Skipping dropshipping and over to wholesale/stacking

[supereek]

Hi, I am considering to skip dropshipping and switch over to bulk ordering. I need your opinions wether this is a smart move or not.

So my story in short:
I created a Shopify store to give dropshipping a chance with specific sport sub-niche girl items. I a/b tested my FB campaigns until I found a sweetspot of doubling my money on each order. All fine until customers started sh#tting on my reviews about the long delivery times, factory defects, wrong size. Eventually I ended up closing the store temporarily as every 4th - 5th order was a re-send or wanted money back.

Now I was lurking on Alibaba and I found out some of the articles I was selling can be purchased for nearly 1/4 of the price of what AliExpress charges. This will give me a much higher profit % when selling it. Also I can send locally (2 day delivery instead of 3 weeks) and I can check the product for defects before sending.

I have a legit company for this with registered VAT's and import rights. The only thing is the starting capital. If I go buy-in bulk I can only have about 2-4 different products to sell. Normally with dropshipping I had about 30. So will this hurt my business a lot? Whats your opinions on all of this?

 

[Nightguy]

It's better to have a better range of products in my opinion, so if you have the budget go for 4 different products instead of 2. Now the main question is if it's worth to change to wholesale. Because you have a legit company i will say that it's worth it, if you are sure about the products you are going to sell and the audience you are going to sell to. Do you have the money to support it? Because if you buy large quantities of products that are not selling you are screwed.

So again in my opinion it's worth it if you have the money to support it. Otherwise stick with shopify that you don't have to worry about inventory and how many different products you have. Try to find a good seller if you go with shopify and use epacket to reduce the delivery time to 2 weeks.

 

[whothefisalex]

Hi, I am considering to skip dropshipping and switch over to bulk ordering. I need your opinions wether this is a smart move or not.

So my story in short:
I created a Shopify store to give dropshipping a chance with specific sport sub-niche girl items. I a/b tested my FB campaigns until I found a sweetspot of doubling my money on each order. All fine until customers started sh#tting on my reviews about the long delivery times, factory defects, wrong size. Eventually I ended up closing the store temporarily as every 4th - 5th order was a re-send or wanted money back.

Now I was lurking on Alibaba and I found out some of the articles I was selling can be purchased for nearly 1/4 of the price of what AliExpress charges. This will give me a much higher profit % when selling it. Also I can send locally (2 day delivery instead of 3 weeks) and I can check the product for defects before sending.

I have a legit company for this with registered VAT's and import rights. The only thing is the starting capital. If I go buy-in bulk I can only have about 2-4 different products to sell. Normally with dropshipping I had about 30. So will this hurt my business a lot? Whats your opinions on all of this?

This is basically what I did, by transitioning from dropshiping to stocking products, and its working well for me.

however because I had no importing experience I found somebody in the UK (I live in UK) who is importing the goods already and selling them on amazon, and I made a deal to buy them wholesale from him.

it costs me a little more than if I went direct to Alibaba but I can get 1 day delivery and he has his china importing contacts well established so I know the quality is always good.

 

[supereek]

Thank you both for your replies.

Do you think it's worth going the extra mile for a private lable? (having your own company name on the product) I know this would have to mean that I will need to buy more stock otherwise the factory wont do it, but perhaps as a long term thing.

 

[whothefisalex]

I’m in clothing, and I’m cheap! So I had a custom design label made on eBay, £8 for 50 labels and my wife just stitches them in as they sell

 

[Elaine Shan]

I think it's better to do both. Have some of the stock in China, and some of the products that you have stable orders, you can move to your country. Most products Aliexpress is not expensive, and sellers have small margins. I think you underestimate the shipping cost of moving products from China to your own country and domestic shipping costs. Stocking the products on your own, you get a lot of risks. You need to buy a larger quantity, and you have the extra cost of the international shipping cost before you sell the product. Plus there is at least 10days shipping time before you receive the products, on this fast-moving ecommerce world, in 10 days maybe your product is no longer selling well. I think to use a dropship supplier, so you get products directly from the manufacturers and let them ship whenever there is order. If a product sells well, you move it to your own country.