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In this topic, i'm going to give a FULL rundown on what dropshipping is and how you can start doing it right now.
Before I started dropshipping I had heard of it or years but never really cared to delve into it. If I had known the amazing profit potential of it I would have started it YEARS ago. I absolutely love it because it gives me something useful to do while I'm waiting for my trades to turn a profit. I mostly swing trade so it's not a time-consuming task.
What is dropshipping?
Dropshipping is an extremely simple concept. You find a product to sell online and list it on eBay, Amazon, or your own online store but you list it for higher than it costs you in the first place. Pretty standard business stuff but the hitch is that most people including me drop ship items that we find at retail price and mark it up. A bit of retail arbitrage if you will. Once a person buys your product you buy it from the original retailer and have it shipped to the person who bought it from you
Simple example: Find a lawnmower for $279 on Amazon and list it on eBay for $399. Joe Blow buys the lawnmower from you on eBay and pays you $399. You buy it on Amazon and have it shipped to Joe Blow and keep the difference.
For the sake of simplicity, we'll say your profit would be $119. In reality, your profit would be less than that due to eBay and PayPal fees and of course shipping and tax. You would still walk away with a tidy profit and it only takes the time to fill out the order form to have it ship it to your customer.
I started dropshipping after a random youtube video piqued my interest. I listed a few items on eBay and then started using a dropshipping software and within a week I had turned a $600 profit. It was pretty cool. Of course, I then went absolutely crazy with it and listed a lot more products for sale. It's pretty cool when you start to have five to ten orders per day all generating at least $500/day.
You can use eBay or Amazon for your dropshipping "store" or start an online store using software like Shopify. I prefer eBay.
Pro Tips:
ALWAYS list high priced items: Higher priced items give you a better chance of making big bucks and way faster. If you list little penny any things for a $5 profit you'll never make any real money. BUT, if you list sofas you can make $150 profit on one sale. Try furniture, lawn equipment, musical instruments, etc.
Be careful with over-sized items: Over-sized items are shipped by freight trucks so they need to be scheduled for delivery. The problem with this is that you are not the recipient of the shipment. Your customer is. You have to contact the buyer and set up a good time to receive it. Also, returns are damn near impossible on items that large. It's just a hassle. If you don't believe me go ahead and list some 3 piece furniture sets and see what happens.
The way I have found to combat this is to look at the buyer's contact information in your PayPal account and snatch up their phone number. Use that phone number when you're buying the product. You will be asked to provide a phone number for the shipment. Use the buyer's phone number instead of your own.
These are two great tools for dropshipping:
Easync
Black Lister
ALWAYS make buyers pay instantly: If you choose to go the eBay route make sure you add an immediate payment clause to every listing. If you don't you'll get a ton of fake orders from people who are trying to get you to ship an item to them without having paid for anything.
Be a problem solver: When you dropship you have to deal with a lot of problems like unfulfillable orders, returns, etc. If you aren't a problem solver this won't work for you. Just like Wall Street.
I once had a listing for prepaid phones and a buyer bought 10 of them at one time. Amazon only had 8 in stock so I had to scramble around the internet and find another two to ship to my customer. I found the other two elsewhere and everything was fine. Most people can't do that. You put one hurdle in front of people and they are paralyzed. A small percentage of the population will spring into action as soon as a problem appears.
If you've been around in the world of drop shipping for any amount of time you've probably heard of virtual assistants.
If you haven't then I will give a brief rundown of what a virtual assistant is.
Virtual assistants are people that work for you that you never actually meet. Oftentimes they work from a remote location nowhere near you.
They can be utilized for fulfilling orders, listing, and customer service. When you have grown to a larger scale operation you will definitely require virtual assistants.
I will add that you DO NOT need VA's until your store has started to become significantly profitable and is getting too big to handle on your own.
Most dropshippers use Filipino virtual assistants simply because they are affordable and reliable.
If you are looking to hire a virtual assistant or two you can check out OnlineJobs.ph
Here's a video from one of the biggest names in the dropshipping world, Marc Augustine. He has a YouTube channel FULL of videos on dropshipping.
Before I started dropshipping I had heard of it or years but never really cared to delve into it. If I had known the amazing profit potential of it I would have started it YEARS ago. I absolutely love it because it gives me something useful to do while I'm waiting for my trades to turn a profit. I mostly swing trade so it's not a time-consuming task.
What is dropshipping?
Dropshipping is an extremely simple concept. You find a product to sell online and list it on eBay, Amazon, or your own online store but you list it for higher than it costs you in the first place. Pretty standard business stuff but the hitch is that most people including me drop ship items that we find at retail price and mark it up. A bit of retail arbitrage if you will. Once a person buys your product you buy it from the original retailer and have it shipped to the person who bought it from you
Simple example: Find a lawnmower for $279 on Amazon and list it on eBay for $399. Joe Blow buys the lawnmower from you on eBay and pays you $399. You buy it on Amazon and have it shipped to Joe Blow and keep the difference.
For the sake of simplicity, we'll say your profit would be $119. In reality, your profit would be less than that due to eBay and PayPal fees and of course shipping and tax. You would still walk away with a tidy profit and it only takes the time to fill out the order form to have it ship it to your customer.
I started dropshipping after a random youtube video piqued my interest. I listed a few items on eBay and then started using a dropshipping software and within a week I had turned a $600 profit. It was pretty cool. Of course, I then went absolutely crazy with it and listed a lot more products for sale. It's pretty cool when you start to have five to ten orders per day all generating at least $500/day.
You can use eBay or Amazon for your dropshipping "store" or start an online store using software like Shopify. I prefer eBay.
Pro Tips:
ALWAYS list high priced items: Higher priced items give you a better chance of making big bucks and way faster. If you list little penny any things for a $5 profit you'll never make any real money. BUT, if you list sofas you can make $150 profit on one sale. Try furniture, lawn equipment, musical instruments, etc.
Be careful with over-sized items: Over-sized items are shipped by freight trucks so they need to be scheduled for delivery. The problem with this is that you are not the recipient of the shipment. Your customer is. You have to contact the buyer and set up a good time to receive it. Also, returns are damn near impossible on items that large. It's just a hassle. If you don't believe me go ahead and list some 3 piece furniture sets and see what happens.
The way I have found to combat this is to look at the buyer's contact information in your PayPal account and snatch up their phone number. Use that phone number when you're buying the product. You will be asked to provide a phone number for the shipment. Use the buyer's phone number instead of your own.
These are two great tools for dropshipping:
Easync
Black Lister
ALWAYS make buyers pay instantly: If you choose to go the eBay route make sure you add an immediate payment clause to every listing. If you don't you'll get a ton of fake orders from people who are trying to get you to ship an item to them without having paid for anything.
Be a problem solver: When you dropship you have to deal with a lot of problems like unfulfillable orders, returns, etc. If you aren't a problem solver this won't work for you. Just like Wall Street.
I once had a listing for prepaid phones and a buyer bought 10 of them at one time. Amazon only had 8 in stock so I had to scramble around the internet and find another two to ship to my customer. I found the other two elsewhere and everything was fine. Most people can't do that. You put one hurdle in front of people and they are paralyzed. A small percentage of the population will spring into action as soon as a problem appears.
If you've been around in the world of drop shipping for any amount of time you've probably heard of virtual assistants.
If you haven't then I will give a brief rundown of what a virtual assistant is.
Virtual assistants are people that work for you that you never actually meet. Oftentimes they work from a remote location nowhere near you.
They can be utilized for fulfilling orders, listing, and customer service. When you have grown to a larger scale operation you will definitely require virtual assistants.
I will add that you DO NOT need VA's until your store has started to become significantly profitable and is getting too big to handle on your own.
Most dropshippers use Filipino virtual assistants simply because they are affordable and reliable.
If you are looking to hire a virtual assistant or two you can check out OnlineJobs.ph
Here's a video from one of the biggest names in the dropshipping world, Marc Augustine. He has a YouTube channel FULL of videos on dropshipping.
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