Gidday fellow dropshippers,
We are an aussie business that is a wholesale only supplier to beauty, massage, health, and gym businesses.
Our business is built on the understanding that we do not sell to the general public, unlike our competitor, as we want our customers to have all the benefits of being able to gain revenue from our products and treatments. we strive to build their business and in turn it builds ours.
My challenge is that we understand and like the concept of dropshipping but due to the above reasons and Therapeutics Goods Association (TGA) regulations we are tongue tied in the information we can allow to be viewed by the public.
This being the case our website/store is only available to businesses with the use of their ABN to gain access.
I have strategies that I can implement to allow resellers to maintain this scenario of operation and earn good profits, but my questions are:

How well will this be received/perceived by resellers?

Will this be thrown in the too hard basket?

Will we have guarantees that the guidelines of operation will be adhered to?

Sorry about the novel but this is very important to our business and needed to be explained.

Any comments would be appreciated.

Regards
Darren

Gday Darren,

I think for one, having to supply an ABN (I hope you do a search to make sure they are valid) to access your products is a great idea, I am a re-seller of many different products with multiple web platforms.. What I think your doing here is filtering out a lot of the unwanted shippers who are going to bastardise your product on eBay and other one stop mediums.

As far as guarantees are concerened, see above, having to supply a valid ABN 'should' be a check in the box that they are a valid business/re-seller and registered for GST purposes as required.

You could always work in the terms and conditions into your terms of sale, and if you find someone has breached their conditions of sale, revoke their re-seller status.

All that aside, shoot me a message, would love to see what sort of products you have available. And yes, I have a valid ABN and business trading names.

Best regards,

Rob.

Getting an ABN is not a difficult thing to do and if you look further into it all people carrying out any type of business in Australia are required to have one, whether they are a registered business or not.

We will add a new field to the Supplier directory so suppliers can indicate whether they require resellers who deal with them have ABN or not.

Businesses outside Australia do not require are reseller to have an ABN, although this would be a good check for the legitimacy of their resellers.

ABNs can be checked at at business.gov.au

There is also more information about registering for an ABN here.

In our opinion it is not wise to trade without an ABN and it has advantages (like claiming GST back on purchases).

Hope this is helpful.

Mike

Good idea regarding the directory Mike.

I know an ABN is a very very simple thing to get, but still, it does require a little bit of effort.

And really the idea of the game is to grow your business to make some $$, therefore if you do it properly your going to want to be legitimate before you start getting those dreaded visits from the ATO.

Hi, I am a re seller with valid ABN.

Interested in what you have to offer as just like you,would love to work with honest reliable and fair suppliers/drop shippers. I do have a website and would like to hear from you.

I am a new seller and have just recently applied for my ABN- which by the way was too easy to get. Anyway as I look through dropshipper lists, I want to see product immediately because I dont know exactly what Im looking for and I dont want to waste my time. So yes in a way this would deter resellers from entering your site. However if someone has a clear idea of what they want to sell, and if they are looking for a specific product they will put the effort in to supply their ABN. I would say if possible just make sure there is a list of Product names you supply at the site before they have to give their ABN.

We do ask suppliers to provide an example of the products they are able to supply. You will see these on their business listings.

I will look into an advanced search function so users are able to search for a product or product category.