Question regarding new company

[rknuppel]

Hey everyone. I'm a little confused on this issue and was hoping someone could straighten me out. I'm considering starting a business where I want to sell, lets say, printer cartridges (not the actual product, only for example.). There are tons of affiliate programs out there that could be used. But I actually want to have my users have a shopping cart on my site, order with me. And then we place their order for them through someone. I'm confused on how this would work? Would I just use affiliate programs for this? Or would I have to work directly with the suppliers? I don't want to be responsible for shipping/inventory etc. Any thoughts? Sorry this is so confusing, but I am confused myself on how to get started.

Thanks

[GerBot]

using the example you provided you could run an inventoryless online store, but you would need to be pushing serious volumes for any wholesalers to whitelabel their distribution for you.

I'm talking turning over millions.

[rknuppel]

Well, again using the example above, how do places like [inkwidget.com...] and [inkwidgetsonline.com...] work? Do they actually have inventory? There are TONS of these kind of sites selling my product and I was assuming they didn't all have inventory. I assumed they handled the orders and then had suppliers take care of the shipping, etc.?

[edited by: eljefe3 at 3:16 am (utc) on Dec. 14, 2004]

[teenwolf]

You should be able to find a company to drop ship the items for you, but you may have to provide at least some level of customer service. You'll probably have to at least be a part of the customer service experience.