Hi I would like to start my own retail website with my products being drop shipped. Basically i want to create a small retail website (using cscart) and have all my products be drop shipped from a supplier directly to my customer . I have been looking into this more and looking at potential drop shipping directories (world wide brands,etc) Does anyone have any experience with or how to go about doing something like this?
There’s a lot of stories abound about making fortunes doing what you’ve described. “Create a website, find a drop shipper, never touch the inventory, and you’re rich!”. Your only investment is the $5-10 to host a website. If only it were that easy…
The basic essence of this formula is used in some regards by my company. We work with drop shippers (along with other sources) and we never once touch that inventory. But here’s the reality
a. Any drop shipping directories available are going to be terribly oversaturated with 1000 other people doing what you’re hoping to do. You’re not going to make a penny. I struggle to find many companies who do drop shipping. I attend trade shows and I’m lucky to find 1 in 50 companies who’ll drop ship (and even at that, they only want to deal with the big fish).
b. Drop shipping for any ‘mass appeal’ product like electronics is again, a losing game. The margins are too low to begin with.
c. You must be including some ‘value added service’. Your website is no longe enough. This can be informational or, in our case, offering other hard to find products that we do hold inventory of (and so customers buy this and then the ‘drop shipped’ addons. Regardless, you must offer something beyond price.
Thank you for your response votrechien. What are some good methods about finding reputable drop shippers? I would like to create a site where everything is pretty much automated. The customer submits their order on my website (cscart shopping cart solution) and pays me. Then an email is sent to my drop shipper with info about the order and the mailing address and they fulfill the order and send it out to the customer. And the drop shipper either invoices me or charges my credit card on file. Is this a way it can be done?
i can recommend one place try salehoo.com they have a whole list of suppliers who you can trust eg each supplier comes with a review of them so yea and you can arrange it by country too
its only a one-time fee but its worth it as ive got an account with them.
Have you thought of selling digital products in a specific niche so that you can really market to a set target market? That way, the products are yours… and you can set up everything to happen automatically via a script and autoresponder.
Products… find good plr products in your niche and spend some time to personalize them. Then they’re unique to you.
No packaging, no shipping, no outsiders… sleep easy!
Worldwidebrands is okay but could be shaky. I found my favorite long time supplier on there back in the day for my eBay business, another one I partnered with thru there caused me nothing but issues especially with backordered goods and response times.
I see…is there a way to make a automated drop shipping site? Like someone places their order on my site and pays thru my payment gateway. And it automatically sends an email to my supplier to ship the product to my customer instead of me having to manually order a product from my supplier when a customer submits and order on my site? So maybe my supplier can just charge my cc or invoice me?