Being an online retailer requires a good command of the industry, the insights of it. But where can one learn about that stuff? One of the best solutions is reading industry publications. This source can help you learn how to market the products and make up the product lines according to your customers’ requirements.

Some words about Trade publications

First of all, what’s a trade publication? According to Lisa Suttora (WhatDoISell.com), it is:

“A trade publication is a magazine, newspaper, or even email newsletter that is written specifically for industry insiders.”

A trade magazine supplies you with a great amount of extremely important information:

• Product lines that are being sold
• The ways of successful marketing of the products you are dealing in
• Reports on what is selling good at the moment and what is likely to be popular in the near future
• All the upcoming industry events
• Contact Information of suppliers (as you already know this information as well as the choice of the right wholesale suppliers can be crucial for you business)
• The new products the manufacturers are likely to come up with
• All the latest trends and tendencies in the industry

Rely on your knowledge

No matter what industry you are into, each has its own publications which are as a rule available only to subscribers. Some of these subscriptions come for free, others cost money. But even if you pay a monthly fee you can still save a lot of money by learning from others’ mistakes instead of doing your own ones. In order to find these industry publications you can run a Google search under “trade publication” or “trade magazine.”

Does it really give me a competitive edge?

Of course if does! Reading such publications ones gains valuable knowledge on the structure of his business and his/her sourcing choices become more conscious than blind. You can learn all the latest trends beforehand and thus have a competitive edge over your competitors.

Perfect Product Sourcing

Trade publications help you make the product lines more versatile. The give you a clue on how to make the selling strategies and tactics more effective.

Suttora continues:

“You’ve got to look at all the ideas available for different kinds of products to sell. You can’t do that in a vacuum—you need a system to help you have creative ideas.”

When you are going to a job interview you cannot go unprepared, can you? Why don’t do the same while approaching a wholesale supplier? You need to understand that for a wholesaler working with you (setting up an account etc) means time, paperwork and money. If you don’t look like a credible retailer, you might get turned down immediately.

Charlie Hall, the owner of Charlie’s Woodshop, comments:

“I spend a lot of time helping online retailers get going with my product, but they may not go anywhere if they’re not doing the follow-up work.”

But, of course, a coin has two sides. It is not only you who has to be reliable in the eyes of the wholesaler, but the wholesaler must be a trustworthy one. Here, at dropshiparea, we do out best to supply you with the most reliable and trusted wholesale suppliers. By using the services provided by us you are not likely to end up with a middleman or get into any kind of financial fraud.

If you create a favorable impression you are not likely to get a point-blank NO. So let’s find out what is a good way to ask a wholesaler for an account:

First of all be professional

Any wholesale supplier wants to see how are you going to position their products.

1. Take your time to check the presentation (it includes grammar, your punctuation, capitalization etc.). If you are not sure whether the grammar is correct use any kind of spellchecker.

Hall continues:

“These are little areas that tell me whether or not I want to do business with a retailer. If they’re not doing all the work, they’re last on the list.”

2. Provide the wholesaler with credible info

• Give them you full name, the name of your business, address and full contact info
• Bother to include the tax ID. In fact, without this kind of information you are not likely to be given pricing information. A wholesaler needs this info to check if your business is legal and some other procedures.

Be aware

1. Come prepared

Before making a contact give a careful study to the companies you are abut to get involved with. While mass mailing is a working way to set up multiple accounts, it cannot ensure the quality of wholesalers. And remember that stuff with multiple email addresses.

Have a look at the web-page of the company, its policy, services etc. In your letters try to avoid asking questions the answers to which can be found on Help pages and in the FAQ.

2. Realize what to expect from collaboration

Remember one important thing: a wholesale supplier is not your guru. They don’t have time (and even if they do, it is not their responsibility) to answer your questions and teach you how to sell their products.

One more crucial aspect of mixing up with wholesale suppliers:not every supplier is willing to work with eBiz. Some of them are working on larger scales. But some of them are ready to supply you with products. So, once more the problem of choosing the best wholesale suppliers seems to be the vital one for your home-base business.

When you are a small online business owner you have to think about the promotion of your site sooner or later. To my mind, the most effective way to do it invented so far is the email campaign.

What are your options?

In fact, you have 3 choices of software types for the campaign:

1. Desktop software
2. Web server software
3. ASP hosted service

The third option has one significant competitive edge over its opponents – you are not responsible for the delivery of e-letters. Subscribing to this type of service you get a certain number of email for a monthly fee.

Dr. Ralph Wilson, Wilson Internet Services, says:

“With desktop or web server software, basically you’re responsible to get them delivered… Whereas if you’re paying someone else for that service, it’s their job, and many of them take it very seriously.”

A desktop server has another advantage – its cost.

Follow the tips:

If you decide on a desktop or server solution here are a couple of tips that will help you get the mail delivered to the users:

1. Don’t be spam. How not to be spam? Here are some pieces of advice that will help you avoid spamming:

• Don’t use all caps.
• Don’t use HTML messages that are primarily graphics.
• Don’t try to trick filters by replacing letters with asterisks or breaking words up with punctuation marks. Filters are getting smarter, and you could end up on a black list.
• Don’t use sloppy HTML.
• Don’t use large or small fonts. Stick with H1, H2, or H3 heading tags

2. Use sender certification

There are companies like Habeas.com and BondedSender.com that certify your small business. Once you get your company certified you can be sure that you can get through spam filters right to the hearts of your potential clients.

Issues with a Hosted Server

If you decide to sign up to a hosted server here are a number of things you should keep in mind:

• What precautions do they take to prevent spammers from enrolling? A good host company will have measures in place, such as confirmed opt-in, to make sure that they’re not allowing spammers to join.
• Do they take any precautions to prevent spammers from signing with the service?
• Does the service offer any tracking system? Nowadays a number of hosted servers allow you to see how many email recipients have opened your letters and visited your site through the links provided by the letters
• Is their customer service good? In order to tell a good one from a bad one you can simply see if it takes a long time for them to respond to your inquiries.