Ups and Downs of dropshipping.

been doing this for over 12 months now so I feel, yeah, maybe a bit experienced

Ups.

No stock to purchase and carry, store.
No Postage worries.
no packing and labeling.
No need for additional staff to do all these.
No big trucks pulling up outside.
Money you receive after paying for everything is basily yours.
No Wages.

DOWNS.

drophipper runs out of stock and does not inform you
postal delays and no notice.
price changes and no noticification, hence you sell at loss
poor quality product but described well.
no one talks to you at wholesalers.
shipping costs overpriced.
presale stock taking long time.

These are only a few of the things I have found, the worst dropshipper I have found would be a quite well known chinese electronics mob.

I am happy with my wholesaler, they say they have a list of a couple thousand resellers but I am their number one.
I also have a direct line to one of the marketing people, she is the one that looks after me, any problems and she fixes it, she also gives me special deals, on some occassions I could sell the same product as them for cheaper than they did.

I hope to increase my listing and hope to incorporate it with them somehow so I can keep upto date with them

Thanks for sharing what you have learned in your 1st 12 months, AGS! I'm sure my aspiring online sellers especially newbies will find this quite helpful. Nothing beats first-hand experience :)

Really glad to read that you have found a reliable supplier to work with.

To more success and sales! Cheers :)

It's great to see feedback from a member who has moved past looking for suppliers and into actually using them, but when I look at these lists I see:

UPS: things that make business a little easier, but cost money

DOWNS: things that make business a p.i.t.a., and cost money.

More power to you, of course; I'm just continually baffled at how anybody can survive on the dropship model. I've been trying to work out how to offer dropshipping on an upcoming site of mine, but can just never make the numbers work on any of the lower-priced stuff -- sellers would just about have to be moving it at a running loss in hopes of selling more expensive products. Unless you have a secondary business model (services or other products being sold to the customer base, affiliate commissions etc.) dropshipping just seems like a money pit where almost all of the benefit is passed on to the company warehousing and shipping the product, with the marketer and the customer getting the shaft when it comes to prices, shortages, etc.


Frank

no idea how it works on their side, they do offer a discount of 5,10 and 15% depending on how much you sell.

I get 15% all the time plus extra discounts to help me compete.

I also try to get around 35% more than my purchase price to cover ebay, paypal and anything else that asks for cash, but saying that I am flexible, if I am selling a big ticket item thenI try for enough to cover fees and then a little bit extra, I am not greedy, no use putting $350 on top of a $1000 item when others have got it cheaper.

I am realy happy with my dropshipper and plan on visiting them soon

Honestly, I think that's great -- I hope you'll share more of your strategies and experience as they develop. From this and other wholesale forums I gather that a lot of people trying to dropship are spinning their wheels; it's truly nice to hear of someone making a success of it.


Frank