Wholesale list / Dropshipping / auction sites -Scam or not?

Let me start off by saying I have online selling experience and I am a powerseller on an auction site for a couple years now. I have never before looked into purchasing wholesale lists or even considered dropshipping becasue it is a well known fact they do not work and in my opinion and you will never make any real money. I have spent the last several weeks researching many websites & going through hundreds of wholesale lists and as I thought they are all scams.Everyone thinks that you will find that one secret list that has all the great wholesalers on it but the real truth is there are none. You will never get a real deal with any REAL supplier unless you are a multi-million dollar company. No small business owner will ever get a fair deal. You have to be buying items in the thousands to get items at a great profit gain. Every wholesale list I have seen is selling some useless items for cheap that no customer will buy from you or selling good items for retail value if not 10-20% more. -----Dropshipping one word- JOKE!-------auction sites- Many people say you cant make money on auction sites but that is not true- They want you to believe that (the auction site sellers) so you dont sell on auction sites and that way there is less sellers on the sites. Yes auction sites do take some of your profit-that is true but you also get millions of customers visiting those sites every day. You can make a nice income of $500-$2500 or more by simply buying items in lots or at non-peak times on these sites & reselling them on the exact same site for 50-100% mark-up.( TRUST ME IT WORKS ! ) If you use the right methods! ---Final word- Be carefull of all these wholesale sites trying to make money from you by selling there items to you that will ony sit in your basement or garage and on top of that they charge you a memberships fee to buy there junk. Salehoo in my opinion is the only site I have came across where you can get some decent info & tips on ways to get a fair deal & maybe turn a profit. all of the listed info above is my opinion and if you disagree or agree feel free to reply & state you opinion. Wish you all success. :roll:

I agree dropshipping is a lot of work for small profit. just a few out of stock items or shipping problem and your reputation is shot. Because you have no control of inventory or shipping. Many e-bay sellers have for a long time used Doba or One source as their suppliers. But they cost money to join. I would never pay the price just to see their offers.
You see on Oprah or some other show how someone turned 500.00 into millions starting from their garage. Those stories are 1 success out of millions of other failures. Unfortunately, the age old saying is still very much true,
It takes money to make money. :(
Its hard to turn 500 into 10,000. But a bit easier to turn 10,000 into
100,000. Because you have money to float your business till it has time to succeed. Just my thoughts... :wink:

TRUE! TRUE! TRUE!. I Agree- Dropshipping is alot of work for little profit but mostly for no profit. The only one that profits is -The dropshipping company. You do all the hard work & sell there items & they reap the profits-lol.I had a free trail offer membership on one dropshipping site just to see what the prices were like & what product they had and it was a JOKE!. There items were mostly all junk & there prices were the same as any retail store if not more. Even if you found a couple good items & tryed to sell them on a auction site & made a few dollars you would still be at a loss after you pay your auction site fees & dont forget the dropshipping membership fee / handling fee - you would be lucky if you had 2 cents left for yourself. Wholesale lists & site are the same. Most of the items you see on wholesale sites say retails $79.95 our price $34.95- Retail $79.95???? Where did they get that price from- You can go to your local retail store & find the same item for under $40 or auction sites for under $20. Even if you are fortunate like some of us & have lets say $50,000 to invest & buy product to sell online you still wont get a deal unless you are a huge retail chain. You think if you contacted sony or nintendo & wanted to purchase a few hundred or even thousand units they would do business with you-think again they wouldent even give you the time of day- The only true way to make a living is the old fashion mom & pop shop way, Buying a coffee franchise or convenience store franchise at your local mall-plaza / food court or any small business that you are interest in. It is a lot of hard work but you will see real profits at the end of the day & if you have a good business plan & good business partner(s) you could even have few more stores & employees in just a few years.-Online business are hard to make a profit because most people dont even have a business licence & that way most REAL companies wont even do business with you. The only people who will do business with you are the so-called wholesale sites/middleman who have already marked up the items by 20% or crooks selling wholesale lists- Those are the only people making any profits- So be carefull & good luck - You'll need it.

YOu can still make good money on auctions but it takes the right thing, the right investment, the right supplier, a hell of a good storefront and ads...more mula..etc. etc.

I think the newest trend is everyone is turning into a middleman wholesaler. Less work. Not as much profit but no losses. Quick turn around. NO stopping auctions cause u have to many up or didnt sell the right ratio/vs right feedback, no complaints from customers that want 200$ things for .99 I think in 5 years well see liquidation.com turn into a new type of ebay. I want stock bad! I couldnt get my hands on that ebay stock when it went public...darnit!

I,M new to all this and i want to thank you guys for all your warning and advice. It sure will help me to make my final decisions.

Ken

as a very interesting post, to meditate

thank you very much.

Hello ,
I just want to warn every one about dropshipping.I purchased an item from Rafels wholesale. I thought I was buying wholesale but when I went to sell it on my ebay store. I found out that other stores were selling it for 1/2 the price that it cost me.


Russ.

Hello ,
I just want to warn every one about dropshipping.I purchased an item from Rafels wholesale. I thought I was buying wholesale but when I went to sell it on my ebay store. I found out that other stores were selling it for 1/2 the price that it cost me.


Russ.

Don't feel bad as alot of folks make that mistake. Keep in mind that before you purchase any products for sale, to always do a 'completed listings' search on ebay to see what the item is actually selling for at the time. This way you will know ahead of time what you can expect the item to sell for and therefore what you should be willing to pay for the item before you list it for sale..

I also use 'hammertap' to research the market items that I'm interested in selling.

Maybe I'm wrong,but the more I read on the forums,the more I think that I just paid money to read forums.And what people are saying about every idea I had,makes me want to just give up on my crazy idea of making money on Ebay! I paid to get dropshippers and merchandise to sell on Ebay. Do I hit the cancel subscription button NOW??

Don't get me wrong,I appreciate the knowledge I'm getting in the forums.Thanks!

You'd be crazy to cancel your subsciption here! The information & the knowledge people bring to the table here is invaluable. You will learn everything you could possibly want to know about online retailing in these forums. Nowhere else will people be as honest & as up front about their experiences as here.

Everyone makes mistakes, looses some money & has had nightmare scenarios with trying to start a business. You live & learn & move on to be smarter, wiser & more profitable!

Just my 2 cents.

thats exactly what I'm saying! the info and knowledge seems to be the only thing worth my money I spent for this site.
In fact,after reading several forums, and just recently losing almost all my sells money to Ebay, I feel like I'm losing the battle.
I just closed my store on Ebay today. Between ebay and pay pal almost all my winnings went to them! Im very unhappy at the moment! All I learned is to NOT sell a damn thing on Ebay! Might as well have gave it to charity.

I totally agree with you about ebay, I don't sell on ebay and i don't use paypal they just got too greedy. I now sell my stuff on ebid.net. I am a life time member which means it only cost me a few pence to sell my gear. You want to try them.

Good luck

Ken

biztradernet,
what auction sites do you use which you can buy wholesale products from and sell back to and also make profit? Thanks!!!

Ken,

Please give me a basic break down of Ebid.net please. Ebay is killing me. They are collecting 3 fees(Listing, Final Fee, Monthly Fee) on there and they own Paypal too(Fourth Fee). Does Ebid have a lot of traffic and can I make a good profit there? Thank you so much for anyones assistance

Steve D

Hi, I'm new here, and after reading the forums I feel a little discouraged. I'm planning on selling on ebay....but i'm just curious now, is there anyone here that has succeeded with any of these wholesalers and dropshippers? I would really like to hear some success stories. thanks

Yea theres lots of knowledge here on warnings about dropshippers and stuff, but no one tells anyone where to go to get products that they can use to make profit on ebay or anywhere else. I am willing to spend money, but where the hell do I get products? I just want to start selling something that will make me profit! I already have sold some memory sticks, but I sold them at a loss. I just wanted to see if there was potential in selling products, and I found that to be true. In 1 day I sold 5 of the memory sticks. But all I need now is a good supplier, can anyone just recommend one so I can start selling products? If you're a powerseller, you must have some good contacts, willing to share some with me?

I would like to say a few things about this first off I agree with you guys 100%you search for hours and all you find is a dead end .To be honest salehoo was the best thing I have found until I found a REAL dropshipping company they are awesome and they guarantee all there products to be cheaper than Ebay some by like 40 to 50 dollars but most are in the 20 to 30 dollar range they guarantee that there products will always be in stock as well any way they are opening up a new website this month and I guarantee you they will be making an IMPACT.

One more thing I am not supposed to reveal there name but I will tell you this they specialize in electronics I know the market is full of them HOWEVER when you have the lowest priced product and can still make a big profit then your ok mostly phones,cameras stereos ect

There are a couple of dropshippers I have found which you can load up you store and make some coin from but i have to add other stuff to. I just let them sit in my store and drive traffic with other items.

Also, I have found a couple of computer parts online stores where I can presale items. They get them to me fast enough where I can deliver them to my customer within the week generally.

HI MY FRIENDS OF SALEHOO COMMUNITY, i am a new Member and my English is not the best, but i read very good, writhing not so good.

My name is Werner and reside in Austria - Europe. I am new to salehoo and was hoping I could start out by drop shipping and when I reach a certain point I could take that money and invest it in buying in bulk volume . However, anyone please kindly to guide me how should i get started with dropshipping?I like to find a supplier, drop shipper in Europe so i don't buy import taxes to get the stuff to my customers.

Hi, I'm new here, and after reading the forums I feel a little discouraged. I'm planning on selling on ebay....but I'm just curious now, is there anyone here that has succeeded with any of these wholesalers and dropshippers? I would really like to hear some success stories. thanks

If you have read through the forums you will find allot of useful information on products,Drop shipper and wholesalers. I understand that you may feel a bit overwhelmed by what you are reading but this is not the end of the line. Were teaching you a common truth about how online selling is.

You can buy countless list after countless list but unless you know how to really make money online those lists are worthless. Back in 2002 a Wholesale list was the greatest thing ever. But with 5 million people looking for the same thing and trying to sell the same thing those lists became pretty useless. Now the internet is rampant with scammers and thieves trying to take your money.It just makes things very hard for some and they give up.


Now to find good deals you have to search your heart out and hope that after a ton of research you can find a good supplier that has a few products you can make money on.

But many wholesale lists also have lists of Liquidators. Buying liquidations is the best way to acquire products cheap.

Every wonder where that item you got as a gift and didn't like, so you took it back and returned it for the money? It goes right to a liquidator. Ever wonder what retailers do with those display models?( eg cameras,vacuum cleaners,kitchen appliances, pots and pans or the clothes on a mannequin or even boxes that get dented but the item inside is perfect. )

They all get liquidated as they are considered unsellable to a retailer. These items get liquidated by the truckload to an authorized Broker then distributed to a liquidator. The prices are only a percentage of retail. Then sold by the pallet to a small buyer like yourselves. You then have a pallet of products you can resell on places like ebay for profits.

But dont just think of selling on ebay. There is way to many places you can sell your items and make profits. Ebay was the best place to sell items. It is not the best place anymore. Everything sells at its wholesale price there. Many items you can sell for much better if you used other methods.