Product Sourcing Tools & Services

The key to success in your product sourcing is selecting the appropriate tools or services. Without any ideas for things to manufacture and sell your products, it can be challenging to launch a business. In fact, if you’re not making the products yourself, finding a source or supplier is frequently one of the first steps you need to take. This is quite a complex task; however, product sourcing tools & services exist to make it a bit more bearable.  

There are numerous instruments available, and we’ve created a list of the best ones to make your decision a little easier!

How We Ranked the Best Product Sourcing Tools & Services

With so many options on the market, how do you distinguish the best from the rest? Our top-notch rating and reviewing methodology takes a number of factors into account, such as:

• Sorting out the top 50-100 products by looking up the highest-ranked products from different services
• Evaluating the ease of use
• Reading multiple user and expert reviews on each product to establish the Top Features and Key Metadata
• Reviewing recorded demos of every product and taking demos if possible
• Getting experts to evaluate US/UI design and usability
• Using search intent data, website traffic trends, and social listening tools for each product

Once evaluating this, we set a score and rank the products. 

What Is a Product Sourcing Tool & Service?

Product sourcing involves finding trustworthy suppliers and manufacturers for items. It might entail doing research on potential suppliers, getting in touch with them, settling on terms, and placing orders. Product sourcing is a crucial step in the creation of new products since it allows companies to get the best items while also saving time and money.

This sounds a bit overwhelming, doesn’t it? That’s why different product sourcing tools and services exist. Finding suppliers with the proper qualifications and competencies for your company is now simpler than ever, thanks to sourcing software.

A product sourcing tool is a program that assists in finding and qualifying suppliers. These product-sourcing services can be either free or paid. By looking at performance, customer reviews, and other factors, they can help companies evaluate suppliers. These are the best tools for market research, importing, product analysis, and wholesaling that can help you find and buy profitable goods.

How to Win Customers Using Product Sourcing Tools

There’s no point in having a business with plenty of innovative stock if you don’t have any customers to sell your products to. Fortunately, sourcing tools & services can deal with both of these issues at once. If you offer an intriguing and high-quality product, you’re almost guaranteed to attract customers – assuming that you have an effective marketing strategy in place. 

Many successful business owners can probably confirm this, but customer attraction and retention are not challenging when you offer something that people love. 

Another factor to consider is your supplier’s reputation. Nobody will buy products from a retailer when they know that the supplier uses poor-quality materials. Product sourcing tools help you find reliable and high-quality suppliers with a good reputation; hence, you can trust the products you’re receiving. Reputation and image are everything, so if you’re using a manufacturer that people know and love, you shouldn’t have to worry about a thing. 

Pain Points that the Best Product Sourcing Tools & Services Solves

Markets with millions of users, including eBay, Amazon, Walmart, and others, are all competitive marketplaces. While retailers are continually looking for new goods to offer, it can be challenging to discover worthwhile goods. You must take into account a variety of factors, including the level of competition, the level of demand for a product, shipping costs, profit margins, other fulfillment costs, and much more. It might be hard to have so many things to think about on top of the ordinary tasks of running your online business. 

There just aren’t enough hours in a day to get everything done. Here are a few of the stressful things that product sourcing tools and services address:

Lack of Time

It takes a long time to find things that are profitable. A product sourcing tool or service is made to save you time by streamlining all of the crucial information you need. Verifying the KPIs that are most important to your business might help you do tasks that used to take hours or days in just a few minutes.

You could use the time you save on product sourcing to focus on other aspects of your business, such as boosting your marketing initiatives, taking better product images, and optimizing your Amazon listings.

Operational Inefficiencies

The existing approach to managing suppliers and their data is labor-intensive, inefficient, and frequently accompanied by redundant effort. All departments involved in supplier management can cooperate more effectively using these tools. The following supply chain questions can be answered by your supply chains and supplier management teams by streamlining the way they manage the life cycles of their suppliers, simply tracking their performance, and more:

• “Are the quantity and quality of goods appropriate?”
• “Are deliveries made on time?” 

High Costs

This problem complicates procurement while also raising the expense of supplier management. Costs associated with managing supplier information can be greatly reduced by creating a comprehensive, reliable, single view of suppliers that is accessible. Some businesses save millions of dollars annually by establishing an effective product sourcing strategy, and sourcing teams have access to information about the overall amount spent with each supplier. This information allows them to bargain for more advantageous corporate pricing, discounts, and payment terms to further cut sourcing expenses.

Product Sourcing Tools & Services Meaning 

Product sourcing services essentially offer you a contact list filled with trustworthy suppliers who have built a solid reputation. Product sourcing tools can assist you in finding a trustworthy supplier, negotiating prices, supervising production, conducting quality control tests on your product, and, most importantly, guaranteeing that you receive your orders at the scheduled shipping time.

Main Features of the Best Product Sourcing Tools & Services

There are countless product sourcing tools on the market; however, you need to know exactly what to look for in them. Here are a few must-have features that you’ll find in all the best product sourcing services:

• Automation: Essentially, this is the whole purpose of contemporary business tools. They simply aren’t worth your time if they aren’t going to relieve you of some of the most boring tasks. A workflow should be included in sourcing automation to handle purchase orders, communicate with suppliers, and provide straightforward tracking without the need for data entry. In essence, a successful platform ought to eliminate all of the problematic aspects of handling procurement.
• Easy Collaboration: Theoretically, buying isn’t all that complicated. Making a transaction is simple as long as you have a reliable source and know what you want. However, if you want to involve others in the process, it becomes more difficult. The level of experience and expertise in sourcing that you possess is not shared by your coworkers. Additionally, individuals are highly unlikely to go through a time-consuming onboarding procedure or read the entire product handbook merely to make a few payments. You need a solution or platform that will guide them through each transaction while adhering to rules and keeping things simple.
• Integrations: You probably already use accounting management software. Without you needing to spend hours copying and pasting, your sourcing platform ought to communicate with others. Verify that a tool will be simple to link to the other essential components of your finance ecosystem before you decide to use it.

Benefits of Using Product Sourcing Tools & Services

Successful sellers understand the value of using product sourcing tools because they know how to manage their time effectively. A lot of the benefits that product sourcing platforms may provide for your company are crucial in the cutthroat eCommerce market of today. A few of these advantages of product sourcing tools and services are:

You Can Compare Potential Income and Expenses

Essentially, every item you sell must generate a profit for your business. You aren’t doing it right if you’re selling things at a loss. Sure, you may try to sell off old goods at or below cost to recover funds; however, this is a desperate measure and not a long-term winning tactic.

Before you place an order with your supplier, A product sourcing tool is useful because it helps you calculate your estimated income and expenses, and hence profit, before placing orders with your suppliers. Furthermore, this can also help you determine other essential information, such as your net profit margin and product demand.

Before sourcing products for your eCommerce business, you should be as informed as possible. You need this kind of information to make a wise choice and save yourself from stockpiling things that will cause you to lose money.

You Can Validate Your Sourcing Ideas from the Start

You shouldn’t be shocked by this one. As an entrepreneur, you cannot afford to take a chance on a product when there are millions of them available for purchase.

Sometimes when you’re looking for things to source, you shouldn’t focus on the trendiest ones. Want proof? Take a look at all the fidget spinners that people bought a couple of years ago and are still using now.

A product may sell well, but it may be tough to compete if the market is oversaturated, the fad fades, or the other distributors are too well-established. Additionally, they might be able to sell their products for less money than you can afford to source them for.

Therefore, a product sourcing tool gives you practical information that assists you in making the proper choices before you get too deeply into the process of finding products to sell.

It also saves you time, which is your most vital asset as an entrepreneur. 

You Can Analyze the Competition

Competition is always going to be there, whether you like it or not. You can use a product sourcing tool to research your competitors and determine which of them you can outperform. During the product sourcing step, you can examine their total seller rating, the number of reviews they have, and other crucial indicators. Consequently, you can quickly tell whether the competition is fierce or not when you locate a product you want.

You Can Evaluate Various Marketplaces Simultaneously 

The top sellers are aware of the value of marketing their goods on any online store where they can make profits and compete. 

A product sourcing tool can help with that. You can see every piece of relevant information for various marketplaces on a thorough product sourcing platform.

Who Should Use Product Sourcing Tools & Services?

Who will benefit the most from a platform like this? Is it only suitable for those trying to get into the market? What about experienced business owners? Whether you own a small business or are running a successful eCommerce store, you can benefit from product sourcing tools. As long as you’ve got a great business idea, you can take advantage of the services of these tools. 

Let’s break down why specific groups should use product sourcing services:

Aspiring Business Owners

Whether you’ve got a business idea with a lot of potential or have identified a product that will make your current business more successful, you need to know how and where to source the products so that you can introduce them to the market. Therefore, no matter what particular industry you’re in, if you’re an entrepreneur trying to introduce a new product, you should use a reliable sourcing tool. 

Busy Entrepreneurs

You might decide it’s time to work with a wholesaler or manufacturer to develop your product when your company grows and you realize you don’t have the time or resources to build all of your products yourself, or at the very least to augment DIY efforts during peak seasons. You’ll need to locate the goods if you choose this course of action; a reliable manufacturer can probably offer you some possibilities. 

Naturally, you’ll want to thoroughly investigate possible partners to make sure you’re hiring someone who is reputable, trustworthy, and economical. Their customer service assistance, delivery schedules, and requirements for a minimum quantity are further factors. You won’t possibly be able to handle all of this manually, which is where a product sourcing tool will come in handy. 

What Do Product Sourcing Tools & Services Cost?

From free applications to services costing a few hundred or thousand dollars a month, there is no set price when it comes to product sourcing tools. Most tools offer a free trial or a free version of the application; however, you’ll generally have to pay a monthly subscription in order to get access to more features. 

You’ll often find ‘per user’ and ‘per month’ pricing structures for these platforms. Keep in mind that enterprise pricing will also be more expensive than plans for an individual. Overall, while pricing differs, you can find both affordable plans and expensive ones with more advanced options. 

Trends in Product Sourcing Tools & Services 

With the rate at which things are evolving, it’s time to reconsider our current sourcing strategies and methods. Future-proofing supply chain services such as contracts, supplier performance, logistics, and warehouse management are necessary. The top five shrewd trends for our product sourcing in 2022 are:

• Self-service Portals: The provision of self-service is one advantage of digital transformation; it enhances the user experience for all parties and speeds up a particular business process by removing dependence on third parties. One of the most crucial paths in the supplier process is supplier connection. With more access to real-time data, technology will enable suppliers to self-serve and observe more of your business process.
• Collaboration and Communication Tools: Streamlining internal communication can increase productivity and reduce costs for businesses. Additionally, they can enhance external communication to improve relationships with suppliers and lower supply chain risks. Employees benefit from intuitive and simple purchasing experiences as we implement procurement technology whenever and wherever they engage with sourcing.
• AI and Data Analytics: AI-driven solutions give insights based on massive, complex data sets while streamlining and automating laborious operations. In the past, it was difficult to calculate the total spending of the company. Most CPOs now use AI-based data to find possibilities that can have a positive influence on the bottom line, from process optimization to management reporting.
• Mobility Technology: Another new development in the sourcing industry is the widespread usage of mobile technology. Today, mobile gadgets play a significant role in our lives. Whether you’re at the office or not, mobile technology is a must.

Which Is the Best Product Sourcing Tool & Service?

As we mentioned, it’s extremely difficult to choose the best tool – there is no cookie-cutter answer. A great start is to test a few services and choose the one that suits your needs the most. Start with a few of the options on the list above, as these are the top-of-the-range tools. 

How to Choose the Right Product Sourcing Tool & Service 

Understanding the distinctions between these tools and how they can assist you to identify things to sell will help you choose the best product sourcing tools and services for your eCommerce business. You don’t have to feel overwhelmed by the process because we’re here to help!

Not all tools serve the same purpose, and some perform better when used in conjunction with another application or service. The list of product sourcing tools & services above should give you enough knowledge to start finding new niches and keywords and increasing your sales, but only you can decide what’s best for your business. You have to test a few different solutions before deciding on the perfect one for your needs. 

Summary

Two of the most vital aspects that can have an impact on eCommerce businesses are research and sourcing. You never know, you might come across a hidden treasure that could be excellent for your company. 

As a result, analytics tools are a top pick in this time-consuming process to help you improve your product sourcing and research, select the most lucrative products, and grow your online business.