In the last several weeks my columns have largely dealt with informing online and traditional retail store owners about wholesale suppliers that who have reputations for honesty, dependable delivery, and value. In order to save buyers from having to sort through them I thought I would provide a quick list of some of the excellent wholesalers featured in recent articles and touch on their strengths and specialties.

So without further ado and in no particular order here are four lauded wholesale suppliers;

1. United Auctions- A New Jersey based wholesale liquidation company. They specialize in apparel and shoes but offer a very impressive variety of merchandise from health and beauty aids to home decor. Extremely forthcoming with product information and a bidding system that allows users to automatically increase their bid by $.25 until a buyer preset maximum is reached.

2. Via Trading- A California based department store’s returns liquidator. The thing I like best about Via Trading are the incredibly complete product listings and the practical honesty they show regarding the products they offer. They don’t, as so many liquidators do, over promise. Their product descriptions are complete, accurate, and valuable. They specialize in brand name apparel but carry other merchandise as well.

3. Big Deals Outlet- A Minnesota based closeout wholesaler relatively new on the scene. Big Deals offers a wide variety of merchandise from small electronics to cookingware to office supplies. The prices are terrific and a simple flat rate shipping cost that makes life simpler for their customers.

4. Bidz- A California based jewelry auction wholesaler with a nearly unique live auction system. Some of the more interesting features include an entry that displays the product with a link to more information, the time remaining to bid with those ending soonest listed first, and the present high bid. There is also a compare price which shows the potential buyer what the maximum price other jewelers are offering the same items for. One of Bidz’s best features is a remarkably useful and detailed customer help section.

While there are certainly many other excellent wholesalers out there this list should help those new to the industry get a good idea what to look for in a wholesaler they can count on.

One thing I love about e-commerce is how easy it is for people like me, the woefully unqualified, to get a business going. The internet has made it possible for individuals with no formal business training to become their own boss and place their financial destiny in their own hands. Yes, information super-highway has truly created a road to success.

It has also created a primrose path simply beckoning the fledgling home-based merchant to headaches, worry, and the poor house. While it certainly requires a much smaller investment to get a online business running than a traditional brick and mortar stores there is still many risks. In fact, sometimes the relative simplicity and lack of expense carriers with it the very seeds of failure.

It is so easy to get going that many new business people fail to get the kind of preparatory information and advice that could spell the difference between success and failure. The factors that contribute to this lack of preparedness are numerous, often a new merchant simply doesn’t know that they need to know something or they believe that to get good advice you’ve got pay expensive consultant fees. The sad part is that it doesn’t have to be this way.

There are many sources of free advice for new businesses. A local chamber of commerce and the Small Business Administration will both provide aid and comfort to the start up business.

A personal favorite source of free business advice is the SCORE organization. SCORE stands for Service Corps of Retired Executives. It is a volunteer organization of, as the name implies, ex corporate executives who have chosen to offer their years of experience to small business people.

Their website has many articles and links to resources that can help a new business understand the challenges and requirements to come. You can also find a volunteer in your area that will sit down with you and help develop a business plan, find funding, and just settle you down when things seem bleak.

With the rising costs in fuel, delivery of goods ordered are perceived to be down.
Deals are said to be hindered by the additional cost of shipping.
We would like to research how domestic importers and distributors are coping with this situation.

How are wholesalers reacting to the situation and minimizing having sales offset by this.

Are there existing co-op organizations in place for distribution of goods?

Is there a network being established or developed to reach out to smaller operations who are feeling the squeeze?

We produce a wholesale event in Las Vegas for the garment & home/gift industry and wish to be proactive in providing our customers with the latest information to manage their respective businesses and overcome this increasing hurdle.

We appreciate your time and feedback.
Dell Holden
Business Development Manager
Tarsus US Group / Off Price Specialist Shows
www.offpriceshow.com

Trying out the Performancing Blog Tool.

(Edited 10 seconds later – Works great so far!)

I know that some of you out there reading this are interested in improving your search engine rankings. Some of you may know about Webmaster World, and Search Engine Watch but do you know about Digital Point?

The home page is nothing spectacular, probably even obscures how cool the site is but check out the tools.

AdSense Charts

A good Keyword Ranking Tool – you have to log in every day to use it but it’s free and accurate

Highly Recommended Keyword Suggestion Tool – it pulls Wordtracker and Yahoo data at once.

Not to mention the Co-op Advertising Network

The Co-op Ad Network is not for the faint of heart (and not related to SEO), but it is a completely free ad exchange that allows you to take the traffic from, for example a site that is popular but hard to make money off of and allow it to earn ad credits that are very useful for sites that are easy to make money from but don’t have as much traffic. It requires some programming. but if your site will support it and you can handle some discreet ads, you will like the results.

Alexa is an Amazon company which attempts to rank websites in terms of popularity. It’s ranking method consists of counting the number of visits from users who have the Alexa toolbar installed. It is the most commonly available tool for measuring a site’s traffic. It is also completely inaccurate, nobody leaves those stupid toolbars installed. The only people who do are people like you and me who are trying to raise their Alexa ranking.

However, people believe in the Alexa Ranking. Perception is reality.

It does have some benefits. a) It can give you some backlinks b) it helps the big three search engines index your site and c) it makes you look better than your copmpetition.

So do as I do: hate Alexa for its fatal flaws, but promote it and use it for the benefit of your business.

Use it to find links! The “related sites” feature of the alexa toolbar is a good way to find sites that might exchange links with you.

Download the Alexa Toolbar!