Hello rodinhooders,
My name is Gaurav Roy and I am starting up an online shopping portal employing various tactics like assisted ecommerce, partial payment while ordering, banners and advertisement in local towns and villages to bring awareness and interest for ecommerce among general populace in rural, semi rural and urban areas as well as other mode of advertisements.
I am looking for sellers or dropshippers who can fulfill the orders that I will receive on my portal as well as through retail points. I would like to hear from fellow rodinhooders to suggest how to get sellers/dropshippers for my portal.
I would also like to know if any fellow rodinhooder would like to be seller/dropshipper for us.
Regards,
Gaurav Roy
Twitter: @Roygaurav21292
Kamal Kalra
Hi Gaurav,
First things first, I will not comment on your idea cos, I am sure, you have thought much more than I can now on your idea. But I have a few things I want to share with you.
1. Regarding Rural and Tier 3 Marketing – It’s in itself an expense. Like Alok always say, you can’t spend Advertisement money to bring in more advertisement. So, how will you sustain? I mean I hope you have thought through the model properly. There are a lot of companies who are working for these markets like Shopclues, Craftsvilla etc.
2. You have mentioned, that you are looking for sellers/drop shippers who can fulfil your orders. I think it’s the other way around. The sellers and drop shippers are the ones who are selling their products, you are just helping them get more orders. You can’t just get orders like that. So, I guess, you should first convince at least 100 sellers to be on your marketplace. If that’s what you are looking to make.
3. It doesn’t actually mention what are the products you plan to sell. I hope you are not getting a long haul of products. Try to be in a niche. It could be anything, female fashion, Kids products, Agricultural products / wares , Handicrafts , or anything else, but not all. I say this because, Marketing and managing a marketplace is a challenging proposition, and with every new product category, it becomes even more challenging. Start with a niche product category and then add on if it works well.
4. Last point, over a period of time, there’s a new breed of Retails / Sellers that has come up. These guys are pretty good in selling on Marketplaces. They don’t bother about returns, cos, they have added that in their profits, they understand the ecosystem and are easy to work with. It’s better you deal with these first. Cos, any way the bigger marketplaces like Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal are working towards increasing such a breed.
P.S : All these marketplaces have a separate page which lists all sellers, please go through that, click on individual seller and see how many products they have listed, where in the list their products are showing and what value of products they are selling. Choose your category of sellers from there and pitch them your idea.
I hope this helps. You can connect with me in case you want to discus it further in detail 🙂
Best of luck !
Kamal J Singh
Hey Gaurav Roy
I am into dropshipping and outsource ecommerce from last 1 year and 6 months. We are running 15+ online shopping stores successfully catering US and European markets. We have tie up with more then 1000 dropshippers from China, Taiwan, Singapore, HK, Mexico and USA. We have created a technology to automate the whole dropship ecommerce model without managing a single inventory or order:)
Would love to Help.
skype: mirdoindia
#DarshanBhambhiru