Role Overview
Clients don’t hire a Supplier and Vendor Sourcing Expert just to “find products.” They hire for leverage—reliable access to real suppliers who ship fast, stock consistently, and protect their margins. The business lives or dies based on who’s supplying the shelves. Your job is to build a network that keeps their store competitive, compliant, and cash-flowing. That means seeing through inflated catalogs, spotting fake wholesalers, and filtering for real partners who can scale.
This is not just research work. Clients aren’t paying for Google searches or spreadsheet lists—they’re paying for trustable vendor relationships they can plug into now. Every weak lead you pass creates risk: canceled orders, late shipments, buyer complaints, or worse—account suspension. But when you get it right, you unlock faster listings, more orders, lower costs—and most important, long-term operational stability. That’s the true weight of this role.
Standards You Must Meet
- You must deliver verified supplier contacts with active inventory, real-time stock visibility, and clear shipping SLAs.
- Clients expect pre-qualified vendors ready for Walmart’s compliance and performance standards—no unvetted sources, no guesswork.
- Every supplier you hand off should be pre-screened for dropship capability: branded invoicing, blind shipping, and no MAP violations.
- Getting flagged for using fake wholesalers or retail arbitrage leads is a non-starter—one mistake can shut down the whole account.
- You need to build and maintain a clean, sortable vendor database, updated regularly with current prices, MOQs, and delivery speeds.
- Back-and-forth with bad contacts wastes the client’s time—each intro or connection must be plug-and-play ready.
- You’re not judged on quantity of listings but on supplier quality—their ability to support fast fulfillment and protect profit margins.
- If your sourcing leads result in out-of-stock items, long ship times, or canceled orders, it’s your accountability on the line.
What You’ll Be Doing
- Conduct deep-dive supplier vetting to ensure each vendor meets dropship standards, Walmart compliance, and full-order reliability.
- Initiate and manage supplier outreach—confirming product availability, shipping SLAs, invoicing formats, and long-term fulfillment capability.
- Maintain a live vendor database with accurate pricing, stock levels, processing times, and MOQ details for immediate client handoff.
- Detect and disqualify any lead posing as a fake wholesaler, retail arbitrage source, or unverifiable distributor.
- Pre-build purchasing pathways by validating SKUs, checking shipping times, and flagging high-risk items for removal or monitoring.
- Build shortlists of backup vendors per category to ensure continuity in fulfillment if top suppliers go out of stock or fail service levels.
- Match supplier capabilities to client strategies, ensuring alignment between catalog targets, fulfillment reliability, and margin control.
- Track supplier performance trends over time to surface issues early and rotate underperforming vendors before they disrupt operations.
What You’ll Hand Over
- A fully verified supplier roster with direct contacts, SKU samples, MAP policy info, and shipping terms ready for Walmart integration.
- A live vendor tracker showing real-time stock levels, pricing tiers, lead times, and communication logs for all approved suppliers.
- A pre-screening summary for each supplier confirming blind shipping, branded invoicing, domestic fulfillment, and dropship readiness.
- A backup vendor shortlist by product category to ensure stock continuity and margin stability across top-selling items.
- A supplier performance recap report highlighting fulfillment speed, order accuracy, and any red flags removed from the network.
Tools You’ll Need to Use
- Alibaba – Main platform for sourcing verified international suppliers with scalable manufacturing capacity.
- Walmart Seller Center – Essential dashboard for listings, order management, and supplier performance tracking.
- Google Sheets – Core tool for tabulating supplier information, pricing comparisons, and live sourcing logs.
- Keepa – Used to assess product and pricing history trends for market viability and supplier benchmarking.
- Jungle Scout – Supports initial product validation and competitive research to inform supplier selection.
- SmartSheet – Enables structured vendor pipelines, RFQ tracking, and collaboration across sourcing workflows.
- Shopify – Relevant for suppliers testing cross-platform compatibility with product integration and fulfillment sync.
Why Work Smarter
If a Sourcing Expert can’t automate basic, repetitive tasks — such as inventory syncing, pricing updates, or order tracking — the client is paying for manual work that shouldn’t exist anymore. Automation doesn’t eliminate the need for judgment and strategy, but it removes the busywork that slows down the entire supply chain.
This isn’t mandatory knowledge today, but it’s quickly becoming the quiet standard. OES aligns with where the market already is — not where it used to be. If you want to stay relevant, automation is no longer optional.
Why Your Work Matters
Every day a client operates without reliable suppliers, they’re gambling with their account. One bad sourcing decision—whether it’s a fake wholesaler, outdated inventory, or a slow shipper—can mean canceled orders, chargebacks, or permanent suspension. Walmart doesn’t give second chances, and clients don’t get refunds for sourcing mistakes. If you show up unprepared, product margins disappear and the entire store loses traction. If you execute with precision, you fuel fast fulfillment, protect profits, and give the client a clear edge in a ruthless market.
This role is not administrative—it’s operational control. The supplier network you build directly defines how fast, how profitably, and how compliantly a store can scale. Everything else depends on it: listings, automation, ad spend, backend ops. You’re not just pulling leads—you’re protecting million-peso accounts from collapse and enabling real growth. That’s why at OES, this position isn’t optional; it’s foundational.
What We Expect From You
As a Specialist in Supplier and Vendor Sourcing for Walmart + Dropshipping at OES, your decisions directly impact margin, delivery speed, and account health. We’re looking for someone who treats sourcing as a tactical discipline—where every supplier added or rejected reflects your judgment, data analysis, and risk evaluation. You understand the supply-side mechanics of Walmart’s ecosystem, including compliance risks tied to unknown brands, unreliable vendors, or late shipments. You take the lead in establishing sustainable, vetted supply chains—not just listing items but issuing long-term vendor relationships built for operational reliability and profitability.
You are who we rely on when vendor sourcing needs speed without sloppiness. You take full accountability for every item sourced—backed by research, tested buying, and practical communication with suppliers. You don’t wait for direction on red flags; you recognize patterns in stock outages, margin drops, or brand inconsistency and act fast. This role demands a sourcing operator who can maximize our product catalog while protecting every Walmart seller we serve. In this Specialist tier, execution is strategy—your judgment drives the store’s front-end success and long-term viability.
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$500 – $1,130
OES salary standards reflect real market benchmarks, tier and experience level, ensuring fair pay for VAs and realistic expectations for clients.
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