How to Make a Decent Profit With Dropshipping

Okay, I have been a member for about a week. I have read many posts, read the articles, and researched other sites about dropshipping. I have looked at many suppliers on this site, other sites, and have done my own digging. From what I can tell, the margins are too low to make any decent money. I know you have to find a niche, but the profit margins still seem very low to be worth the time and effort. Does anyone really make any money dropshipping?

Hi David and welcome to the forum,

You're absolutely right, dropshipping margins are tight at the very best of times, people tend to use that platform as a cheap way into the market because of low to no cashflow. Those with cashflow tend to look to wholesale avenues to secure better margins on products.

That said, is it possible to make money from drop shipping? Well that's kind of an open ended question, really. Probably depends on how you quantify the term "make money" Those that are successful at making most from dropshipping tend to use the saturation method, that is list a load of products. Of course the theory being that the more you have listed, the more chances you have of getting multiple sales.

That strategy can work, but it also has it's pitfalls as well. You still need to ensure your products are well placed in the market, that is competively priced, your branding and service is on point and you've essentially ticked all the boxes to give yourself the best chances of making sales. Then on top of that, you also have to be aware of listing fees, because on a site such as an eBay, you're paying to list if a product sells or not.

On your own website, that's not an issue, so you can stock your own website to the ceiling with dropshipped products and that's where I personally think dropshipping works best. Of course then you need to drive the traffic to your website or no matter how well it's stocked, you're not going to be making many sales.

At first, I was looking at dropshipping through ebay and Amazon. That's really the only method I've ever known people to do and make any money at all. Then, after getting an EIN and a business license and a million other legal matters taken care of, I started to realize that I have everything I need to make my own website and it would only cost a bit more and then I wouldn't need to pay a million fees, taking money from my sells. And with an original name and some good inspiration, I figure it might go pretty well with some time and dedication!

Granted, I've been working on the website for about a week, including picking a niche, locating and talking to suppliers, googling trends, drafting the perfect "About Me" page and trying to complete the seemingly endless process of creating menus. I've also been contacting graphic designers and photographers to see if I can get some charity work or low cost work done for more visual content on the website.

So enough about that long drug out process. I guess my question now is, and I think this may help answer the original posters' original question, what are the best ways to drive traffic to your site? And by best, I would say, "best bang for my buck." And what is, "my buck?" Like is advertising something I'm going to have to spend thousands of dollars on in the first few months, or is it something that you can get a lot for more effort than money? Any advice or knowledge on the subject is appreciated!

Hi Cameron andf welcome to the forum,

I don't know in regards to the best bang for your buck criteria, but my own personal opinion is you need a combination marketing strategy to be most effective. SEO, Social Media, niche forum marketing and using sites like eBay as a traffic driver can all work really well as part of an over all strategy.

It all comes down to money of course, but things like niche forum marketing and sales funnel avenues are at the free to cheap end of the scale, where as SEO is at the expensive end.

So it all comes down to marketing budget as to where it is best spent for maximum spend impact.