Views on dropshipping?

[Bobby_italy]

No it doesn't brands like Gymsharks and blend jet are dropshipping model based. It fulfills everything and if we work in the branding end we are basically creating an asset from 0

I guess someone didn't do his own research... Gymshark was PRIVATE LABELING not DROPSHIPPING.
It's literally a world of difference, also it's bs that you need a good cash flow as entry barrier, you aren't considering organic traffic just because with ads it's so much faster, honestly anyone could start a dropshipping shop(ENTRY) getting it to be succesfull with initial capital may be harder but it surely can happen.

If you watch those youtube gurus they start dropshipping websites up and running in literally 1 hour, WOW what a barrier.
That said I don't think it's that important but you're still selling someone else's merch at the end of the day just consider going into the sales business based on commision and it may be even more profitable.

Also I don't know how it works in the US etc.. but usually the high revenue and really small profits that dropshipping brings is very prohibitive in some countries, because you get put into brackets(taxes, priviledges etc...) based on your REVENUE.

I have a friend who sells general electronics from famous brands(dropshipping) and he makes about 1% profit on orders after all things considered, so let's say a 1000€ piece brings him 10€ after ads/paying the stuff.
On some items he goes up to 5/10% but those are much harder to sell.
On about 150k revenue which is quite a lot he makes a clean 3k pretty much, in one year that isn't even enough to pay his social security contributions.
ALSO not considering that if something gets returned it's a complete nightmare, for 10€ of profit you now risk losing 1k if something goes wrong.
Needless to say he's trying to sell "the business" and it's comical because he can't even get 500€ for a business that's getting 150k in revenue last year.

Now I know he was kinda dumb and all the geniouses will tell me he could've sold 5€ chinese stuff for 30€, but still it would've costed him much more in ads while what he had(the real deal) was selling on pretty low ad budget.
For anyone interested his main sales source was drones from a particular brand.

 

[Jeannen]

The "trend general products store" is a low barrier entry

Any fool can come, get an adspy subscription, see what's working and copy/paste it

Any fool can go to Aliexpress, pick a random product and put in on a website

I coach beginer entrepreneur (like, teaching them the basic), and for the last 8 month, 90% of them were your typical working Joe that heard about dropshipping and wanted to start it to stop 9-5.

Most of the information is available online for free, and it's waaaay easier now that it was in 2016/2017 thanks to the apps, courses and others things.

So, I did some $ with dropshipping in 2018, I have some friends doing tons of $$ in there, and to be honest, I'd even recommand it to get knowledge and experience

But don't expect to get profit quickly from it if you want to start

The fact that EVERYBODY is able to do the same thing as you and everybody is selling the same products using the same process

 

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[Bobby_italy]

Let me bring some light and clarity to you how it works in the USA and how those youtube gurus fake results in order to send their online courses "Practice what you Preach" In dropshipping when you are getting a good amount of sales you can do private Labeling that's what Gymshark and what BlendJet did also with every other person thinking "it so easy to get successful with some Initial capital of 2K$ let's SAY YOU HAVE THAT BUDGET BUT NOT EVERYONE IS HAVING but still it has increased the competition but not everyone is successful because "ONLY HAVING CASHFLOW AND NO KNOWLEDGE ABOUT PAID ADS AND BRANDING " will not make you RIch. Now let's talk about the profit margins and the youtube gurus. What they show you is the Shopify dashboard which shows the Revenue generated not the profits made ( most of them will never show there facebook ad accounts because either they faked their results or are not even breaking even) Now about the profits how your friend is doing affiliate marketing or some other kind of stuff but definitely not drop shipping. Selling a FAMOUS BRAND PRODUCTS AND MAKING COMMISSION IS NOT Dropshipping and that's why the profits will be extremely low. For a guy like me with an in-depth knowledge of ads I have a profit margin of 40% I am not selling some other brand merch or products, I can control the price and I can control the number of people I am selling my products to. I can Private label my product. 40% margin and 60k Revenue do the math yourself. My dropshipping store is not dynamic and makes stable revenue every month I don't go broke with a 60k sale a month to none next month like the youtube Gurus because I have worked with purpose or private labeling and long term branding. Dropshipping with a mindset to create a brand and slowly moving into E-commerce with actually owning the inventory is the key. If your friend is selling some very famous brand products with such low margins it doesn't make dropshipping bad it is just because he is stupid. Before you start with Chinese products its easy to find US supplier I sell products in the USA and without being In US with no Problem! My friends in USA were able to private label their products but they started with a dropshipping model. DO a bit of research about BlendJet as well Thanks.

Nothing is easy the youtube Gurus make it seem easy to sell their courses but even then it requires capital to start not everyone can afford to have that capital.Getting into dropshipping is not the same as getting into network marketing or affliate marketing PEACE

Yo man he is Dropshipping, he has his own site with other people's products(that ship those products) that he sells, I think that's the legit definition of dropshipping.
If you're private labeling it's not the same as the classic dropshipping was meant so we're saying the same thing in two different ways...

We basically agree but you want to call private labeling dropshipping, owning your inventory means you're not dropshipping.

I really hope you're not going to try to sell your services on this forum because the "bullshit alarm" we have instilled is really good.
All this you've figured ads and ecommerce out and within 15 posts you're letting us know everyone else is doing it wrong and you're some kind of illuminated genious WHILE me and you are saying the same thing.

I hope I'm wrong but literally you've been here 10 days, told us you're making a killing with dropshipping 10 times while providing zero proof or serious advice, so let's start from scratch, make a thread in the Execution section, post about your innovative methods and the results you're getting, no need to tell us the site or products if that bothers you.

Looking forward to learning together this ecommerce stuff and sorry if I come off as rude, have a nice day!

 

[DropshipGodx]

Yo man he is Dropshipping, he has his own site with other people's products(that ship those products) that he sells, I think that's the legit definition of dropshipping.
If you're private labeling it's not the same as the classic dropshipping was meant so we're saying the same thing in two different ways...

We basically agree but you want to call private labeling dropshipping, owning your inventory means you're not dropshipping.

I really hope you're not going to try to sell your services on this forum because the "bullshit alarm" we have instilled is really good.
All this you've figured ads and ecommerce out and within 15 posts you're letting us know everyone else is doing it wrong and you're some kind of illuminated genious WHILE me and you are saying the same thing.

I hope I'm wrong but literally you've been here 10 days, told us you're making a killing with dropshipping 10 times while providing zero proof or serious advice, so let's start from scratch, make a thread in the Execution section, post about your innovative methods and the results you're getting, no need to tell us the site or products if that bothers you.

Looking forward to learning together this ecommerce stuff and sorry if I come off as rude, have a nice day!

I am 10 days old here not 10 days old in dropshipping bro and NO I AM NOT GOING TO SELL ANYTHING IN THIS FORUM JUST HERE TO CONNECT WITH LIKE-MINDED PEOPLE AND PROVIDE VALUE AND LEARN STUFF as well. Anyways we both are talking about E-commerce but with different prespective and angles. I respect your views maybe you can suggest your friend to switch to a different product with a better margin and It was great connecting with you No grudges I am all here to provide value in any way and learn and for sure i will make a thread about the strategies to use and all my results after this

 

[Timmy C]

Couldn't think of a worse business model.

Do something you have some sort of control over.

 

[biophase]

No it doesn't brands like Gymsharks and blend jet are dropshipping model based. It fulfills everything and if we work in the branding end we are basically creating an asset from 0

LOL, gym shark is droppshipping based? WTF??!

They are not private labeling either. They are making their own products.

 

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[sparechange]

''dropship'' god.....
lol funny stuff

 

[Longinus]

I have the impression there's a lot of dropshipping threads popping up here the last months/weeks.
Is it because we're getting flooded by "dropshipping courses" ads lately?

 

[ChrisV]

In general they're get-rich-quick schemes.

 

[juresesko]

Just think about it...
The main thing dropshippers are doing is trying to make their website LOOK legit.
Those people feed of the people who don't know much about the web, making products insanely overpriced and hoping that people won't look it up on the aliexpress.
I think it's sad when you see people with bracelets that they bought them for 20$ from a website while the worth of the same product is 50 cents.

 

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[jb21]

In my opinion it is a very short-term based business.

Nowadays 1 month for a product to arrive is almost a scam.

Also, you are not offering any extra value, you are simply an
intermediary.

Clients probably won't buy you again after that kind of customer experience, and it's way more expensive to get new clients than selling again to already-satisfied ones, so it's kind of unsustainable.

it may be useful for testing some products before private-labeling them, even though there are other ways.

I dropship american products, so it works in my favor. Id recommend everyone does that

 

[Walter Hay]

One option is to buy a very small quantity of the product and test it as a private label since the beginning, some suppliers on Alibaba have a low MOQ (minimum order quantity), they won't put your logo in the product or the packaging, but you can do that when you get them in your house, go buy some packaging at your city and go to a copy shop or similar places where you can print or stick the logo in the product.

You don't have to buy the MOQ even if it is a small amount. I have taught thousands of new importers how to negotiate a very small order so that they can test the market without a huge outlay.

Being a newcomer to product sourcing and importing you need to learn something about it before you jump in the deep end. First, read Post#5 in my AMA
GOLD! Sharing my lifetime experience in export/import. Product sourcing specialist.

If you have the time, start reading at Post #1 and keep reading, but here are some hints that might save you from being burnt:

• Never believe what you read on Alibaba.
• Buying from the real manufacturer is necessary if you want the best prices and service.
• Just because their company profile on Alibaba says that they are manufacturers, that does not mean that they are.
• Never place an order if they want you to pay freight collect.
• Never place an order until you know exactly how much freight, duty etc., will cost.
• Always get freight quotes in writing, and they must include all costs to your address.
• With that in mind, never give a supplier your Courier account number unless you have previously negotiated a huge discount with the courier and got that in writing.

If you have any questions, you can post them on that thread if they are not confidential, but if confidential, PM me. I am privy to the secrets of many Fastlane members so you can be sure anything you tell me goes no further.

Walter

 

[SEBASTlAN]

It violates the CENTS criteria.

 

[RazorCut]

A lot of people say its a thing in the past while others are saying it is still thriving. Any opinions on this?

For some people it will work, for others it won't. And dropshipping is not exclusively a social media ad's business. If you have a website with enough targeted traffic and can find suitable products to offer then you can make money.

Why you are interested in this business model. Whats the attraction? Barrier to entry is low, it is easy for a competitor to replicate any success you have if you are just going the paid ad root. Margins are generally low unless its a super difficult product to shift.

 

[Timmy C]

Apart from everything I respect your opinion and it could be that dropshipping worked well for me and that could be the reason for me being a bit defensive. But it was great knowing your perspective about it. Peace

Create an execution thread, look forward to seeing what you are doing.

 

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[Timmy C]

When I read a wall of text like this I always feel like that person is trying to prove something they are not 100% sure about. That said, if it's working for you, why do you need to prove yourself to other people? I mean, you are making bank, aren't you?

Time and time again we see fake a$$ people stroll through here.

99 percent chance he's full of shit
1 percent chance he's not.

I don't have high hopes for any progress thread or any business insights or value added by the OP.

Because he doesn't have a business.

Hope I'm wrong.

Doubt it.

 

[Santi M]

In my opinion it is a very short-term based business.

Nowadays 1 month for a product to arrive is almost a scam.

Also, you are not offering any extra value, you are simply an
intermediary.

Clients probably won't buy you again after that kind of customer experience, and it's way more expensive to get new clients than selling again to already-satisfied ones, so it's kind of unsustainable.

it may be useful for testing some products before private-labeling them, even though there are other ways.

 

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[eccehomo]

A lot of people say its a thing in the past while others are saying it is still thriving. Any opinions on this?

 

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[DropshipGodx]

A lot of people say its a thing in the past while others are saying it is still thriving. Any opinions on this?

People say it is a thing of the past because it is not so easy to get success in this field and when a lot of people taste failure for the first time instead of considering failure as a part of the process they Quit that's when they say dropshipping is dead. It is not but Now not everyone can get into dropshipping and make a living out of it. It is definitely a way to explode your primary source of Income.

 

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[DropshipGodx]

I guess someone didn't do his own research... Gymshark was PRIVATE LABELING not DROPSHIPPING.
It's literally a world of difference, also it's bs that you need a good cash flow as entry barrier, you aren't considering organic traffic just because with ads it's so much faster, honestly anyone could start a dropshipping shop(ENTRY) getting it to be succesfull with initial capital may be harder but it surely can happen.

If you watch those youtube gurus they start dropshipping websites up and running in literally 1 hour, WOW what a barrier.
That said I don't think it's that important but you're still selling someone else's merch at the end of the day just consider going into the sales business based on commision and it may be even more profitable.

Also I don't know how it works in the US etc.. but usually the high revenue and really small profits that dropshipping brings is very prohibitive in some countries, because you get put into brackets(taxes, priviledges etc...) based on your REVENUE.

I have a friend who sells general electronics from famous brands(dropshipping) and he makes about 1% profit on orders after all things considered, so let's say a 1000€ piece brings him 10€ after ads/paying the stuff.
On some items he goes up to 5/10% but those are much harder to sell.
On about 150k revenue which is quite a lot he makes a clean 3k pretty much, in one year that isn't even enough to pay his social security contributions.
ALSO not considering that if something gets returned it's a complete nightmare, for 10€ of profit you now risk losing 1k if something goes wrong.
Needless to say he's trying to sell "the business" and it's comical because he can't even get 500€ for a business that's getting 150k in revenue last year.

Now I know he was kinda dumb and all the geniouses will tell me he could've sold 5€ chinese stuff for 30€, but still it would've costed him much more in ads while what he had(the real deal) was selling on pretty low ad budget.
For anyone interested his main sales source was drones from a particular brand.

Let me bring some light and clarity to you how it works in the USA and how those youtube gurus fake results in order to send their online courses "Practice what you Preach" In dropshipping when you are getting a good amount of sales you can do private Labeling that's what Gymshark and what BlendJet did also with every other person thinking "it so easy to get successful with some Initial capital of 2K$ let's SAY YOU HAVE THAT BUDGET BUT NOT EVERYONE IS HAVING but still it has increased the competition but not everyone is successful because "ONLY HAVING CASHFLOW AND NO KNOWLEDGE ABOUT PAID ADS AND BRANDING " will not make you RIch. Now let's talk about the profit margins and the youtube gurus. What they show you is the Shopify dashboard which shows the Revenue generated not the profits made ( most of them will never show there facebook ad accounts because either they faked their results or are not even breaking even) Now about the profits how your friend is doing affiliate marketing or some other kind of stuff but definitely not drop shipping. Selling a FAMOUS BRAND PRODUCTS AND MAKING COMMISSION IS NOT Dropshipping and that's why the profits will be extremely low. For a guy like me with an in-depth knowledge of ads I have a profit margin of 40% I am not selling some other brand merch or products, I can control the price and I can control the number of people I am selling my products to. I can Private label my product. 40% margin and 60k Revenue do the math yourself. My dropshipping store is not dynamic and makes stable revenue every month I don't go broke with a 60k sale a month to none next month like the youtube Gurus because I have worked with purpose or private labeling and long term branding. Dropshipping with a mindset to create a brand and slowly moving into E-commerce with actually owning the inventory is the key. If your friend is selling some very famous brand products with such low margins it doesn't make dropshipping bad it is just because he is stupid. Before you start with Chinese products its easy to find US supplier I sell products in the USA and without being In US with no Problem! My friends in USA were able to private label their products but they started with a dropshipping model. DO a bit of research about BlendJet as well Thanks.

Nothing is easy the youtube Gurus make it seem easy to sell their courses but even then it requires capital to start not everyone can afford to have that capital.Getting into dropshipping is not the same as getting into network marketing or affliate marketing PEACE

 

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[Bobby_italy]

I am 10 days old here not 10 days old in dropshipping bro and NO I AM NOT GOING TO SELL ANYTHING IN THIS FORUM JUST HERE TO CONNECT WITH LIKE-MINDED PEOPLE AND PROVIDE VALUE AND LEARN STUFF as well. Anyways we both are talking about E-commerce but with different prespective and angles. I respect your views maybe you can suggest your friend to switch to a different product with a better margin and It was great connecting with you No grudges I am all here to provide value in any way and learn and for sure i will make a thread about the strategies to use and all my results after this

I appreciate it a lot, also he's now working for a very big ecommerce and he landed that job mainly because of his own site, he's getting paid so much it's actually insane.

 

[RealDreams]

Let me bring some light and clarity to you how it works in the USA and how those youtube gurus fake results in order to send their online courses "Practice what you Preach" In dropshipping when you are getting a good amount of sales you can do private Labeling that's what Gymshark and what BlendJet did also with every other person thinking "it so easy to get successful with some Initial capital of 2K$ let's SAY YOU HAVE THAT BUDGET BUT NOT EVERYONE IS HAVING but still it has increased the competition but not everyone is successful because "ONLY HAVING CASHFLOW AND NO KNOWLEDGE ABOUT PAID ADS AND BRANDING " will not make you RIch. Now let's talk about the profit margins and the youtube gurus. What they show you is the Shopify dashboard which shows the Revenue generated not the profits made ( most of them will never show there facebook ad accounts because either they faked their results or are not even breaking even) Now about the profits how your friend is doing affiliate marketing or some other kind of stuff but definitely not drop shipping. Selling a FAMOUS BRAND PRODUCTS AND MAKING COMMISSION IS NOT Dropshipping and that's why the profits will be extremely low. For a guy like me with an in-depth knowledge of ads I have a profit margin of 40% I am not selling some other brand merch or products, I can control the price and I can control the number of people I am selling my products to. I can Private label my product. 40% margin and 60k Revenue do the math yourself. My dropshipping store is not dynamic and makes stable revenue every month I don't go broke with a 60k sale a month to none next month like the youtube Gurus because I have worked with purpose or private labeling and long term branding. Dropshipping with a mindset to create a brand and slowly moving into E-commerce with actually owning the inventory is the key. If your friend is selling some very famous brand products with such low margins it doesn't make dropshipping bad it is just because he is stupid. Before you start with Chinese products its easy to find US supplier I sell products in the USA and without being In US with no Problem! My friends in USA were able to private label their products but they started with a dropshipping model. DO a bit of research about BlendJet as well Thanks.

Nothing is easy the youtube Gurus make it seem easy to sell their courses but even then it requires capital to start not everyone can afford to have that capital.Getting into dropshipping is not the same as getting into network marketing or affliate marketing PEACE

When I read a wall of text like this I always feel like that person is trying to prove something they are not 100% sure about. That said, if it's working for you, why do you need to prove yourself to other people? I mean, you are making bank, aren't you?

 

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[Ing]

As the idea of dropshipping is great, I occupied myself with that a time.
I did really many requests to potential dropship partners and got some dealerships offered.
Th procedere is allways the same : I look for a price offered. Than I google for the retail price. And gess what: they are nearly identical every time.
Only Aliexpress offeres a much lower price.

So doing dropshipping you have 2 choices :
1.you wait for the buyers too stupid to google for a price,
2. you scam your buyers with 4 weeks of delivery from China.

Or : you dropship things, that are dropshipped since ever. Garages, houses, ships, fabrics and so on. But thats another number, which I don’t think you thought of.

 

[SEBASTlAN]

Just to clarify, is this the E=Entry point of dropshipping that violates CENTS?

It would tick the other 4 points in my opinion.

You might need to read them again.

 

[Bobby_italy]

Just think about it...
The main thing dropshippers are doing is trying to make their website LOOK legit.
Those people feed of the people who don't know much about the web, making products insanely overpriced and hoping that people won't look it up on the aliexpress.
I think it's sad when you see people with bracelets that they bought them for 20$ from a website while the worth of the same product is 50 cents.

I wouldn't mind as the same happens in shops, but at least for those 20 give me a fast delivery.

 

[Visionary96]

I am using this model to start off and once the product starts to gain traction, I will immediately move to private labeling. And my Alibaba supplier can get the item to customers in 10 days which isn't bad.

 

[Ing]

Btw: I purchased a VW van some years ago.
As I knew a Volkswagen dealer, I got a short insight in the procedere.
Exactly seen it war dropshipping and the time of delivery was longer than from aliexpress!

 

[Igor957]

Just to clarify, is this the E=Entry point of dropshipping that violates CENTS?

It would tick the other 4 points in my opinion.

Low entry barriers. You can setup a store in minutes with Shopify and Oberlo.

Low control. You just have control over the website and marketing nor anything else of your operation.

Scale is also a thing. Although in a first glance it seems that a dropshipping store is plenty scalable, you need to think that you do not own full control over your operations. To scale you need much more money for ads, reliable suppliers and returning customers...

The customer experience is a problem because usually they won't come back after waiting many weeks for a questionable quality high-priced purchase to arrive (exception below).

Time and Needs could be worked on from some research and automation.

You could dropship things that are produced inside your country, you will have lesser waiting times and a better relationship with the supplier. But still, the other things about entry and control still applies.

What I am used to see is a 'scheme' where marketers create dropshipping stores and right after some profit deactivate them and create another one, in a loop to maybe get some returning customers.

A similar but better option would be crossdocking, which is something I have never seen someone talking about here (if someone is interested I could do a post explaining what it is).

 

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[PizzaOnTheRoof]

Dropshipping is just another business model with its own strengths and weaknesses.

The gold rush has past, but you can still make dropshipping deals privately and locally.

 

[smtz]

In my opinion it is a very short-term based business.

Nowadays 1 month for a product to arrive is almost a scam.

Also, you are not offering any extra value, you are simply an
intermediary.

Clients probably won't buy you again after that kind of customer experience, and it's way more expensive to get new clients than selling again to already-satisfied ones, so it's kind of unsustainable.

it may be useful for testing some products before private-labeling them, even though there are other ways.

Hi @Santi M , I was reading through this post because this is my exact plan to start, I want to create a dropshipping store to test some products and when I have a winner, take all the steps to convert it into private label, I think this is a good plan since I don't have any experience in e-commerce, but I'm really curious to ask, what are the other methods that you would suggest to test the products if this is not the best way for you?