So, after my experience with Ebay, I figured that maybe I'd look into going forward with my plan of selling one or two items a week on Ebay. However, due to the time required for rebates to come back in, I might run short on money. After all, I am still just a college student.
In looking around for deals, I found out about a service that some distributors and wholesalers offer called drop-shipping. Basically, you place items on a web site, or auction site for sale and when a user purchases the item, you forward the order to a distributor. They will process the order, and ship the item as if it came from you. They'll usually charge a handling fee, and possibly another fee for each item you order. They stock all the inventory and do all the leg work post purchase, and they make a little more than they would have if they sold regular wholesale to small business. You just list the item on an auction site, or your e-commerce site. Both people are happy.
So, I wasted a lot of time looking around, but finally came up with the idea of starting to look for a company like this at the Better Business Beaureau's website. I found a company called Wholesale Marketers. They had a lot of brand name stuff, a well designed site, and had a professional look about them. They have about ten warehouses with a different selection of items in each warehouse. Each warehouse carries the same fee, but as you subscribe to more warehouses, you get more of a discount.
The only problem was that they didn't list the wholesale prices for any of their products, just the MSRP's... so I was gonna have to subscribe to see the wholesale prices. So, I looked around, and decided for 5 bucks I could take a gamble.
I paid my $5 subscription fee (monthly), and looked around at the wholesale prices for the electronics warehouse I had chosen to subscribe to. 10 minutes later, I was on the phone with customer service attempting to cancel my subscription.
The exchange went something like this:
I'd like to cancel my account.
"Let's see, lemme get your information."
That's bigolsucker@gullible.com, yes.
"Ok, let's see, you've got access to the diamond warehouse, and you've been a member for...*chuckles*... wow"
Yeah, it only took a few minutes to realize that your prices weren't gonna make me any money.
"I'll tell you what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna open up all the warehouses so you can take advantage of some of the other product lines we have."
But, you see... I wasn't happy with the prices.
"You know, a lot of other people subscribe to the diamond warehouse [diamond=electronics] initially and are disappointed at the discounts they find."
But, that's what I know... electronics.
"That's our lowest discounted warehouse, so I'm gonna let you have access to all of the warehouses for another month, and don't think you can make the money you want, you can cancel at that point."
My gears start turning... well, what can it hurt?
"I'm also gonna send you a list of the 100 top selling items."
What's this!? Extras!? Where do I sign!? You see, if you offered me a glass full of evaporated water for $5.99, I'd naturally turn my nose up at the offer. However, if, in addition, you were to offer a complimentary set of nail clippers with the purchase... I'd have a hard time writing the check fast enough.
"Ok, well, I'll send you an e-mail. I hope you have better luck this time. Have a good day."
I was baffled by this whole exchange. This customer service rep was amazing. Every dissatisfied comment I threw out was batted down effortlessly, as if they were crippled gnats buzzing around her head. She was surely a customer service samurai. I'd never heard such enthusiastic, suave double talk in my life... and she sounded so sure I'd be satisfied with their other warehouses. Now that I'm looking back, I honestly believe that if I had told her that I'd contracted herpes from their warehouse, she'd have had a topical creme suggestion on the tip of her tongue... at no charge of course.
Get a woman with a nice voice to tell me that she's gonna do me a favor, and maybe even reassure me... that's their ingenius plan. "Oh, sure it happens to everyone". Even the chuckling, and the perkiness. It was engineering in a laboratory somewhere I'm sure... the perfect formula for making me crumble like the walls of jericho.
Oh well, off to look at the other warehouses.