Contacting suppliers

Supplier Contact Outline 

• Introduce yourself  
• Tell them where you found their company information  
• Let them know you are interested in selling their products on your website or on ebay
• Ask for information on their reseller program 
• Do they dropship?
• What information do they need from you in order to give you their wholesale price list? 

You can stop at this point if you want to, and wait to ask all the other questions once you have received wholesale pricing from them and completed your market research. However, if you want to ask other questions in your initial contact go ahead and do so.

Do they offer blind dropshipping? 

Is there a dropshipping fee? 

Do they have images and other information you can use to construct your initial site? 

What courier/couriers do they use? 

What is the average cost of shipping?

Is there insurance available for expensive items? 

Do they have some sort of order tracking system in place? 

How will you transmit orders to them? 

Do they have a written return policy? 

How will complaints be handled? Them? You? Joint? 

Do they charge a restocking fee? 

Get the name of a contact person at the company that you can follow up with if you have more questions. 

Remember: at this initial stage, the most important information to get from them is wholesale prices, so you can determine whether or not you can be competitive. You will usually not find a “perfect” situation, so if you find good pricing you may want to be flexible on some of the other issues.