The one thing anyone usually notices when choosing to Drop Ship products on an eBay or similar open marketplace, is the level of competition they are up against. As with any business, you have to try and find a way to stand out from the crowd by creating what is called in marketing terms, a POD
POD stands for Point Of Difference, and there are many ways you can set yourself apart from competitors. When it comes to dropshipping, I think one of the most important ones is price. Drop shipping by its nature is super competitive on a site such as eBay. Of course everyone wants to sell the same popular products, but then struggle because many others are buying from the same supplier, meaning no one has an advantage on price.
In situations like that you can create a POD by the way you offer your products. Taking a fishing genre as an example. You might be drop ship selling a fishing rod, same rod as 756 others are, and all at the same price. So now ask yourself, when someone buys that fishing rod, what else might they need to go with it.
Fishing line, hooks, sinkers, a tackle box ..... OK, you get the point. By thinking ahead of what the consumers needs are, you can put together package deals. Tie in multiple products as one lot that all compliment each other.
When using a structure like this, you can get ahead on price by not putting mark up on one or more of your items. The secret to making this more competitive is to keep your margin low still. So keep your margin on the fishing rod and perhaps on some lures or such, then package the line, tackle box and whatever, at cost.
A good way to then market the package deal as great value is to then find sellers who are marketing those items individually with margin, and then promote their product and cost on your own listing, showing the customer a complete break down of prices they would pay if they purchase these products individually from other sellers.
This creates a POD, and it highlights the great value you are offering.
What you can then also do is make it clear in your listings copy, that each one of the packed items are in fact still available through you to purchase, and to contact you for pricing. Now this is a little sneaky to suggest, but for those who do contact you in relation to buying individually, it gives you a chance to actually sell outside of the website and save yourself listing and sales fees.
OK, now I'm not promoting how to circumvent paying for fees here lol, simply bringing up some talking points.
Now this package deal marketing strategy works best when supplying from the one drop shopper, however if you make a point of indication that shipping times may vary between certain items in the package deal, then you might get away with using multiple suppliers.
OK, so I've used fishing here as an example, but this strategy can be adapted to pretty much any product/genre of products. So for those looking to create a POD with their drop shipping model, give that idea some thought.
