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One more tip, do a search in google for the area of business you are looking for to get into, let's say it is affordable wedding supplies, take a look at the top 10 sites, look at what they are doing, try to copy their strategy :)
Also, there are a lot of free information on the net for SEO and PPC, look it up and learn, then ask questions :)
Manuel
www.mdz.ca
Hi anton,
Your question was interesting and i just wanted to add what would you say about doing a dropshipping in the UK, i am doing this my self already and I know that it would work for you in the ukraine.
have a look:
www.ushopit.co.uk
www.mlinternational.com
I currently use there merchant number to register to things. As for banking and getting your money there would probably be ways of doing it.
the question to you would be, would you be selling to UK customers or Ukraine as this may cause a problem with shipping, but within UK its fine.
regards
Peter Suksakorn
Any ideas for merchant in Canada? Does anyone has experience with dropshippers in Canada?
Thanks
Manuel
In response to some of the posts in this thread....
Yes , credit card fraud can be a real threat, but their are measures to be taken when doing business, both over-seas and on the homeland.
One would be to use a good merchant services that have fraud detection services included, but I have never had any problem using trusted services like PayPal to handle transactions. One problem that you might come across is people using stolen credit information to attempt, or to make a purchase at your website. Most online merchant accounts can tell if the phone number of the legit card holder is the same as the one being used to make the purchase.
So you can resolve the problem by calling the number and verifying the transaction. Most merchant accounts also can verify that there is money in the account that is being drawn on, and will reject a card with insuffecient balance, in the same manner that the ATM machines do.
One good source of product sourcing information is Worldwide Brands...
http://dropshippers-directory.com. Also check out Doba at http://dropshippers-directory.com/re/doba.html
About Drop Shipping...
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 proccess 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
FYI: The website mentioned in a previous post has changed its website address.
It's now http://dropshipping.sysfix.co.uk
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
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by mdzarate
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.