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Review of Specialty Merchandise Corporation (SMC) One of the most common late night infomercials
for home business opportunities these days is a promo for Speciality Merchandise
Corporation, or SMC. According the infomercials, this is a company that will give you
access to over 3500 products at below wholesale cost. This allows you to sell them yourself for high profits.
Not only that, but the company will drop ship the products directly to your customers with your
business name on the package. This all sounds great, but can you really make money with these kinds of specialty products?
Overview of SMCSpecialty Merchandise Corporation is essentially a membership based dropshipping wholesaler of specialty merchandise. More on what specialty actually means below. Unlike many membership based opportunities, this one does not come cheap. The startup cost is roughly $300, though you can opt to make monthly $20 payments for a specified amount of time instead. With this membership fee, you are given access to over 3500 products at below wholesale prices, which can be drop shipped directly to your customers. You also have access to several different catalogues which can be customized with your own business logo. This includes a catalogue which displays all products offered and catalogues targeted to a specific area such as fine jewelry. Additional promotional materials are also included, and all can be customized. SMC also provides you with material on several different ways of making money with these products, and these include using online auctions, swap meets and flea markets, direct mail sales, house parties and through home shopping TV. Support is provided for each. What is Specialty Merchandise Anyway?To put it bluntly, specialty merchandise is the label placed on products that serve no useful purpose or function. In other words, the same kind of junk merchandise you will find at garage sales and flea markets. One look through the World of Products catalogue reveals that the vast majority of SMC products fall into this category. That doesn't necessarily mean you can't make money selling these items. After all, how often do you see that kind of junk sold in stores, on internet websites and at swap meets? Obviously, people do purchase these items, regardless of how practical they may be. Keep in mind that dropshipping is not something exclusive to SMC. There are many wholesalers of regular merchanidse including books, electronics, computers and games that will drop ship. You can find more information about dropshipping wholesalers here. So the question then is, how likely are you to succeed with specialty merchandise? As you would expect, the answer depends on who you ask. There are people who have made a lot of money with SMC, and the company surely has a long list of positive feedback. But there is also a lot of people who have made very little or no return on the $300 investment. There are several factors involved, covered below. Selling SMC ProductsThe materials you receive with your membership list several ways to make money with the products. 10 years back, the most popular were catalogue sales and selling at flea markets. Both are still valid today, but selling via the internet is the most likely place to find SMC sellers these days. This usually means selling products through online auctions, or setting up a website of your own. Because of this, SMC now offers expensive services for individuals looking to start their own online stores. If that is how you are planning to market the products, a few experiments should set you straight. First, do a search on a decent size search engine for World of Products. This is SMC's full catalogue, and the thousands of different sites selling these products that come up should make you realize there is a lot of competition here. You can request a catalogue from any given vender, usually free of charge. With the products listed in the catalogue, head over to Ebay, pick a few items and see how many auctions are already selling them. Making money with online auctions is difficult enough without having a product already featured in hundreds of auctions. Additionally, many SMC users have complained that the company has been frequently out of stock on a lot of items. That would mean situations where you simply cannot sell items even if you have a market for them. Recently, SMC opened a new, larger warehouse to allow for a large inventory. This should help but there is no guarantee stock shortages won't still happen, especially considering the large amount of SMC customers out there. Given the huge amount of competition you'll find from other SMC users, making money online could be a serious challenge, and is certainly not something you can expect to do with a few hundred dollars. Granted, there are other ways of selling these products, but the tough competition comes into factor again. You might think it won't hurt to try it out anyway, right? Well keep in mind that there is still a steep $300 membership fee, which is money wasted unless you're going to be getting something back. If you are considering becoming an SMC member, it would be a good idea to get a hold of a catalogue first. Take a look at the products and ask yourself if you can really see yourself selling that kind of merchandise. If you can't even imagine how anyone in their right mind could buy such things, then SMC may not be right for you. You can request free information about SMC at http://www.smc4me.com Some reviews of SMC can be found at http://www.auctionhints.com/message/webbbs_config.pl?read=3568 The offical SMC forum can be found at http://www.smcforums.com Another forum about selling SMC is located at http://groups.msn.com/SMCChat/messages.msnw  Business Startups NewsletterRecommended LinksBusiness Opportunity Goldmine at Home Make Money Make Money Online Work at Home Jobs Work at Home Vision Add your link |
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