What is a Manufacturer?

A manufacturer is home base, the people that make what you use, eat, watch or play with.

The manufacturer that doesn't drop ship, has a purchase limit, this is the way it has been done for years. The only way to get cheap enough prices to make a profit, is to buy in bulk of at least a case, a pallet or by the truckload, or by amount of money spent from $200 - $20,000+ or a minimum quantity of. Some are under, some are over. This means you need money to start! Using drop shippers, you don't!

Now that many manufactures and or distributors have adopted drop shipping their products, there is no reason why a normal work at home mum can't do exactly what the big boys have been doing since 1910.

So, lets say Sony decided to adopt the drop shipping method. They design a new PS3 (Play Station 3) and allow you to go sell it for them, you sell it, they ship it, you profit. Simple. Although Sony doesn't yet allow drop shipping, distributors of their products do.

What is a Distributor?

A distributor is a group or company that have a license and the money to buy the things in bulk directly from the manufacturer of a particular product, which the distributor then sells to retail stores for a little bit more than what they bought it for. They will get the best possible prices, because they're getting it directly from the source in bulk. The more money you have, the closer to the source you can get, and in turn, get the best prices. The retail stores, then mark-up the price to the MSRP, which in most cases are 50 - 600% the original price the distributor paid.

Note: Manufacturers and Distributors can be one and the same. Drop shippers are actually manufactures or distributors that dropship their products, item by item.