The Best and Worst Of Dropshipping
Don’t you hate…
packing, sending, inventories and licking stamps? Dropshipping may be the solution for your eBay business. It is a great income opportunity that is somewhat “automatic”.
What?
Dropshipping is a method of selling and distributing goods where the supplier ships the product directly to the end user on the retailer’s behalf.
Pros
You don’t have to worry about storing inventories and packing supplies. And you don’t need to spend hours packing items and waiting at the post office. Instead, you can focus on marketing and bringing in new business.
Photos are also readied for you from the dropship supplier. You just need to post the items for sale on eBay or on your site. When someone placed an order with you, you send an order to the dropship supplier and tell him where to send the shipment to.
While the advantages of dropshipping seem like a dream come true to eBay sellers, it can be a disaster to join the dropshipping bandwagon in a rush without doing some homework.
Cons
I find it frustrted when some companies sell suppliers list for a fee, but their list is outdated and most of the phone numbers and links don’t even work. Other scammers pretend to be actual wholesalers, but they are really just middlemen who eat into your profits.
Then there are websites that promise an “all-in-one solution” for a monthly fee. They claim you can choose from their whole inventory of items to sell and dropship. But there is almost always hidden fees that make turning a profit next to impossible.
If you are are using a dropshipping service, keep in mind that what the dropshipper does will reflect directly on you. If a customer has a bad experience, leaves you a negative feedback, that will be on you 100%.
Then, items can go on backorder. If someone has already paid you for an item and you’re not able to place an order with the dropshipper in a good time frame, you will not look good. Same goes for items that are damaged during shipping.
Building a relationship with your dropshipper makes sense and is an absolute necessity. There are bound to be times where customer service issues arise. When that happens, you need to know that you have someone to go to for help. Ideally, you should have a dedicated service representative who knows you and understands your needs. Be wary of doing business with a company that provides little or no support. It may come back to haunt you in the end.
Dropshipping is great and trouble-free!
Despite several disadvantages, I certainly find dropshipping a great way sell physical products online, whether on eBay or on your own e-commerce site. You can avoid pitfalls and do it right by researching for everything you must know about dropshipping.
Worldwide Brands allows you to tap on making money with dropshipping. It contains everything you need to start your own online or eBay business today.
The best thing about dropshipping is I don’t have to keep up with inventories which is my all time weaknesses and finally I don’t have to hear naggings from family members to “clean up the messâ€!
What about you? Have you tried dropshipping before? Or will that be your next model of business?
Very well done!
Dealing with Dropshipper is pain in the neck process. You have to find good dropshipper and stick with it. The more you sell, the tighter relationship you are with them.
At the end, I felt that I would probably become a dropshipper myself.
Hey Jenny
I am new in this area , and now getting idea about drop shipping
Do you recommend any drop shipper ?
please let me know
thank you
Jenny:
I mean to ask you a question.
Sine you also ship to USA, do you ever dealt with customer return your their order? How do you handle USA customer, since you are not in the USA? Is your return address in your country?
Do you have a drop ship company in the US?
The reason I asked is that I have received many requests from Span. I am thinking to do International shipping, but not sure how I can handle international return.
Any advice will be great!
Thanks!
@Terence,
I do ship to USA and I seldom have customer asking for returns except for once. The buyer personally post the items back to me (to my country) and then I refund them. (for non-dropship items)
Do your buyers mind sending back the items to you? What are your terms and conditions for the transactions? Do you have it well written down so that customers are aware of the process?
For dropship items, returns will be back to the dropshipper. Usually I will have the terms and conditions written clearly to avoid and misunderstanding when such issues arrise.
@Archu, look at the next new post for answer and the left sidebar for “Top 5 wholesale sites”.
@Jenny:
So your customer will return the item back to China (the drop ship company)?
In the US, we have to accept returned items back to my office, but not the drop ship company. We then return to the drop ship company or find a way to re-sell the items.
It’s interesting to hear that your product is shipped directly from China. In US, most drop ship companies operate their own warehouse and inventory. So they can ship out the product next day with fairly cheap ground shipping rate.
All my customers are in the USA or Canada. Expending my sales to world wild become an issue for me. My drop ship company won’t ship to Span and Europe unless I operate my own warehouse.
Also, my products weight over 1lb. I can’t just charge international flat rate (air). I need to figure that out.
@Terence,
most dropship companies actually require you to return it. Meaning, buyers return item to you and you are responsible to return it to the dropshipper, as this will be easier to track on the wholesaler side.
For my cases, it is a personal arrangement.
I wonder what are you shipping for 1lb? Sexy thongs? Wow, you must be selling alot of those sexy stuff.
Jenny:
Yeah. Sexy stuff is easy to sell. People just want to be sexy or want someone to be sexy.
A pair of sexy high heel will be over 1lb. Yeah. I have been selling a lot of sexy shoes. Now adding sexy lingerie product lines.
Funny things is that I don’t have to know so much about how sexy stuff. It just sell. I am more focusing on drive sales and get on top of search engine.
Not too hard to make some good money though!
Thanks to drop ship companies.
I don’t have stock thousand shoes or lingerie in my office. 
In the USA, drop ship companies don’t like return except the defect product. I don’t think they care! So I have to find a good one. Eventually, I will be doing drop ship myself. I would rather ship directly from China.
Personal arrangement! That sounds good!
what is the extent of your experiences with china vasion, their dropshipping and products is it reliable. Can i just pick them as my sole dropshippers. Since I’m newbie to all these I don’t want to be dealing with other unknown dropshippers. How would I put up a site for their items is e-bay necessary for this? Please I need more info.
@emma53,
So far, the review on this company is positive. ChinaVasion is also a Gold Supplier in Alibaba.com.
If you are in doubt it helps to order a sample item (which you can see from their price chart) and analyse the quality from there. Also, talk, ask questions and communicate with the wholesaler. Assess their response time, communication skills and professionalism.
As far as I know drop shipping and eBay do not mix at all. You can try a good one like http://www.sourcingmap.com and see if you can profit but with everyone and their brother selling it is going to be tough. Check out this article http://ezinearticles.com/?Drop-Shipping-Will-Kill-Your-eBay-Business-in-Under-30-Days&id=779829 it will tell you why to avoid drop shipping if you use ebay!
Thanks,
Chris
http://www.dropshippingsucks.com
Chris:
I read the article, however, I see a different pictures. For me, I have been selling goods from China for sometimes. I have never sell anything on eBay, because I don’t know how to compete with other power sellers.
I do drop ship on few of my store with the manufacture directly. The problem with the price game is cause by the wholesaler. My supplier specifically rule out that no one should play the price game. We should all have the same profit margin.
It’s up to all retailer to find a way to sell without drop the price too much to gain market. The wholesaler usually are the one making some money.
Now, there are more and more Chinese manufacture are doing wholesale themselves. So they can control the price.
That’s just my experience. I am sorry that you were having some bad experience with drop shipper. I pick my supplier very carefully and hopefully never have problem with anyone.
Thank you for sharing your experience.
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