[REVIEW] B&F System, Inc.
There seems to be a common sentiment across the web - don’t share your sources with anyone for fear that they’ll use them to compete against you. I don’t share that view. The web is plenty big enough for all of us.
I do this hoping that others will be so inclined as well so we can all benefit from having more products to choose from.
Having said that, I’m going to give up one of my best drop ship suppliers here and now.
B&F System, Inc. - http://www.bnfusa.com/
They have a solid range of products (close to 1000 at any given time). Mostly general merchandise and some apparel.
I am 99.9% sure that they are the actual importer of this particular merchandise since there are a lot of so-called distributors reselling their merchandise and calling it “wholesale”.
Your initial order has to be at least $250 which can cause a problem for most of us. I was lucky that my first order for them was from a customer placing an order for over $1000 worth of stuff. Otherwise probably the easiest way is to simply order some stuff for yourself to get past that initial requirement.
They have an exceptional product feed that is updated regularly (possibly even in real time - hard to tell). Product descriptions are a little rough but everything else is as it should be. Images are particularly good.
Another potential issue is that they only ship within the US. Not a problem for me since that is the only market I focus on (used to live there - moved back to Canada but don’t sell to the Canadian market at all).
They seem to have some pretty advanced XML features that I haven’t tried to use yet (call it a problem with the crap Zen Cart that I’m currently using - hopefully Magento will open the door to utilizing something more automated in the future).
When a product is discontinued and goes out of stock it remains in the feed for a couple of weeks (as best as I can tell) so it allows you time to update it on your site so you don’t end up with merchandise listed that you ultimately can’t sell.
That’s about all I can think of for right now.
I’ve ordered a number of things from B&F in the past and it’s always gone smoothly. They come highly recommended.
1AnnaM posted Thu, February 14, 2008
Hi Jeff, I am glad to read this, I used B&F back in 1999-2000 something like that and I really lliked them. They were in San Antonio, Wayne was the head of the office and his wife whose name I forget, also worked there. I also had an excellent experiene with them. Back then they had nothing for the web and I scanned their whole catalogue for jpgs LOL But I did sell some stuff, and have failed in attempts to find them anymore. I will try now. Do you know of Wayne at all?
2AnnaM posted Thu, February 14, 2008
Oops@ Sorry, not Jeff, Ron. LOL Hi Ron.
3Ron Seigel posted Sun, February 17, 2008
They’ve been decent so far.
One complaint I have is that when you place an order it’s pretty much cast in stone. They don’t have any way to cancel or change an order. Emails don’t always help as it seems to take too long for someone to read/respond.
I’ve had several incidents that they’ve fixed (albeit reluctantly and with more drama than was required IMO).
Let’s just say be very careful when entering orders into their system (although my problems have all been mistakes made by my customers that realized after I’d already placed the order).