What are the pros/cons to using multiple suppliers?

[BKKUKProject]

Hi, 

So I'm currently creating a store with 2 friends

We've found a number of great products on Spocket, AliExpress, and CJ Dropshipping 

Shopify seems to allow us to add all 3 suppliers (is this the correct way to describe them?) to the store - but I'm curious what the downside of doing so will be 

So far: 

Pros - Can test multiple products, from multiple locations

Cons:
- Potentially an impact to page speed/ranking?
- Potentially confusing sorting out orders?
- If a customer orders from multiple products from different suppliers, will arrive separately. 

Most dropshippers I watch only use one app, but they are experienced and know good products - we're just starting out and are pretty clueless to be honest

Any help would be appreciated, thanks. 

[TeamSpocket]

Hi @BKKUKProject,

The quality of your product and how fast it's shipping all depend on your supplier. Choosing a supplier is very critical in dropshipping, let alone looking for multiple suppliers. As you have to make sure that each of them offers you high-quality products and will ship them to your customers in a timely manner. 

With this being said there are advantages of having multiple suppliers for your store. Having several suppliers means that you can offer more products to your customers.  If one of your suppliers decided to take a vacation or worst went out of business, you still have other suppliers to rely on. 

Though please note that if you are dropshipping and the customer decided to buy products from several suppliers, the orders will be shipped in separate shipments. Each supplier may have a different level of quality on their products, creating an inconsistency in your offerings and can potentially confuse your customers. 

No worries, those cons above can easily be handled. Just communicate with your customers that some items may be shipped separately (you can put this on your shipping policy). You can order a sample from each of your suppliers to inspect the quality of each of their products. 

Have you tried Spocket? It's a dropshipping app that allows you to import high-quality products from our suppliers around the world. We do have suppliers based in major countries like the US, UK, Canada, etc. 

You can sign up here for a free Spocket account and browse our catalogs of products.  You can also check our success stories on some of our retailers. 

Cheers,
Spencer and the Spocket team

[TeamSpocket]

Have you tried Spocket? It's a dropshipping app that allows you to import high-quality products from our suppliers around the world. We do have suppliers based in major countries like the US, UK, Canada, etc. 

You can sign up here for a free Spocket account and browse our catalogs of products.  You can also check our success stories on some of our retailers. 

Cheers,
Spencer and the Spocket team

[Syncee_Team]

Hi @BKKUKProject 

How successful you will be with your dropshipping business depends on the supplier you choose. It is important that they have quality products and fast delivery terms. But also make sure that you don't have too many supplier partners, as this will make it more difficult for you. You can read more about how many supply partners you should work with and how to choose them here: https://syncee.co/drop-shipping/work-with-a-few-dropshipping-suppliers/

[BKKUKProject]

Thanks for this detailed answer, gave me a lot to think about 🙂

[Syncee_Team]

You are welcome. If you have further questions about our suppliers, please contact us.

[JoesIdeas]

@BKKUKProject  I've seen a lot of stores fail by using ali dropping method... I've seen a few succeed, but it's challenging because everyone has the same access to the suppliers as you do, so you really need a competitive edge in marketing, branding, or traffic generation.

I would consider starting a brand, finding a supplier, and creating cool products and a good brand story. It used to work to just throw some products up in a store, run some ads, and get sales, but nowadays ppc advertising is way more expensive and everyone wants an online business, so dropshipping products that people could just buy on amazon is a tough one.

I would move forward with a project either way, just my opinion after owning a few stores (one was an ali dropshipping store that failed haha, but the others did / do well)... and also working with hundreds of Shopify sites, I've seen quite a few of the "we offer the best curated products at a great price..." generic missions, these stores are really hard to build into a brand or make money.

[dropship_helps]

Hello @BKKUKProject 

Still any other suppliers on your list? 

[BKKUKProject]

Joe thanks for the response, this is an approach I'm definitely looking to take (in the future) but there's quite high barriers to entry for your style store - namely knowing what products to create, and the cost of creation 

We were hoping to use this dropshippping store to find what in our niche gets sales, with the aim of eventually whitelabelling those products 

Totally agree competition is fierce, but I'm fully prepared to spend a bit of money in order to learn  - can't sit on the side-lines forever right?

[ShipAntdotcom]

Multiple suppliers means different product material, different packaging, different workmanship and different quality of the products, although you might greatly balance your cost, which will greatly affect the user experience. 

The most obviously phenomenon is, one order with multiple suppliers especially you are dropshipping clothing and you cannot consolidate them together to ship to clients, which means clients will receive multiple packages from different address with different packings, labels and clothing material workmanship can be easily compared, the direct affect is refund and aftersale, potential affect is the client might never come back again.

It is okay to apply multiple suppliers at the beginning as it help you avoid products out of stock and ship on time. But you will need to filter them gradually when your business growing.

[Dropshipstores]

having more than one supplier option helps in gain prospective...your get ample amount of products types it's a good practice to have more than one supplier its on your research that how good you work on supplier before assigning anything

[Customstore1289]

@BKKUKProject 

Please check these sites:

https://robookkeeper.co.uk/pros-and-cons-of-multi-sourcing-inventory/

https://www.pgi.com/blog/2017/10/pros-cons-multiple-vendor-approach-unified-communications/

Hope it helps.