I hope I don't open up a can of worms on this topic. Let me first say that I am not looking for anyone's 'sources'. Here is my situation. I have a desire to start out using wholesale drop shippers for my online store. I ran across what seemed like a very good source, but decided to do some additional research after comparing some prices. I found product X on this company's price list for 23.30 and after doing a search on Froogle found the same product for 20.05 at SMC. That started the wheels to churning in my head. Although this company's site was VERY professionally put together and very well organized I was starting to think this was another 'middleman' professing to be the actual distributor. I then found this very same company listed under the category of Independent Distributor' for SMC in the yahoo business directory! My instincts appear to be right. This company is merly taking orders (and adding a 2.50 fee per order for profit) and then placing the same order with SMC who will then fullfill the order and send to the end customer. This company more than likely does not own any inventory at all. Upon further examination there are 1000's of sites selling this same type of merchandise. I'm wondering how anyone is making any money selling these types of items.
So my question is this. Is it truly possible to find a true wholesale distributor who will drop ship? There is that FAMOUS Drop Ship source directory that claims to have real sources. For all I know this directory could be full of SMC independent distributors.
I'm thinking the best route will be to look through the Thomas Registry and contact companies directly and ask questions. I do know that there has got to be a few legitimate sources out there somewhere though.
thanks for listening and any input would be greatly appreciated.
Kevin
