Dropshipping Issues - Advise Needed

I have been drop shipped with SaleHoo for last 8 months since June 2016 and I make zero selling. Drop ship doesn't work. I lost at lease $5000 in building websites, paid for apps, for Facebook & Google Edward to promote the products, for expert people, and for different suppliers.

Hi Socheata, I'm sorry to hear that you haven't had any success over that period, but where it is obviously not working for you for whatever reason, it does work for others.

It's not as simple as just throwing money at it to make it work, you have to be selective with the products you choose to drop-ship, and that's just the start. Are you trying to sell products in a heavily competitive market where you are competing against wholesale buyers, ever wholesalers themselves?

It's situations like that where drop-shipping is always going to be virtually impossibly to compete without employing some smart marketing techniques to improve or to at least give you a chance in that type of marketplace. There is a place for drop-shipping, but it's not always where people want it to be.

I understand where you are coming from beautifulyou187. Before I became a supplier, I drop shipped for more than five years and I had several different ecommerce sites.

Many times products can become a race to the bottom if you choose to sell an item that doesn't have MAP pricing. I experienced that with my TASER site. Started out making profit of $200+ per sale. Eventually it dropped to $35/sale. I suggest looking for niche products that have a high profit potential and not a lot of competitors selling that brand.

It's easy to quickly spend a lot of money on PPC advertising. Concentrate the advertising on your high profit items, and micro target your PPC target markets. You will receive less clicks on your site, but they will be better prospects.

Don't worry about creating an app for your store. You're not Amazon (yet). Market through social media. It's time consuming, but it's cheap and effective.

Remember, it takes time to build your store's reputation. Concentrate on SEO. It's not a quick solution, but in the long run, this pays off big time.

Hope this helps!

Layne

I feel this frustration too. I have listed well over 100 items pertaining to all of the things I have sold on my eBay account. Nothing from suppliers has sold, it has only been from my own collections of things I was already selling. I have made almost zero dollars in drop shipping and I have spent about $400, which, where I'm at, that's a LOT of capital.
It is frustrating because there are promises EVERYWHERE that you can learn drop shipping in 5 minutes, make profits in a week, and quite your job in 6 months time because you'll be smooth sailing! Anyone who has done this for over 1 month knows that is not the case. You have to learn all about marketing (which is a drag....but so is having a boring job!) and you have to apply that knowledge you gain to a niche and there will be a learning curve. It takes a long time with some people. With me especially because I can't stand all of the marketing jargon.
It all boils down to what do you want? Do you want to keep going with this and maybe possibly someday make sales after years of fine tuning your knowledge, or do you want to stop all of this and make a guaranteed amount of cash, no more no less. Which is what you do with a 'normal' job.

During my days as a drop shipper, I learned that building a web store, or listing on Amazon and eBay is just the beginning to success. Essentially, as a drop shipper, you are a marketer. Everything you do online is to drive traffic to your store.

Spending money on advertising is the easiest way to drive traffic. "rjennett89" says spending $400 is a lot of money. He is right. Especially when you aren't making sales or profit. I suggest you spend your advertising dollars on high dollar profit items. Don't pay for advertising on an item that will earn you a net profit of under $50.

As a drop shipper, you need to realize that you are essentially marketers. Selling exclusively on eBay or Amazon could be a race to the bottom. Everybody undercutting each other to make a sale. Instead, market on social media, article write with links to your site and come up with creative ways to drive traffic to your site. Give people a reason to visit your site. Understand and implement SEO and SEM techniques.

Once you realize that your job is really marketing, you will have more sales. That's why you earn a profit on product that you sell, but never actually own. You have to SELL it!

I say this from experience. I drop shipped for 5+ years through four different websites. Never sold on eBay or Amazon, and made enough money that I was able to become a manufacturer.

Don't worry guys, it's not going to happen over night, but it will happen if you keep at it.

Hope this helps.