Make sure your Drop Ship Supplier is Genuine!

If you are planning to sell products via Drop Shipping on your own website or through another site like eBay - beware the imitations! Counterfeit material has long been a problem online but lately it is taking a new twist. According to a recent NY Times article (linked below), counterfeiters are now pricing their material reasonably close to the real selling price. This makes it appear like the real thing and lures the buyer into thinking they're getting the real thing for a great price. The article gives this example;

Any savvy shopper, for example, knows a Louis Vuitton bag selling for $100 cannot be the real thing. But when NeimanMarcus.com, an authorized retailer for Kooba bags, sells them for $295, and a small website sells them for $190, a deal-hunting consumer could think she has scored a bargain. (She hasn't. The $190 bag is a fake.)

If you're dealing in drop shipping as your home based business, you probably spend a lot of time looking for that 'next niche product'. Nothing wrong with that but make sure your supplier doesn't offer up knock-off, counterfeit products. This is one of many things that separates genuine drop ship wholesale suppliers from illegitimate ones.

How do you make sure the supplier isn't peddling this kind of stuff? Do your due diligence on them. How long have they been in business? That's one question to ask. If they've just started up, they could just be in it for a quick buck. You can also use a service like Worldwide Brands where all the suppliers are pre-qualified and pre-screened for you.

Whatever you do, don't mess with counterfeit material. It's illegal and the best you will ever get is a few quick bucks. Most of the companies who are victims of this practice have the resources to go after these kinds of operations and take legal action, so they seldom sustain as a business. Bottom line: stay with genuine suppliers!

In tough economy, product knockoffs get even cheaper