SO HERE ARE MY QUESTIONS:
Without implementing on the fly price check/adjustment, what is the best way to mitigate risks associated with constant price fluctuation?
You said when you started you started pumping out hundreds of listings a day: with my limit of 200 listings per month, is it better to focus on items that will profit more money per listing vs. focusing on items with a higher roi percentage?
Starting out, what is the best way to find items to dropship?
Do you use the prime option to ship or do you select the slower shipping method?
Can you give a past example of an item you successfully dropshipped to an ebay customer from amazon?
What are some of the mistakes you have made since starting this dropshipping?
Answer as many as few as you have time for.
(sorry couldnt figure out why the automoderator thing wouldnt let me post)
Good q's. Set a high profit margin like ($8): You'll make a lot less sales but you'll usually be in the green at the end of most price fluctuations. What's extremely exciting about your situation though is that you can create other accounts and attach them to your paypal. Up to seven more can be attached and they will all have their holds off
At 200 items/60 feedback I would focus on building feedback (selling items at a low pm)
Use Prime. Takes care of so many problems
It's technically against Amazon's TOS to drop ship using prime but nobody that I know has ever had a problem doing it. (We're making Amazon money right. In particular I/we (me and saul) also use Fedex 2 day so that we get the red "Fast Shipping" icon. Makes our listings pop in the queue)
I could give you thousands of examples
Item doesn't matter as long as it's low risk (not electronic/flashy)
*laughs nostalgically* I made plenty of mistakes when I first started. I would say that I didn't learn enough about the selling process/ what it takes to become a successful seller BEFORE jumping into things. If I could do it all over again I'd probably read a lot more and have taken more courses from the beginning (would have saved me six-eight months of really hard work and probably somewhere in the xxx,xxx of dollars)
From your experience, what sort of things sell the best?
Id imagine games, music, dvds etc.. media/electronic things would do quite well
Stay away from everything you just mentioned
Flashy/Electronic items are too risky. Especially coming from a new account.
If you have hundreds of feedback by all means go for it.. but until then you want to stick with kitchen appliances, office supplies, etc
Wonderful thread full of great info. My question is: If you were starting over today with all the knowledge you have about this business, what is/are the main thing(s) you'd do differently?
Glad you're enjoying it! I threw one somewhere up there^ but another big one would be learning about tools and systems. You can automate this entire ebay process (auto feedback, auto relisters, auto messages, auto listing, auto pricepoint monitoring. I now make 10x what I used to make. I also work 10-100x less hard)
It's crazy to me thinking about it. I used to wake up at 5 am, crank out listings until 10, hit starbucks, come back by 11.. all the way up to 1 or 2am ish. It was insane
Nowadays I literally click a couple buttons and hop on to answer a question here or there. Money in the bank
can you please give some idea on price tag. how much is the max priced item you are listing.
Down the line you can list higher priced items at higher profit margins. When you're first starting off you'll have paypal holds so I recommend you list the least expensive items you can find
How do you increase seller limits on a aged account = 5/5000?
Unless it's a stealth account, you don't. Nix it and start a new one (If you know what you're doing you can start off at a 500-1000 selling limit). Usually you can call eBay and they'll upgrade you by 100% 45 days after your accounts creation
Saul did a great job answering everyone's questions. I just thought I'd add my 2 cents
