Is dropshipping a mistake?

Well, sunbun ...

I just spent the $$ to check out your dropship list. After about 45 minutes, and 30 or 40 links, I found exactly 3 honest to goodness dropshippers. All three of them wanted credit applications prior to registering and none of them offered any price info up front. (I currently do business with more than 15 dropshippers and not a single one asked for a credit app and all of them provided pricing info right up front ... I didn't even have to ask.) Also no indication/hint of what you were going to get if your app was approved i.e. what sort of images you could count on for your web site, shipping costs, delivery lead times, customer support, etc. etc.

A good portion of the 30 or 40 I tried (at least 75%) didn't even have a web site themselves, or if they did, there was no link. A lot of MS Word docs with names, addresses, phone/FAX numbers but no links or even URLs to cut and paste.

I'll give it another, more in-depth, look later and see what I can find but as of right now, I'm inclined to think I got screwed.

The Old Sarge

Sarge - you got screwed by someone doing a "drive by affiliate posting". sunbun got a % of your payment. I doubt they care about the quality of the product.

I had reported that posting over a day ago to the moderator (using that little warning triangle top right of each post), but nothing was done.

This is the kind of thing that makes forums go down the tubes. I hope the moderators wake up. Maybe it's the holiday in the US?

People with less than a certain number of posts shouldn't be allowed to post links. Period.

Cheers,
Peter

Thanks, asr guy. I knew it was an affiliate when I clicked it and I am not surprised by the result. Believe me, I fully intend to ask for a refund if my further investigations do not pan out.

I am sorry if you dont find the directory useful and yes i admit I am an affiliate. But I use this directory myself and find it very useful as I trade in designer clothes from the UK and all others directories such as the trader etc have prooven useless. if you do some proper research in the directory for the product of your choice you will find a quality dropshipper that works for you.

Sunbun, I'm not holding anything against anybody. I knew what I was doing when I clicked. I'll continue to look.

sunbun - good for you for replying. I thought we'd never hear from you again. Sorry about my rant - I just see it happen so often.

dont worry about it. I know what you mean though.

FYI - relating to The dropship Store in an earlier post,
The website has changed to http://dropshipping.sysfix.co.uk

I think any time there is a business idea which is easy to sell to some as "get rich quick" you have people entering that market to make those promises and you have people entering that market because they only want to hear those promises. ......that is why there is just a problem.

However, there are REAL programs and quality programs....after all the scam sites have to find their sources somewhere. It is just sad that nothing seems to happen to the sites that say they are not middlemen and say they dont do any price markups on the price, dropship fees, or shipping when they 100% do apply these markups. If any get in any real trouble or bad press they just rebrand their site and just keep taking your money.

Like any business you just have to be smart about who you trust...especially if you only deal with them online. You can go to the World Wide Brands directory, BBB, ripoff report, or other review sites....but...go to more then one...because it is just as easy for a site to have a review site, review their own program, and tell you how great it is ;-)

The problem people have with starting an online business is the underlying belief that it will be an extremely part-time venture and not take much time. With any legal business, it takes work, and lots of it, dropshipping works if you spend the time researching suppliers, developing a decent shopping platform and spending time finding customers..

Well, this seems to be one of the most rockin threads about the subject.

Going into any business in a hurry can lead to disaster, including using drop shippers.

As a web designer, I have built many sites for various clients who drop ship their products, and have many grey hairs on my head from the experiences. Some of them, I would not recommend doing any business with. Some of them, I would give my life for.
I currently use one drop shipper, who is "on the ball", and I dont need to worry at all about my customers being happy, so their are some great ones out there, but it might be like panning for gold before you hit "paydirt".

I got started in the work at home biz 10 years ago, as an affiliate marketer.
7 years ago I joined Worldwide Brands as an affiliate. To this day, I am very happy, and successful to be affiliated with them. I think that they do provide the best service online that connects the home based business dude or dudette with drop shippers. They just keep on getting better.

I am not saying that every drop shipper listed with WWB is worth your time. The ones that are, you will find will serve you better when you do take the time to do the research. What I will say about WWB is that they do also provide you with many different, and free resources to get the knowlege that you need to take your business down that road to success. One of the resources is Chris Malta's free eBook, "Starting your Internet Business Right".

Many of the questions posed in this thread can be answered in this ebook, which you can get here...
http://dropshippers-directory.com/Free_ebook.shtml

Here is an article that I wrote a while back about the very basics of using drop shippers. I posted it this forum before, and I hope the moderators dont get to hacked at me!...I Hope it helps!

There is much discussion throughout usenet, chatrooms and forums about drop shippers, and I have sat through many heated threads and discussions saying that "drop shipping is a scam!", "it don't work!", and "you'll never make any money"...




But I know these things just not to be true, as I have talked with those doing it, work with those who do, and am the webmaster of the site belonging to someone who manufactures and drop ships his products. I have also used this method in the past.


First of all, using drop shippers is not a get rich scheme, or is the answer to all of your problems, and, like any home based business, requires some research and some work, but done correctly, can be very profitable.


Let me explain the process in a nutshell.


First you decide what you are going to sell online. You then find a drop shipper that carries the product. You place the images and descriptions on your website or auction. When you make a sale, you send the order on to your drop shipper, who in turn sends the product to your customer. The profit that you make is the difference in the price that you charge.


That is the process in a nutshell, but it is a bit more complicated than that. Let me explain...


Deciding what to sell is one of the most important decisions that you will make, and this is where many trying to get into the business fail. You must take the time to research the market. This research involves finding out these things...


1)Pretend for a moment that you have decided to sell remote controlled coffee makers,(I am using this as an example, as one of these sounded real good yesterday morning. Pardon me if I sound like your Junior Achievement teacher in high school.)


and Are there a lot of people selling these handy little devices? If there is, this just might not be a good thing, as an oversaturation of a product makes it difficult, or impossible market to compete in. You can find this out by going to eBay, or to search engines and looking at what others are doing. An over saturated market such as home electronics is just about impossible to compete in, without cutting prices, and cutting right square into your profits. This is why someone selling rolling pins or dog shampoo might just make a killing, while the guy selling car stereo systems is not selling anything but a pretty cool website.


2)Are there people actually buying Remote Controlled Coffee Makers? One way to find out, is by going to eBay and looking at how many bids and clicks that those who are selling these coffee makers are getting. Of course there are many other ways to research this,such as market research software, and I will get into these in a later article.

There must be a market to sell your products to, or you are just chasing your tail. This part is called "demand". Demand for the product that you are selling. This is why those home based businesses that are involved in "niche markets" seem to thrive. Before you should start selling these jumped up java makers, you should find out if there is a market of people who will by them from you.


3)Where can you get these coffee makers. are you getting them from the manufacturer or authorized wholesale distributor? If you don't know you might be getting ripped off. Research your Sources!

Do they drop ship? If not, then you will have to stock your inventory. You can save a bit of money by doing this, if you have the room to do this. Buying in bulk can save you money, if the shipping fees (do the research first!) don't eat all of your profits. If you are just starting out on a shoestring budget, then drop shipping might be your better bet.


4)Do the math!!! Figure in all of your costs! After you have decided what to sell, you must figure what you are going to sell it for. Once you have added in selling fees (if you are using auctions to sell), you must consider shipping fees (if you are not using drop shippers), taxes, and any overhead that you might have. License fees and hosting fees, if you own your own site.


(I hope these things that I have mentioned here do not discourage you, because these are the same things that you need to run any business. If these things do overwhelm you, you might want to consider affiliate programs for your first internet venture, as they cost nothing).


With all this considered, you should still be able to make a profit with the product that you choose to sell. If the math don't add up to profit for you, then you should find a different product to sell.


I have only touched on the basics here, but I hope that this article has helped you understand how drop shipping works.



Troy Breitmeyer
http://dropshippers-directory.com

There are some easy way to find great sources for the suppliers. It takes work but finding several great supplier sources for your inventory is not an impossible task.

You can always improve your platform, but there are great free shopping cart options out there or some excelent off the shelf shopping platforms. Some I would recomend which are great for Dropship are Zen Cart, osCommerce, CRE Loaded, InventoryStores, X-Cart, VPASP, Storesonline, and others. Yahoo Stores is great also, but it is not as easy to remote load your products and images if you are running several thousand products in your catalog.

The true test for your success will be your marketing efforts and offering clients what they want and need. Can you add additional content to your site which adds value? What will you do for customer service? Where will you market your products? Googlebase, Pricegrabber, Shopping.com, etc?

If you know what a customer wants and needs when they shop and know how to find them, naturally, you can do well. If you just want to purchase a URL and sit back to collect checks....well then ecommerce in any form might not be for you.

Troy, I would caution anyone from using ebay as their only factor for determining what will sell.

I read a lot of posts on ecommerce and I do find many that claim they have sold many items on their website that dont sell on ebay. ebay is a funny market.

Although eBay may not be the best place to sell drop ship products, primarily because with so much competition the profit margin is too small, I have found ebay a great resource for cross-site sales. By creating a good "About Me" page linking to your online store you can generate additional traffic to your site. The traffic generated in this manner is targeted to the specific products that you are selling.

In the past I had run an online tool store selling drop shipped tools. Quite often I would post an auction at a break even point simply to get the few sales that the auction would generate on my online store.

Part of the equation is finding the right dropshipper. These are things you want to check out before starting with a company.
1) Are there any fees to join?
2) What is required to qualify for the program?
3) Is there a process in place to insure that the orders shipped within a fair amount of time?
4) Is there a technical support process in the event one of your customers has a problem?
Having the answer to those questions is important before you sign up with a wholesaler. Many will have their policies posted on the FAQ page.

The other part of the equation is you! Many legitimate wholesalers encounter multitudes of people wishing to become a successful dropshipper who have not gone far enough past the wishing stage. Being successful in any business requires industry knowledge, which is something you gain through experience and research. Good dropship resellers are constantly working on learning more about the intricacies of marketing and sales. They go to the library and get books. They listen to business radio shows. They read trade magazines. They study the competition. They search for all the marketplaces to showcase their products. They promote their businesses locally. They talk to other dropship resellers. They test out new marketing strategies and evaluate the results. They accept "failures" as challenges to learn more.

You can be a successful dropship reseller; but it does take both sides of the equation.

http://www.xsdepot.com