Drop ship companies

I don't know if I would recommend using a dropshipper for an e-comm site? I have researched a few of them recently. What I have noticed is that a dropshipper gets the available products from their source, which is marked up slightly. They inturn list it to you, marked up slightly more. Most also list a handling fee tacked on to the shipping cost. When you add all of that, there is not much of a profit base. If you plan on a 10% profit, and compare that to same items other are selling, you will most likely be over the average of everyone else.

I am in the process of starting am e-comm cart myself. For the products I am wanting, I found that I have to go directly to the source. I will also need to stock the items.

Hi,
what mike is saying is very true but if youc ombine a mix of both dropshipping and supplying from the source then its still very viable. I am able to offer larger products without having to store them in a warehouse and that means less overheads.

I'm also able to offer a larger variety of goods and range whereby if i did it myself I wouldn't be able to.

I've also included items that I get imported and these are where i make really good profit on and still be competitive. but if you manage to sell a lot of the goods the dropshipper will drop there prices this is where your negotiation skills come into it. I am unique in that I am linked to other website owners about 300 of us and therefore we are able to command a better price from our source and dropshipper who I also supply to.

Again Negotiate but if you are starting off then you are gonna want to keep your overheads as low as possible until you get a sizable customer base.

last thing it also depends on the products too, elecronics are really poor but furnitutre for dropshippers you can mark upto 35% and still be very competitive and jewlery.

Regards
Peter Suksakorn
www.ushopit.co.uk

Regarding the doba reference I would not use them at all. You can learn enough about them on ripoffreport and other sites. I am sure they have some great tools, but there are no a dropship program. They mark up the prices from the suppliers by 2 to 6 % and some products have a markup on shipping and the dropship fee. Moteng is one of their electronics suppliers.Vertex is the bed and bath supplier. and the others are easy to spot as well. Some of there "suppliers" are listed with dropship fees but the real supplier does not have one or they list the fee at a dollar over the real supplier fee.

Depending on how many products you sell....you can run the numbers and see how much you are REALLY paying for the "service"

A dropship program will have some markup, but the idea is they sell in huge vol so the markup is small. If they get it right from the product maker, then there should be room for you to sell and profit. Now, if you use a "dropship" program who pretends to be a supplier or who gets the products from other dropship programs, etc.....then that just cuts into your PM.

Hi guys,

I am back, and I am ready to start my own ecommerce store, I have a business doing SEO and PPC, and now all I need is a good product to sell. I am thinking dropshipping firts, I do not have space for storing products right now, that or affiliate of some good products.

What would you recommend me to try to sell? what is selling fast right now? I do not care about the competition since I can you my Search engine optimization skills to rank top 10 in google and other search engine, what I need is a high traffic, in demand product.

Thanks

Manuel
www.mdz.ca

Electronics always sell, but the margin is low for many product lines. If you can bring in the traffic, then the volume should not be a problem. Fragrances sell slower, but the margins are higher. Why dont you take 3 different types of products on 3 sites (camping, sports, DVDs, GPS, silkflowers, etc) and build the traffic and get some sales.

Then, you can make your own case study for each site and show how much traffic it brought and the types of sales. You can stick with your core knowledge area. You can make money with dropship, but if you know SEO, then why not make a dropship reseller SEO package or pitch based on your experiences with these new sites and dropship programs?

Of course...if you just want to push to make more of the money on the dropship business, then good luck and your SEO skills will pay off. There are lots of sites out there that sell dropship products, lots that are dropship programs, but there are not many Dropship SEO firms. I know there are lots of folks with SEO sites for people with large CPC budgets and link management, but that is not the perfect fit for most dropship resellers.

There are people that will rip off the new reseller by selling them some $700 "we will change your meta tag file and load some links to your link page and add you to the link section of other sites that have no search engine rank" package. Those firms do not do anything for the reseller and their SEO dreams.

The industry needs some good trusted and target SEO firms for reseller types.

ps. The text in your template does not perfectly format in FF (of course FF causes problems for loads of templates so it does not need to change)

Do not sell electronics if you're just starting out drop shipping, it's a hugely competitive market and without any initial traffic, it will be impossible to sell anything without lowering your prices to almost miniscule numbers. That's my tidbit ....

Right. The type of products that you want to sell will depend on several things. Experience is one of those factors. If you can bring in traffic, such as the SEO guy above, then you can sell products that are more about volume sales, like lower margin electronics. If you are selling in a tight segment you need to either have some funds upfront for SEO work or CPC etc, or have time to slowly build your business on your own. Every business takes either time or money to grow...skills certainly help as well ;-)

Marketing will always be important. If you have a business selling Widgets and you put that store down at the back of an alley that has no traffic walking past it, tell no one about your store, and you just have a nice logo on a sign at the front of the store.....how many Widgets do you think you will sell. My guess is none. A new website is like that back alley. You need to still tell people about your site. You need to get traffic to the site. Think about how many people have a site selling a Widget. 10 are in the top 10 of Google when a search is made.....so what are you going to do to improve your rank or get your site known to people needing your products?

You must have a site with the latest data from your dropship supplier, you will need to spend time reviewing your orders and processing them with the dropship program, and you must market your site.

wow i read about your e-business and that was very good , this type of business are all money oriented. But you have to be careful while taking the jobs.Choose the job provider that can give you some online jobs.for example elance.com

my list of entertainment sites

opensourceforce,

Thanks for your input. My biggest problem is this, there are many "wholesalers" that are just small guys selling you at a higher price, or I also would like to be able to find one or very few dropshippers that carry alot of what I want to sell so I do not have to deal with so many of them.
The problem also, is that on the internet there is a lot of lies about true dropshippers and that is what I need.

I want to thank for the people who emailed me asking me for my free SEO and PPC advice, I am here to help you if you need me, and yes, I do seach engine optimization and PPC management full time, that is all I do :)

By the way, free tip for all of you, if you want traffic, focus on getting links!! links and links! 75% of SEO is about link building ;)

Manuel
www.mdz.ca
www.gloss-meters.com
www.articles-free.ca

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Originally Posted by mdzarate

opensourceforce,
Thanks for your input. My biggest problem is this, there are many "wholesalers" that are just small guys selling you at a higher price, or I also would like to be able to find one or very few dropshippers that carry alot of what I want to sell so I do not have to deal with so many of them.
The problem also, is that on the internet there is a lot of lies about true dropshippers and that is what I need.

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Yes it is difficult to find quality dropship programs. There are sites which pretend to be a supplier, there are sites which pretend to be a group of different programs, there are sites which pretend to be a dropship review site but they reall just tell you why their affiliate link is the best or you check and they are run by the same site that they say is the best program....there are a lot of bad options for dropship online.

I am sure I said it above...but....there are good options and there are large programs as well. Some of the supplier programs that we showcase have 4,000 or 10,000 or 15,000 products so it is very easy to find a program and only work with one program, but we have users who like to work with 3 for a broad range of produts.

You will find plenty of tips here or on other sites about how to find true programs, but it either takes paying for the WWB list, which can be helpful, finding a trusted dropship data service partner, or taking time to do research on your own.

You will find what you need online.

Good luck.

Get the Worldwide Brands directory, nothing better, plus there's tons of business tools there to use. dropshipping depends both on what you're selling and how many others are selling, what you're selling can also depend on how many manufacturers you have to deal with....it's great if you can get it right.

The WWB now has a free preview of the new supplier database catalog and tools:

Free WWB One Source Preview

However, it is still a service that you have to pay for if you decide to take advantage of the tools. There is no need since there are still great free ways to identify dropship programs that can meet your product needs, including using this forum.

Hi Anton,

If you havn't already, I would strongly suggest checking out Chris Malta's Onesource Product sourcing tool. It combines The Worldwide Brands realtime directories of drop shippers, wholesalers, liquidators,small and large bulk wholesalers, direct buy importers, along with a tool that analyzes the supply , demand and compitition ratios of the product(s) that you are researching.

More info at http://dropshippers-directory.com

besides Chrs' Worldwide Brands directory which is noted a few times on this forum thread, what are some other supplier sources that people feel that they can trust? I dont mean which supplier programs do you use, but i am interested in other supplier ranking or review sites or other directories that people have tried and liked.

you might want to try

http://www.thedropshippersresource.com

or

http://www.dropshippers.com

What about access to programs that have been reviewed or evaluated that you do not need to pay for before you can see the list of programs?

"dropshippersresource and dropshippers listed above both seem like new sites and charged money for creating an account.

Question for you RE: all these programs.

With SOO many people gaining access to the same products, is it REALLY possible for a little guy to make any serious money doing this?

Seems like same products, same suppliers, same prices, same shopping comparison sites = amazing price convergence and impossible differentiation.

As far as I can tell, the people making money at it are the ones that actually understand what they're selling, and who they're selling to. You know, the guys who show up to... I don't know... dart tounaments, and sell drop shipped dart merch that they went in and wrote extensive reviews for and just give the avid darter (in this case) all the info and selection they need. So ya, you could have 14 stores selling the same stuff, but if you can advertise it better in better venues and you know, just SELL better, then , ya you could make money at it.

If you put up a generic store, put up some merch, and hope for the best, you're not going to make a whole lot of cash.

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Originally Posted by Anton

Hello,
I want to start an online store. I am a beginner at Ebusiness but I have been searching and processing lots of information somehow connected to the subject. I don’t want to take much time from you but I really need your experienced opinion to the following:
Do I stand any chance to set up account with a Drop Ship company if I am not a citizen of Us?
Because even having a Non Us Merchant Account I guess my offer will not instill confidence.
I am afraid that people will not have a desire to make a deal with somebody living outside Us.
In addition, in my case communication through e-mail seems to be the only means to get in touch with both Distributors and Customers.
I would appreciate all opinions.
Thank you,
Anton

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This is the dropship site i use and i am very happy. I am not a us citizen
I just joined and i am very happy, they have so much products and at very low prices, they set up your online store as well if you wanted to if not, you just advertise their products sell them at auction sites and you keep the profits
I hope i helped, good luckihttp://www.dropship-business.com/index.html

What are the supplier programs that you pick from? looks like Guardian Survival Gear, Inc., Veratex, ChanX, EZ, RAX and a few others.

Which programs do you like to sell from? Do you have to create dropship accounts with each program or do your order from the site provider? Have you seen some product types work better then others when selling at auction?

This is such an old post, but in the event people who read this are still questioning whether or not it is possible to become a dropship reseller for a US company when you live outside the US-the answer is yes. These are some of the main limitations you need to expect though:
Most dropship wholesalers only dropship to US addresses.
Many dropship wholesalers only accept AMEX or WireTransfer as a form of payment from international resellers, so if you do not have an AMEX, you'll need to wire over funds from which your dropship orders can be deducted. No orders would ship without having the payment cleared through first.
Also, many wholesalers will ship product directly to you or to your freight forwarder. Keep looking-they're out there!

_______________________
http://www.xsdepot.com/

XSDepot.com is correct. In fact, opensourceforce is asking very good questions that you should consider before "opening" any type of account with any vendor or vendor program.

Keep it simple and do your homework. Try to get a feel for the service level of your potential dropshippers. There are many out there that provide specific categories of products from electronics, software, sporting goods all the way to silk flowers and housewares. And many of those will work with non-US companies. And some of them actually have overseas warehouses let alone the warehouses in the US.

Stay with it. It won't come easy nor will it come fast. Remember to always listen to your customers and they will guide you in your endeavor.

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Originally Posted by ahealthyman

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I've always been wondering how BAD online fraud is. Does anyone have any links to articles or anything that can tell me more about the seriousness of online fraud? Or does anyone have any experience of online fraud that they can share with us? (ie. what happened and how they went about solving it)

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Check out Merchant911

Hi Anton,

I've only been dropshipping for a little while now, but I've had great success with Doba. I don't know what their policy is regarding non-US cleints, but you can visit their dropshipping website and poke around a bit. Best of luck!

-NewIQ

"I've only been dropshipping for a little while now, but I've had great success with Doba. "
FYI- Since the thread is on drop ship companies i would note they are not an actual dropship program. They are finally making this more clear on their own site as well. They use dropship programs like DBL and Moteng for example. If you are doing well selling and marketing products you might try using the products and working with the source supplier program to get lower product expenses.

Unless you have an established relationship with a manufacturer then I would say that drop shipping is not for you.

The drop ship price on products offers very slim profit margins which makes it tough to compete. A service like DOBA simply connects you to other drop shippers but will not help you establish the needed relationships to actually make a profitable run of it.

Take a look at http://www.dropshippingsucks.com to learn a little about why drop shipping is not the best way to make profit. The site deals mainly with eBay but the principals are the same.

Good luck and remember, there is no free lunch. Drop shipping is often promoted to be an easy way to make money -- it is anything but!

Lee

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Originally Posted by dropship

Drop shipping is often promoted to be an easy way to make money -- it is anything but!

Lee

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It may not be "easy" but it is a way. Drop shipping, like anything else useful, can be misrepresented and hyped. It is also often bastardized by additional middlemen and scam artists.

Do your homework and, "If something sounds too good to be true ... it probably is."

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Originally Posted by dropship
Take a look at [url

http://www.dropshippingsucks.com[/url] to learn a little about why drop shipping is not the best way to make profit. The site deals mainly with eBay but the principals are the same.

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Drop shipping may not have the highest profit margins or be the best way to make a profit - for many small e-retailers (like myself) we do not have the capital or space to buy products wholesale. This is the equivalent of dipping your toe in the water before diving in. Once we see what items sell and make a little money we can think about stocking certain items.

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Originally Posted by JEccles

Drop shipping may not have the highest profit margins or be the best way to make a profit - for many small e-retailers (like myself) we do not have the capital or space to buy products wholesale. This is the equivalent of dipping your toe in the water before diving in. Once we see what items sell and make a little money we can think about stocking certain items.

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Agree, but there are better ways to get your feet wet! It would be better to get your feet wet and make a profit doing so. If you can afford the education that drop shipping can provide (and can utilize that education) then go for it! I am not against drop shipping as a method for learning the ropes. However, drop shipping is highly promoted as an easy way to profit and it is anything but.

Anyhow, I am glad to be back! I was gone for a while as we had some serious family issues come up right before Christmas. Most are resolved now, some are still works-in-progress. All I can say is, I am glad I am adopted!

Good luck in the new year everyone!

You have to be realistic about the profit potential with the concept of dropshipping and the work involved. If you are getting started, it is a good way to go. Also, if you have direct navigation websites, dropshipping is a good way to go too. My company offers both dropshipping options and an affiliate program. We have found that most of newbie prefer the idea of drop ship.

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Originally Posted by dropship

Agree, but there are better ways to get your feet wet! It would be better to get your feet wet and make a profit doing so. If you can afford the education that drop shipping can provide (and can utilize that education) then go for it! I am not against drop shipping as a method for learning the ropes. However, drop shipping is highly promoted as an easy way to profit and it is anything but.

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Could you please enlighten us all as to the "better ways to get your feet wet"? You seem to be quite knowledgable on this topic, and I'm sure we would all like to pick your brain as to great start-up methods to online business.

PayPal does a pretty good job of filtering credit card fraud though there are several countries they refuse to do business in .
Do you have a paypal account ?

"A service like DOBA simply connects you to other drop shippers but will not help you establish the needed relationships to actually make a profitable run of it."

Exactly, which is why you should ALWAYS work with the supplier programs directly. You can often continue to negotiate better pricing as you build your relationship with the supplier as well. You can see what a drop ship middle man "service" which marks up the products, shipping, fees, etc and hides the supplier sources really costs you here:
http://www.inventorysource.com/index...alculator.html

Hi,

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Get access now! As Seen On Tv Products, Diet Pills, eBay Sources, Electronics, Clothes, and hundreds of hot items for you to sell and make big profits! This informational guide is packed with tons, thousands of sources.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tamsin Presley

This guide is perfect for entrepreneurs ...

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What guide?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tamsin Presley

This informational guide is packed with tons, thousands of sources.

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Again ... what guide?

Hi,

Personally I don’t see any big difference in who’s running an online store. It’s possible today to get US BANK ACCOUNT for non-US Citizens. To find an international merchant account is not a problem as well, at least there’re many companies offering such services. I worked out that a real problem would be finding real drop shippers. Do I look too naive thinking like this?

Finding drop shippers is not a problem at all. You just have to look in the right places. :)

What about the questions I posed to you in post #115?

If you want to start a business. Just do it! It doesn't matter where you live or anything else. If you want to make it happen then do it! I do tons of international business and when problems arise, I solve them instead of looking for excuses.

I started my first site with a company that was considered a "drop shipping" company and I wasn't excited about it. So, I made my own drop shipping company where I simply contact the owners of companies that have products that I want to sell and talk them into drop shipping specifically for me.

Most companies are ok with it becase the have nothing to lose and everything to gain. If you conduct your business ethically and deliver on your promises then you will develop strong relationships with your customers and suppliers.

Get some!

I know a few good clothing & accessories dropshippers from Hong kong, but I know not everyone likes to work with dropshippers from thier..