Hello again guys! So my last post was about how i was making money and about my future plans, asking for advice on what to focus on and such. You guys helped me alot and i managed to decently scale up freelance logo design by advertising my gig. But now... I'm getting bored of it so i want to try something else. I've read about dropshipping in several places and it really really interests me. From what i understand: 1. You find a cheap item on alibaba or aliexpress (doesn't matter as long as you can sell it for a profit); 2. Then you post that same item on ebay or amazon or shopify for a higher price with a nicer description and maybe better pictures and such; 3. Then when someone buys your product from ebay/amazon/shopify, you get the Ka$h, shipping information and contact information from the buyer. 4. You go to that initial place where the product is cheaper like alibaba or aliexpress and you use some of your buyers Ka$h and shipping information to buy the product for him. Is this is it? Do i get it? If i don't Please correct me and tell me how it really works. I've never sold anything on ebay or amazon or shopify do i don't know how you get the money or the buyers information. Tell me one thing that i'm really curious about (i am NOT going to do this): What happens if you just get the Ka$h and buyers information and then run with it? What are the consequences? Also, should i post products for sale on amazon, ebay and shopify or just one of these places?? I'll be starting this method and advertising the products with facebook as soon as i feel like i fully understand it. Answers to this thread will probably help alot. Thank you for your time guys, i will try to be active on the replies.
Fundamentally, yes, you got it. As you know the devil will always be in the details. Some of the details - Unless you have an established Paypal account they will hold your funds for 21 days and you will have to pay out of pocket to ship the items so some capital is needed if you don't have a Paypal where you can access payments immediately. You can use Stripe but they actually don't allow dropshipping so there is risk there even though many people are doing it. - Aliexpress can take up to 4 weeks to reach a customer in the US, so you need to be very open about that or you will run into issues. - Returns can happen and are a pain so you need a good policy on this upfront and heavily documented - Marketing can be tough so you need to get creative around that piece especially if you use Shopify or a stand alone storefront as opposed to eBay etc.. A note that my understanding is that Alibaba is hard to buy from for people in certain countries - never tried it. Also I wouldn't recommend dropship to Amazon because the timelines are too long so usually it is a Shopify storefront or WP+ Woocommerce ---> Aliexpress ---> customer. Hope that helps!
I forgot to address two of your questions 1) It depends on how you collect orders but all the options you mentioned have a built in process for collecting the buyer information so like with Shopify you will see the orders in your dashboard with the buyer address etc.. there has been some chatter that Aliexpress is insisting that the shipping address matches the credit card address on file, but I don't have any solid evidence of that. Sometimes people say things like that to give the impression that dropshipping is dying but you never really know if it is true or not. 2) If you take the cash and run -- you will be running a scam, your income potential is limited to about one month, paypal/stripe will chargeback, etc... You would be better off just doing the work and building a long term business. And to be honest, you won't be flooded with orders out of the gate.. it takes some testing of marketing strategies, FB ads, warming up FB groups and soft pitch.. Let me know if there is more I can answer!
Thanks alot Motherdex, i've already learned form you reply! I'll start dropshipping as soon as possible and i'll return to this thread if i have any questions. Again, thanks & have a good one.
