Dropship Related Q's.

[mrka]

I have been doing a lot of research on dropshipping. Something I considered 10 years ago but it seems now more things are aligned despite the apparent over saturation (which I believe to be a good thing - if you are creative).

I just want to get a few things straight:

Most standard dropshipped products are unbranded and will take 3 weeks to arrive to let's say the UK? Does this not bother the customer? If it's say a phone charger or dog lead (typical dropshipped products). In the age of Amazon 1 day delivery I can't see how setting up a dropshipping business with this type of timeframe will be profitable or yield a good customer experience? Not to mention all the import charges hassle the customer has to deal with? Adding on an extra week whilst the customer makes sense of what import charges are.

With that said do people as standard now either buy in bulk and ship to their home/office etc and post in their local market and as well if in different markets (america/asia/africa) use fulfilment centres? Which at this point it's not really dropshipping because you are investing in stock?

Branding vs none branded products. If you go down the branded / private label product route, is it always best to have your own branded website portal as well as 3rd party like Amazon etc..

Thanks.

 

[Mr D]

If timescale bothers you then buy from a company closer to your market.
Prices will be higher but delivery will be in around 2 weeks.

 

[mrka]

If timescale bothers you then buy from a company closer to your market.
Prices will be higher but delivery will be in around 2 weeks.

Well this is it. Not everything is available in closer markets. Plus if I do find what I want, it's most likely a middle man. Staying clear from them as much as possible.

 

[intheTRADE]

You are on a long road to nothing if you are dropshipping a couple of dollars phone chargers from China to the end customer. I cannot imagine many, if any, would wait so long for such products when they can buy them for a couple of quid and get next day delivery from Prime.

Dropshipping for high value items £200-300 plus can work and people will wait for delivery.

Anything below £50 I suggest buying in bulk to start with and flog them through FBA

 

[Mr D]

Most dropshipping companies will be middlemen.

If you want to buy in the stock and store it, in sufficient quantity, then you can avoid the middlemen.
And you will be buying by the container or multiple pallets.

One of my smaller items I can avoid the middleman and buy from producer directly.
So rather than buying a pack of 25 I can buy 10,000 of the item. I sell around 30 of them a year.
10,000 of them however would be a saving of 30p per item! It would however tie up a major chunk of money on one single design product. That may or may not still be viable as a product in 10 years time.


Or you can buy from the middlemen in bulk - say a packet, a carton, a pallet - and pay less than you would dropshipping.

 

[mrka]

You are on a long road to nothing if you are dropshipping a couple of dollars phone chargers from China to the end customer. I cannot imagine many, if any, would wait so long for such products when they can buy them for a couple of quid and get next day delivery from Prime.

Dropshipping for high value items £200-300 plus can work and people will wait for delivery.

Anything below £50 I suggest buying in bulk to start with and flog them through FBA

I DID NOT SAY I AM DOIGN THIS.
I used for example and you have just proven my example right. Please read the text carefully befor making me feel stupid.

 

[mrka]

ok so most people are using fulfilment centres or their own homes then? Which is not really dropshipping at this point.

 

[thetiger2015]

ok so most people are using fulfilment centres or their own homes then? Which is not really dropshipping at this point.

No. Lots of people start with dropshipping, get everything set up properly and then move to fulfilment centres to improve delivery times. Eventually hoping to scale up to their own warehouse.

If you're shipping from overseas, you're going to need to pick your products carefully and ensure customers are willing to wait for them. If the products are low value, customers tend to be more demanding and want it now. If it's an unusual wooden table from Japan, they'll wait longer for delivery.

Price and shipping times are important, if you're entering a competitive market.

There are lots of UK based dropshippers, with next day delivery options - it's just there's no barrier to entry. Anyone can buy from your supplier and I've found lots of these places actually sell on eBay and Amazon themselves.

Be careful with low value products in general. It's very tempting but the margins are tiny and if they start going missing in the post, any profit you've made gets wiped out.

 

[mrka]

No. Lots of people start with dropshipping, get everything set up properly and then move to fulfilment centres to improve delivery times. Eventually hoping to scale up to their own warehouse.

If you're shipping from overseas, you're going to need to pick your products carefully and ensure customers are willing to wait for them. If the products are low value, customers tend to be more demanding and want it now. If it's an unusual wooden table from Japan, they'll wait longer for delivery.

Price and shipping times are important, if you're entering a competitive market.

There are lots of UK based dropshippers, with next day delivery options - it's just there's no barrier to entry. Anyone can buy from your supplier and I've found lots of these places actually sell on eBay and Amazon themselves.

Be careful with low value products in general. It's very tempting but the margins are tiny and if they start going missing in the post, any profit you've made gets wiped out.

I don't see how it's possible to start with low to med priced products as standard drop shipping in this day and age.. (wait time of 3 weeks and hassle if import charges). Maybe 10 years ago but in the age of amazon and now middle men and factories already being warehoused over here I don't see how it's possible... Surly the biggest factor is delivery time.. 1 or 2 days over 3 weeks... ?

Surly private label is the way to go and investment in stock ready to be shipped? or just invest in in plain stock and warehouse it yoursef?

 

[wayzgoose]

I don't use any overseas dropshippers and all our parcels are despatched same or next day. Plenty of UK companies will do that for you. Just need to research.

 

[mrka]

I don't use any overseas dropshippers and all our parcels are despatched same or next day. Plenty of UK companies will do that for you. Just need to research.

So you sell / drop ship from companies within UK or within your own country?

 

[wayzgoose]

From companies in the UK.

 

[thetiger2015]

Surly private label is the way to go and investment in stock ready to be shipped? or just invest in in plain stock and warehouse it yoursef?

Private label is just as competitive and it can be more difficult - when we used dropshippers, we had over 5,000 products available. People were already searching for these products, so sales were almost instant. This was a couple of years ago though.

We also only ever used UK dropship/wholesalers - there's lots of them. Many companies that retail online also have a dropship part of their website.

 

[Mr D]

I don't see how it's possible to start with low to med priced products as standard drop shipping in this day and age.. (wait time of 3 weeks and hassle if import charges). Maybe 10 years ago but in the age of amazon and now middle men and factories already being warehoused over here I don't see how it's possible... Surly the biggest factor is delivery time.. 1 or 2 days over 3 weeks... ?

Surly private label is the way to go and investment in stock ready to be shipped? or just invest in in plain stock and warehouse it yoursef?

Private label works when you can market your product properly.

Will people buy Nike trainers or mrka trainers? Will people buy a Dyson hoover or a mrka hoover?
Done right it can work and work well.

Lots of businesses selling from China or using overseas dropship these days.

Purchased the wife a headset on ebay a couple of weeks back, arrived about 10 days later from Germany. UK dropshipper.
Its fine, and delay was known when ordering.

Look on ebay at some of the better selling items - you will come across overseas sellers / dropshippers who sell hundreds of some lines.
We do dropshipping on occasion - usually UK & EU, now just UK from January.

One way of selling without having to spend an additional £200k on stock or run out of room to pack parcels.
Several of our decent selling lines we started doing dropshipping and later purchased a few cartons of the products.

Want to add an additional 5,000 lines to your business? Dropship is quicker than slowly building up 5,000 additional lines of stock.
If you can keep on top of the stock levels.

 

[Mr D]

ok so most people are using fulfilment centres or their own homes then? Which is not really dropshipping at this point.

Its not dropshipping at all then.
Simply retailing.

Much wider range of goods available and you can control costs to make considerably more profit per sale.
For a particular item the wholesale price may be £2.70 per unit, retail call it £10 total including shipping. Takes perhaps 7 minutes to prep and pack for shipping.
Dropship may be £4.10 with £3.50 shipping. Can still sell for £10. Takes maybe 30 seconds to notify the dropshipping company of the details and pay them.

Both are viable business models. Just the profits on one are considerably higher than the other, but so is the work.

 

[wayzgoose]

Its not dropshipping at all then.
Simply retailing.

It's all retailing. Just different ways of going about it.

 

[mrka]

Cheers... yes I can't see drop shipping from china as too viable after brexit. I will look into UK wholesalers and see if there is any room to move there.
I run an online business know where I provide a design service and have things made in China for EU businesses.. and the postal and import fees kill me every time. I guess with using UK wholesalers you get around that. Even EU wholesalers now are out the question with this trade deal being out the window!

Just out of curiosity, will these wholesalers also sell to the public? I seem to have located a few online.

 

[wayzgoose]

Some will sell direct, others don't

 

[Lina HH]

Dropshipping is not that bad. But I'm not sure that it's gonna work in UK. You just to find the right product to sell by using a special tool to analyze the Amazon market. I am not saying it's super easy, but if you really want to try it seriously an amazon tool (for example amzscout.net) will reduce the likelihood of making a mistake.

 

[wayzgoose]

Dropshipping is not that bad. But I'm not sure that it's gonna work in UK. You just to find the right product to sell by using a special tool to analyze the Amazon market. I am not saying it's super easy, but if you really want to try it seriously an amazon tool (for example amzscout.net) will reduce the likelihood of making a mistake.

 

[Deepika_Chauhan]

Dropshipping is never a bad idea when you drop ship from a reliable site such as AliExpress.
AliExpress lets you sell products through your own website without managing product inventory.
You can always integrate the BigCommerce AliExpress DropShipping application with your BigCommerce store to start your dropshipping business without much hassle.

 

[JacksonRogues]

Dropshipping is not that bad. But I'm not sure that it's gonna work in UK. You just to find the right product to sell by using a special tool to analyze the Amazon market. I am not saying it's super easy, but if you really want to try it seriously an amazon tool (for example amzscout.net) will reduce the likelihood of making a mistake.

AMZScout is actually very useful, especially for tracking keywords and competition, to find out what's working for other and how you can implement such info in your own strategies.

If anyone does decide to give it a try, I'd suggest to go for the pro version to utilize the tool to it's best capabilities. And, do take advantage of this AMZScout coupon to get 50% off on your purchase.