Why do you need a Shopify sourcing agent for your business in 2021?

Want to look for a sourcing agent for your Shopify store? Well, choosing a good Shopify sourcing agent for your dropshipping business is very important, especially when you are new to the business. A good agent can help you find good products at low prices, do the quality check, negotiate with the manufacturers, help you with ad videos and images, and so on. A reliable Shopify sourcing agent will go with you and help you grow.

So, in this article, we will find out what specifically a sourcing agent can do for you and how to find one. But before we go to that part, let’s discuss what dropshipping is first.

What is Dropshipping?

If you want to start a business without worrying about inventory maintenance, your store rental fee as well as other expenses for operating a brick-and-mortar store, dropshipping is the best choice for you.

Dropshipping basically is a retail model in which you will work with a supplier or sourcing agent on order fulfillment, packaging, and shipping the products to your customers rather than do all these things by yourselves. When a customers place an order on your online store, you send the details to your supplier. The supplier will prepare the products, do packaging, ship the products to your customers.

In this model, you don’t need a big capital to order the products in bulk and keep them in your stock. Instead, you get paid before you proceed with the order and the supplier or agent will do the rest for you. You will coordinate with them, follow up on the process and focus on taking care of your customers.

What is a Shopify sourcing agent?

As mentioned earlier, you will see that a dropshipper will work with suppliers or manufacturers. Since each manufacturer produces one particular type of products, you may have to work with multiple manufacturers to get the full range of dropshipping products for your store. You may have to look for some reliable suppliers and list them down for further cooperation. You will also have to go onsite and check their products before working with them. A lot of work indeed.

A Shopify sourcing agent will do all these things for you. If you want to order a product, they will help to find that product for you at the best price. They do the quality check to ensure the products are in good condition. They negotiate with the manufactures on prices, order quantity, and so on. They receive the orders and fulfill them for you, do the packaging, delivery, and other important elements of the supply chain.

A good Shopify sourcing agent will help solve a great deal of work for you, save you from all the troubles, help you increase the profit margin so that you can focus on other activities like marketing, branding, advertising, customer services, etc. A good Shopify sourcing agent also helps you to import your products from China, which we will discuss in the next part.

How can a Shopify sourcing agent help you import from China?

There are so many benefits when you import goods from China. China is a great source of a wide diversity of products at very reasonable prices from electronics to beauty niche. Importing from China can put you at an advantage in terms of price, profit margin, uniqueness, and so on. But it’s quite challenging for small and medium businesses to import goods from China. That’s why a good Shopify sourcing agent is in place. A sourcing agent can help you:

Product Sourcing Service

Like its name, a sourcing agent provides product sourcing services. You don’t have to look for products from different manufacturers and deal with them by yourselves. Especially when you are still new and with little experience in the field, searching for products from a faraway country is tough.

Your Shopify sourcing agent will be able to locate the product source much faster than you. They have much knowledge as well as the relationship with many manufacturers to do the job better. They locate right in China and know the ways. You just need to find a good Shopify sourcing agent so that you can rely on them.

1 vs 1 Support Team

When you work with a Shopify sourcing agent, you just need to work with one support team from the agent. You don’t have to deal with multiple teams from different vendors. Managing one team is always more effective and easier than many teams from different companies.

Quality Inspection

Imagine you do the sourcing by yourselves. Once you have chosen one manufacturer, you have to go to its site to check the products if their quality meets your requirement. Things can be different from what they claim and reality. So caution is the best. And this job is quite tiring and complicated.

With a good Shopify sourcing agent, you will not face these difficulties. The agent will do the quality inspection for you.

Shopify Fully Integration

A Shopify sourcing agent will provide complete integration from Shopify, which will help you a lot in streamlining your process with inventory management.

Branding Package

Branding is one important activity to your business for sure. And a Shopify sourcing agent can help you with much less effort. Instead of controlling things from different vendors, relying on only one agent who can take care of your branding and ensure it to be on the right track seems more simple.

Photography & Video

Your Shopify sourcing agent is also in charge of creating ads creative to make your products look good. They know how to present your products in an interesting and attractive way. Instead of hiring a professional photographer, you can go for a Shopify sourcing agent to save the cost for you with equivalent effectiveness.

Why do you need a Shopify sourcing agent?

Dropshipping Beginner

If you are new to the business and still don’t know where to find the best products, a Shopify sourcing agent is the best idea. Not only the agent will help you with the sourcing but they also can give some ideas on winning products or potential products for your store. They can do the negotiation, quality control jobs which seem challenging for a starter who does not have much experience.

While you are still a beginner and your brand is still new in the market, the agent will help to promote your brand and provide an effective analysis regarding the process.

Small & Medium-Sized Business

If you have a small or medium-sized business, it’s still hard for you to source the right products. especially from China. A sourcing agent can help you with this. Furthermore, the agent will be able to improve your process by streamlining orders, which makes it easier to manage your store.

In doing so, you can manage the delivery and inventory system more effectively. Lastly, the agent will also help you with promotion campaigns and process improvement.

Grow Brand: Expand your business

The sourcing agent could be a great help for beginners or small and medium-sized businesses. For dropshipping businesses that have well grown, it’s no exception. The agent can help to expand the business. expand the product inventory.

The agent can find a new way to analyze and improve your process or inspect the effectiveness of your competitors to find out areas that need adjustments if any. A good agent could come up with many recommendations to add value and increase your business.

How to find a Shopify sourcing agent?

We have talked about what a Shopify sourcing agent, how the agent could help you to grow your business. Then how can you find one for yourself especially when you are quite new and have now relationship in the field? Don’ worry. In this part, we would suggest some channels where you can find a good sourcing agent for your business.

Trade Show

A Trade Show would be one of the effective ways to find a sourcing agent. You can visit a Trade Show to get to know other businesses as well as agents here. Some Trade Shows can be named as The Canton Fair, Yiwu Trade Fair, Beijing Auto Show, The Bauma Fair, and so on.

You will be able to find many suppliers and sourcing agents in those shows. It is also the chance for you to build relationships in dropshipping and learn from experienced enterpreuners who have been successful.

Search Online

The next way to find a Shopify sourcing agent is by searching online, of course. When traveling is limited, you are so busy or you cannot arrange to go to a Trade Show for any reason, you can just sit at home and browse the internet to look for what you need.

By just reading information on the internet, you should be careful and make a strong assessment of what you have found to find the best sourcing agent for you. You can list down some agents you like and save them for further contact and negotiation. With patience and great effort, it will come to you finally.