Welcome to a brand new section where we're now going to start talking about the second key foundation
to success, which of course is products.
And of course, we want to make sure that those products that we're putting in our store are in demand.
In other words, they are going to sell.
And if you cast your mind back several lectures now and more specifically lectures 15 to 20, I show
you some very simple but very powerful techniques to find a highly profitable market and choose in-demand
products within that market.
And then having added them to your site, I give you three fantastic tips to make sure that your products
really will sell.
So if you are in any doubt about how that works, I really would encourage you to go back to lectures
15 to 20 for a reminder.
Okay, so given that we know already how to select products that are in demand, the next key point
is to make sure that we are getting those products from reliable suppliers.
And so what is a reliable supplier?
Well, there are many ways to measure this, but for me there are two key points.
The first one being that once we've ordered a product, we want to be certain that the supplier can
deliver that product within the delivery time that they have specified.
And secondly, and this is really important, if we start to sell a huge number of those products on
our website, we want to be 100% sure that our supplier can keep up.
In other words, they won't run out of stock.
Now, you might think, well, those two things are really obvious and they are.
But the reality is, amongst the literally millions of suppliers that are out there, many of them simply
cannot fulfill those two basic requirements.
So how can we make sure we avoid the bad suppliers and only work with the reliable ones?
Well, once again, that's where Shopify Apps comes in.
And of course, we've been looking a lot at dropshipping now.
I introduced you to dropshipping not only because it's completely free, but also because it's a fantastic
resource for finding reliable suppliers.
And the reason for that is not just from my own personal experience, from working with CJ for many
years and therefore having a huge amount of confidence in what they're able to do, but also, and this
is really important, their business model literally means they only want to work with the best and
most reliable suppliers.
So let me explain.
Now, first of all, a small confession.
I know I just said that CJ dropshipping is completely free.
And don't get me wrong, you're never going to have to pay for the service.
But of course they're a business and they need to make money in order to exist.
So how do they do that?
Well, what they do is they go looking for great suppliers and then having found great products before
they actually add those products directly on CJ dropshipping, they will slightly mark up the price.
So let's say for example, they find a product with the supplier for $3.50.
They might put that same product on CJ for $4.
In other words, in this example their profit would be $0.50.
Now it's crucial to understand that they are only going to make that 50 cent profit if the product sells.
If it doesn't sell, they will make nothing.
And so to make sure that it does sell, clearly they are incentivized to work with reliable suppliers
that are providing great products.
In other words, their requirements are exactly aligned with ours.
Or to put it another way, if we make money, they make money.
So with that in mind, let's think about my two key requirements, which were that first of all, we
only want to work with suppliers that can deliver the products in the time that they have specified.
And secondly, if and when our product starts selling like crazy on our store, we want to make sure
that that supplier can keep up.
And so if you think about those demands in the context of the dropshipping business model, if for some
reason a supplier ended up on CJ and was unable to fulfill those requirements, the negative feedback
and the complaints that would occur would mean that that supplier would very quickly be removed from
the site, which means that over time, and I hope you can see this, only the excellent, reliable
suppliers will remain on CJ, and that means that you can rest assured that you are working with the
best.
Now, if for some reason you're still not convinced, let me show you this from another angle.
And that is that CJ has warehouses all over the world.
If I come up here to warehouses and hover over it, you can see that they have them in the US, Germany,
Australia, Canada, Britain, France, Italy and China.
Now, you can probably imagine that running a group of warehouses like that is not cheap, and therefore
they are highly incentivized to make money, which means that the products that they're going to put
into these warehouses, from the suppliers that they choose have to sell.
It really is as simple as that.
And so hopefully now you can really appreciate why CJ dropshipping is a great source of reliable suppliers.
Now, with all that said, CJ dropshipping isn't the only show.
In town.
There are many other sources, many other apps, in fact, that will also allow us to find fantastic
suppliers.
So let's start having a look at those in the next lecture.