How Does Dropshipping Actually Work?Let's say you intend to sell a flat screen tv from your wholesalers that costs £99.99 You would sell that tv for a price you would determine, let's use £249.99 plus £25.50 shipping for an example. After you collect the payment of £249.99 from the customer and their mailing address, you would forward the £99.99 (Remember UK P&P is just £25.50) to your wholesalers, and keep the £124.50 as profit, never having to touch the Product, as we (the DropShipper) sends it out to the customer.
Where do I make a profit then?
The profit margin is the money left over from your sale after you've ordered with the dropshippers and taken away any other cost of sale (like paypal fees). This is your profit to keep!
What do I need to be a dropshipper?
All you really need is regular access to a computer and the internet. Also make sure the tax man knows what you are doing, IE become self-employed. Then you need to create an ebay account or a website to sale your goods on.
How much will it cost for me to start dropshipping?
You can actually start dropshipping with no inital investment. If you want you can just start by signing up with a dropshipper and listing a few items on eBay and seeing what happens, all it will cost are the listing fees!
What is an WHOIS search?
A WHOIS search reveals details about a domain name, including who owns it, where it was registered, when it expires and which name servers are assigned to the domain. There are many software tools for performing a WHOIS search, and you can also search online. One good web site to try is whois.sc. To perform a WHOIS search on whois.sc: 1. Go to whois.sc in your internet browser. 2. Type the domain name you want to look up in the "Name Spinner" search box and press enter. 3. Review the WHOIS information provided. The registrar and name servers are usually listed towards the bottom of the page.
What are the advantages of dropshipping over buying in bulk?
There are many benefits to dropshipping. First of all, you do not have any packaging materials to worry about, as (the DropShipper) takes care of all packaging, Postage etc. Another hassle taken out of the equation is taking the time to package up all the merchandise. Imagine someone ordering 100 CD's from you. If you had to package them and then take them to the Post Office to ship out, how much of a hassle would that be? With dropshipping, you do not have to worry about it.
- Little initial investment
- No stock to hold
- No risk
What are the main problems?
- Little control over how quick a product is delivered
- Have to rely on another company to post the product safely
- Don't really know the quality of product unless seen
- Any non-deliveries can be hard to deal with
Dropshipping offers a the little guy the opportunity to get ahead on the internet by offering top products, even name brand products without having to invest thousands of dollars of inventory, shipping products, or manufacturing.
Dropshipping is the opportunity for a home based business, using the internet and even ebay.com, this article will give you 7 basic steps to finding dropship and wholesale sources and starting your own home dropship business from the internet.
1. Step 1, finding your niche. You've probably heard of this phrase if you've studied internet marketing at all. A niche is a specialty or subject that you will focus on when deciding what products to offer your customers. Choose something you know alot about as you may have a better idea of the pricing and value of products that you are familiar with. You may also know what your customers are willing to pay for products and what the customers look for in different products.
2. Find Dropship suppliers. This may take some time and research on your own. If you're very lucky you may find a local wholesale supplier willing to dropship products for you to your customers. Another choice is to consult a dropship wholesale directory like the one at: http://www.freewebsuccess.info/dropship-wholesale to find the type of products you want to offer within your niche.
3. List items on Ebay.com. This is an important shep even if you want to sell items via a website only. Because ebay.com is a great low cost place to find out what the demand for a product is and how high a price customers are willing to pay for an item.
Consider this your cheapest market research tool. Learning how high a price customers are willing to pay for your product will help you set your prices.
You could use ebay.com to sell products monthly as well and email customers about your website should you choose to build one.
4. Build your e-commerce website. If you need help with this you may want to learn html on your own rather than hire a webmaster for thousands of dollars. There are plenty of free information websites that will teach you about html. Just google html.
5. Build a list of contacts/customers. The real value of a customer can be drasticially increasedif they become a repeat customer. Think about it, the most expensive part of your business will be getting new customers, so you might as well get as much value out of each one as possible.
You do this by getting the customer to subscribe to your newsletter, or to give you their email address so you can tell them about new produts or specials. Offering them something of value for free many times will convince them to subscribe.
6. Upsell your contacts. This is easy, use the list of customers you have gathered to offer specials, deals, or inform them of new products. Or simply send them tips and information about the niche you have chosen.
7. Expand your product base. If you add new products to your current items customers are more likely to return to the website to see a new item. Especially if it's a hot new item just coming out on the market, so keep your eyes open for new product development within your niche.
