Drop shipping tips

Please make sure to plan your drop shipping strategy very carefully otherwise you will choose the wrong supplier and your customers may suffer a poor experience. You have to set longer shipping period to avoid customer dissatisfaction. Amazon and ebay suppliers also allow dropship. If items are getting packaged and shipped from China, you should not lie about the shipping location to your customers.

I did what you are doing. Buying from China and selling locally. The main advantage that closes the sale is the fact that you have the item in hand and they can receive it in 1-3 days. Many buyers knew I have 100% margin but needed the item quickly and knew the item was tested and working.

The biggest problems are: it is hard to scale and you have to be 2 steps in front of competition. If it's profitable, other people will do what you do(I sold on classifieds websites not my own) and you have to lower your margins.

As I see it drop shipping is an entirely different thing. I thought about it but I am lazy

Hi mate, dropshipping can certainly be profitable, as long as you know exactly what your doing, and I mean exactly lol.

When I first started It was all hit and miss, then I reached out to a big top rated powerseller and he trained me up over Skype, I spent $500 for a few hours of his time, I'm now doing in excess of 100 sales every day, its crazy.

I also found about about tracking and monitoring software, so that my prices always reflected a constant % increase over my source price (amazon).

Basically, theres so much I could tell you,

what I will say though, is "keep it simple" - one supplier is all you need.

When you want to start a Dropshipping business,you have to invest in two things its "Time and money".It takes long term perspective .So,don't think to get profit within some weeks just invest your time and money to promote your dropshipping business.First you can learn How to operate this business ,know your market and customers and also spent some money for grow your business.

If you lie to your customers they may find out at some point and then they will feel deceived and won't want to do business again trust is hard to maintain when you have fooled someone even if not in a malicious way.

The key of a successful dropshipping business is RELIABLE suppliers and QUALITY goods. In my opinion, no need to lie about the location, as long as what you write in the product description is indeed what the customer will receive. I am Dropshipping with Chinese, Indians and European suppliers and it works smoothly. But hey, there are many pitfalls in this game.

This conversation has gone in quite a few directions (including someone trying to plug his outsourcing course - like that has anything to do with the question), but nobody has really answered the question.

First off, if you are going to dropship, the ONLY way to get good margins is to contact the manufacturer/brand directly. Things have changed in recent years and a lot of major brands are willing to dropship, provided they are confident that you are a real player and not someone with hopes and dreams that never actually orders. More than 90% of the accounts they set up never send a single order (probably half of those people never even finish setting up a website). You can understand why their first thought is "here's another guy who is going to waste a bunch of my time setting up an account." Whatever you do, DO NOT take the easy way out and use a dropship directory like DOBA where there will be nothing left for margins to be competitive with people who source dropship suppliers the right way.

Very recently, I published an article about how to contact suppliers - How To Contact Suppliers - It's Like Butter! - which should help you.

As far as China is concerned, I have successfully dropshipped items from there in the past but I try to use American manufacturers, brands and wholesalers/distributors. The reason is that no matter what you put on your website, people will read and think what they want to and will ignore anything else. If you have shipment selections that ask people to choose between Economy 10-20 business day shipping ($6.99) and Express 5-9 business day shipping ($26.99), 95% of people will take the cheaper, $6.99 option. 20% of those people will contact you within five days wondering where their product is! So, if you are going to ship from China, let people know how long it will take in your shipping options and expect the morons of the world to be a problem (they are growing in numbers).

I also DO NOT advise making it abundantly clear that your items are coming from China. That will lose you a ton of sales! Instead, mention that things ship directly from the Chinese factory warehouse in your Terms and Conditions - NOT on product pages or anywhere else (If one out of 200 people read your T&C, I'd be shocked). It is enough to give people the option of selecting the shipping method and speed they prefer - "Economy - 10-20 business days" (a.k.a. China Post to USPS) or "Express - 5-9 business days" (a.k.a. DSL or FedEx). If they are too stupid to know what the shipping time frames THEY SELECTED mean, that's on them. Just get a form letter ready to send to people, letting them know that you shipped it the way that they selected.

The last paragraph deals with American's attitudes and perceptions. If you have a product made in China, never mention that. Americans see that as a MAJOR negative. If you have a product made in America, shout it from the rooftops!

I do this

Basically I list the product on ebay, say I'm a local seller, which I am.
When it sells, I'll buy the product, ship it to myself and then ship it out to my customer.

Overtime, you'll find which products sell more than others and you can simply buy them in bulk and have them ready to sell/post straight away!

I should point out another technique that few people will have the time or resources to do. Visit the actual manufacturer, tour their facility and talk to someone in the marketing department there. NOBODY takes the time to do that and it makes a HUGE impression.

One of my consulting students recently flew to Germany and landed two manufacturers for his niche hat NOBODY else has been able to get to dropship.

Today, I took his cue and drove out to a manufacturer of products that I hoped to get on a new website I am building (granted, mine was only a one hour drive from my home - not a flight to another continent). Over the phone, I was told by the owner that they didn't dropship. I asked if I could meet with him and check out his facility and he said "sure". When I drove out there today and met with him, he was so eager to show me how they made their products and how much better they were than the competition's (they really were). We struck a bond and now I am the ONLY person that he will dropship for. I don't see his products on any other website.