Forum Moderators: buckworks
One of the great things about my business right now is I don't have to fill any orders myself, and the whole thing "just runs itself" without any human involvement in day to day operations. I am considering starting a more traditional online business, but would like to keep things as low labor intensive as possible.
I am considering opening up a yahoo store, or something like that as an experiment to see if I can make something like this fly using drop shipping for customer. Once I am have my feet grounded, I would plan to build my own site.
How can I shop for a drop shipper? There are tons of lists out there, most of which I have been told are a waste of money. I don't know what type of products I want to sell, but am thinking $100+ items (to make drop shipping worthwhile). I would make the product decision based on what the drop shipper I decided to go with offers, as it seems finding a good drop-shipper is difficult if you don't already have connections.
This may be far fetched, but I am a programmer, and it would be really nice if I could find a drop shipper progressive enough to have the ability to check stock and submit orders online through a webservices api or similar.
Any help would be appreciated. I know at least one or two drop-shippers hang out here. Feel free to sticky mail me if you may fit what I am looking for, or know someone who may.
Thanks,
-Pete
I a am currently running a profitable affiliate marketing based business
If you consider all the pros & cons and the time it took to get where you are now - I don't you will find much fruition in a Yahoo store -- bearing in mind "the experiment" will likely be lackluster, leaning you to "not worth it".
Not saying Yahoo stores can't make money but I doubt fruition will materialize in the short-term. Being established here has merit - but getting established is the problem.
A domain name, and hosting, plus paypal is cheap, or a all-in-one package isn't that expensive either.
The turn-around to profitability is far greater.
Dealers actually build an inventory, handle customer service and, in general, run a business. I send the product to the dealer, and he/she takes care of everything else. In other words, there is very little work involved in working with a dealer. For that reason, I am able to provide the product at a wholesale price, antwhere from 15% to 40% off retail.
Affiliate programs have been more of a problem. The only way I can afford to work with an affiliate is by only giving a 5% to 15% commision. Too often, I have been pressured to give a higher commission and ended up regretting it. In an a affiliate program, I process the individual orders, ship them, provide customer service and handle returns. There is a lot more work involved.
In the long run, I think that becoming a drop-shipper has a far greater reward, because the margins are better. But it is important to keep in mind that there is more work involved and likley there will be more investment needed (buying product, shipping supplies, tax ID, maintaining inventory}.
I would expect a couple of areas to check for such a setup would be niche areas like martial arts supplies or dance supplies (my area). In general, look for products that serve a hobby of some kind.
Not saying Yahoo stores can't make money but I doubt fruition will materialize in the short-term. Being established here has merit - but getting established is the problem.A domain name, and hosting, plus paypal is cheap, or a all-in-one package isn't that expensive either.
That may be the case, I haven't even consider paypal. I have my own dedicated server and a handful of domains. Another domain on my dedicated server using paypal may make sense for this. Basically I am looking to skip the whole merchant account and site sales infrastructre thing until I have sold a couple items, know I have a chance, and can write a realistic business plan based on my experience.
I want to dip my toe into the water instead of jumping in.
Still I come down to the issue of nothing to actually sell yet, which is what I am looking for help finding. Everything else, for me at least, is easy by comparison.
-Pete
You will at least need pay pal for drop shipping. You will be responsible for billing and collections in most cases.
I know I know. My question is about finding a good drop shipper with a good product selection. I just added the other stuff in for context.
Finding a drop shipper is what I am asking for help with.
-Pete
If I were in your position I would keep the affiliate thing doing what it's doing and start a seperate business with the drop shipping, of course your sites can trade links so you get some customers pouring into the new one. Without a merchant account you will probably loose 90% of your business.
As far as finding an affiliate company, find something you enjoy as a hobby and look to the manufacturers of products involved, many times you might need to place an initial order and then you can have all the rest drop shipped. I do this with a handfull of different manufacturers. I really don't see how people make any money buying anywhere except direct from the manufacturer. You need to get set up with companies where you have the possibility to make at least 20% somewhere in the future (maybe not instantly because of distributer pricing levels).
You could find a good drop shipper for any one of these. You should first narrow down your choices to things that interest you and then you should see what sort of minimum stock investment is required to get started as a wholesaler.
This may be far fetched, but I am a programmer, and it would be really nice if I could find a drop shipper progressive enough to have the ability to check stock and submit orders online through a webservices api or similar.
I'm interested in the same thing as well. There's a lot of possibility -- drop shippers able to offer web-based dealers stuff like accessory associations, the hex color codes for color options, etc. I would expect this to take a few years to catch on.
As a programmer, perhaps you can pitch a webservices api and build it for *them,* meanwhile buttering them up for a dealer relationship and later using your own api feed :)
As far as finding drop-shippers, maybe what you want to do is to reverse-engineer the process, find items in your niche(s) that seem to meet your criteria and have a good buzz, and trace back to the manufacturers.
