Internet has broadened business opportunities to everyone around the globe. Budget will not be a problem because with the internet business model everyone can start with low budget. One of these opportunities is becoming a reseller.
There are two popular reseller business schemes. First, you just like common seller. You have to stock the products and handle everything related to customer services. Second, you enroll as reseller inform of dropship. Your role is a broker. You have to forward customer’s order to the real seller. You (dropshipper) don’t have the products and will not handle any responsibility toward customer service.
Which scheme best?
You can do both schemes of reseller. This is actually the experience of Reni Yanuarni, the owner tokobundaonline.com. Her main product is a motorcycle-related product which is sold through reseller scheme.
She order the products directly from the maker, thus she able to generate margin 50%. In her site the products being offer for Rp 110.000,- (around $10,-) / piece. In a month she manages to sell 50 to 60 products. She has to order at least two dozen to get the reseller prices.
The other product is travel bag. In this item she apply dropship scheme. The price for a single travel bag is quite expensive (around $20 to $45) thus a lot of budget will be required. She will not be bothered by the hassle of packaging and sending the products. As dropshipper, she only need to forward the order to the real seller. Once the payment made, the seller will send the product to the buyer on her behalf. She got the credit and the profit.
Follow the Trend
Your budget and time could be made as measurement to decide whether you want to be a reseller or just dropshipper. If you have low budget and you don’t have enough time to pack and send the item, dropshipper will be best for you. All you need is to market the products and wait to enjoy the profits.
One thing to remember when you want to be reseller. You have to predict whether the product has bright prospect in the market? It can be difficult to find the final answer because online business has broadened opportunities to make any products become a hit.
This is the experience of Retno Ummy the owner of tokowardah.com. She is the reseller of cosmetics product. She has started the venture in 2010. In her beginning, she only manages to create $200 sales a month. Now, she is able to generate $8.000 a month.
Cosmetic product is available anywhere in modern or traditional retail but not in all cities. She has acknowledged that cosmetic distributors can’t reach all the customers in all the cities. These cities are her target market. Her customer comes from Papua, Kalimantan and other small cities in Central and East Java, Indonesia. There is also another reseller that becomes her customer. For this particular customer she shares the profit margin. She has two store online and offline yet she share that online store contribute 80% of her total sales. Based on her analysis, the high contribution of sales though her online store happens because nowadays customer doesn’t feel convenience to walk to the shop due to many reasons (traffic, weather, etc).
More Tips to Become Successful Reseller
The owner of tokobundaonline.com share more tips we can do to become successful reseller:
- Understand that each product has an age. For example, the travel bag usually stands for a year.
- Recruit another reseller. As reseller you can recruit more resellers because they can help you reach more customers.
- Maintain relationship with the seller. As reseller you have to emphasize convenience and trust in dealing business with the seller. Don’t get tricked by cheap price being offered by new seller that you don’t know anything about the reputation.