Finding the right company to dropship products to your customers is one of the most challenging aspects of running an online dropship business. Many people looking to start dropshipping products often end up spending months looking through lists, researching and test buying before deciding whos products to sell.
What is a middle-man? A middle-man is a website which claims to be a dropshipper, however in reality they are not the actual dropshipper, they take your order and pass it on to the real dropshipper adding their own profit margins in the process. This may not be illegal but it is bad for the dropship industry because of the squeezed profit margins and problems that occur.
When people first learn about dropshipping they often think “Great Ill just find a dropshipper of Nintendo Wii’s and sell bucket loads”, unfortunately it isn’t that easy!
You come across a dropshipper who on the face of it looks quite good; flashy design, profit promises, fancy product pictures etc. But you want to actually experience the service first hand before using them as your dropshipper for your hard earned customer base.
Before ordering with any dropshipper (or paying a joining fee) you want to try and find out as much info as possible. You can do this by typing the companys name into Google and seeing what comes up, or by visiting a dropship/wholesale forum and posting a message to see what others have experienced.
Dropshipping is a small industry in the UK, part of the reason is because many people haven’t heard about it (yet). If this is your first time reading about dropshipping here is a breakdown of how dropshipping works.Traditionally running a retail business has meant you have you to buy the stock up front in bulk and then hope to sell it all. With dropshipping you sell products which are held by the ‘dropshipper’, once you have a sale you send the order to the dropshipper and they dispatch the item to the customer. The dropship process means you can sell products without even having to see them!The Dropship Process:
Let us start with an interesting eBay auction story!
There are various ads and categories in eBay and many tools on the market that can help you locate what are called "Hot eBay Sales Items". A few years ago, eBay would put a small flame next to any item that received 10 or more bids. That would be considered a "hot" or "in demand" item. (more…)
The first thing you want to do to start drop shipping is;Find a reliable drop shipper that isn’t a middleman. In order to find a reliable drop shipper go to the source. Call the manufacturer and ask them to give you the contact information, for their authorized wholesale distributors. Some manufacturers will work with small business, but it is very rare. (more…)
There are a lot of very good dropshippers on the Internet, but there are also a lot of scammers! Just as with any other source that you find online, you need to take precautions:
Your drop shipper is taking a lot of responsibility off your hands, but the fact is, you can never fully trust anyone other than yourself to do the job properly. For that reason, a large part of successfully using a drop shipper involves good management skills.
The popularity of eBay has inspired many people to start a business. And for those entrepreneurs who don’t want to invest in a ton of inventory but still want to set up shop, dropshipping is a logical solution.
Before you get started, consider these seven steps involved in starting a dropship e-business:
