—————————————————————————————————————————

Are you interested in the Wholesale business? If you’re really looking into going into this type of business, especially through the internet, I’d like to share an article with you on how to know if the wholesaler you’re dealing with is legitimate.

You’ve probably heard of a lot of people being scammed by would-be wholesalers. This is bad news… especially if you’re new to this and just starting to venture into this business. There are no sure-fire ways to tell if a wholesaler is a legitimate one or not but here’s an article with a few tips on this subject.

I can’t reiterate enough how research plays an important role in anything you do… whether it be an offline or online business. So I am continuously writing or sharing articles about what I’ve learned or read to help lessen the time you’ll spend doing research. These will surely help you get on your way to start with a comprehensive reasearch plan. I must warn you though that these articles are meant to give you a heads up on some issues but they’re not in any way an assurance of your success or that you will not be scammed. (Please read the Privacy Policy of this website). If you agree to this, then you may continue reading the article below.

—– o —–

Catching the Crooks: Is Your Wholesaler Dodgy or Legitimate?

Written by SaleHoo.com © All Rights Reserved

Fleeced, ripped-off, cheated, conned. We’re all afraid of losing money to wholesalers who turn out not to be the real deal. The horror stories can certainly be very off putting - especially to those just getting started. The trick is to spot it and stop it before it’s too late!

So what are signs that you’re dealing with a crook?

In our experience, there are 6 particular indications that you may not be dealing with a legitimate wholesaler:

• The wholesaler doesn’t sound business-like or professional when answering the phone. For example, he will answer with a plain ‘Yes?’ or ‘Hello?’, without identifying himself or the business name.
• The wholesaler doesn’t request your business license or sales tax ID during the initial contacts. Most true wholesalers will require one of these. While this is not a hugely important deal, if you are looking at dealing in large amounts you will need to get registered and should check that the wholesaler is registered as well.
• The wholesaler gets shifty when you request a product sample. Most wholesaler are only to happy to offer a sample of their product (usually at a higher price) so if they do not offer this be careful and question their reasons for not offering one.
• The wholesaler’s claims to take a secure form of payment (credit card, Paypal etc…) but later turns around and says they only accept wire transfer or western union. Not all wholesalers that take western union and wire transfer are scammers, but this is the most common way scammers operate and you should always steer on the side of caution if you are asked to pay be these methods when not having dealt with or knowing the person first.
• Their website offers no physical address or contact phone for you to get hold of them. Be blunt, ask them for a contact address and phone number and if it is ok if you come in and have a look around their offices. If they are serious this will be no problem at all for them.
• They claim they don’t currently have stock in and still expect you to pay up front. If this has been happening make sure you get some photographic evidence of their stock with the days newspaper or something (while this doesn’t always work, it means some one must have stock that they know of.)

Although these are not hard and fast rules, you should certainly proceed with caution if one or more of the above apply to a new wholesale contact you have made. If you have any tips to add or past experiences then we’d love to hear from you. Your experience is valuable to the SaleHoo community and I’m sure others would appreciate your comments.

About the Author: SaleHoo is one of the fastest growing product sourcing portals on the internet. It contains a database of drop ship, wholesale, closeout and manufacturing suppliers offering thousands of product suppliers to consumers! Located at http://www.salehoo.com, visitors are allowed to sign up for unlimited and lifetime access to the completely searchable database of products and suppliers. The database is regularly updated, ensuring that the latest retail products are always available for purchase and SaleHoo carries the BBB Reliability Seal!

Join SaleHoo Today for their Special Startup Offer!

—– o —–

So how did you find the article? If you found it helpful and would like to receive articles like this in the future, you may subscribe to this site. All articles, insights or tips on this site are offered for FREE and intended to help my readers gain a better understanding of various topics they might be interested in. Please feel free to leave your comments on the space provided.

Hope you found this post relevant and helpful! Come back for more posts on the Wholesale buying subject in the days to come.

Thanks for your time!

Cheers!

Eric Delos Santos

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2008 at 5:12 am and is filed under Wholesale / Dropship Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.