Ask anyone the question: what is the time of the year when the most purchases are made? The answer that is going to follow will be only one – Christmas time. This is the time when people flood stores (and Internet ones as well) and buy all they see. It is a very nervous time for retailers and for buyers too.

Sellers ask themselves simple questions like “will there be too many orders?”, “will I be able to handle the inrush of clients” and the major question: “will my product supplier be able to provide me with the required quantities of products?”

When you are a home-business owner you go through these things each year. The stock of almost every supplier is emptied incredibly fast during this shopping apotheosis. One can never be sure that his/her customers’ orders will be fulfilled in corpora.

The thing is that you are not alone struggling with the problem. Wholesale suppliers fight side to side with you. Good suppliers prepare their warehouses for the season from mid summer. They have to make sure that there are enough products to satisfy the needs of all their clients. They have to plan the amount of goods that must be in stock in order to cope with demand during the Holiday Season. You have to understand that warehouses are not made of rubber and suppliers cannot have all they would want to. Moreover, they also have bills to pay.

The problem about home-base business is that you cannot be absolutely sure that all your clients will get what they want and you will avoid backorders. Remember: it is business and nothing is 100% sure. All you are left to do is avoid situations when your clients are not satisfied. Here are a few pieces of advice you can follow to pass the shopping season with flying colors.

1. Be super-active. Take the situation in your hands.

Check with your supplier beforehand

You can contact the supplier and find out which products are in stock (and you can also find out the amount of goods) and which are out of stock and are not planned to be received in a short period of time.

2. Post a note on your site

Write something like this: “It is Christmas time and every one wants to buy as many presents and goods as they can. Dear customers, remember about it and try to make orders beforehand. ” You can also explain that with a great flow of clients backorders are inevitable. Thus you will make some kind of backup for yourself.

3. Have extra sources in your pocket

If you see that some products are running out try to find a source where you can get them.

If you anticipate the Holiday Season you will know how to cope with the difficult situation. You don’t have to be afraid, remember, the more clients you serve the more money you get. The Holiday Season rush can be the prime time for your sales.

In our wholesale database we include only trustworthy suppliers because we want our customers (read: you) to know that their money are not wasted and they get the service they pay for. Nevertheless, sometime happens that a wholesale supplier asks to be excluded from our list. As all our wholesalers are genuine one and no middlemen are included on the list, we don’t want to lose suppliers, neither do you. Why? Because a lot of our suppliers sell unique goods that you won’t be able to find anywhere else on the Internet.

Let’s find out why suppliers sometimes ask us to exclude them from our directory. In order to do this, let me show an average supplier’s point of view.

First of all they consider is to be brilliant to be in our database. As out database is free for suppliers they are happy to collaborate with us and constantly get new customers with the help of out list.

We get a lot of mail and calls from such suppliers. They tell us that the database is a good solution for their business and we are happy to see them (and thus you) satisfied. But there is one thing that you have to understand. As long as they get new clients, they get a lot of extra sign-ups from new members (that come via our database).

For a wholesaler new sign-ups mean a lot of extra paperwork. As a rule, their business is organized in the way they have to register each new member and process all his account information. Just imagine, the wholesaler has to check your name, Tax ID etc. It takes time and again paperwork. So you can now imagine how much time and energy each wholesaler has to invest into any member.

As a matter of fact, only 10% of new users will ever make business with the supplier. User’s behavior looks like that: he comes to the database and starts to sign-up new accounts like a maniac. He thinks: the more the better. Later on he realizes that only a few of the accounts will be ever used, so we understand that, as well as the suppliers. So now you see that almost 90% of all accounts are idle.

In fact, as everyone knows this, the suppliers are used to this kind of thing: it is just a normal business procedure, when a client chooses the best offers for him.
The problem is different: a lot of members even don’t bother to read the instructions of setting up a new account.

Some people don’t read the instructions and call the supplier at once or write an e-mail. Users want everything done for them in a matter of seconds, and when they don’t get the impossible they start writing angry letters. Such a thing is very frustrating for a supplier. They simply cannot process dozens of emails in a few seconds.

So, if you want to sign-up a new account with a wholesale supplier, read and remember these few simple rules:

• Attentively read what is written on the pages of the site. As a rule, you will find all the necessary information in the sections like “help” or “support.” Do it before writing emails or calling the service with questions.
• Be patient. Big business takes time. The more serious the company is the more time it takes to come to an agreement with it.
• Don’t find shortcuts to progress. As a matter of fact people hate other people getting to the front of the line by constantly calling and demanding. Why don’t you think that you are smarter than other people?

Our readers could see a wide variety of dropship sites that sell (successfully) various products online.

Today’s case study – a drop ship business selling swords. Yes, it is possible to make money dropshipping this sort of products. Read the below to see how to do this and how much you can expect to make in the long run.

If you feel all you miss is just a bunch of verified dropship suppliers – here is a comparison of top product sourcing catalogs – you can also get more information by checking the separate reviews.

Ok, here comes our latest case studies – more to come soon.

Over 8k Visitors Last Month, Many Top Ten Rankings in Google

•    URL: www.heavenlyswords.com
•    Established: 28 Feb 2007
•    Uniques/Month: 8,478
•    Page views/month: 58,168
•    Monthly Revenue: $2,487 – $3,109
•    PageRank: 4
•    Min bid: $18 000
•    BIN: $43 000

Description:

You are bidding on a successful and growing drop ship business. The site mainly sells swords, of all kinds, but also sells other related items such as helmets, axes, etc.

The domain name was registered on 2/28/07 and the store actually opened its doors on October 1st, 2007. Since then the site has had steady growth.

Here is a quick visitor count break down:
October: 2,112
November: 3,772
December: 5,929
January: 9,979

The site ranks very well in Google, having at least 13 top ten listings. Most searches provide double listings in Google. A few noteworthy keyword examples and their position in Google:

#3 for anime swords
#3 for kadaj sword
#5 for fantasy swords

The site has over 1,000 indexed pages according to Yahoo Site Explorer and over 100 keyword targeted backlinks.

Site is built using X-Cart version 4.1.8
The following add-ons have been purchased for X-Cart and are currently in use:
Batch Product Update Mod – allows for editing multiple items at once.
Category Meta Title Mod – allows for custom category page title tags.
Newest Products Mod – allows recently added products to show up in one place;

Since this site is built on X-Cart, it is 100% customizable to your preferences. If you don’t like the layout, the color scheme, or anything else you can simply change it. The X-Cart forums are very active and helpful. They have answered all of my questions and helped me customize the site. I will transfer my X-Cart forum access to the buyer.

Site is hosted at GoDaddy; hosting will expire on 12/4/08. The domain is registered through GoDaddy and will expire on 2/28/09. The SSL certificate was also purchased through GoDaddy and will expire on 8/9/08. Each of these has been paid for through the expiration date. There are currently two email addresses attached to the domain. One is for general information and the other is for returns (as of today, there has only been one return).

There is a toll free number attached to the site. The call volume is very low; the cost of the number itself is also extremely low. At your option, you could forward all incoming calls to a voice message and call them back at your leisure; or you can get rid of the number all together if desired.

The site accepts all major credit cards and PayPal. Currently the site uses Authorize.net to process the credit card payments.

Currently, the site has a relationship with six (6) drop ship vendors. I will notify each one of the vendors personally regarding the transfer of ownership. The site currently has 234 products for sell, this is not even 1/10 of the available inventory from each vendor. This is because all of the product descriptions are 100% unique. This isn’t just another generic drop ship site; the unique content is what continuously grows the site as Google loves fresh and unique content.

All items have 100% unique descriptions; each description was written specifically for this site. A lot of the images are unique as well; all images have a ‘watermark’ identifying them as belonging to this site. I usually upload between 5 – 20 new products on the weekend. This can take between 1 – 4 hours accordingly. I have written some of the descriptions myself but I find it a better use of my time to pay a real writer and simply upload their content.

The site is growing in popularity both with customers and with the search engines. I am starting to get repeat business which is very good. Also, previous customers are starting to talk about the site in forums and on their blogs.

Markup is around 50%. A few items have more markup and some have less, but you should expect to make around 50% profit on each order. Last month saw $1,277 in profit; $2,555 gross revenue.

Revenue Details:

Average Order Value: $68.33
Avg. 30 – 45 orders per month

This is a real business; work will need to be done on your part unless you plan on outsourcing. Having said that, the work is very minimal. When an order comes in you will be notified via email or you can simply login to the store interface. The email notification will contain the actual invoice so all the needed information is at your fingertips. Typically, after receiving an order notification email simply proceed to the vendor’s website and make the purchase, using the customer’s information as the shipping address. One vendor requires an email instead of logging in to their site. Half of the vendors email the customer their tracking number and the other half will email the information to you for you to forward it to your customer. This typically takes about thirty minutes per day, depending on the number of orders that come in.

Traffic Details:

Overall Stats:
7.97% Direct Traffic
18.17% Referring Sites
73.84% Search Engines

Detail:
Google Organic 36.98%
Yahoo Organic 16.91%