How to source the products to sell on an ecommerce store?

Sourcing for an ecommerce store is a different problem from sourcing for a retail chain. You have no shelf space to defend, so you can test a product cheaply – but you also have no distributor absorbing the risk, and no buyer negotiating on your behalf. The decisions are all yours, which is an advantage if you make them in the right order.

Most ecommerce sourcing failures are not caused by picking the wrong product. They are caused by not calculating the landed cost before committing to the product.

This page covers where to look, how to verify a supplier before you pay a deposit, what dropshipping actually costs you, and how to keep a supplier relationship from degrading into chasing.

Where Do I Even Start?

Start with the number, not the product. Work out the retail price the market will bear, subtract platform fees, shipping to the customer, returns allowance and your target margin, and what is left is your maximum landed cost. Only then does it make sense to look at products.

Landed cost is not the factory price. It is the factory price plus freight, insurance, duty, import handling and the cost of the cash tied up in stock. A product quoted at 40 RMB with expensive air freight and a 12% duty can cost more landed than one quoted at 60 RMB shipped by sea.

Once the budget is fixed, the search is straightforward:

• B2B marketplaces. Alibaba and Global Sources are useful for finding factories, less useful for judging them. Treat every listing as an advertisement.
• Trade shows. The most reliable filter, because you can inspect a sample and a production capability in the same hour. Relevant shows for garden and outdoor games include Spielwarenmesse in Nuremberg, Ambiente in Frankfurt, Glee in Birmingham and the Canton Fair.
• Direct outreach to factories. Search in the manufacturing region rather than the platform. For wooden games that means Guangdong and Zhejiang, and it usually produces a better price than a marketplace listing because there is no platform fee in the quote.

How Do I Find the Right Supplier?

Verification is a sequence, and each step is cheaper than the one after it. Do them in order.

• Written specification first. Material, dimensions, finish, packaging, quantity and target market. Send the same document to every supplier. Without it, no two quotes are comparable.
• Itemised quote. Material, labour, finish, packaging and the Incoterm, each as its own line. A supplier who cannot break the price down is guessing.
• Sample from the production line. A hand-built sample tells you what a skilled person can do under no time pressure, which is not what the order will look like.
• Documentation. EN71 for the EU, ASTM F963 and CPSIA for the US, FSC chain-of-custody where certified timber is specified. Ask who issues the report, not just whether one exists.
• Terms. Payment schedule, inspection rights and the delivery date with a stated starting point. Production counted from deposit is a different number from production counted from sample approval.

The signals that matter most are boring ones: does the supplier answer technical questions with numbers, and do they flag problems before you find them.

What About Dropshipping?

Dropshipping removes inventory risk and adds three others.

You lose control of quality. The supplier ships on your behalf, so the first time you see the product is when your customer opens it. Returns land on your brand, not theirs.

You lose visibility. Delivery times are estimates you cannot verify, and a late parcel becomes a chargeback rather than a support ticket.

You lose margin. Dropship pricing carries a fulfilment fee that is usually higher than the cost of holding stock yourself once volume is predictable.

It is a reasonable way to test demand for a product you cannot yet justify ordering in volume. It is a poor way to run a category you intend to scale, because the margin you give up is the margin you need to build a brand.

How Do I Build a Strong Supplier Relationship?

• Pay to terms. A supplier who is paid on time will hold a production slot for you when your forecast slips. One who is chased for payment will not.
• Give a real forecast. Even a rough twelve-month view changes the conversation, because it turns a single order into a relationship worth protecting.
• Raise problems early. A quality issue reported on arrival is a dispute. The same issue reported at the pre-shipment inspection is a fix.
• Keep one contact. Re-explaining the project to a new person every quarter is where specifications drift.
• Do not squeeze on price after the order. Renegotiating a confirmed order teaches the supplier to pad the next quote.

Conclusion

Sourcing for ecommerce works when the landed cost is calculated before the product is chosen, the specification is written before quotes are requested, and the supplier is verified in stages rather than all at once at the end.

We manufacture wooden garden games in Guangzhou and sell direct: 500-set minimum, quotes within 24 hours, samples in 5–10 days, production in 30–45 days, EN71 and ASTM F963 compliance, FSC-certified timber. Send a specification and we will come back with an itemised quote.

Sourcing wooden garden games for an online store?
Send your target retail price and quantity – we will tell you what the landed cost looks like and whether it works: contact us