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Is Dropshipping Dead?

Ankerstein17

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Hey guys,

I have recently been looking to get into drop shipping mastering it. I have been reading some articles with people saying drop shipping is basically dead, and all of these rumors.

I am not in the drop shipping business, and to be frank don't know many people in the business. I have heard of some people in the Amazon FBA, and have a friend in it.

Not sure what is the better route for where I am at.

Curious to hear your opinions regarding the matter.
 
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The-J

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Beware of anyone saying something is 'dead', because 99 times out of 100, someone is still making good money doing it.

Dropshipping is no exception. There's money to be made there. There are some forum members who make money doing dropshipping. There are others that don't recommend it.

Look at the reasons why people do or don't recommend it and decide for yourself based on your goals. Then do what you decide.

(Disclaimer: I don't dropship nor have I ever)
 

Sandparts

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I had an online business. We did between $20k and $50K per month for 10 years. I closed the business in 2013 and moved on.
You can make money drop shipping. If you find the right market and products you can make money.

In my humble opinion drop shipping is not the best way to make money. The margins are low, low barriers to entry, and a saturated marketplace (amazon).

I made more money stocking, listing, and shipping on Ebay off $10,000 in sales than by dropshipping $30,000 per month on my website.

Now that Amazon is such a huge online presence I think you'd be better of being a niche e-tailer than drop shipper.
 

Alexlewter

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Is it dead: No. It depends on the product.

If the product is a mass market consumable then it does not make sense to drop ship it. Consumers need easy access to food and every day life items, which means the distributor-retailer model is here to stay.

Dropshipping typically occurs with very specialized products that are made to order or that the item is not something that the mass market will need urgently (read: no need to hold inventory at a local retailer)

It can make sense to dropship when the selling agents produce a large enough orders that a manufacturer-distributor model is not required. If a middleman is not required then there will be less product markups required before the product reaches the end consumer.
 
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jlwilliams

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I hate to open with a non answer, but..... it depends. You can still make money, but the low entry bar has damaged the model.

Like The-J said, beware of people saying "it's dead" because that is an over broad generalization. There are still companies making real money by mailing catalogs to people who look at them, fill out the order card and mail it back in with a paper check. That, my friend, is a whipped old horse but it still has legs. Point being that if you can connect the right buyers with the right product you win. If you are looking at this from the angle of "I'm going to get into drop shipping, now I just need to find a product..." you may want to re think. If you are looking at a product that has demand and you can establish supply and drop shipping looks like the way you can connect the dots, then don't listen to the "that so last year" crap.
 

Sanj Modha

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It's far from dead but the problem with most noobs is they don't start properly and end up with terminated accounts.

I still do about 10% dropshipping. It's great for upselling/cross-selling.
 
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Sanj Modha

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I also know some of the biggest print on demand shirt sellers out there. Even when FB ads go FUBAR - they crush it.
 
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AgainstAllOdds

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Dropshipping is dead.

The reason dropshipping was appealing was the ease of making money doing so. You created a website. Drove traffic. Sat back, and watched money pour in.

Then in the past few years, margins eroded. Difficulty increased.

At this point it's a lot easier making money with something like Amazon FBA. Even though your upfront work is a lot more, your reward per hour of effort is a lot higher.

So for the purposes of anyone asking "is dropshipping dead," I'd say that it is.
 

Andy Black

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I have a client who has a three employees, a warehouse, and who's on target to generate a couple of million in revenue this year. Some of the products he sells off his eCommerce website are dropshipped.
 

Sanj Modha

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I have a client who has a three employees, a warehouse, and who's on target to generate a couple of million in revenue this year. Some of the products he sells off his eCommerce website are dropshipped.

We do the same from our warehouse in NYC. We have suppliers in the US who dropship for us in 3-5 days or less. And it's all tracked by USPS.
 
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Napoolion

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Definitely not dead, but you need to think of a different angle what separates you from the mass of other triers. I tried a little myself few months ago, saw a little potential, but dropped it for now since I did not like the delivery times to my country and I don't feel like holding hands with my customers all the time and answer ton of support tickets and keep telling them that the products are coming. I did this way back when I was in college student and could remember how much work was involved when the delivery times were more than a month. I found a way around it, but I need to solve some other things before I will work on that process/system again.
 

MarekvBeek

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Hey Ankerstein17,

Dropshipping isn't dead and never will be death.

The reason for that is that dropshipping is just a way of getting the products in you customers hand.

You don't start a "dropshipping" company. You start a need based company and use a way to distribute it.

The thing you have to master is how to spot needs and fulfill them. And yes, if dropshipping is involved, then that is something you have to master as well.

A friend came to me asking me if I want to dropship some supplements. While the profit margins were okay, I refused it.

Why? Because his product was one of many, and in the process I lacked control.

He was in control of the profit margins.

He was in control of the company policy.

So I said, thank you and moved on.
 

cor

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What does it being "dead" even mean?

It's just a fulfillment model. I've made a lot of money and make money dropshipping. I'm not about to defend a fulfillment model, if people are saying it's dead that's all well and good but... why not see for yourself? Low risk and low barrier of entry.
 
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Sanj Modha

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I don't know about you but I get excited when someone says '<insert> is dead. It's time to move on". I fell for the same trap recently when I thought that UpWork was 'saturated' when it's not. Sure - it's competitive but there are plenty of ways to stand out as @SinisterLex pointed out on his post.

There's nothing with dropshipping done right. It's how I started and it's how most people I know run their ecom stores.
 

SamuelMazzotta

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I agree with @Sanj Modha, dropshipping is very good for upselling/cross-selling; and is is true that your products must be a niche and not a common products. But in some reality, like Italy where i live, dropshipping is difficult to do, because customers must wait 20-40 days for their products, and the courier service is not good enough. Probably i mistake, but in some Country is more simply to dropship.
 

Mac

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This will be the end of bad customer service from dropshippers.

Facebook will be sending out this survey 2 weeks after somebody has a Purchase Pixel Fire, in order to improve the trust of the platform.
 
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Sanj Modha

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This will be the end of bad customer service from dropshippers.

Facebook will be sending out this survey 2 weeks after somebody has a Purchase Pixel Fire, in order to improve the trust of the platform.

The only bad customer service is no customer service. I always say - keep your customers in the loop and most of the time they will understand.

We had a major incident in summer 2016 when our supplier's warehouse burnt down. We lost a ton of product and had to wait 2 months to fulfil around 1000 orders. I had no choice but to inform my customers that their orders were going to be late. We refunded about 18 people in the end and most were very supportive to us. Just tell them what's going on.

Sure, there's competition from Amazon Prime same day/next day but people are realistic. If shipping is free they can wait a bit longer and they do for some of our products which have 10-15 days lead times. Be very clear on the landing page or product description.
 

SamuelMazzotta

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The only bad customer service is no customer service. I always say - keep your customers in the loop and most of the time they will understand.

We had a major incident in summer 2016 when our supplier's warehouse burnt down. We lost a ton of product and had to wait 2 months to fulfil around 1000 orders. I had no choice but to inform my customers that their orders were going to be late. We refunded about 18 people in the end and most were very supportive to us. Just tell them what's going on.

Sure, there's competition from Amazon Prime same day/next day but people are realistic. If shipping is free they can wait a bit longer and they do for some of our products which have 10-15 days lead times. Be very clear on the landing page or product description.

I fully agree Sanj, I'm sure that a clear ratio with our customers in all of the situation, be the best thing that you can do, in the good or in the worst.
 

Ankerstein17

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I had an online business. We did between $20k and $50K per month for 10 years. I closed the business in 2013 and moved on.
You can make money drop shipping. If you find the right market and products you can make money.

In my humble opinion drop shipping is not the best way to make money. The margins are low, low barriers to entry, and a saturated marketplace (amazon).

I made more money stocking, listing, and shipping on Ebay off $10,000 in sales than by dropshipping $30,000 per month on my website.

Now that Amazon is such a huge online presence I think you'd be better of being a niche e-tailer than drop shipper.

Hey, I haven't got on here for a bit - what are you up to now at days?
 
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PizzaOnTheRoof

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