Dropshipping Questions

[ashj1893]

Hey all, I've just started looking into drop shipping recently, and from what I've read so far, people can no longer drop ship via Amazon or eBay, as they've changed their policies sometime ago. Is it still possible to make at least reasonable profit margins via reputable REAL drop shippers, NOT middlemen, and not have to come up with money upfront??? Anyone with some advice?

 

[GiorgioB]

What you want is the benefits of drop shipping without its inconveniences.. If you find anyone that is willing to work with you on those conditions, please share with me, that sounds like an awesome deal.

PS. You can still drop ship on eBay but it is risky, you have 24 hours to upload the tracking number (upload fake?). Amazon, idk. Better have your own ecommerce site.

 

[ashj1893]

What you want is the benefits of drop shipping without its inconveniences.. If you find anyone that is willing to work with you on those conditions, please share with me, that sounds like an awesome deal.

PS. You can still drop ship on eBay but it is risky, you have 24 hours to upload the tracking number (upload fake?). Amazon, idk. Better have your own ecommerce site.

I don't understand what you mean by wanting the benefits without the drawbacks. From the information I've gathered so far, people used to be able to set up a Merchant account at say, eBay, Amazon, etc. then after the money is put into their account with the merchant, they have those funds released, so that they may use that money to order the product, since they didn't have the items on hand already, then have them shipped out to the address. But since I heard Amazon makes people wait before they release funds or something to that effect, and then they decided to say that you have to have the product "on hand" in order to sell it on their website, that these methods are rather dead now, save for the few veterans whom have been doing it for years and are able to take care of this either because they obviously have the funds already, or because their track record is good enough. Sorry in advance if I completely misinterpreted something in the process.

 

[ashj1893]

agreed with it

With what?

 

[GiorgioB]

Is it still possible to make at least reasonable profit margins via reputable REAL drop shippers, NOT middlemen, and not have to come up with money upfront???

I meant this. It is possible to still make money. However, drop shipping is not the best way to make high margins (since your just bringing orders to another reseller), and especially difficult to find someone who will ship the product for you before you pay him. I dropship for a few people, if you want to discuss let me know however :

- don't expect huge margins. 1 product that I sell maybe $20 for dropshipping, I would sell about $5 cheaper if you bought 10 pieces of stock.
- shipping for 1 kg is around $18. So, if I send you (or your customer) 1 product that weighs say 300g, that will be $18, or $18/unit. If I send you 3 of them, the shipping price is the same, but that is $6 / unit.

 

[XHBTR]

Drop shipping is only an alternative if you have zero money to buy your own stock. There are just to many disadvantages to drop shipping - the main one is control. You do not control the quality of the merchandise, you do not the shipping (time)

Still, it is possible to do it at both sites but if you are new as a seller you have to have the funds on hand to buy from the drop shipper since the funds you will receive from the sale are being held hostage. So why not go ahead and do some research about what is selling and get a small amount of stock and take it from there ?

X-mas is coming up[ and people will start spending a lot of dough.