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Help with set up dropship selling my own products

by ashj
11 replies
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Hi all, I design and manufacture approx. 15 products from 5 different factory's in China.
It is a small business specializing in high end bicycle components and frames. Currently I ship to my base in Australia then to customer, its slow and expensive but I am a low volume company. I sell through my Woo website and Social media. Later in the year we will be relocating to the Philippines so I don't want to hold stock.

I want to change my business model to mainly wholesale rather than retail and ship China to customer.

Products would need to come from the factory's but most times a order would have products from several different factory's and they are spread out all over China.

How do I make this work? any suggestions.

Thanks Ash
#dropship #products #selling #set
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  • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
    The only way to make this work is to have free shipping priced into the cost of each product - something extremely difficult to do if you are going to ship all over the world. Otherwise, you're going to get hit with shipping costs from multiple warehouses and that may very well exceed the profit you receive.

    If you will only be shipping to one country, it's pretty easy to do. Just figure out what the cost is to ship to the most expensive area, add that to your cost for the product along with the absolutely least amount of profit you need to make on that order and put that as the price of the product with "free shipping". Products that ship to anywhere else in the country will net you more profit.
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  • Profile picture of the author Monetize
    If I were you, I would consolidate. Figure out what your most
    profitable best-selling items are and eliminate some of those
    China factories because it seems like you're spreading things
    around too much and it's costly. That means choosing the
    closest factories to reduce shipping costs, and getting those
    factories to manufacture more of your product line.

    Then, I would find sporting goods buyers and bicycle shops to
    stock your items. If you setup dropship that sounds like you're
    going to be selling individual orders here and there while you
    maintain a bunch of inventory. Or worse, if you are going to
    have things shipped to customers from China that is a drag,
    everybody knows it takes forever to get something shipped
    from China.

    I would rather have the merchants stock the inventory so
    that I get paid upfront and the burden's on them to move
    the merchandise.
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    • Profile picture of the author ashj
      Thanks, yeah this is why I want to change to wholesale so I don't need to ship to each customer direct. But it may take some time to find and set up distributors so could be a combination of customer direct and wholesale.
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    • Profile picture of the author OEchris
      We've recently had to raise prices for most of our imported goods because of shipping container costs. Honestly it may be a good time to look at domestic sourcing.
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      • Profile picture of the author ashj
        I looked at dometic, one of my items cost me $220 USD in China MOQ is 100. In Australia the cost was $1577, MOQ was 500. My retail is less.

        Another product in China is $18, in Aust $198, Germany $71, Thailand $68.
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        • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
          Originally Posted by ashj View Post

          I looked at dometic, one of my items cost me $220 USD in China MOQ is 100. In Australia the cost was $1577, MOQ was 500. My retail is less.

          Another product in China is $18, in Aust $198, Germany $71, Thailand $68.
          China will almost always bend on their MOQ - especially if they know you are shopping other manufacturers.
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  • Profile picture of the author Monetize
    I'm pretty sure you have a website like a Shopify. Could you have some
    products shipped to a fulfillment service in Australia and maybe even in
    the U.S.A. That way they could ship your orders and it wouldn't take so
    long to deliver. And have you ever thought about doing Amazon FBA?
    I think your products would be perfect for that.
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    • Profile picture of the author OEchris
      FBA is probably the way to go here, IMO, although there's some work involved. Have the parcels sent to you from China. Upload the contents to Seller Central, and Amazon will split the shipment and tell you which goods to send to which warehouse. Package the goods accordingly, reusing the same boxes the goods arrived in. Some of the splits can be pretty complicated, and Amazon will return inventory to you if you make mistakes as to what goods go in which box, so I recommend using third-party labeling software that will check your work as you go. We've had good success with 2D Transit. Then the last step is to apply a shipping label and send it off. As I said, there's definitely some work and cost involved, so you've got to be doing some volume and have some margin to work with. But once you get it figured out, the process is pretty rote.
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  • Profile picture of the author Serene Carmen
    Hi you can use a 3pl fulfilment partner in China or in whichever country you have most of your customers.

    There is more info in the thread below:

    https://www.warriorforum.com/ecommer...utm_term=title
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    • Profile picture of the author ashj
      Thanks Serene, good info, the option 2 is more what I need.
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  • Profile picture of the author UltraOne
    Hey Ashy,

    Firstly, I must say very interesting topic. Based on my experience with the Philippines market as I lived there for 9 years as a consumer, but also as an eCommerce expert, I would say people usually have their stores set up on these two major websites. The first one will be Lazada Philippines, the second one is Shopee. They usually bring their products out of China with the dropshipping method using Alibaba or Aliexpress, but you will need a third party to do this, which is usually another company that can pack and import these products to the Philippines and deals with customs. Customs are a real pain in the back.

    Typically, Dropshipping is a great way to start an eCommerce business because it doesn't require a large up-front investment of inventory.

    As a result, It's easy to set up and manage. You don't need to worry about manufacturing, packaging, etc.

    Usually, when you set up your accounts on one of these platforms, you will get a tutorials how to manage these accounts and there are plenty of videos on YouTube how to use these platforms.

    I hope this helps.


    Regards,
    Adam
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