When you are new to the e-commerce market, there will be a lot of new terms that you have to know !
Branded item, OEM , ODM and POD are the most common way to start your dropshipping business and each of them are having a pros and cons towards your business.
Before choosing your product niche, you should know more about the pros & cons of selling Branded Item !
You should be think about your ultimate goal, before choosing your own pathway to start your business.
The definition of Brand
Let’s skip the BORING Marketing Definition and straight forward to the point.
Brand is not only the logo of the item, brand means different items to different customer. Most of the case, brand gives association towards the customer.
Alright, too complicated ?
For example, those who are using Apple iPhone and LG smartphone will have different impacts towards the users.
Apple means innovative , cool , smart image and using Apple iPhone reflects those image to the user.
A good brand will help your audience to create positive association to the product.
The definition of OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer)
OEM products do not have their own brands, most of them are in a generic packing without specific logo or tagline on the box.
Most of the retail stores will never sell OEM products, due to the brand image of the retail store. However, OEM products are very popular in dropshipping.
There are a lot of OEM products on different Chinese B2B marketplace, for example, Alibaba, Aliexpress, Made in China, DHgate …
The most important reason to buy OEM product is the COST, most of the companies do not want to spend time and effort on research & development and they will go for OEM.
Selling OEM products help the company to save time and effort, instead of building their own brand or own product.
The definition of POD (Print on Demand)
POD is the printing technology based on a customized service, which you can design your own T-Shirt and sell it by online.
With the advanced technology, the digital printing technology helps the online shop to publish their design without large quantity of order.
It is suitable for freelancer and designer to test their business idea without any upfront investment to your product.
POD is now getting popular, however, you have to concern the originality of the design, but not copy from other designer.
Which one is better for me ? Branded item ? OEM ? or POD ?
Alright, let’s see the Pros & Cons about these :
Conclusion
Before getting the answer, you may need to understand your ultimate goal of your business.
- Do you want to build a solid and establish business ?
- Do you want to put customer satisfaction to be your service target ?
- Which one do you want : Quality Vs Quantity?
Business is not a one day job, but a long-term duty. You are not only responsible to your client, but your supplier or whom ever involved in your business – so called stakeholders.
Take our business as an example, we started our dropshipping business since 2013 and all over the time we have spent a lot of time to search and look for the king products. But we forgot the most important element – The product
How can you sell a product when its not good ?
In 2016, we have switched to the most suitable niche, selling branded items which we can see our strength by leveraging the brand name to the customer.
We have a clear market and promotional materials provided by the brands, selling a good product brings us happy customer.
The best way to start and scale your business is by Branded items, you will have organic traffic by selling the branded item.
Especially, if you are a Newbie to Dropshipping, by selling branded items will help you to build your business faster, as you will have lesser concern on the product description , promotional material and you can have a clear market insight by searching on Google , Amazon , Ebay….
Know your strengths and target to the right audience will help you to grow your business !
If you want to dropship branded & authentic items , join us !
