When you are starting out in the world of business, the number of choices you have to make can seem overwhelming, especially since you don’t have much in the way of reference. One of the biggest decisions you will need to make if you are starting up your own wholesale DVD business on eBay or with another website is the distributor you pick. Not only will your distributor be your lifeline for your entire inventory but also your key business partner that can make or break the success of your new company. Let’s take a look at just a few of the things you need to keep in mind when you are hunting for a new distributor for your wholesale DVD business.

More than any other quality, price should be your number one concern. The size of your distributors’ inventory is important; after all, no one wants to shop at a store that only sells a few items, but you can manage to stay in business with a small inventory if your prices can’t be beat. There are even some websites, like Woot.com, that only sell one item a day, but they sell it at such a great price, they manage to make money. If you can offer wholesale DVDs and CDs at a great price, you won’t have to worry about stocking a huge inventory.

If you can find several distributors that all offer you the same prices, the next biggest factor should be selection. There is a reason why people go to big box stores these days and not independent music and DVD stores: they crave selection. When you have websites like Amazon.com that essentially sell every DVD in the world at the same time, you simply aren’t going to survive selling a dozen titles unless they are at prices that are head and shoulders above your competition. Your business will live or die on repeat visits, so give your customer base a reason to come back. Offer the biggest selection you can and you might become an Internet legend.

Just like having a credit card that has great rates but terrible customer service is only so useful, the same goes for your distributor. If they are lax about shipping out orders or if they continually fail to return your phone calls, it simply doesn’t matter how good their prices are or how big their selection is, they have to be responsive to your needs and to the needs of your customers to be worthwhile. No distributor is perfect; especially if they are the biggest and best in the business, but you have to have standards; your customer base sure will!

Finally, many wholesale DVD companies online set their shipping rates through their distributor. Some unscrupulous distributors offer low prices on wholesale DVDs and then charge outrageous amounts for shipping. It is an old industry trick, so watch out for it because it can eat away at your profits quicker than you realize.