Worldwide Brands - History and Origin

History and Origin

Before establishing Worldwide Brands, Chris Malta spent many years as a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer, designing and building corporate and ecommerce server platforms and managing major installations for Fortune 100 businesses. In 2003, he was a founding partner of a wholesale company in New York that distributed darts and dartboard products. To date, he has been engaged in wholesale, retail, and entrepreneurial endeavors for more than thirty years, and currently serves as the CEO of Worldwide Brands, Inc. Malta is the author of numerous books on online retail and product sourcing, and the co-author of What to Sell On eBay and Where to Get It with Lisa Suttora, founder of Blue Island Marketing Group. From January 2005 to June 2007, he co-hosted The Entrepreneur Magazine eBiz Show and The Entrepreneur Magazine Product Sourcing show with his business partner Robin Cowie. Additionally, he has served as the product sourcing editor for eBay Radio since 2006.

In 1998, Malta started an ecommerce website but struggled to find product suppliers. After being scammed by numerous Internet middlemen, his frustration led him to develop, through trial-and-error, a thorough research process for finding and verifying genuine wholesale suppliers who would allow their products to be sold on the Internet. Upon publishing a short article series in Web Pro News about his product sourcing experiences and challenges, he received a tremendous amount of feedback from other frustrated online retailers. To meet this market demand, Malta established The Drop Ship Source Directory, which he renamed Worldwide Brands and incorporated in January 2001.