If you are thinking of starting an eCommerce business ( and you most likely are since you are reading this review of Salehoo), one of the most important tasks you will undertake is finding good products to sell and reliable suppliers to source them from.
A while back it was actually quite hard to find a legitimate online database of wholesalers and dropshipping suppliers. However, times have changed and now there are a lot of quality sites that have huge databases of wholesale suppliers and their products.
One of these sites is Salehoo and in this review, we will take an inside look into their supplier database and what other services they provide.
Salehoo Review
So, this is an updated review of the SaleHoo system for 2020 and any significant changes to the system will be mentioned in my review.
Salehoo is a New Zealand based company that was founded in 2005 by Simon Slade and Mark Ling. If the name Mark Ling rings a bell its because he is a well-known internet entrepreneur who also founded the affiliate marketing training program, Affilorama. They are both very successful businessmen and Salehoo was born out of frustration of not having a quick access to a legitimate wholesale supplier directory.
15 years later and it boasts one of the biggest wholesale directories with over 8000 wholesalers, dropshippers and liquidators listed in their database. You also get access to over 2.5 million branded products that you can start re-selling on Amazon, eBay or your own store.
Salehoo lists suppliers from all over the world, a huge portion of the suppliers in their database are based in the USA, UK, Canada and Australia, however, there are over 50 other countries in which they have suppliers based from.
I just want to clear something up, Salehoo are just the middlemen, they provide the details for the suppliers and their products. If you decide to use one of the suppliers within their database, you will be dealing directly with them and not Salehoo.
Salehoo Members Area
To provide a thorough review of Salehoo and their supplier directory, I signed up to their paid membership program.
The members area has a clean look and is easy to navigate, it has a menu at the top where you can access the following information;
- Suppliers Directory
- Salehoo Labs
- Training
- Resources
So, the first thing I want to go into more detail about is the supplier directory because it is their core product and the reason you are reading this review.
The directory is pretty easy to use, you can either search for suppliers by using the search bar at the top or you can select one of the 22 product categories and see the list of suppliers for your chosen category.
There is also a section for trending suppliers, featured suppliers and new suppliers. A really useful feature of Salehoo is that you can save your searches and make list of your favourite suppliers so that you can find their details quickly without having to search for them again.
Once you have found a supplier for a product, you get the following information about the company;
- A brief overview of their operation
- Products they sell
- Product catalogue
- Company website
- Contact details (Phone No. and email address)
- Minimum order requirements
- If they dropship or just wholesale suppliers
- If they ship worldwide or not.
- Estimated delivery time
One thing to note is that most of the products in the Salehoo database are branded products, this is why they are such a popular online directory. It is quite difficult to find licensed suppliers of popular branded products and the ones you do find, you will have to vet them thoroughly otherwise you may end up selling counterfeit products that will lead you to a lot of legal troubles.
However, Salehoo have gone through all that trouble for you, every one of the suppliers on their database has been thoroughly screened so that you can be confident going into business with them.
Something I found really useful is that many suppliers will suggest on which platform to sell their products for maximum profitability. A lot of them suggest Amazon or eBay as most consumers trust these sites to purchase popular branded products from.
Salehoo Labs
I stated earlier in the article that one of the toughest aspects of starting an eCommerce business is finding a product to sell. There is a lot of research that needs to be done and it can be time-consuming, luckily, Salehoo tracks and analyses over a million products on Amazon and eBay and provides you with all the details.
You can see exactly what items are trending, their sell-through rate on Amazon and eBay, if the product has a lot of competing sellers and its overall profitability.
You also get details of all the suppliers on their database that sells these products and any other similar products.
If you sell on eBay and Amazon or are thinking of selling on either of these platforms, then this tool will be very helpful. However, even if you have no plans to use Amazon or eBay, the Salehoo Lab will still be useful for product research and finding out what products are selling well.
I personally think the Salehoo Lab alone is worth the annual membership fee.
Training
Salehoo provides a boatload of free training guides on everything to with starting an eCommerce business. Whether you are thinking of starting a dropshipping business on Shopify, selling low-cost items on eBay or an Amazon FBA business, Salehoo provides some really good guides on how to start selling on all these platforms.
Some of the topics covered in these guides include the following;
- Selling on Amazon & eBay
- Importing and Shipping
- Product Research
- Product Sourcing
- Finding low-cost suppliers
There is also a premium training course on starting an Amazon FBA business which costs $247, which is actually quite cheap for an Amazon FBA course (many of the most famous ones cost over a grand). You get lifetime access to all the material and it comes with a 60-day money-back guarantee if you are not satisfied with the product.
I currently have no plans for selling on Amazon, so I gave this a miss, but if you are thinking of starting an Amazon FBA business, this course may benefit you.
Salehoo Forum
Salehoo has over 137000 members and a huge number of them are very active on the Salehoo forum. This is definitely one of the best eCommerce forums on the internet, it’s very active and people are always willing to answer questions and provide guidance to anyone looking to start their first eCommerce business.
One of the things I really like about this forum is that many of Salehoo’s approved suppliers are active on it as well. So, if you want a certain type of product and cannot find a supplier for it on the database, you just ask on the forum and it’s more than likely a supplier will get back to you.
Salehoo Pricing
Salehoo has two payment options, you can either pay an annual fee of $67 or a lifetime payment of $127. Both options are very cheap when compared to other supplier directories and in my opinion an absolute bargain. You are also backed with their 60-day money-back guarantee, so if you are for some reason dissatisfied with their service, you get a full refund.
Final Thoughts
Salehoo is a must-have supplier directory for anyone looking to start an eCommerce business, whether you want to sell via your own store or start selling on either eBay/Amazon, having access to this huge directory will help cut down your search to find legitimate wholesalers. Even if you are unsure of what to sell, Salehoo Labs will help you identify products that are trending and selling well on Amazon and eBay.
Salehoo provide a great service, they have good support staff who are always willing to help, a very active community forum and the price of the membership is honestly dirt cheap when compared to its competitors.