As a drop shipper of office furniture, you’ll understand how challenging it is to select a wholesale supplier for a long-term partnership.
Do you pick the supplier with the cheapest prices? Maybe you’re only interested in fast delivery? Or does your online business need something more from your office furniture wholesaler?
At OLG, we’ve been supplying wholesale office furniture to Australian drop shippers for over a decade now, providing online retailers with quality inventory and outstanding service at competitive prices.
In this article, we’ve compiled a list of things drop shippers tell us they need from their suppliers. We’ll discuss some of the solutions we’ve developed specifically for your business, as well as some of the advantages our other partners enjoy from choosing OLG, and by the end of this article, you’ll have a much clearer idea of how we can support you too.
Drop Ship Specific Support
At OLG, we’ve been focused on servicing the increasing number of office furniture drop shippers through innovation, a robust freight network and exceptional customer service. In fact, we’ve grown into a specialist drop shipping wholesaler!
Here is just a couple of things we do specifically for our drop shipping customers.
- CSV Format Inventory Spreadsheets – Many of our customers require our inventory and stock data in a CSV format to integrate with their online selling platform. OLG provides updated upload data to drop shippers free of charge.
- Photorealistic Marketing Collateral – Our expert designers create photorealistic marketing renders for your website and social platforms. Just like our packaging, we can add your company logo to all your catalogues, spec sheets and promotional material to help you sell to your customers.
- Direct Delivery – Having that zero-touch experience with your customers is the bread and butter of any online seller or drop ship retailer. OLG offers an end-user delivery service to your customers, anywhere in Australia*
- Installation Services – Our team of professional installers can provide that final step in your customer’s experience. From saving your customer time to completing complex soft-wiring assemblies, OLG’s expert staff will get it done.
But in what other ways can OLG support you as a drop shipper?
How OLG Supports Drop Shippers
Quality of Inventory
Without a physical premises or storage of your own, when it comes to inventory, drop shippers rely on their wholesalers for both product range and stock on hand. There’s nothing worse than one of your customers going to order a product from your website, only to be met with the dreaded “Out of Stock” message at checkout.
If your furniture wholesaler doesn’t have a large local inventory of product, your normal three-to-five-business-day delivery can turn into an international logistics nightmare stretching weeks to months.
In saying that, having enough stock on hand is only part of the story.
- A good wholesaler will have a wide range of high-quality products available in a selection of materials, colours and finishes.
- A great wholesaler will also carry a suite of complimentary accessories to match. Everything from desks and chairs to monitor arms, cable management solutions and more.
- Quality should also last the test of time. Your ideal office furniture wholesaler should offer warranties and repair services in line with Australian standards.
When OLG first opened its doors in Australia, our product team’s philosophy was to design office furniture that would have a lifespan of at least 20 years. While we initially offered an industry standard 5-year warranty, it became apparent that our products were lasting the test of time. This confidence in our materials and manufacturing process led us to extending the already generous warranty period to a massive 10 years!
Use of Facilities
As an office furniture drop shipper or online reseller, there’s a good chance you don’t have a showroom for customers to come and interact with your products. While some people prefer browsing online, you’re much more likely to sell that top-shelf office chair if your customer can give it a test drive. Having your product range on display for customers to touch and see can be the difference between making a sale and your customer leaving empty-handed.
OLG extends the use of our purpose-built showroom in Macquarie Park to all our drop shippers who don’t want to miss out on a sale. We can either arrange a guided tour or allow you to show your customers through on your own.
The OLG Virtual Showroom
If Macquarie Park is just a little too far for you or your customer to visit, we’ve come up with a premium solution that’s almost as good as the real thing! While it can never replace being there in person, our high-end virtual showroom is more than enough to impress potential customers.
We’ve recently given the virtual showroom a facelift, so make sure you check it out today!
Delivery & Installation
As much as we all love spending four hours building an IKEA flatpack, it’s always going to be better when a professional does it. For a drop shipping business like yours, you need an office furniture wholesaler that offers direct customer delivery and installation services. This includes any soft wiring or complex installs that require a certain level of expertise.
When choosing a furniture wholesaler, speed of delivery is also a crucial factor to consider. Having local inventory is fine but if the order sits in a warehouse for a week before being dispatched, it defeats the purpose.
OLG has one of the most robust freight and logistics networks in the industry. Not only do we have an efficient and established global shipping route, but for the stock we have on hand, we aim for same day dispatch of all products headed to our drop shipper’s customers.
Project Management
Far beyond just delivery and installation, the best furniture wholesalers can offer end-to-end project management for large or complex office fit outs.
While large-scale projects don’t often cross over into the drop shipping space, OLG has the expertise and staff to be able to accommodate certain projects on your behalf. Imagine being able to send prospective customers a quote on a project that previously would have been well out of reach.
This has the potential to remove the need for a dedicated PM on the client side, ensuring that projects are completed on time and under budget.
Transparency & Honesty
Transparency and honesty in business can be something of a rare trait but look for a furniture wholesaler that tries to be open about everything they do. This covers everything from having realistic marketing to not misrepresenting stock numbers, all the way to reading out the fine print in the sales process.
There are a few ways to tell if your furniture wholesaler puts honesty and transparency at the forefront of their business.
- Does your furniture wholesaler publish educational content, (like the article you’re reading right now) that is both helpful and unbiased?
- Can you be certain that the products sourced are both sustainable and ethically sourced?
- Is your furniture wholesaler clear about their warranty, repair and replacement policies?
At OLG, we’re a family-owned and operated business with an emphasis on integrity, honesty and providing the best value possible to our customers.
Customer Experience
It’s important that your furniture wholesaler treats you like a partner instead of just a customer. So, what does that look like?
As a bare minimum, this includes providing you with a single point of contact – whether that be a dedicated account manager or a project manager for large installations.
But our commitment to customer service goes way beyond just having a direct hotline. Drop shippers partnered with OLG enjoy access to a customized client portal to make ordering, invoice payment and post-sales support much easier.
At the end of the day, OLG is in business to make business easier for you.
So, what next?
If you’ve made it this far, it’s obvious that you’re excited about the next step. These are just some of the advantages that OLG drop shippers enjoy from being part of the family.
There’s a whole lot more we can offer that can’t fit in this article, so before you meet with our friendly sales team, make sure you make a list of challenges in your business, and we’ll make it our challenge to see if we can solve them!
When you’re ready, get in touch here or give us a call direct at 02 8188 2732 and we’ll get to work.
Want to keep reading? Find out what’s new with OLG or head over to the OLG Learning Centre to explore a curated archive full of educational articles and industry content, all completely free to use.
