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Drop ship directory reviews - Hienote and Worldwide Brands

Hienote Directory and Worldwide Brands—which drop ship directory is best for you?

If you've tried to find suppliers who will drop ship for you by searching the Internet directly for the manufacturers, you know how easy it is to hit dead ends, or even get scammed.

You're probably ready to stop banging your head against a wall and get access to legitimate drop ship directory, whose suppliers will ship their products directly to your buyers for you. Two of the names that you've likely run across are Hienote Drop Ship Directory and Worldwide Brands OneSource Wholesale Product Directory.

Yes, there are others, but Hienote and Worldwide Brands, in my opinion fill unique ends of the spectrum in drop ship directories. Both offer an excellent value for the money you pay for them. The rest occupy the muddied middle in between them, neither offering the full-service value of Worldwide Brands nor the economy of Hienote.

What needs do they fit?

I said they occupy opposite ends of the spectrum. Both deliver up-to-date, top quality suppliers in their directories. Either of them is a reliable choice. Which is best for you, though?

That depends on what you're looking for. I've dealt with both companies, both as a consultant seeking to get manufacturers listed in these directories, and as a reseller, setting up drop ship arrangements for my own reselling.

A review from a unique perspective

This puts me in a unique position to do Hienote and Worldwide Brands reviews. Unlike many other reviews where the reviewer has barely had contact with Worldwide Brands or Hienote other than to gather details from their sales pages, I base my review on intimate experience as both a user who has found products through them and as a supplier's representative who has worked to get suppliers into them.

I've also helped hundreds of new business owners get their businesses started, so I know the varying needs of new business owners and am in a position to review both directories from your perspective.

Which one is right for your business?

I like Worldwide Brands for businesses who are ready to hit the ground running and grow their business long-term. Worldwide Brands offers them:

• The largest selection of drop ship suppliers
• The most helps to get them started
• A lifetime membership that lets them use the directory to grow their business for the rest of their life with no added cost

On the other end of the spectrum, I like Hienote for those businesses who start out strapped for cash. Hienote offers them:

• The lowest initial cost for access to any drop ship directory I've ever found
• A decent selection of suppliers to start out with

In all, Hienote offers the most economical short-term solution to those looking for a quality drop ship directory and Worldwide Brands offers the most long-term value.

First things first—research

Before we compare these two drop ship directory options, let's make sure you're ready to make the best use of them. By that I mean, have you found a niche yet where people are having trouble finding the products they need?

Sure, it makes you feel like a big shot selling high profile products like electronics. But it's no good arranging to sell drop ship products in markets that are so glutted with competition that you're virtually guaranteed of watching your email eagerly for sales that never come.

Two ironclad rules of choosing products to sell:

• Never decide on a product without first doing research to find out if people are looking for it and not finding it
• Always research what people are looking for and not finding before you decide on a product

It's that simple. Research is essential—unless you want to put a lot of work into promoting products that don't sell.

IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY DONE YOUR RESEARCH, check out the following articles (articles will open in a new window):

• Two Fatal Mistakes of Starting a Business
• Niche Marketing
• Tools for Finding Profitable Niches

Really, the research is essential. Most people go to the drop ship directories first, fall in love with products, and invest a lot of energy trying to sell them without even knowing where to find the buyers who are looking for them.

The comparison

OK, disclaimers out of the way, let's compare these two directories.

Size and selectivity

Both directories give you quality drop ship suppliers. Worldwide Brands OneSource Wholesale Products Directory has over 8,000,000 products by 8,000 suppliers. And they provide you with much more than just drop ship suppliers. They put you in contact also with:

• Light bulk wholesale suppliers who sell to you in small quantities for a discount
• Bulk wholesale suppliers who sell you large quantities at deep discounts
• Importers who sell you products from low overhead countries, such as China
• Liquidators who sell you discontinued products from major companies

The enormous scope of their directory gives you a far wider selection of products and suppliers to choose from. And the fact that they can also put you in touch with bulk wholesale suppliers, importers, and liquidators gives you options that let you cut your product costs once you have grown enough to start buying in bulk and handling your own product fulfillment.

Hienote Drop Ship Directory, on the other hand, works strictly with drop ship suppliers. Hienote doesn't publish how many suppliers they work with, but, looking at their database, they have considerably fewer, maybe 5% the number of those that Worldwide Brands.

Hienote looks at their smaller size as a sign that they are far more selective in adding suppliers to their database. They select suppliers primarily by going to trade shows and meeting with suppliers face to face and physically examining their products before adding them.

Worldwide Brands buys lists of verified suppliers from information services such as Dun and Bradstreet as well as visiting all of the major trade shows.

And, as the most widely known drop ship directory, Worldwide Brands receives numerous inquiries from suppliers who have found them through the Internet. Worldwide Brands is well-known through their partnerships with eBay as an eBay Certified Solution Provider and and with Entrepreneur.com. Both eBay and Entrepreneur have turned to Worldwide Brands owner, Chris Malta, to host their internet radio shows on how to find products to buy.

Additional features

As I said before, Worldwide Brands goes beyond just the 8,000 dropship suppliers they list. When you sign up for their OneSource product search database, you also get access to their extensive list of:

• Bulk wholesalers
• Liquidators
• Importers

That alone gives Worldwide Brands the most complete and up-to-date database of wholesale suppliers anywhere. Whatever type of wholesale supplier you want, they have it.

And Worldwide Brands has built a handy market research tool right into their database, their OneSource market analysis tool. Want to check how profitable the product you've found is likely to be for you? Just click a button in the database and it will search the Internet and eBay to find out how much demand there is for that product and how much competition you'll face.

Granted, it can take a couple of minutes to complete its search, but I think a couple of minutes is well worth it to let you know right up front whether your product is oversaturated in the marketplace or ripe for the picking.

It's features like this that blow away any of Worldwide Brands' competitors in terms of what you get for your money.

What suppliers go through to be included

Having gotten clients included in both directories, I was impressed with the care both took in verifying that my clients were legitimate manufacturers and not just middlemen who run up your costs by taking a needless cut out of your profits.

Worldwide Brands Drop Ship Directory received our application and took a couple of days studying our site, studying our policies, trying to find any sign that we were not the manufacturer of our products. Then they called us and talked to people in all departments, asking tough questions about our manufacturing, our inventory, our shipping, to ensure that we were not just posing as the original source of our drop ship products.

Hienote Drop Ship Directory took our application online and didn't contact us again for months. But during that time, they went undercover, testing us out. They posed as a company that wanted to drop ship our products. They tested us, seeing exactly how responsive and helpful we were to our drop ship customers.

Only after they informed us that they had added us to their directory did we have any idea that they were testing us so thoroughly.

The results of the kind of testing both companies do shows up in the satisfaction that customers for both companies display. As a reseller, setting up drop ship arrangements for my own businesses, I have never found a drop ship supplier that I had any trouble with in either directory.

Cost

Both directories operate on a lifetime membership basis. You pay once and have access to the database for life, no matter how much that database grows.

Membership in Hienote costs approximetely one-tenth the cost of Worldwide Brands for a database that I estimate at about one-twentieth the size. If low price is critical to you, Hienote offers you the most economical option. If far more products to choose from, as well access to other types of wholesale sources and outstanding market research tools are worth the extra money to you, definitely go with Worldwide Brands.

You don't even have to pay the full price for Worldwide Brands up front. You can break their membership fee into three, reasonable installments. Then you're done paying -- forever. Yet you can access all the features that Worldwide Brands offers for as long as you live.

Ease of use

I've found the Hienote Drop Ship Directory to break down products based on broad categories. Worldwide Brands allows you to go deeper in your search with much more detailed categories.

Worldwide Brands' superior volume of wholesalers means that you may spend more time searching for products in their directory, both because of the larger number of drop shippers and the greater variety of product categories.

As a matter of fact, the biggest trouble I've found with Worldwide Brands is the fact that you need to go into a product search with a clear plan of what you want to find and the self-discipline needed to keep from wandering off among the huge selection of products.

Free previews

Both directories offer a free preview of their database. I encourage you to check them out and see which drop ship directory has the ease of use and scope of products that suit you best. Both previews let you browse their database just as a regular member would. The only things you can't see are company names and contact information.

In review

In all, the choice between Hienote Drop Ship Directory and Worldwide Brands OneSource Wholesale Product Directory comes down to a matter of preference.

If you're just testing the waters of reselling drop ship products, Hienote offers a quick and easy way to get your feet wet with a lower lifetime membership rate.

If you're looking for the most comprehensive directory available with build-in market research information, though, go for Worldwide Brands. With its lifetime membership, it is designed to grow in value to you as your business grows.

It all depends on what you need.

Jeff is a seven-year veteran of Internet marketing who has made his living through affiliate marketing, eBay selling, consulting, and through helping small businesses get established on the Web.

Want more information on these two drop ship directories? See my separate Worldwide Brands review or my Hienote review.

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