I currently operate an online clothing business in conjuction with a local shop, things runs smoothly, i take the internet orders, they ship them out from the shop.

But, they have also started to trade under their own website, selling similiar products and ranges to me, my mentor/advisor says "Get out quickly".  seeing as I am not getting the best deal with my current and only shop supplier price wise - I am trying to arrange a plan of how to keep the same setup, but use my own suppliers, wholesalers, dropshippers, rather than scrape a thin profit off the top of one shop supplier while i spend £700 a month on advertising and not making much profit, I wish to setup my own office and deal with suppliers direct , use storage space to ship in goods, then post them out again using royal mail business service, does anyone else do this?

I mean it would be ideal if i could find a dropshipper that could do this for me - but I realise some major clothing brands can only be bought in bulk from a supplier at a time, i guess i could take the 40-50 orders i get a week on the website and only order when and what i need? will wholesalers do this as i know they have limits of min amounts to purchase at one time like 20 items.

I'm just so fed up really of putting all the work into my website and having it copied by my supplier for their own business advancement,  my ideal setup would be similar to M&M Sports or Figleaves dot com   where the warehouse and office is in the same location and they just ship the goods straight out.

A lot of work is ahead to plan this through, and I am lucky i have the backing of the Princes Trust/Advisors, who are currently helping me.   

would love to hear from anyone else who had supplier problems and was shafted on prices, so decided to 'cut out the middle man' as it were and go it alone.

thanks

Daniel

ps would like to give more info on my business , but as my current supplier doesnt know I am looking around for alternatives dont want to give out too much information, want to see the current site running , while I do the background work