Wholesaling or Dropshipping ‘Niche’ Products

Wholesaling is when you buy inventory at a significantly lowered price then sell it to consumers. You hold all the responsibility for packaging and shipping methods. Conversely, with dropshipping you only purchase inventory when you make a sale from a customer. Once you let the company know you need a product delivered, they will take care of the shipping and packaging. Dropshipping is an extremely convenient choice for an Internet newbie, but it tends to offer less profit margin than wholesaling. Regardless, before you can wholesale or dropship with most companies, you will need a business license. The exception is Doba.com, which is a dropshipper that will work with individuals who have not yet gotten a business license or don’t wish to get one.

Okay… so you understand what wholesaling and dropshipping are, but what are ‘niche products,’ and why do they matter so much? Why can’t ‘regular’ products be sold through these means? Well, simply defined, niche products are those that meet the needs of a specific market, which are often neglected by mainstream businesses. For example a company selling ‘dog brushes’, (a ‘regular’ product), would be meeting the needs of a general market. However, a company selling a ‘shaggy dog brush for sensitive skin dogs,’ would be meeting a niche market. The latter company would actually be more successful because there is significantly less online advertising competition for ‘shaggy dog brush for sensitive skin dogs,’ than there is for ‘dog brushes.’

So, how do you find niche products to wholesale or dropship? The best way to do this is to use keyword analyzers. These are programs that tell you all the versions of a keyword that has been entered into a search engine. Google and Overture offer free keyword analyzers, but these are not the best to use. This is because since they are free, the keywords that are given are more likely to have already been used. For this reason consider using a paid keyword analyzer such as Word Tracker. To use it simply type in a product that you would be interested in selling. The site will return all of the keywords related to that term. Pick a keyword that gets a lot of searches but not a lot of advertisers, (Word Tracker will provide this information to you). After selecting this keyword, go to a regular search engine. Type in the keyword along with the term “dropshipper,” or “wholesaler,” making sure you include the quotation marks. Look through these listings to see if you can find a dropshipper or wholesaler selling your desired product. If you do not have much luck doing this, you can type the term in E-bay or another auction site and see if someone is selling the product in wholesale ‘lots.’ Alternatively, if you decide to join Doba.com you can enter the term into their internal search engine, to see if they have the product available for dropshipping. And if all else fails, you can simply call various brick-and-mortar wholesalers or dropshippers and ask them if they have what you need. To find brick-and-mortar wholesalers or dropshippers to call, simply look in your local phone book or visit Yellowpages.com.