Make Money With Wholesale Dropshippers
A few months back I added a new page on wholesale dropshippers for people who were interested in doing an e-commerce type business to make money online at online auction sites or for there own type of business model. Well since I posted that page I am getting more traffic for wholesale dropshipping than for making money online at home using free blogging methods. This was not my intention. I posted that page for a few friends of mine who were interested in starting an online business using dropshippers.
I have dabbled a bit in using drop shipping as a means to generate income online. E-commerce is definitely a way to make money online but it also falls into the category of a work at home job. Using wholesale dropshipping to me is much more stressful than building tons of niche blogs but usually the money is pretty good. I really don’t like being responsible for other peoples money. Plus with dropshipping you need to stay on top of your business every minute. this would be fine if you online had one or two sources of generating income. Most people that run an e-commerce business only have one store or two at the most. With my business model of building niche blogs I have hundreds of sites. But most of these are set and forget.
I am not saying that wholesale dropshipping is bad its just that it requires more work daily than I care to be responsible for. Let me see if I can explain this better.
I started selling stuff on eBay. I was doing fairly well but I had to constantly replenish my supplies. This meant a lot of time going to auctions, flee markets, garage sales and so forth and so on. This felt more like a work at home job than a business. No inventory meant no sales. At this time I was hearing a lot about dropshipping and how easy it was. You did not have to have an inventory and all you had to do was be able to drive traffic to your e-biz or to eBay. You were getting your products available for way below retail prices. So I jumped in and joined Worldwide Brands. No problem so far. Worldwide Brands has a great reputation for having legitimate wholesale companies and tons of dropshippers willing to work with you. Some dropshippers charge an extra fee to use their service and some you can use their dropshipping company service for no extra charge. A win win situation all around.
I stayed with dropshipping companies that were American dropshippers. I just felt more comfortable with American dropshippers as I could check out the companies online and shipping was usually cheaper and quicker for my buyers. This way I could offer bare bottom prices on my merchandise. This made making sales on eBay much easier.
I run a website advertising my merchandise but I try to direct potential buyers to eBay so I do not have to deal with a shopping cart and handling credit cards. EBay has their own merchant account and use PayPal, a very trusted source when it comes to your buyers. With eBay all I have to do is run my products in their auctions and they handle the sale. Once I get the sale and after eBay fees I then forward the money need to purchase the product from the dropshippers and they in turn send out the product to your buyer. The wholesale dropshippers in turn sends you confirmation on its shipping and also sends confirmation to the buyer. Anything over and above the cost of the product and eBay’s fees is money in your pocket. Still sounds great right?
Well, do to my lack of staying on top of my business every moment, some of the products I had up for sale had raised in price. My fault for not checking my sources regularly. So I lost money on some deals because of my not being diligent. I though my dropshipping companies would inform me of pending price increases prior to changing prices. Not always!
Once I made the sale I worried about my customer receiving their products on time and in good shape. For handling unhappy customers was not something I really wanted to deal with. And what if these people wanted a refund after receiving their products. Refunds would fall on me and then I would have to get refunded back from the dropshippers. Fortunately I never ran into this situation but it could have happened. I sell some high priced items and refunds could make one hell of a dent in my checkbook. Worry, Worry, Worry!
Talk about a high stress work at home job! I did not want to trade my day job for another high stress job at home. I just wanted to make money online at home.
I still make money with wholesale dropshippers but I just do not hit it as hard as I once did. I find niche marketing with blogging way more satisfying and a lot less stressful. I am not saying wholesale dropshipping is a bad thing or that there are not a lot of people making big big money with this business model. I am just trying to point out what the ups and downs are. Dropshipping is a quick way to make money but for me it just isn’t a long term business model I want to persue.
