Dropshipping, Any good?

daniellebel

Slightly off topic, but what about party plan - Jme, or tupperware type set ups? They have relatively low set up costs and low risk....

tonee

Dropshipping itself as a process is legit, however, as will all "make quick money from home" schemes offered as a way to earn quick cash - 99% of the stuff you see will be scams.

geordie_joe

dobbie82 wrote: »

I have used this site: http://www.dropshiponline.co.uk/

I did a few test purchases having them sent to friends addresses and they came in good time and well packed, with no company information on it only a PO box address to return to 'if undelivered'

I didnt have enough patience to do the listings, but I am sure there is a small wage to be made online using it

And most importantly they don't want money up front

I just had a quick look, clicked through to a product at random, turned out to be an "Omega 1 to 4 Way Switched Adapter"

The cost was £8.43 + £2.50 shipping = £10.93.

A quick search came up with a guy selling them on ebay for £11.85 with free delivery

So If I bought from them, and sold on ebay the profit would be 92p, but I would have to pay the ebay fees out of that 92p.

I don't know what the ebay fees are these days, but if anyone could say what they would be for a BIN item for £11.85 I would be interested.

PS. The shipping price was the lowest available, non recorded. If you wanted to protect yourself with recorded delivery it would cost another £1, making you 8p down before the ebay fees!

Zelazny

By my reckoning, to sell an item at 11.85 on ebay as buy it now would cost:

40p to list
63p final value fee (assuming it counts as technology related - 5.25% of the final price)

So you'd receive a net £10.82 from ebay. If you use paypal and do under £1,500 per month, there'd be a charge of 20p plus 3.4% to receive this money, which is 57p.

Thus, you'd be getting £10.25, and would be 68p out of pocket.

If you could make the purchases through an amazon associates account (FYI: if it's your account, this is against the rules) and got say 5% back, that would add up to 54p rebated. Still leaving you 14p down on the sale.

Paypal fees go down as transaction volume goes up (to as low as 1.4% + 20p) on a normal account - not sure about a business account. Likewise, amazon referral amounts go up the more you put through, but as using it is likely to be more than a little dodgy in the first place, I'd not rely on it. I'm not sure if you're allowed to find someone who does have an associates account and use that, then split the money, but I suspect it would fall foul of the rules.

geordie_joe

Zelazny wrote: »

By my reckoning, to sell an item at 11.85 on ebay as buy it now would cost:

40p to list
63p final value fee (assuming it counts as technology related - 5.25% of the final price)

So you'd receive a net £10.82 from ebay. If you use paypal and do under £1,500 per month, there'd be a charge of 20p plus 3.4% to receive this money, which is 57p.

Thus, you'd be getting £10.25, and would be 68p out of pocket.

If you could make the purchases through an amazon associates account (FYI: if it's your account, this is against the rules) and got say 5% back, that would add up to 54p rebated. Still leaving you 14p down on the sale.

Paypal fees go down as transaction volume goes up (to as low as 1.4% + 20p) on a normal account - not sure about a business account. Likewise, amazon referral amounts go up the more you put through, but as using it is likely to be more than a little dodgy in the first place, I'd not rely on it. I'm not sure if you're allowed to find someone who does have an associates account and use that, then split the money, but I suspect it would fall foul of the rules.

Thanks for that. As I suspected, making money from dropshipping is not as easy as they claim.

markymark292

Has anyone who has responded on this thread ever tried drop shipping? If not, then all of these comments are just pure hearsay.

My cousin uses drop shipping for two of his sites. One is new (launched last week), but has already sold two items and made 100% profit. His other is making him a regular £500 profit per month. So how can drop shipping not work or be profitable?

I am thinking of doing it myself, hence how I came about this thread and as long as you do your homework, as with anything in life and you are prepared to spend some time marketing and getting good page ranking for your site, your time will be rewarded with an income.

lovinituk

markymark292 wrote: »

Has anyone who has responded on this thread ever tried drop shipping? If not, then all of these comments are just pure hearsay.

My cousin uses drop shipping for two of his sites. One is new (launched last week), but has already sold two items and made 100% profit. His other is making him a regular £500 profit per month. So how can drop shipping not work or be profitable?

I am thinking of doing it myself, hence how I came about this thread and as long as you do your homework, as with anything in life and you are prepared to spend some time marketing and getting good page ranking for your site, your time will be rewarded with an income.

Don't forget people tend to exaggerate about things like that. Unless you've actually seen his books and figures then you can't be 100% sure he is actually making that much!

It is not as easy as it may seem. If you are going to set it up via your own website then you need to set the website up yourself or pay someone to do it for you. You then need traffic which doesn't appear magically over night. You need good website SEO and marketing to attract potential customers. Then there is the competition - the more common popular items will be awash with competition so maybe a more niche product will be better.

Dropshipping on ebay UK is actually technically not allowed. Plenty do and get away with it but many have suddenly been asked to prove their stock by submitting invoices and when they can't, its bye bye seller account.

Dropshipping almost certainly means less profit when compared to buying the stock yourself and selling it. With the competition on ebay it often means you can't make much per sale at all and have to sell lots to make it worth while.

You need to make sure you use a reliable dropshipper who knows what they are doing. You are giving someone else the main part of your business to run and if they send naff/broken/fake goods then its your reputation that will suffer - this could be fatal if you are selling on ebay and amazon.

Dropshipping can be a good way to start in business particularly if you have limited funds to start with and/or no space for stock. But don't expect it to make you a fortune overnight!

And yes, I have dropshipped in the past but now I have my business premises and buy stock in large quantities. I'm in control from start to finish and my profit is much better that way!

soolin

By all means advocate drop shipping for your own website as you can control any bad feedback or negative comments. However, if anyone is ever thinking of drop shipping for ebay then i stand by the comments made as long as 4 years ago and so 'Not with a bargepole'

Ebay buyers won't accept long waits and being dependent on someone else to hold your stock and send it out in time to keep buyers happy is near impossible.

Sparhawke

Without knowing whether this has been previously answered I will weigh in.

Who in their right mind would pay any kind of money to a middleman in order to sell things cheap on the internet? Don't you think that everyone else will be doing the exact same products from their lines?

Much better is to find a product you like and contact the manufacturer yourself and ask if they dropship or ask if they have any distributors then ask them.

You should never have to pay for one of these lists, if you do you are basically paying a middleman to sell you information that he got that you could get easily yourself, and they are taking all the profit.

As an example, I once saw Dragons Den; you know that magic wand remote control? I think that is neat, and likely no one is selling it in a list, so why don't I cut out the middleman and ask them directly if I can sell it on my site?

And anyone who relies on Ebay to get sales quite frankly is paying through the nose for little, while it may be true that people are buying there you also have massive competition and the likelihood is that someone will simply undercut you and you will have to start again. Avoid Ebay.

lovinituk

soolin wrote: »

Ebay buyers won't accept long waits and being dependent on someone else to hold your stock and send it out in time to keep buyers happy is near impossible.

There are some very reputable UK dropshippers who will dispatch same day. Their customer service is also top notch but you are still trusting someone else.

Sparhawke wrote: »

Who in their right mind would pay any kind of money to a middleman in order to sell things cheap on the internet? Don't you think that everyone else will be doing the exact same products from their lines?

There are some very good reasons. Someone might not have the capital or space to invest in large amounts of stock. Dropshipping can be used to test the selling of certain products before investing in bulk stock. Dropshippers don't just sell cheap items. Competition may still be an issue even if you buy the stock yourself.

Sparhawke wrote: »

Much better is to find a product you like and contact the manufacturer yourself and ask if they dropship or ask if they have any distributors then ask them.

Yes, unless you don;t have capital or space for stock. Manufacturers don't tend to deal with end users by dropshipping - its not worth it for them. There will almost always be a middle man even if it is just a distributor.

Sparhawke wrote: »

You should never have to pay for one of these lists, if you do you are basically paying a middleman to sell you information that he got that you could get easily yourself, and they are taking all the profit.

I don't think we are talking about paying for lists. Most legitimate dropshippers will charge a small annual fee which serves to weed out timewasters.

Sparhawke wrote: »

And anyone who relies on Ebay to get sales quite frankly is paying through the nose for little, while it may be true that people are buying there you also have massive competition and the likelihood is that someone will simply undercut you and you will have to start again. Avoid Ebay.

LOL!!! Just LOL!!! Seriously - you don't have a clue!!! :rotfl: