When I originally wrote this article a few years ago, it was titled "Eleven Things You Must Know About A Drop Shipping Directory And It's Company", and the drop shipping market was different than it is today. What has changed? Quite a bit. At the top of the list would be the continued growth of e-commerce, outsourced manufacturing, eBay, and the friendly neighborhood Wal-Mart. Drop shippers have become much more sensitive to the pros and cons of the online marketplace. In turn, their drop shipping policies have changed as well as their overall business risks. Now, more than ever, there is an extreme focus on preserving product value, profit margin, and the risks associated with having a drop shipping service. What does this mean to a drop shipping directory? Let's take a look... As I mention at my speaking engagements, there are a handful key parameters you should take into account when considering a drop ship directory:

1. Balance - You want to find a directory rich in many different categories of products rather than the quantity of products available. Many of the directories try to advertise how many products are available in their directory (i.e. 2,000,000 products). Why is the number of categories important? A directory will not serve you well if it has hundreds of thousands of products, and none of them are in your product interest category. A directory with a good balance has focused on their categories of drop shipper products rather than the quantity. This gives you a better chance of finding something for your line of business.

2. Uniqueness - You will want a directory with uniqueness amongst its drop shippers. The drop shippers should offer a wide array of unique products that are not necessarily mass marketed. Why? Web sites offering unique and unusual products often do well on the Web versus sites trying to sell big brand name products that you can find with a mega retailer such as Wal-Mart. A directory offering a bunch of big brand name product drop shippers could land you in the highly competitive commodity market against the mega retailers.

3. Selection - A directory with a good selection of drop ship categories is important. The number of drop shippers or the number of products a directory carries should not be the goal. The goal and question should be, "Do they have a drop shipper that would fit my line of business?" A common mistake for many folks is getting fixated on the quantity of products a directory might offer with its drop shippers. The question they start to ask is, "A directory with over 2,000,000 products ought to have something for me to sell." Wrong! Be sure to remember the first parameter we mentioned. Balance.

4. Search Method - The directory must explain the methods they use to find drop shippers. Be careful of directories that do not publish their search methods. If they do not explain their search methods, they may not have a solid search methodology. The directory could be full of a bunch of middlemen. At that point, the directory would be worthless to you. Directories using search methods such as trade show searches and foreign government agency searches are preferred over directories only focused on Internet searches. Why? Not all drop shippers and importers have a Web presence. A directory based on a bunch of Web searches could be missing some of the best hard-to-find drop shippers.

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