August 18th, 2010
I get this question all the time. If you sell on eBay or sell on Amazon, then you are always on the hunt for new wholesale sources.
Here are some of the places where you can find reliable eBay wholesale sourcing information and where I find mine.
- Wholesale Search Engines
- Wholesale Trade Shows and Merchandise Marts
- Worldwide Brands
- Wholesale Buying System
Lets look at each of these
Wholesale Search Engines
If you look at the top of this blog and hover over the navigation tab that says Web Wholesale Search, you will see three wholesale search engines. Although these search engines are optimized for wholesale companies, you do have to remember that they are search engines and therefore clever SEO experts can fool them. When you do a search you will often get results that include the big dropship companies and even discount retailers who sell under the guise of being a wholesale site.
Nevertheless, by far most of the results will be legitimate wholesale suppliers, so this can be a good place to screen for companies that you may wish to contact.
One thing to remember: When you click on a link to one of the wholesale suppliers, you will often land on a retail site. When this happens, look around the navigation links and find a link that says partner login or wholesale or dealer information. Clicking on those links will usually get you to the wholesale information.
Wholesale Trade Shows and Merchandise Marts
These are one of my favorite places to find wholesale sources for the simple reason that most online sellers (eBay and Amazon sellers), rarely visit these. This means that I can often find goods to sell that are not yet being sold on eBay.
There are both wholesale trade shows and wholesale merchandise marts in all major cities. If you live in a smaller city like Austin, TX you may not get many trade shows. So what you want to do is look for shows in nearby cities such as Dallas and Houston, or watch for shows in Las Vegas, which is the trade show capital of the US.
The same thing goes with merchandise marts. There are about 30 cities in the US with permanent merchandise marts. These are locations where wholesale suppliers have actual showrooms that you can browse in. You can’t buy anything to carry out –instead you place orders and the goods are shipped to you.
Entrance to both wholesale trade shows and merchandise is controlled and limited to the trade only. So you will need a business tax or sales tax certificate, and often they will want you to show other proof such as a business checking account, business cards and so on.
WorldWide Brands
WorldWide Brands is one of the oldest and largest suppliers –and in my opinion the best supplier of wholesale information. The service is not cheap –but it is a one-time, lifetime fee. For that you get access to thousands of sources and tons of training videos. WorldWide Brands was the first place I used to find wholesale information when I started selling on eBay and I still have my membership and use it all the time.
Many companies in this business simply research and post lists of wholesale sources, but WorldWide Brands actually contacts the wholesale sources and talks to them to make sure they will deal with small eBay and Amazon sellers. And they are constantly updating the database –usually adding anywhere from 20 to 30 new sources each month.
Wholesale Buying System
This is a product that I wrote and produce. It is a printed wholesale training manual that comes with membership in my members-only site where I list about 1000 wholesale sources that I have personally researched. But most importantly, the Wholesale Buying System teaches you everything you need to know about the wholesale sourcing industry and shows you how to research and find wholesale sources for thousands of products –including those hard to find ones.
One word of caution: If you have purchased –or plan to purchase, The Complete eBay Marketing System, then you already have the wholesale buying system as that is part of the complete eBay system training manual –so don’t buy both.
Liquidation Goods
I didn’t mention this at the beginning of the article, but wholesale liquidators –companies that liquidate surplus inventory for large retailers, are another great source of name brand wholesale goods. If you know what you are doing you can find some fabulous deals where you can buy brand new merchandise –including popular brand name goods at literally pennies on the dollar.
Notice that I said: If you know what you are doing. The problem with this market is that it is fraught with risk and danger and the novice buyer can really get screwed. This is where a guy named Chad Maslak comes in. I have known Chad for about 3 years and he is the absolute master of the liquidation and surplus market.
Chad sells a training course that teaches you everything you need to know before buying from liquidation and surplus dealers. And the course comes with his favorite sources –sources that you can rely on not to get screwed. Some time ago I asked Chad if he would give my readers a special deal and he agreed. He only offered it for a limited time, but he has opened it up again. So click here to get a special offer for Skip McGrath readers. BTW – Chad’s system comes with a no-questions-asked money back guarantee so you can’t really lose.
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