start building a relationship. If you start by asking a ton of questions about the things that are important to you, you lose the interest of the wholesale representative within seconds.

Following a Positive Call with a Wholesale Supplier, what do you want to receive?

  • Account Number
  • Confidential Price List
  • Purchase Order Process
  • Payment Terms
  • Digital images
  • Product descriptions (not always best for SEO)
  • Product details and specs
  • Proper packaging
  • Customized packaging (if available)
  • Video clips (if available)

Benefit from these and many other helpful education modules with tips available from Worldwide Brands.

Check out Worldwide Brands Product Sourcing Tool today! A 7 Day Free Trial is available.


Worldwide Brands is an eBay Certified Solution Provider, providing product sourcing access and information for eBay sellers. They are the publishers of an extensive directory of legitimate, fully-verified ecommerce wholesalers and manufacturers.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The information here is great. I will invite my friends here.

Thanks