How to Identify Quality Dropshipping Suppliers: Tips for Success in 2023

How to Identify Quality Dropshipping Suppliers: Tips for Success in todays age.

Dropshipping has become a popular way to start an e-commerce business without needing to invest in inventory or warehouse space. But to be successful in dropshipping, you need to identify quality dropshipping suppliers.

In this article, we’ll discuss what dropshipping is, what to look for in a quality dropshipping supplier, the benefits of working with quality suppliers, and tips for identifying quality dropshipping suppliers. If you want to read about the risks of dropshipping you can do that here.

What is Dropshipping?

Dropshipping is a type of e-commerce business model where a third-party supplier ships products directly to the customer. The retailer (you) never sees or handles the product. Instead, you source products from a dropshipping supplier and list them on your website.

When a customer orders a product from your store, you forward the order and customer details to the dropshipping supplier. The supplier then ships the product directly to the customer and you keep the difference between what you sell the product for and what the supplier charges you for it.

What to Look for in a Quality Dropshipping Supplier

When it comes to dropshipping, it’s important to find a quality dropshipping supplier. Quality suppliers not only provide you with high-quality products at competitive prices, but they also provide excellent customer service and reliable shipping.

When evaluating potential dropshipping suppliers, you should look for ones that have a track record of customer satisfaction, offer competitive pricing, have a wide selection of products, and have an efficient shipping process.

Benefits of Working with a Quality Dropshipping Supplier

Working with quality dropshipping suppliers can help you save time and money. Quality suppliers are reliable, efficient, and provide excellent customer service. This means fewer customer complaints, fewer returns, and less time spent dealing with customer service issues.

Quality suppliers also offer competitive pricing, so you can offer competitive prices to your customers. This can help you increase sales and build customer loyalty.

Finally, quality suppliers have a wide selection of products, so you can offer a variety of products to your customers. This can help you stand out from the competition and increase sales.

Tips for Identifying a Quality Dropshipping Supplier

Identifying quality dropshipping suppliers can be a challenge. Here are a few tips to help you find the best suppliers for your business:

Research Suppliers

The first step in finding quality dropshipping suppliers is to do your research. You should research different suppliers to find out what products they offer, their prices, and their shipping policies.

You can also research suppliers online to read reviews and find out what other people are saying about them. This can help you find suppliers that have a good reputation and provide quality products and services.

Evaluate Supplier Quality

Once you’ve narrowed down your list of potential suppliers, you should evaluate their quality. Look for suppliers that offer competitive prices, provide excellent customer service, and have a wide selection of products.

You should also look for suppliers that have a track record of customer satisfaction. You can do this by reading customer reviews and testimonials.

Check Reviews and Testimonials

One of the best ways to evaluate a supplier’s quality is to read reviews and testimonials from other customers. This can give you an idea of what to expect from the supplier and whether they provide quality products and services.

You should also look for reviews and testimonials from customers who have purchased the same product you’re interested in. This can help you get an idea of the product quality and customer service you can expect.

Test Suppliers

Once you’ve narrowed down your list of potential suppliers, you should test them. You can do this by ordering a few products from each supplier and testing them for quality and customer service.

This will give you a good idea of how the supplier operates and whether they are reliable and provide quality products and services.

Develop Long-term Relationships

Once you’ve found a few quality dropshipping suppliers, you should develop long-term relationships with them. This can help you get better prices, better customer service, and access to more products.

You should also stay in touch with your suppliers and keep them updated on changes in your business. This can help you maintain a good relationship and ensure that you are getting quality products and services.

If you have already started dropshipping then you have undoubtedly been scrolling through AliExpress. Read on for a detailed and exampled explanation how to choose the better suppliers on AliExpress.

How to find high quality on AliExpress

There is no hiding the fact that 90% of dropshippers are using AliExpress for the dropshipping businesses. AliExpress has become the platform of choice because of the following reasons.

Firstly, AliExpress has an insane number of products that you can use for your dropshipping business.

Secondly, the prices of these products are extremely low which is why dropshipping can be very profitable.

Finally, AliExpress can ship to basically any country in the world and the shipping prices are usually free or there is a small shipping fee.

The biggest problem you will run into with AliExpress

Considering the introduction to this blog post you may be thinking that AliExpress is just perfect.

However, with the number of products available and the low prices you are going to run into some “quality issues” along your dropshipping journey.

This becomes tricky because with the nature of dropshipping and the competitiveness you don’t really have time to order products and test them for a few weeks before you start building your website and selling.

Your competitors would have beaten you there. 

There are some tricks and tips that I learned along the way to ensure that what you are going to sell to your customers are of the best quality that AliExpress has to offer. 

I am about to share with you these tricks and tips FOR FREE.

PRODUCT EXAMPLE:

Look at reviews

One of the more obvious steps will be to look at the reviews. If you look at our example above you will see the product has 33 reviews out of 230 orders.

Take a dive into the reviews and read what people are saying about their purchase.

You need to look at the reviews where people have posted photos. Sellers on AliExpress are very good at making their product photos look amazing compared to what the product looks like in real life.

Look at the store’s overall ratings

The stores overall ratings should be above 90% for you to even consider using them.

For this store in particular I would be cautious before using them. 

Get in contact with the suppliers

You should message your suppliers and ask them questions about their product and shipping times etc. You can get a pretty good understanding of how professional they handle their business.

A very important tip I learnt was once the conversation gets going you should ask the suppliers for their w h a t s a p p number to talk in private.

Yes, you do need to space the letters out when you write WhatsApp otherwise AliExpress will pick up on the message and investigate.

But why should I ask for their WhatsApp number?

1. You can sometimes get cheaper prices per product.
2. You have better communication.
3. You can form good relationship with them and they will ensure your products are of good quality.

Avoid products that are trademarked or copyrighted

I know how tempting it can be to sell dupe products or products that everyone is already familiar with.

AliExpress is very well known for selling “dupe products”. The problem is that you might not even know you are selling a knock off product so make sure to have a look online to see if the products are not on the market already.

My advice is to fight that urge as it can lead to loads of problems later on. For example, your Facebook add accounts getting blocked.

Take this bottega handbag for an example. 

Conclusion

Finding quality dropshipping suppliers can be challenging, but it is essential for the success of your e-commerce business. By following the tips outlined in this article, you can find suppliers who offer quality products and services at competitive prices.

By doing your research, evaluating supplier quality, checking reviews and testimonials, testing suppliers, and developing long-term relationships, you can ensure that you are working with quality dropshipping suppliers who will help you succeed.