Some dropship companies can require you to submit your tax ID or business license. How to get one? To begin with, go to www.irs.gov; find, download and complete form SS-4; mail it to IRS (address is specified on the form). For more information, contact your local IRS office. As a rule, it takes just a few weeks to get your tax ID.

What should you check with a dropship company you are planning to work with:

• Dropship company reliability: How long are they on the market? What others say about this company (check forums or just make your own search using Google or any other search engine)? Also make a research of the dropship company prices: you want to be competitive on the market.
  
  
• Availability in stock: you should be aware of the availability of products you offer to customers. Customer support is your responsibility and you do not want to disappoint customers and refund the money for non-delivery. Added to that, your reputation can be ruined within a few weeks if you fail to meet the customers expectations. So, dropship company should supply you with or place online regularly updated list of products in stock.
  
  
• Product descriptions and pictures: to effectively present products on your website/ auctions you need detailed description and pictures of high quality. Does the dropship company take care of this?
  
  
• Return policy: what are the terms for returns? You should expect the company to accept returns within a reasonable time if it is their fault.
  
  
• Customer support: customers buy products from you, not dropship company. So, you should be prepared to deal and efficiently resolve any issues that may appear in the process of your dropship business: refunds, returns, back orders ad etc.
  
  
• Shipping labels, terms and rates: how are products dropshipped? Some companies allow you to post them your own shipping labels with your name on them so that a customer is sure that the product is purchased directly from you and not from some third party. You should also check what shipping methods are offered by this dropship companies, do they provide tracking information? The more shipping methods are ffered the better: you customers will have a choice and it is always a plus.
  
  
• Minimum volume required: some dropship companies can require you to buy a min volume of products to dropship: wholesale dropship. It is up to you to deal or not with this kind of companies. They may attract you by lower prices – they can afford it as wholesale does not take that much time and resources as retail dropship. But if you accept their terms you should be ready to stock some products in your garage, take care of order fulfillment and may be faced with the problem of surplus products that you would be unable to sell at minimum prices.