Dropshippers....

I ran an online medical device company and have experienced both, dropshipping and shipping myself. Believe me, dropshipping is much better! You may think that you are making more money by buying the product and shipping yourself, but consider the time that you will be spending on shipping, processing returns, and the like.

Also, if you can get a product dropshipped where the dropshipper also handles customer support, then you are golden.

Buy in bulk to save money and to turn your home into a shipping warehouse.

Use dropshipping to have a narrow profit margin and, if you're lucky, customer service nightmares.

Both have their drawbacks and I've done both as well.

I wouldn't buy in bulk again unless I had a good storage/shipping facility other than my home. Do you know how much room $20K of merchandise plus shipping materials takes up? Plus, if you have pets like we do, you'll get complaints from some people even though you keep the critters away from the merch.

Dropshipping, well, there are a lot of unreliable and/or overpriced operations out there. My gut feeling is that there are situations where it will work fine but you have to locate the right company to do that. I never found such a company in the sporting goods area myself.

The benefits with dropshipping is you don't have to manage the stock, this means you safe cost for overhead of the stock as well as time with the shipping. essentially you just place an order and have it shipped off. Not many companies like doing dropshipping since the obvious reasons it cost more work. Thus many of the dropshippers are themself resellers technically therefore the prices will cost more.

With buying in bulk you have to manage the stock and worry about selling it if you don't sell it or should it go out of date the benefit is that you have more control over hte stock not to mention a possible high ROI.

Thus now you need to choose which suites you best usually if you're selling on ebay the market is very competitive so you might only make a profit from bulk sales if not why don't they sell it there themself since the dropshippers are already sending in stocks of 1.

I personally would buy bulk or dropship base upon analyzing the market for the product. IF the product is known to constantly chance I probably wouldn't buy bulk since you risk losing when a new version comes out. That's just me everyone else might have different opinions.

I've read that dropshipping can be problematic if there is too much competition as it drives down prices and profits.

Affiliate marketing is the smoothest way to market online.

I started dropshipping a couple months ago. The only ones making money are my wholesaler, paypal, and ebay. Oh, but the bonus is, I get all the customer service issues. I'm pretty sure I'm going to shut it down as soon as I find the product someone ordered that my wholesaler won't be able to get for 8 wks.

Rich

Salehoo is another good dropshipper for you to check out!

It all depends on who will be doing your drop shipping and where you will be selling you products. Example...

-If you will be selling on ebay. You really need to have some of the products on hand...why because paypal is going to hold some of your money until you ship the product. If you are like many that start off by bootstrapping with very little cash you will bang all the orders together. And that is when the negative ratings, irate customers, and little paypal monkeys come out that like to put the "limitations" on your account.

-On the other hand if you know 110% that your supplier is on the ball then a website may be the way to go. Also an online store means you do not have to deal with paypal and their cronies.

I would say GO FOR BOTH...WHY NOT! Remember CYA (cover your a#$) all the time.

Also, shoot for the stars, if you miss maybe you'll hit the moon.

Good Luck

Are there drop shippers that will handle the customer service automatically?

Hi,
Any good dropship company to recommend?

Thank you

If you are looking to drop ship electronics, check sig.

When we had a PDA accessories shop, our main model was "just in time" inventory i.e. we get the orders first and then order from the supplier the next day. The products would be delivered to us the same day so that we could either ship later that day, or the day after that.

It may be more difficult in your area but I know of people who have established a good relationship with a large local store and will go there to buy the product after they have received an order.

We only bought in bulk for the most popular items. Still we, got left with over $5000 worth of inventory when we closed our shop. Therefore, be very careful when you buy in bulk, it is very easy to get your figures wrong.

We also had a dropshipper for PDA and cell phone batteries who was highly reliable and stamped our store logo on the parcels they sent out for us.

Derek

anyone got the list of profitable and trusted clothes and electronics dropshipping companies?