When looking to make money from a website, or earn a living off Ebay, many people turn to dropshipping.  It is easy to see why, with little financial risk and easy to advertise products dropshipping is a great way of monetizing both sites and time.

But for many people it can become a nightmare.  Whilst a reliable dropshipper can drive a company forward, boosting profits, providing great customer service and a business that you can trust, so to can an unreliable dropshipper cost you money.  By not letting you know when items go out of stock, or not delivering items in specified time limits that can make your business look amateur and unreliable yourself.

Not only that but there are scams everywhere trying to catch out the potential dropship user.  Companies who set up charging regular retail price, others that intentionally have terms of service that are designed to put any problems on the individual rather than the dropshipper, washing their hands of any issues no matter who's fault it is.

The dropshipping company should not be advertising their prices on the internet, otherwise potential customers can simply go through them to buy the product at a cheaper rate than you can provide. 

So if they shouldn't be advertising, and competitors are unlikely to give you recommendations, how are you to find reliable dropshippers?

Thankfully there are a number of methods available to you.

Sourcing dropshipping companies yourself

• Niche Forums.  Dropshipping forums are a start, but look into forums within the niche you are looking to find a dropshipper in.  Companies within that niche may well have a presence and the individuals who are regulars on the forum are likely to know companies that offer their products.
• Trade magazines.  Wholesale companies advertise their services in trade magazines, so look into getting your hands on a few.  These wholesalers may well run a dropshipping arm to their service and would be worth contacting, especially for the small price that a magazine will set you back.
• Manufacturers.  Contact the manufacturers of the product that you want to dropship.  They will either have a list of wholesalers they supply, who will be worth contacting, or they may even offer such a service themselves.

There are other sources available to you should you not want to spend the large amount of hours it takes to source your own product dropshippers.

• Purchase a list of dropshippers.  There are many lists available to buy.  If you do this you are going to have to make sure you are buying a list that has testimonials by traceable people, not just made up claims written by the advertisers.  But there are some very good lists available to buy so it is worth spending the time investigating.
• Buy access to dropship directories.  Again not all are reputable, but if you visit some dropshipping forums you will soon be able to get a feel for those directories that are trusted by experienced users and those that aren't.

However you source your companies make sure that you test their services before putting your companies reputation on the line.  Make test purchases, talk to any references they can provide and search for what people on the internet have to say.  It is your reputation, protect it.