So you’re thinking of leveling up your clothing reseller hustle? Or you’re a newbie reseller with start up cash? To get off to a good start with a drop shipping ecommerce store, you will need a solid foundation – a reliable supplier.
Choosing the right drop shipping supplier can make or break your new business. You want a supplier that will:
- Offer quality items – nothing is worse than dealing with a high return rate because the products are not true to size, don’t match the description, or are so poorly made they unravel as your customers try them on.
- Ship reliably – if the supplier frequently doesn’t ship within the promised timeframe, you will drown in customer complaints and bad reviews.
- Offer items at a price with enough room for profit – it won’t matter if a supplier ships fast and has really nice items if their price is so high you can’t make enough profit to cover your web hosting and other costs.
Here are my top 3 drop shipping suppliers specializing in clothing. It’s okay, and even preferable to use at least two, to keep a good product mix and to compare service quality.
This vendor is U.S. based and offers a pretty wide variety of clothing and accessories. The pricing on most items is cheap enough to make a decent profit, even if you decide to offer free shipping. They offer a 14 day free trial, and free returns within 30 days, and fast 2 day shipping from the U.S. This vendor integrates with the common ecommerce platforms including Shopify, WooCommerce, and Wix. The monthly fee varies depending on your ecommerce platform, with most $29 per month.
A few gotchas, this vendor does not offer international shipping. So you would have to restrict your store to domestic sales only. Not a deal breaker for a new reseller in the beginning, as international sales have their own pitfalls. Also, getting set-up with this vendor has a few confusing and manual steps, and is not one, two, three, click.
Eprolo is a free dropshipping service that connects suppliers with your store. There’s no monthly fee and you can connect multiple stores to your account, enabling you to have different stores focusing on different niches. The interface is easy to connect to the supported ecommerce platforms (WooCommerce, Shopify), and browsing available products is simple.
Because Eprolo is a service that connects you to various suppliers, product pricing, shipping times and product quality can vary wildly. Time is required to find products and compare pricing. Eprolo features a handy calculator with each listing that shows the total cost, including shipping of each product, making it easy to see the profit on each item. International shipping is included, but again, watch the shipping times, and be sure to disclose long shipping times in your store product listings.
Modalyst is another drop shipping service. It connects ecommerce stores with domestic and international suppliers. Their suppliers have a wide range of quality products and their interface is easy to use. There is a free membership to get you started, however it only includes 25 product listings. In order to list more products in your store, you must sign up for a paid membership, starting at $35 per month which gives you 250 product listings. Plus, Modalyst charges an additional 5% transaction fee on every order.
Modalyst, however, as of today, only integrates with Wix, Shopify and BigCommerce – not WooCommerce (booo, hiss).
Before stocking your store with products from any of these services, take the time to think about your target audience and the products that would appeal to them. Also, check your budget. Will you be able to pay the membership fee, shipping fees and your hosting fees for a period of time until you start to make enough sales to cover your operating costs? Those costs may factor into which drop shipping supplier you select as your beginning supplier.
If you think your start up funds may be a bit on the light side, consider starting an online store with a lower cost of entry like reselling clothing on one of the reseller apps.