Dropshipping from Walmart and other similar retailers

8 years ago

Dropshipping products from an online retailer to Amazon customers is against Amazons terms of service and could get your account suspended. Ebay on the other hand is ok with this.

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er90

8 years ago

Hey, thanks for the advice. When dropshipping on ebay from walmart/target is there any way to get the items sent in a brown box/without the walmart receipt? Or would they know right away the product was from walmart? If they knew i'm guessing quite a few people would be very angry about it?

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Splatterfox

8 years ago

Originally Posted by er90

Hey, thanks for the advice. When dropshipping on ebay from walmart/target is there any way to get the items sent in a brown box/without the walmart receipt? Or would they know right away the product was from walmart? If they knew i'm guessing quite a few people would be very angry about it?

Sorry but Walmart itself is a pure retail platform, there is no way to require something like "custom packaging" - as long as you don't repack yourself.

And I would actually be kinda pissed if I get a Walmart item. Its all about perceived value: if people buy in your online store and you market the product in a way that the value perception for the customer is higher, they don't expect to get a Walmart box. Sure, many won't care, but I can almost guarantee that the number of complaints will be significantly higher than with custom/noname packaging. In the end it kinda comes down to your advertising though.

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cjshu99

8 years ago

Some people will complain but not many. Usually most of theses sites give you the option to select to have a gift receipt included which will not have the price on it.

A few people will get there item and go to the website from where it was shipped to check pricing. Then they might complain to you that they could have bought it cheaper at that website themselves. These leaves with the option to argue and risk them filing some sort of complaint or just refund them the price difference.

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dave_hermansen

8 years ago

This type of "dropshipping" is probably the dumbest idea ever conceived of but so many people flock to it because it is so much easier than doing it the right way. It's a stupid way of "dropshipping" for the following reasons:

1) You can't be remotely competitive on price. Obviously, Walmart will beat your price but so will dozens of other places - all of which are likely to be ranked higher than you are in organic search. Sure, there are morons out there who won't price shop things but basing your entire business on the actions of morons is something only morons do.

2) You have zero control over the shipping process or customer service. While it is true that you don't control the shipping process when you dropship as an approved dealer from a real supplier, at least you have some sort of customer service as an approved dealer. You are on your own with the Walmart "dropship" scheme.

3) Who is covering any shipping damage problems? It's tough to handle shipping damage claims as a middleman when WalMart has no clue who you are.

To answer your actual question, you have no control of the packaging and yes, it's going to come with Walmart packing slips and maybe even an invoice showing what YOU paid. There's not a thing you can do about that unless you want to go the slower and even more expensive route, which is to have Walmart ship it to you and you repackage and ship it at even more added expense.

Bottom Line: "Dropshipping" from another retailer is for the laziest of lazy people and you are destined to fail (as all lazy people are). Anyone selling people on the concept is a scam artist; anyone who tells you they are making boatloads of money doing it is flat out lying. Do it the right way and get a real supplier!

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er90

8 years ago

Hey Dave,

Thanks for your detailed reply, much appreciated.

Kind of figured this was the case but am currently in the researching stage going over all options on how to start supplier wise on a small scale so I can test market before being able to go wholesale. More a case of trial and error as a beginner than laziness. We all need to make our own mistakes right?

Guess at this stage I will just stick with aliexpress and look for suppliers until I can afford to buy wholesale. Any opinion on companies such as Salehoo or Doba?

Thanks,
Emma

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dave_hermansen

8 years ago

Originally Posted by er90

Hey Dave,

Thanks for your detailed reply, much appreciated.

Kind of figured this was the case but am currently in the researching stage going over all options on how to start supplier wise on a small scale so I can test market before being able to go wholesale. More a case of trial and error as a beginner than laziness. We all need to make our own mistakes right?

Guess at this stage I will just stick with aliexpress and look for suppliers until I can afford to buy wholesale. Any opinion on companies such as Salehoo or Doba?

Thanks,
Emma

Alibaba, Salehoo and DOBA are all bad places to use. Contact the brand directly and ask for a dealer account and say you need the products shipped directly to customers. If they won't do that, ask them for the contact information on their large distributors who might be able to do that for you.

You could also simply set up an affiliate products site where customers are taken to someplace like Amazon to buy. Then, after you get the site ranking well, explore dropship and/or bulk options with suppliers.

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rbur0425

8 years ago

There are plenty of sellers on eBay who make a living drop shipping from various retailers. Look at the following eBay user id's -

shopsy
thecandidcow
ivydust

If you view their feedbacks you will see in the negative section, many people complain they received the item from Amazon.

All of these stores are selling thousands of items a month. You can view their sold items and calculate the return and profit on the listing. I would not say drop shipping from retailers to eBay is dead, however, there will be some costs as you would need to be a Top Rated Seller in order to receive the 20% fee discount.

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dave_hermansen

8 years ago

Originally Posted by rbur0425

There are plenty of sellers on eBay who make a living drop shipping from various retailers. Look at the following eBay user id's -

shopsy
thecandidcow
ivydust

If you view their feedbacks you will see in the negative section, many people complain they received the item from Amazon.

All of these stores are selling thousands of items a month. You can view their sold items and calculate the return and profit on the listing. I would not say drop shipping from retailers to eBay is dead, however, there will be some costs as you would need to be a Top Rated Seller in order to receive the 20% fee discount.

I can only wonder how you would know that every single thing they sell is dropshipped from places like Walmart or Amazon. When I read the negative seller reviews, most of the complaints regard how long the products took to arrive, products that were never sent or cancelled, their poor quality, missing items, items not as described and broken items. These are not typical complaints you see when ordering from Walmart or Amazon. Sounds to me like the vast majority of what is being sold is coming from Alibaba. Maybe a few come from Walmart or Amazon but certainly not everything.

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rbur0425

8 years ago

Originally Posted by dave_hermansen

I can only wonder how you would know that every single thing they sell is dropshipped from places like Walmart or Amazon. When I read the negative seller reviews, most of the complaints regard how long the products took to arrive, products that were never sent or cancelled, their poor quality, missing items, items not as described and broken items. These are not typical complaints you see when ordering from Walmart or Amazon. Sounds to me like the vast majority of what is being sold is coming from Alibaba. Maybe a few come from Walmart or Amazon but certainly not everything.

We can look at their items right in their eBay store. For example, user id shopsy which I mentioned above list this product at a markup - Product Link

They have 100 sold on that listing. This is straight from Amazon by doing a quick Google search. Product on Amazon Link

Price is $13.34 - $10.99 on Amazon - $0.96 eBay Fee - $0.69 PayPal Fee - $0.20 insertion fee = $0.50 profit. And a 3.89% return. Link to math

Now this seller has over 40,000 listings on eBay. They probably have some sort of store plan whether it is basic, premium or anchor. You can see they get over 16k feedbacks a month which does not include any purchases where the buyer leaves no feedback at all, so they are low margin high volume seller. They have been selling on eBay for a long time as the id was created back in 2002.

Dropshipping on eBay is not dead but it is a tough business. You absolutely need a top rated seller discount and the margins are super thin as shown above.

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dave_hermansen 8 years ago

Originally Posted by rbur0425

Dropshipping on eBay is not dead but it is a tough business. You absolutely need a top rated seller discount and the margins are super thin as shown above.

Ain't that the truth! I wouldn't open an Email for 50 cents, let alone process an order, deal with customer service issues, market and build a website.
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