Amazon FBA or dropship

I have done some research into FBA and for me so far the appeal is that if you can find a good product niche for which there is good demand then taping into the massive amazon marketplace means there as already thousands of people searching for that products.

Launching a Shopify store would mean starting from 0 visitors and requires lots effort on marketing side. The plush with Shopify drop ship solution is that there is no need to import product and private label it, something that would be needed for FBA method.

If you're good at marketing, do dropshipping.

I've done FBA before and it requires more research on certain products and seeing if the demand is there, in my opinion.

Hello A,

I am actually in the wholesale business and perhaps could provide another line of insight for you.

Some vendors if you are planning to purchase wholesale product and retail online do offer dropshipping programs for you. However I would do your research on these and ask questions prior as typically their are volume requirements and fees or lower than standard margins to make up for the fees. Not that these would be unreasonable but usually requires some working up toward.

From an FBA standpoint there are challenges however a good wholesale vendor or distributor should be able to point you in a direction toward what is selling to help you locate what your after. Their goal will always be the same as yours which is to help you succeed as that is how they succeed.

I have seen smaller business find much more success in the FBA standpoint than I have with dropshipping. once you reach a certain point with your business you could make the decision to do both.

If you have other questions please feel free to let me know I would be happy to provide input where I can.

Thank You,

I used to do FBA, now I drop ship and my margins are much better now.

FBA is WAY overrated in my opinion (because there is a super high priced program out there with an army of affiliates promoting FBA)

It's now about four months since I posted this. Quick update on my journey. I started the FBA route and to arm myself with enough info I signed up to this FBA course on Udemy by Colton Shuel ($20) and an ebook by Oliver Denyer ($10). Was very good, I had products in mind to get started and then came across this Facebook expert ( Sean) on PeoplePerHour.com who told me about all the success he has had driving traffic and sales to dropship stores.

What appealed to me about the Dropship model was that I wouldn't have to ship products to Amazon and deal with inventory matters. So I went with the Dropship model instead and ended up paying $1300 to get Sean's 1to1 consulting time and pick his brain.

I am telling you it's been a tough time and scary at times. During this period I lived at my mother's house with a pregnant wife, which was a challenge, so we ended up moving to a new house. Now I definitely have to make it work to pay the bills!

So how is it going so far? I have launched the dropship store on Shopify using Oberlo to list products from AliExpress. Last week I started my FB campaigns and spent about $300 so far. I have had a decent amount of visitors and some add to carts but not purchases yet. It's a game of going through that learning to find the right product and target audience for FB campaign. I just hope I don't burn too much money as our saving is going low.

My conclusion so far: Between FBA and DropShip is never going to be a clear winner. As we can see from the varied comments on this thread, thre are pros and cons and could be different results for each person or product. One thing I can tell though, there is a lot more extra effort in terms of managing an e-commerce shop and marketing on the dropship model (something not needed on FBA)

Will update again...and any tips appreciated!

Cheers
Ash

To do FBA you create a shipment order, it's really simple to do that. You manage your shipments you go through you create the order you have to put your From address, where it's been picked up from, Amazon will give you the delivery address and then all you need to go through is put in the details box so if it's one box you put in the size of the box then you put through the information such as the weight as well.
Then your courier come to your warehouse or goes to Australia Post drop it off and you'll get delivered to Amazon. What happens then is that Amazon receives it about three or four days later they say yes, we received. For whether you should send directly from China or import from there to Australia, you can seek advice from Amazon Consultants from Coach AMZ.

Wow I can see 1 year has passed! doesn't time fly?

So here is where I am now 1 year on: I did end up launching 3 Shopify/Oberlo dropship sites. first one didn't make any sales. Second one I had product that was selling a few every day made a few hundred there but the conversion rate wasn't good.

I launched the 3rd one fixed the conversion issue and stated figuring it all out to make it profitable.

At this point I realised this all going to take some more time and investment before I see any sizeable return and luckily stumbled upon a program that changed everything.

With the new program, two months on I have found a better way of making my money quicker and doing something that is more enjoyable, whilst not having to put all those upfront investments for ad spend.

Hey riskingmymoney

How come it is taking you such a long time? Setting up a Shopify store with one of the free default templates takes 30 min and then there is some initial settings you do which takes 1 day and then you link it to Oberlo and push products into Shopify with a few clicks.

Could there be something else missing to push you? like mindset or purpose?

Of course the part that takes time and really matters is products research and Facebook advertising. There are good courses for a few hundred dollars that show you step by step what to do. for example Tristan Broughton is a good one. But the space is crowded and take lots monty on ads before you find a product that sells.

The mentor I too the program which changed everything for me Dan Lok. For me worked much better and no upfront investment needed. What's more important is that he first fixes the mindset part which opens all the doors.



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Hey afgan8448

Ok so the only advice I can give it that sign up to a good course that has good FB community so you can use their advice. I can recommend a couple if you want. Both FBA and Dropship will only work if you put the work in and it will take a few months. so expect a couple of thousands investment before you see any results. If you do this half heartily as an easy money sort of thing, it is not going to work.

yes i'm beginning to realize that now. this is my biggest mistake. that's what's holding me back. i originally wanted at least 50 products to make my site look legit but that will take too long. i'll have to launch with less.
so are you still doing dropshipping or something else?

Anyone starting off as a newbie should learn first how to safely source on Alibaba and other B2B platforms. See my thread: Ask Me Anything About Product Sourcing And Importing For Profit. ― Veteran Importer Here. (

Hi Ash,
Sorry to see that your training provided by the experts didn't lead to the success you needed and deserved after all the effort you put into it.

The obvious question is: Did you just take their word that they had been successful, or did you see some proof? If the proof was screen shots of their sales figures can you be sure they were not photoshopped?

There are so many "experts" out there who make great claims, but how is the success rate of those that they teach?

Walter Hay
Importexport

Do amazon FBA only after you know advanced level of product research. Trying FBA for bad product is simply horrendous mistake that can make anyone bankrupt.
You are charged based on space you use and if your product remains more than 6month or a year, you will be paying huge fines to amazon.

For dropshipping part, you will be making good profit if you buy in bulk. Aliexpress is not a good option. There are dropshippers dropshipping to you. Price of the product is much less than what is displayed on aliexpress or alibaba.

dropshipping, neeeds more time but more income at the end

Well, if you just want to test the waters then this is the best option for you to start making money with minimal investment. Find the right suppliers who will drop ship the items to your customers on time. You can test it by placing few orders with them and then finalize the supplier.

Dropshipping on Amazon has few benefits and it is great way for new sellers to start selling on Amazon without investing huge capital. Take a look below at some of the main benefits:

• There is little or no upfront cost or capital required to start the business as you don't have to buy inventory and rent a warehouse.
• Since there's no inventory so you dont have to worry about the logistics that frees up time for other tasks.
• Dropshipping on Amazon also give you access to a huge customer base thus less marketing efforts required.
• You can sell as many products as you want without worrying about running out of inventory.
• You can learn how selling on Amazon works before getting into FBA or private label selling.

I would go for Amazon FBA.

Dropshipping starts to get more popular and everyone will undercut each other, which results in lower profits.

In addition to that, if you don't outsource the customer support you are going to have a hard time. Every customer will complain about the shipping time, even though you have stated it clearly on your website and in the product description.

If I was asked for my personal opinion that which mode of e-commerce I would follow, I would surely go with dropshipping. The reason I think is quite simple. It does not require much investment and if I am a beginner and don't possess much initial capital and I am still not ready to bear greater risks, I think dropshipping would be the better option for me.

No doubt, Amazon is a big name and Fulfillment by Amazon can render huge returns on your investment but you need to make huge investments before that. You will have to find a suitable supplier who can make your products available at the Amazon fulfillment centers and then pay him huge sums.

So, if you want to save your money and are not prepared for greater risks, in the beginning, go on with dropshipping. I hope now the dilemma that you should choose Dropshipping or Fulfillment by Amazon became a bit clearer for you.

Dropship till you make it, then move your winners onto FBA.

As an expert in safe sourcing, having begun importing in 1987, I can tell you that finding the actual manufacturer for products you have been dropshipping from Aliexpress is near impossible.

Sellers on Aliexpress don't often buy their products from suppliers on Alibaba, so where will you look to find the manufacturer?

Will you search through the list of thousands of traders pretending to be manufacturers in the general product category you are wanting to source? You might be lucky and find a picture that looks like what you want, in a listing on page 156 or maybe 300.

There is a much better way:

• Ignore the myth that you have to buy huge quantities from manufacturers. That story is told by people who have no real understanding of safe sourcing.
• Buy direct from real manufacturers, not the traders pretending to be manufacturers.
• Negotiate a small order. That will give you product to validate the market. Small orders will cost you more than larger ones, but still cheaper than paying retail on Aliexpress.
• Ship to an independent fulfillment service for prepping your order and have them ship to Amazon in quantities that won't cost you an arm and a leg for Amazon storage fees. Or ship direct Amazon FBA, but I don't recommend that.

To see what is involved in safe sourcing direct from manufacturers, have a look here: Ask Me Anything About Product Sourcing And Importing For Profit. ― Veteran Importer Here. See post#196 for a lot of detail about how to get started.


Walter Hay
Importexport

Hows your site doing now? the 3rd one is charm suits for you?

there are many factors involve in Dropshipping specially if you are doing it on Amazon or ebay or any other marketplace You need to have few things like settings Good pile of amount to be invested with low percentage of profit as compared with other ecom solutions

i think Amazon is very simple and easier,you only purchase some goods from china and chinese frieght forwarding can send goods to Amazon FBA warehouse for you ,but you should pay money before you sell your goods!

With a Shopify store you may need to advertise in order ro get buying customers to your site. With FBA this does not need to be the case since the buying customers are already on Amazon's site. You may still end up doing some sponsored ads on the Amazon site but that is probably not as vital as it would be with a Shopify store.