What is drop shipping?

Drop shipping is a supply chain management technique in which the retailer does not keep goods in stock, but instead transfers customer orders and shipment details to either the manufacturer or a wholesaler, who then ships the goods directly to the customer. As in all retail businesses, the retailers make their profit on the difference between the wholesale and retail price.

Drop shipping scams – how to avoid?

If you have a retail online company or a home based business, drop ship distribution suppliers can be the source of your products. However, it is important to find the right company for your business. This is especially true nowadays due to the increase in drop shipping scams.

If you choose a bad drop shipping supplier, you will waste a lot of time and money. In reality, the number of scam companies exceeds the original companies. Choosing a good, reputable drop shipping supplier is crucial if you want to avoid scams.

Searching for a reputable drop ship supplier online is certainly the best possible option for you. It saves you precious time and gives you the opportunity to compare companies. However, there are certain things to keep in mind while looking for a genuine drop ship company.

First of all, most of the drop shippers are not wholesale drop shippers at all. Rather, they are the middleman who advertise themselves as the drop shippers. Naturally, they fall short of the standards of actual drop shippers. Of course, the middle man, known as MLM, cannot offer you products a wholesale price. Either they will charge an additional subscription/ membership fee or they will charge you more than the usual wholesale fees.

This is easy to understand. The true wholesalers make their profit from the wholesale price that they offer. The middleman has to buy the products from them and naturally, can’t offer you the product at the same price.

In fact, this is one of the ways through which you can easily identify the fake drop shippers. Also, if a company is really a wholesale drop ship company, it will allow retailers to sell the products before the merchant pays them. So, to sum things up, you have to remember that a true wholesale drop ship company will not charge you any access or subscription fees. Also, they will offer you the product at the wholesale price. On the other hand, the fake ones will charge additional fees and charge you more than the actual wholesale price.

There are different ways to identify a true wholesale drop shipper. First of all, it should be a wholesale distributor that offers the additional service of drop shipping items anonymously on behalf of the retail merchant. Here, you have to remember that very few of the distributors are drop shippers; but if it is a drop shipper, it must be a wholesaler.

It is important to do a bit of research in this regard. Generally, real wholesale drop shippers have large inventory in stock and a huge infrastructure. When you are looking for the right company, you should ask a lot of questions before choosing a company. Also, there are scam review sites to ensure that you are not mislead when choosing a drop shipping supplier.

Ups and downs of drop shipping

Drop shipping is basically the process of buying and selling different products online. Often people think that it requires a complicated infrastructure, but in most cases it’s very simple. It requires a few essential key players and components.

The online reseller has the responsibility of promoting and marketing the products. The interesting part here is that as you are selling products online, so you don’t have products in inventory. In most cases, you will never see or touch the actual product.
Drop shipping reduces many risks, even during an economic downturn
Now the big question here is; how do the products sold online reach your customers? This is where the drop ship supplier comes into play. They provide you with the products and they also have the responsibility of storing your products. Yes, you don’t have the responsibility of storing the products you are selling. You don’t need to worry about maintaining a warehouse and stocking the products. Instead, you can focus on the promotion and marketing of the products.

There are several additional benefits of the drop shipping business model. You can start your business without making a big investment. One great advantage of this business model is that you don’t have to buy the product first hoping to sell it quickly. You only pay the drop shipping supplier, after a buyer has purchased your products and paid you completely. So, you don’t need to worry about whether people will buy your products or not. During bad economic times, retail stores are stuck with inventory.

With drop shipping, you as a reseller don’t need to worry about inventory risk because you don’t have any physical stock on hand. It’s the drop shipping company that stores all the inventory and bears the inventory risk.
The Down Side of the drop shipping model
Not every business model is perfect, including drop shipping. Here are the down sides of drop shipping. If you observe this business model carefully, you will find that the supplier plays a huge role here. This is why it is important to choose a company that will keep its promise on carrying quality products and providing reliable shipping. Most important, they should not upsell your customer. They control the packaging and shipping of the product to your customer. Some drop shipping companies, especially the middleman, will put product promotional materials in the shipped parcel to steal your customers.

Another drawback of drop shipping is that you don’t see the products first hand. You have to place all your trust on your supplier. If you choose an unreliable supplier, you will have unhappy customers and your business will suffer.

The following are a few tips to help you succeed with your drop shipping business. On your website you can offer coupon codes, newsletters, and free shipping on certain items. Seasonal discounts or holiday specials and promotions are always a good idea.
Website security is a must with the infinite number of viruses and spyware on the Internet.

In any type of business, there is always risk. The advantages of drop shipping outweigh the disadvantages of drop shipping. The cost and hassle of inventory storage is eliminated and shipping hassles are minimized. Doing research to find a good drop ship supplier will increase your chance of having a successful business.

Does Free Drop Shipping Exist?

Wholesale drop shipping has recently received a lot of hype for many reasons. There are numerous advantages of dealing with drop shipping companies. They will take your order and deliver the goods by arranging the shipping. In short, you hardly have any responsibility over the maintenance of the products and their delivery upon order when you have a drop shipping company. This allows you to focus on selling and marketing of the products.

Most would agree that drop shipping is very appealing. After all, it reduces your task and worries to a considerable degree. Also, you don’t have to worry about the payment. You pay the drop shipping company only after you sell the item. However, there are certain things you have to keep in mind while selecting the right drop shipping company. You may have heard about free drop shipping. It is important to find out which drop shipping companies offer free drop shipping.

The first thing you need to do is research. You will come across thousands of companies that may or may not promise free drop shipping. You must check and double check their claims. In this regard, market research is crucial and you should never proceed without it.

At the beginning stage of your business, you should focus on only a few things. It is important to focus on a niche that you are knowledgeable about. This will greatly improve your chance of succeeding in your business.

The next step is to look for a supplier that is trustworthy. These days, drop shipping has become very popular and there are thousands of websites offering this service. Be aware that there are numerous scams online so you must be very careful when choosing a drop shipping company.

You should also be prepared to face your competitors. There are several ways to overcome your rivals. For example, writing impressive product descriptions, offering online discounts, and seasonal promotions are methods that can increase sales.

In addition, you can join the better business bureau and offer different methods of payment. This can be very effective in building a good reputation for your company.

The majority of people are aware that a drop shipping company that offers free drop shipping is the most beneficial. You should avoid companies that charge a fee for drop shipping because a lot of these companies are scams. Extensive research is needed to find a good, free drop shipping company but your efforts will pay off due to reliable shipping and quality products.

Why Ebay Drop Shipping Sucks and will never work

Many people are starting their own online business due to the growing online market and low startup costs. This is why increasing numbers of people around the world are starting home based businesses every day.

To be successful in an online business, it’s essential to find a good drop shipping company that can provide you with high demand products. This is where most people take the wrong route.

Drop shipping companies are really important if you want to be successful doing an online business. However, there are plenty of drop shipping companies available on the Internet that are actually scams. It is very difficult to identify them unless you have done proper research. It is important to verify whether they have a written policy and what their policy actually means. If you are not careful, they can easily take advantage of your business.
Too many Ebay sellers and scams
Now, you may be shocked to learn that eBay can be one of the most dangerous places to sell your products on. Most people think otherwise and use eBay to start a drop shipping business. Ebay should be avoided. The reason is simple; there are too many people selling products on Ebay, from housewives to big reputable companies. With so many people drop shipping the same products, your business might be invisible.

You should remember that the biggest expense on your part here is the customer acquisition cost. In reality, you have to spend a lot of money for Ebay listings, for the photography, ads and more. Apart from their fees, using eBay consumes too much time. After all this effort, you end up giving away your customer information to the fulfillment center. Some drop shippers might even include their ad in their own parcel.

As you can see, dangers arise when dealing with Ebay. There are many Ebay sellers using fulfillment companies and these fulfillment companies in turn upsell to your own customers. You don’t want that to happen. This is why you have to ensure that the company has a written policy that clarifies these points clearly. Make sure, you find a real wholesale company that does blind drop shipping for you.
How to make yourself different from the Ebay sellers?
The best option is to sell the products as the representative of the manufacturer and have your own website. With your own website, you are building reputation and royalty with your customers. Besides, you don’t need to worry about Ebay fees anymore. With your own website you differentiate from all those resellers on eBay. EBay can be a great place to do business but you have to be very careful about what is happening with your customer information. After all, you don’t want others stealing your customer information and upselling to them.

It is important to do proper research beforehand. Drop shipping can be a very profitable way of doing business. You minimize costs by having no inventory and buying products at the drop ship or wholesale price and you pay the drop shipping company only after you have sold to your customer. In return, they will take care of packaging, shipping and other aspects on behalf of you.

Which drop shipping business is recession proof?

With the recession still looming, it has become very important to choose the right kind of business to pursue. There are different areas that have been considerably damaged due to the economic slowdown. If you are looking to start a new business, it is important that you choose the right sector.

For example, in our present economy, it will be a bad choice to start an electronics business. The electronics market has gone down considerably during the recession. With limited budgets, most people are focusing more on essential products and not on fancy luxury items such as electronics.

Most experts believe that beauty and health products have the potential to overcome the recession. The reasoning behind this is the fact that health and beauty products are essential and therefore inseparable parts of life. Naturally, people need beauty and health products regardless of economic conditions.

Recent trends have increased the importance of health and beauty among individuals. Now, more than ever, people are looking for ways to stay healthy and attractive. And the interesting part is most of the people are looking to buy the health products online.

Drop Shipping health and beauty products is a good strategy in our present economy. However, there is immense competition from businesses doing the same thing. This is why it is important to follow certain strategies to stay on track.

The first and most important thing is to make your business specific. Health and beauty is a huge area so you have to decide which particular niche you want to be in. For example, you can choose bath & body or beauty & medication or other categories. Also, you can combine a number of different categories if you like.

Once you have made up your mind, it is time to concentrate on the niche. However, it is wise to choose a niche in which you have considerable knowledge. After all, it will be easier for you to convince others if you have knowledge about a particular niche.

One problem with the health and beauty products category is that there are thousands of different products available. It is very important to choose quality, durable products or devices.

Drop Shipping has been shown to be very practical and cost effective during challenging economic times. Choosing a good drop shipping company with good products and reliable shipping will increase your chance of having a successful business.

Drop-Shipping Business : Tips and Facts To Succeed

Are you planning to start a new business on the Internet? Do you want to make it an instant success?

Then Drop Shipping is exactly the type of business for you. With drop shipping you only need a very low initial investment and you will never over-stock products you are selling. And you can easily find products on the web that sell really well.

Once you start your drop shipping business properly and skillfully there is no limit as to how far you can go.

But as you know, every business requires hard work and planning to make it a success, and drop shipping is no exception. Drop shipping requires a good foundation and a proper marketing plan to be successful.

The following are important points to follow to succeed in your drop shipping business over the web:

* After you start your drop shipping business, the first step is to create a good advertising plan. This is because drop shipping is all about reaching to the masses, and this can only be done by proper advertising. It is crucial to have a proper advertising plan.
* Since drop shipping does not require a high initial investment, we do not recommend designing a fancy and complicated website. It is more practical to spend your money on advertising to gain more popularity and more customers.
* Make yourself available to your customers. Ensure that your contact number is on your website and reveal your offline store address. Most customers like to look at the products before buying them so make sure your retail address is available.
* As a newbie in the web business industry, you must always keep Search Engines in mind, because most customers rely on search engines for choosing their dealers. If your company name shows up in the Search Engine Results Pages, your business is bound to do well. Use search engine optimization to promote your online business
* It is often seen that Search Engines only display websites which are more than a year old. This is done for reliability. All new websites that come in are put into a waiting area called a “sandbox” by the engines. These websites are only popped out after their maturity period. So you must keep this concept in mind.
* You can also do Pay Per Clicks advertising. With this method you will have to pay a little amount to the person who clicks on your advertisement, but this will increase traffic on your website and thus allow you to have a high ranking in Search Engines.
* You can submit your article to popular websites to get a good customer database. Advertise in them and watch your popularity grow.
* You can also advertise in local newspapers so that people become aware of your products. This way you can attract more people to your website as well as to your offline shops.
* You can choose to do telemarketing and post card marketing to promote your drop shipping services.

How to choose the right drop shipping company?

The first and thing that you have to take care of before starting a drop shipping company is to find the right source for your products. To simplify this task, there is a list of drop shipping companies. You can take advantage of these lists and directories to find your desired products at the right price.

Using the help of search engines can be very tricky here. Most sites that you find are actually the middleman. This is why it is preferable to use the drop shipping company list.

There are hundreds of different lists available. You have to pick the right list for the drop shipping company. To find the right list, you should check out the reviews and make sure that it is a confirmed list. This is very important as you should never pick up a non reviewed list.

You should always look at third party opinions. Often you will find directories showing drop shipping companies that are scams. It will be very difficult to spot them out unless you are aware of them. Third party reviews will give you more insight about the company. A tested and confirmed directory will save you time and increase your chance of doing drop shipping successfully.

One of the greatest advantages of doing drop shipping is that you don’t need to make a big investment when you start your business. This is the reason why many people have started making considerable amounts of income with very little capital. This is a major business opportunity made available as a result of the Internet.

Generally, you will find big reputable companies offering you a drop shipping program. In this case, you will have to purchase the products from the online vendor at their wholesale price and sell to your customers at the retail price. The advantage here is that you don’t have to stock or ship the product since that will be taken care of by the supplier.

How Proper Advertising can help you in Drop Shipping

Did you know that drop shipping is one of the easiest ways of starting a business? The best thing about this business is that the start-up cost is low and you will find that there are a lot of products which you can sell through the Internet. But if you really want to be successful in this business, you need to promote your business well.
Create an Advertising Plan
Before you start the business, you need to have a detailed advertising plan. If you don't advertise your products or services, less people will know about your business. You can easily get products and drop ship them, but if you do not have a concrete plan, you cannot communicate well with your customers. A good advertising plan is absolutely essential. In drop shipping, you can easily change the products that you are offering. Unlike a traditional business, where you need to keep track of stocked products and inventory, drop shipping will be a hassle-free affair.
Finding Good Customers
It does not really matter what you sell. The most important thing about drop shipping is that you need to find good customers. Think of your advertising plan which will attract customers. Once they know about your business, they will contact you. If you have a limited budget, you should spend the lion's share for advertisements. You can have a simple website with nice advertising. The customers will get to know about your services and they will contact you. Now the question remains how will the customers know about your services?
Be visible on Search Engines with Search Engine Marketing
It is the search engines through which the customers will get to know about your business. Once your company name is in the search engine, there will be no shortage of customers. Google, being the most popular among the search engines, can help you in this matter. Unless the name of your company is in search engines, you cannot start your business. Check the Search Engine Results Page or SERP from time to time to find out whether the name of your company has appeared in the rankings or not.

This whole process may take a year to take off. This is known as the ageing process. The website has to age for sometime. This is known as the buffer time when the search engines will determine whether the site is spam or not. The first time you launch a website, Google will put your website into a sandbox. This is not really a sandbox. But this is a process when new websites are put inside the box by search engines, unless they are old enough to appear in the rankings. So if you are starting a business, you should always consider the buffer time. Now that you have started a drop shipping business, you should think of the visibility of the site in the search engines.
Promote Your Drop Ship Business with Pay Per Click Advertisement
The factor of visibility will be determined by pay per click advertising. With the help of pay per click advertising, you will know whether the information about your company has appeared in search engines or not. This will take approximately about 15 minutes. During the first year of business, you will have to rely on pay per click advertising. This is a great way to find customers. The other source that will help you with the advertisement process are small consumer newspapers. This is probably the oldest and most traditional way of telling people about your business.

Drop Shipping Facts You Must Know Before Starting Online

Buying goods and services online is becoming increasingly popular. It's no surprise that increasing numbers of people are building websites and selling online. It is cost effective and time saving. At the same time, it will give you widespread exposure that you can never achieve with a traditional retail store. But there are certain steps that you have to take to ensure that your venture is a success. After all, there is very high competition when doing business online.
Analyze The Market Before Your Start Drop Ship Business
The first step is analyzing the market. This will give you an idea about what is popular and in demand. After you decide which products to sell, you will have to determine where you will store your inventory. Now, because of the nature of online stores, you can have a home office, but that can lead to a lack of space. The next thing to consider is to convince other online businesses that sell similar products to be your reseller.

There is another problem with suppliers. Most suppliers have a minimum order requirement which can be quite costly. What if you cannot afford to buy the minimum quantity? Even if you buy the minimum quantity, the products may not sell well.
Secure Your Business
Security is another issue. Home security must be beefed up because this is your office now. Also, you may have to buy some extra insurance to avoid loses due to disasters. Another concern is the shipping cost. There are two points here. First, you have to pay for the shipping of products to your house. Then, you have to pay for shipping to your customers. Finally, there is the problem of packaging and fulfilling the orders. Of course that is an expensive job and you may hire professionals for that as well or you may have to hire and train your employees. How can you avoid these risks?
Drop Shipping Makes Sense
Starting an online business is not as straightforward as it seems. The list of challenges seems to be quite long. Fortunately, there is a way to solve all these hassles. It is called drop shipping.

This is a method that helps you sell your products without stocking them. Naturally, that takes care of all the previous concerns that you had. The drop ship company will take care of shipping, packaging, as well as proper handling of the products.

To become a reseller, you have to first open a reseller account and pick up a distributor who offers drop shipping service. Of course, you may have to pay a drop ship fee to open the account. However, once the account is opened, you can start your business immediately. The drop ship partner will also deliver the products to your customer with your own labels and invoice.

Why is drop shipping so popular?

If you are planning to start an online business, then 'Drop shipping' is the new way to make money. This is a kind of retailing in which the retailer does not stock goods but he/she takes the order and shipment details from the customer and sends the details to the wholesaler who then delivers the order. The difference between the wholesale and the retail price of the product is profit for the retailer.
Top 5 Advantages of Drop Shipping
1. No need to buy goods or keep inventory:
In drop shipping, you can start your business by merely displaying the products for sale on your website without having to purchase the products. When you receive orders via email, forward it to the drop shipper by email who will then ship the products. There is no risk because you do not have to make a down payment to purchase inventory since you are not carrying inventory. The drop shipper (who ships products to your customers) will lose business if the products are not in demand. Some drop shippers charge a small fee to cover web hosting and advertising fees.
2. No Shipping Hassles:
The drop shippers will take care of shipping and delivering the products to your customers, so you will be able to focus on the marketing side of your business without any delivery worries.
3. No Warehouse Required:
As you are not storing any goods, there is no cost or hassles related to warehousing as well. This saves you from the problems of having to find a location to store your stock and pay monthly warehouse fees which will reduce your profits. The drop shipper will bear all these costs.
4. A flexible product catalogue:
You will be free to promote a wide range of products on the catalogue of your website. You might even tie up with more than one drop shipper and advertise different brands of the same product. However, in drop shipping, it is necessary that you focus on a certain category of goods and have a ‘core’ group of products on your website.
5. No Minimum Quantity Required on Orders:
Drop Shippers do not require a minimum quantity on orders. You can take bulk orders from online customers and then send them to the drop shipper one by one. Thus, it becomes very flexible as a business option.
Drop shipping is a flexible option for large and small businesses
To conclude, drop shipping is definitely a business option that you will want to consider as there are no hassles of stocking inventory or product delivery. On evaluating the above advantages, you will realize that drop shipping is a viable option for a small-business retailer. To be a Large retailer, you will need to have enough resources including a decent amount of capital to begin a business in the wholesaling mode. Drop shipping is a much more flexible and smarter option.