Choosing a product for your wholesale or Dropshipping business

Do you know, what is the most important and most crucial decision you will need to make when going for some dropshipping or wholesale business? It is to decide the product you are going to sell or export. The fact that some product has performed really well in the local market does not guarantee the same sort of acceptance in international market, or if you were able to offer really low prices to your domestic customers, you'd not find it easy to offer same prices to your international customers. So before you start, you need to sit down and think over these basic points.

i. Price
ii. Quality
iii. Competition
iv. Laws & regulations
v. Marketing

Price & Quality are vital:
Consumers who are buying from an international seller expect either price, which is not offered in their local market, or world-class quality, which they cannot find elsewhere (sometimes they are looking for both). To satisfy these customers you may need to modify your product or service to meet international standards before you start exporting.

Look for the Competition:
Second area of research should be the competition you are going to face when you start dropshipping or selling at e-bay. High or moderate level of competition will require plenty of patience, persistence and funds. If you think you lack in any of these three departments, choose a product from low competition zone. Remember competition is not something to judge by the number of competitors only. You need to have the product’s demand and supply in your mind when determining the level of competition.

Laws & Regulations:
Different countries have different set of rules for a variety of products. You can not supply alcoholic beverages in Muslim countries (in most cases); packed food items are not a good choice when exporting. Check for all these regulations or tariffs that can affect your trade.

Marketing & Advertisement:
Not only the product but your marketing skills also need to be world class if you want to make a mark in wholesale or dropshipping business. You should be familiar with new marketing trends and techniques to get started.

Conclusion:
Compare a product’s strengths and weaknesses in all of these departments before choosing any one product. If you don’t have the skill or patience to go through this process, you can take advantage of some very good artificial intelligence and analysis programs available, like the “market wizard” at wholesalepages.co.uk.

Business etiquettes for a global business

There's hardly any chance that you can get away with bad etiquettes in your global business endeavor, bad manners will make you loose your company's goodwill, customers and sales in no time. To make it even worse, you can spoil your country's image if you are not courteous enough with your foreign clients. Irrespective of the position you hold in your company, when you meet some client, you are representing your company as a sales person. Business meetings are not a place to show attitude, flaunt your rough & tough personality, being bullish or non-serious. You are not going to meet your international clients a lot, so when you do, make sure you were well prepared for the occasion.

Language:
More than vocabulary, it's the right choice of words, more than accent, it's being clear in what you say, more than fluency, it's conveying your message to the receiver without any confusions. English is the standard business language, and to get into some global business, you need to be familiar with this great communication tool. Good proficiency in English will make it so easy for you to operate while poor English skills will halt your progress every now and then. Apart from English, you need to know a little bit of native languages when traveling to places like Germany or some Asian and Middle Eastern countries.

The all-important Punctuality:
One thing that is equally important and equally appreciated in every society is punctuality. Getting there in time, or slightly earlier than the fix time will do a great deal in casting a positive impression. Being on time shows that you know the value of time; it also reflects at your commitment. How successful do you think a sales person can be who arrives late at business appointments? The client will be judging your sincerity and how seriously do you take your business by your punctuality.

Appearance & Introduction:
Appearance includes your dress, expressions and body language. Read a little about body language and winning expressions and try to apply the basics like smiling, being upright and showing enthusiasm. Don't experiment with what you are wearing; in most cases black suit is a safe option unless you are meeting someone at a golf resort. Be attentive when you are introduced to a group of people, if you have to introduce your companions, use full names and titles.

Gifts & Dinners:
Corporate business gifts like Desk Accessories, Pen sets, business card cases can place you in other person's good book and make your job a lot easier if you are looking to get some contract or strike a deal (same do not apply to the Government officials, there’s a difference between gift-giving and bribing). When it comes to business dinners, take them as seriously as your business meetings. If you are eating out in some foreign country like China or UAE, learn their table manners in advance to avoid any kind of embarrassment.

Phone Calls & E-mails:
When writing business letters or e-mail mention the intended recipient and subject line clearly. Make sure your answering machine or voice mail system is properly working, try to return the calls promptly, when on phone, be polite and talk clearly.

Analyzing different ways to enter into export market

When you mark some potentially lucrative export market and decide that it’s worth giving a try. You need to make a very important decision, which is to decide on what exporting method are you going to use, in order to make inroads into that market? This decision is crucial for many reasons. For example, you are short on resources. Exporting needs substantial funds and expertise that differs from market to market. Or maybe you have got the resources but you are not ready to risk them all on this new endeavor. Another reason could be the size of your business that doesn’t allow you to start direct exports. It’s better to play safe when you are new at something. That is why you can choose one of these methods to start with. Once you gain the experience and confidence, you can change the nature of export later.

Hire an exporting agent:
First choice is to hire an agent to represent you in that market. A good export agent will bring many advantages, the most important being the previous experience of operating in that particular market. Selling or marketing your products through some agent is a lot easier. You can obtain the much-needed presence in that market without having the need of spending big amounts on setting up an office. All you need to do is to choose a seasoned sales agent, who has got the experience and the staff to get the job done for you.

Form Partnership:
Going into partnership (also called export consortium) is another option available for you. Partnership means more resources and more experience. Your partner may well be having a better know-how of the targeted market. It also helps in meeting large orders in due time.

Apart from these two commonly used indirect exporting methods, other alternates are exporting through trading companies, licensing or franchising. Note that when going into partnership or hiring an agent, it is still advisable to personally visit the country, at least once.

Direct Export:
If you have the time and resources and you are ready to take the risk, you can go for the real trade, where you’d be at the helm of affairs for almost everything, from launching your product in the market to marketing, from distribution to collection. Selling directly to the end users needs a lot of efforts but at the same time, it is the most profitable venture among all the methods discussed above.

Sales oriented B2B marketing

Businesses are normally involved in three types of transactions.

• B2B (Business to Business) transactions
• B2C (Business to Consumer) transactions
• B2G (Business to Government) transactions

B2B amount to the biggest part of transactions made online. Creating sales - oriented marketing plan and strategies is essential when starting some B2B online business. Sales - oriented marketing plan is the one aimed at generating sales, rather than creating just brand awareness or exposure. Here is how you can do that.

Choose your unique niche market:
Target some market segment which is less explored, and make sure you start by offering some product or service to this specific niche. You cannot create some product which satisfies all segments of the market. Instead of offering something which every customer will find less than satisfactory, offer some product which some of them will find exclusively designed for themselves. Isn’t it better to have a few loyal customers in the initial stage of your business than having little more unsatisfied ones, who will never buy from you again?

Credibility:
Customers are turning into practical and no-nonsense types in this age of information. These types of customers will not buy from you, unless you establish your credibility. All your marketing techniques will fail to provide you with sales if your customers are not having trust in you. Exhibitions, business magazines, testimonials and trade shows can all help you in achieving this much needed credibility.

Lead management:
Lead management is all about generating leads and then making the most of it. Lead generation and then a healthy rate of conversion can do wonders for instant growth. E-mail marketing, referrals, seminar, cold calls are some of the mediums used for lead generation. You can think of your own methods as well, depending on your business.

Landing Pages:
Leads alone cannot provide you with sales; you need to convert these leads into sales. The first step is to make an effective landing page (AKA lead capture page). This is the page on which some customer lands or arrives after clicking on your link at some referral page or advertisement. This is not necessarily your homepage; it can be a blog or sign-up page as well. You can include images, frequently asked questions, sales pitch or testimonials. Ideally the landing page should be focused on selling just one product or service. In case, there are many offers, customer will get confused and leave.

Train your sales staff:
An effective marketing practice combines the two objectives of retaining old customers with attracting new customers effectively. Train your sales staff for this purpose because, after all your costly advertisements and marketing campaigns, it is your sales staff that will actually be making sales and reaching your customers with the follow-up calls. Sales staff should be fully aware of the business and offers, capable of coping with customer’s initial resistance or hesitation and well equipped with presentation skills.

Qualities of an entrepreneur - Are you an entrepreneur

Entrepreneur is described as a person who forms a business out of nothing. Entrepreneur sees the opportunity where a common man just passes by. Everybody who starts a business is not an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs are not made; in fact they are born with these qualities. Some distinctive features of an entrepreneur are

1. Self Motivated
2. Opportunist
3. Hard working
4. Education
5. Immoveable

Self Motivated:
Entrepreneurs are self motivated. To be an entrepreneur, you have got to be passionate by nature and capable of seeing hope in the gloomiest of situations. An entrepreneur life is prone to failures, disappointments and hazards. Entrepreneur should be able to fall, recover, stand up and get going again all on his/her own. Small pitfalls can not shake their belief in themselves.

Opportunist:
While the word may sound a little harsh and more of a negative trait than positive but the fact is that entrepreneurs are extremely good at spotting the opportunity and grabbing it with both hands when it comes their way. Not only will they make lemonade of every lemon they get, they will look forward to sell it.

More Work – Less Talk:
Entrepreneurs do not indulge themselves in years of planning and thinking process, they are more interested in executing the idea, instead of looking for its drawbacks. They prefer to give it a try. If you have got some business idea and you have been discussing it with everyone around you for sometime without doing anything about it, then you can be anything but an entrepreneur.

Education:
Mostly entrepreneurs are pretty sharp and intelligent when it comes to grasping the basic ideas but you will hardly find them topping the position chart or scoring extra ordinary marks in exams. They are normally interested in knowledge that is going to help them in their future ambitions; they don’t go around stuffing their mind with extensive knowledge which they know will never be used.

Immovable personality:
Entrepreneurs are bad listeners when someone is trying to discourage or criticize their plans. If they think the opportunity is there to grab, they will simply discard all “what” and “if”, especially if they are coming from someone else. This may hurt their social reputation but they hardly ever care. However, this stubbornness will never stop them from being flexible; they are quick to figure out if something is not working, and they are ready to change. They are quick to accept failure and move on to the next venture.