Why do retailers buy from wholesalers when you can buy from manufacturers at a cheaper price?
There are already some great answers showed up. I also want to look at it from another point of view:A question first: Do you know if you buy wholesale products directly from manufacturers, you can get the cheaper price for the products you buy. But what else cost you still need to pay for it? Do you think about it before?What are manufacturers good at?Making qualified products;Balance the market’s price, protect wholesalers and retailers;….What are the wholesalers good at?Service retailers’ business not only on products’ price but also quantity;Provide after-sale service for retailers;Some wholesalers offer retailers’ advice and products’ photos;….What situation will you meet if you buy directly from manufacturers?Cheaper price compare with buying from manufacturers? (MAYBE! )Cheapest price starts from 500/1000pieces; (Worthy?)Pay for the shipping service; (Lot’s of Manufactures won’t offer you free shipping)What will a good wholesaler provide for their customers?Professional advice for you to select the products you are going to sell;Offer Combine shipping service to save your shipping cost;Offer low minimum order with factory price;Checking products' quality you ordered before shipping;Provide you worldwide free shipping service & other faster shipping service if you have an urgent order!Any good wholesaler websites that I can recommend?Lots of people are already super familiar with Alibaba . Today I will recommend this Chinese wholesale website—-Import-express which provide all the service that I mentioned above. Choose the one that suitable for your own business.So, In a word! Let the professional people do the thing that they are good at when you are buying wholesale from China! And you focus on the way that you are good at to earn more profits for your own business!
Do I need to form a company to buy products on Alibaba? When I try to buy items from companies on Alibaba, it asks me to complete my personal profile and asks for my company name, and I don’t have a company.
As a Chinese manufacturer, I advise that you use http://www.dhgate.com instead of http://alibaba.com. Alibaba is a B2B website while dhgate is something between B2B and B2C one(here we call it small amount wholesale website), providing more protection for small buyer. In Alibaba, you are more likely to get late response or even be forgotten, which partly explain Margaret's sad experience. Sometimes factory sales sell one or two pieces of sample, to develop further big order. If big order does not come, he/she has no time nor patience to explain the difference between sizes of Chines and American women, which he/she assume is in the knowledge base of his customer.
Do I need to register a company to dropship on Shopify?
Shopify will not require this, but depending on your suppliers you will need to have a registered business to get products from them. Start dropshipping with a free account from Inventory Source!To properly set up a drop shipping business as a US based reseller from a US based supplier, you’ll need at take few core steps to get started.Get an EIN number from the IRS (free) or request a sales-tax ID or reseller certificate from your state’s tax department website (if your state charges sales tax, usually free). It takes seconds to fill out the form and it is a quick and simple process…and one that is vital for avoiding fake sources and one that allows you to get started right with some of the best wholesale dropship programs in the world.Find a trusted and verified wholesale dropship supplier and open an reseller account with them.Create a Seller Account on Amazon, eBay or other marketplaces or create your own eCommerce website to list and sell your items directly.At Inventory Source we offer Turnkey Shopify Stores that make selling with Shopify as easy as can be.TurnKey Dropship Shopify StoresPre-Loaded Products & ImagesPre-Loaded Categories & NavigationEasily Adjustable Retail PricingTurnKey Theme InstalledNew Products Added AutomaticallyInventory Quantities Updated Daily
Is it legal to use logos of customers without their permission? Do they really get permission from their customers or do they just figure it out based on the domain names of email addresses and place the logo up without notice?
I have never known of any company, startup or otherwise, do this without asking permission.The only exception is for "private" presentations - e.g. investor decks which are not meant for public consumptions.There are two points:First, publicly referencing the existence of someone being a customer. In some contracts, this is explicitly forbidden, but in every case I think there is a general expectation that you'd ask for permission. The reason is obvious. There is an implied endorsement, which the customer may or may not be happy to give, and the the customer's legal department more likely would be unhappy to open up any possible risk associated with this. The Pingdom example you gives starts out with "Trusted by 500000+" so the implication is both Google and Microsoft trust Pingdom, so if it does all go pear shaped, then maybe I can hold deeper pocketed Google responsible?In my experience, it's only a small percentage of perfectly happy customers that would give permission. It's the fact that usually you are refused is why everyone I know always asks.The second point refers to the use of logo. In fact under most jurisdications you are allowed to use trademarks as long as the are used solely to describe the company and are not used to imply any endorsement or other relationship (see the first point above). But regardless of the law, if any client objected to the use of their logo, the only practical thing you can do is to remove it. I've never known a customer say "it's OK to say we're a customer but not OK to use our logo". So generally they go hand-in-hand.Back to the exception above, regardless of any contractual commitments to confidentiality, investors have a greater right to full visibility into your company - that means they see your full customer list, hence the wiggle room on showing key customers on the investor pitch regardless of approvals. It's essentially an internal presentation.More consumer focused / self service plays might be able to put something in their terms and conditions, but overall I would steer against this.You have to balance the value of a rack of logos versus upsetting your customers. I would always recommend asking permission. Business relationships thrive on trust. That means asking for permission not begging for forgiveness.
How do companies like Flipkart actually work?
All the points written by Niraj Satnalika are correct. Flipkart was founded by two ex-Amazon employees who realised that the Indian e-commerce space has nothing like an amazon or e-bay and flipkart zoomed in to take the first mover advantage. In the initial days, Flipkart worked on an inventory model. This means that they purchased all the goods and stored them in thier warehouses. Once they recieved an order, they shipped the item and materialised the sale. However,as Flipkart has investors that are based out of the country, this model violated the FDI rules for Indian retail. Hence they moved to the online-Marketplace. The market place dfinition is given by Neeraj. How is this model beneficial to Flipkart ? In a marketplace model, Flipkart ties up with vendors who want to sell thier merchandise. Flipkart has the advantage of tying up with multiple vendors at multiple places. Thus they are able to negotiate the best prices and best service. For Ex : Flipkart will tie up with 10 vendors to sell the same XYZ brand of TV. When they recieve an order , they can check who is offering the best price and route the sale through the best price vendor. A vendor in Dehradun will ship to a customer in Dehradun saving on logistics cost.Revenue modelPretty much all the points are covered by Neeraj however I doubt if Flipkart charges a listing fee. Listing fees are charged by almost all offline retailers. This is to cover the cost of shelf space, inventory handling etc. Flipkart only generates a listing along with other vendors. And having more vendors is beneficial to flipkart so ideally they should not charge a listing fee. Other ways of generating revenue for flipkart are1. Charging a fee for being featured on the landing page. This is like selling advertising space.2. Email marketing through it's database. ( Doubt whether they do this )