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Aid & Trade UK, USA and Canada Drop Ship Directories Last Updated: 3 February 2008
For notes on drop shipping and
marketing resources, see the eBizLogic Weblog
NOTES
Part of a group of similar offerings; cf. Wholesale Canada, which is better for Canadian resellers.
Several directories available.
Affordable price, but quality control has been an issue in the past.
Innovative services available.
U.K. Offering ...
Aid & Trade is a relatively new site, launched on 26 April 2006, by WholesalePages.co.uk, which also owns Wholesale-Canada.com (see review).
I came across Aid & Trade in early June, and immediately made enquiry regarding the content of three directories they provide — UK, USA and Canada. I wanted to determine whether the
Aid & Trade content were the same as or very similar that of the Wholesale-Canada directory, which also includes US and Canadian drop shippers. To that question, I received the following
response from Rob Kent, Administrator:
[pers.comm. Rob Kent, 8 June 2006]
Regarding the differences, there are numerous. Aid and Trade is strictly a dropshippers directory and lists
dropshippers from UK, USA and Canada. In the next phase we will be adding dropshippers from Australia too. Additionally
at Aid and Trade, we have introduced a dropship products directory where we are listing wholesale products and offers from
different dropshippers at a very frequent basis. Furthermore Dropshippers and suppliers can also open an account with
us and list their products and inventories themselves.
Rob was kind enough to provide me with access to these directories, and I completed my preliminary assessment on 8 June, going through
the Aid & Trade directories with a fine-toothed comb. I made a number of phone calls in an effort to evaluate the integrity of the
listed drop shippers, and thoroughly tested the functionality of member's area. Several issues came to light, and I relayed my list of them
to Rob.
Many improvements have been made in the interim, and most of the issues that were problematic have been resolved. Thorough quality assurance testing
is under way, and additional staff have been hired to accomplish this. The objective is to provide comprehensive, up-to-date drop ship directories
for the UK, USA, Canada and Australia.
[7 August 2006] My chief criticism involves the Aid & Trade Canadian directory, which contains a number of US listings on grounds that
these suppliers ship to Canada, yet no information is provided regarding the problems associated with cross-border shipping. Moreover, given that the
same company (WholesalePages.co.uk) is providing the Wholesale-Canada.com directory of wholesalers and drop shippers as a separate offering, and
promotes the latter as a source of Canadian drop shippers, the appearance, prima facie, is that the same content is being marketed in different formats. For additional detail, read the Critical Review presented below.
[30 November 2006]Aid & Trade is making real inroads in the field, and their Google presence reflects the effectiveness of
their marketing campaign. We like the fact that they present the downside of drop shipping — they report that many resellers are not successful with this strategy. Their contention that lack of success results
from failure to find bona fide wholesale drop ship sources, however, is only part of the picture. There are many reasons for failure. What persuades us to recommend Aid & Trade is the promise of their future growth. With
plans to include an Australian directory in the near future, Aid & Trade is working to provide a truly international ("worldwide") resource, enabling resellers to be more selective with regard to sourcing options. The Lifetime membership,
in that context, is worth considering. And there's a free preview...
Updates are frequent. The following list provides a sense of what's being offered in the US Directory. Digits in brackets
represent the number of companies offering such products, but bear in mind that some companies sell in multiple verticals,
so there is some replication of suppliers.
Adult (22)
Apparel and Clothing (71)
Arts and Craft (39)
Automotive and Accessories (45)
Baby Goods and Clothing (4)
Bags and Leather Goods (34)
Books (15)
Cameras and Accessories (17)
Candles (14)
Cell Phones and Telephones (20)
Collectibles (23)
Computers and Software (34)
Consoles and Video Games (35)
Cosmetics (29)
Decorative Products (121)
Electrical Accessories (29)
Electronics (94)
Footwear (5)
Furniture (16)
Gadgets and Gizmos (30)
General Merchandise (60)
Gifts (103)
Health and Beauty (72)
Home and Garden (99)
Home Office Educational Supplies (36)
Jewelry (58)
Kitchenware (34)
Lamps and Lighting (14)
Lingerie (6)
Music Movies CD and DVD (48)
Musical Instruments (14)
Others - Miscellaneous (95)
Party (12)
Pet Supplies (11)
Pictures Frames and Paintings (7)
Scooters Cycles and Bikes (16)
Security and Self Defence (19)
Smoke Accessories and Gourmet (34)
Sporting Goods (70)
Sunglasses and Eyewear (14)
Tools and Hardware (29)
Toys Games and Hobbies (70)
Vitamin and Nutritional Supplements (19)
Watches and Clocks (26)
Canada Directory
Adult (1)
Apparel and Clothing (8)
Arts and Craft (2)
Automotive and Accessories (5)
Baby Goods and Clothing (11)
Bags and Leather Goods (12)
Books (1)
Cameras and Accessories (12)
Candles (1)
Cell Phones and Telephones (10)
Collectibles (5)
Computers and Software (11)
Consoles and Video Games (7)
Cosmetics (4)
Decorative Products (12)
Electrical Accessories (11)
Electronics (13)
Footwear (2)
Furniture (14)
Gadgets and Gizmos (9)
General Merchandise (9)
Gifts (13)
Health and Beauty (7)
Home and Garden (15)
Home Office Educational Supplies (1)
Jewelry (3)
Kitchenware (9)
Lamps and Lighting (2)
Lingerie (1)
Music Movies CD and DVD (5)
Musical Instruments (1)
Others - Miscellaneous (2)
Party (1)
Pet Supplies (1)
Pictures Frames and Paintings (1)
Scooters Cycles and Bikes (4)
Security and Self Defence (3)
Smoke Accessories and Gourmet (2)
Sporting Goods (6)
Sunglasses and Eyewear (1)
Tools and Hardware (11)
Toys Games and Hobbies (4)
Vitamin and Nutritional Supplements (2)
Watches and Clocks (4)
Critical Review 9 August 2006
Logging in from Ottawa...
Once past the Terms of Use screen and inside the Members Area, there's an Account Panel which enables you to access the affiliate program, edit your personal profile, upgrade your subscription, and
review your payment history. This is followed by two links to each of the three directories, USA, Canada and the UK, enabling you to choose the respective "Dropshippers
Directory" or the "Dropship Products Directory". The latter is a very useful module if you're searching for niche products; it provides product images, concise descriptions, RRP and wholesale price points,
and a link to company info.
The Dropshippers Directory for each country is less user-friendly, chiefly because it is also organized by product category. Since the same company may supply products from
different verticals, one finds a certain amount of replication here. "Brands", another section of the site, provides an extensive list of brand names, and one can track suppliers
through these, but we still don't see a list of suppliers per se.
The UK Directory is the best developed, as WholesalePages.co.uk is headquartered there, and the US Directory is a close second. The Canadian Directory,
on the other hand, contains several suppliers who operate from the United States. Nothing is mentioned, so far as I can determine, about cross-border
issues — problems of duty and product returns.
Wholesale Canada offers a listing of 54 drop shippers for Canada, and provides a full list of these
suppliers. I attempted to compare that list with suppliers in the Aid & Trade Canadian Directory. The task is complicated because the suppliers are not
presented in a simple list, and the simple search function returned no results when I entered company names. Using the Advanced Search for companies, however,
I was able to locate the same suppliers.
The US Directory at Wholesale Canada contains some 28 drop shippers, but it appears there are far more in the Aid & Trade US Directory.
If you're in Canada and you market to the US, you may find the latter quite helpful. In my preliminary assessment (June), I telephoned to confirm the listings for
several drop shippers in the Aid & Trade US Directory. In one memorable case, having spoken with three separate company officials,
I was advised that their company indeed makes use of drop shipping, but not with resellers — rather, they themselves are resellers for distributors
who drop ship in their behalf.
A Good Idea ... Getting Better
Compiling directories of this sort is a difficult task, requiring due diligence. Rob Kent assures me that the Aid & Trade directories are
currently undergoing extensive quality-assurance testing. More and more bona fide drop shippers are being added to the lists. Cost of membership is
minimal, at this point, and worth the investment in the long term. If you're looking for Canadian suppliers, however, I still recommend you
check out Wholesale Canada, which is competitively priced, well organized and user-friendly.
There is one section at Aid & Trade that's worth special mention. It's called "Quotes". Briefly, if you're searching for
suppliers of products that are very hard to find, if you deal in niche products and have not been able to find sources that can
fulfill your product requirements, or if you've found the sources but the prices are too high, you can fill in a form (a) to obtain free
quotes from drop shippers and distributors, or (b) to locate companies you haven't been able to find in the Aid & Trade directories.
That, alone, is worth the price of admission.
From the FAQ...
What makes Aid and Trade different to other directories available on the net?
Aid and Trade is a service where members can access our directories online - and our directories are updated regularly on
a daily basis!
Being an online service means that you can access our directory from any PC anywhere in the world! Most of the other directories
appear to be eBooks or hard-copy publications that can become outdated very quickly. With our dedicated service, not only will
you get access to all updates as and when they occur, but you will also benefit from other resources and very frequent updates
at no further cost to you.
Aid and Trade directories are only available here! Unlike our competitors we don't offer reprint or resale rights. This way,
we can protect the content and quality of the information we provide to our customer base. Customers and webmasters of other
online businesses can, of course, become affiliates - however our directory is only available on this site.
Additionally we give our customers an option of searching through our database through our preview section prior to
signing-up with us. By doing so people can get a really good feel of what they can expect from our directory and whether
the kind of dropshippers they are looking for are actually available in our directory or not. This will not only result in
your investment being safe and sound but we have also negated the possibility of any disappointment. Through our preview
directories you would know what you would be getting in our actual members directory.
We also provide complete support to our members and try to answer their queries to the best of our knowledge. Our members will
always get a reply from us whether we know the answer to their query or not.
Unlike other directories and portals, we do not simply provide you with only simple listings of dropshippers, in fact we have
gone many steps further and have fully categorized our directory to provide our members access to dropshippers from various
regions of the world. Additionally we have listed dropshippers in our directory in accordance with their product lines, so a
dropshipper dealing in clothes and toys will not only appear in the clothes sub-category as is the case with most other
directories thus minimizing your chances of success. In our directory the dropshipper will appear under both the categories
thus making your search a very simple and a pleasant experience.
Along with the dropshippers listing , we also provide our members with the actual products listing of each dropshipper. Our
dedicated data entry staff is always working round the clock to add new products and offers to our directory and we can assure
you that no other directory goes to this length for their members. Our customer service is next to best if not the best and
we always respond to all queries.
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Copyright Richard Dagan 2000-2008
Richard Dagan 2000-2008