Quote: (07-16-2017 10:12 PM)Sebastian Wrote:
I think it depends on what your strength, interests are and willingness to be location free.
If you are internet marketing savvy person who wants to run business out of a laptop while traveling somewhere, drop shipping would be the only option.
Low margins? You are not putting any cash upfront. You cant really complain.
For me, id rather market my own brand.(female items) Id like to shoot my own photos and short videos with models for social media, design items, do promotions etc. Thats where I would have fun by being creative. Obviously it will cost more money doing marketing this way and I will have to get products made in bulk that will never sell (I say 20k to start minimum) but margins will be a lot higher and i can build small online brand presence.
There used to be infomercials about dropshipping business like 10 years ago (still there?) basically you order catalog from them, choose items you want to sell on your personalized website and they will take care of the rest.
I thought whos going to buy something from Johnny's website with bunch of generic items.
I think they made money by charging monthly service fee to the members.
I know OP wont tell exactly what he sells but it would be really hard to bring people to the online store if what you have is available everywhere and you cant beat others prices.
Btw Overstock.com is pretty much drop shipping business these days. They used to sell real overstocked items out of some cheap warehouse ( saw fake polo shirt there) Its amazing how they got there.
I think you bring up a great point. If you're going to dropship something you have to ask yourself why would someone buy this from me instead of Amazon where they get free 2 day shipping, super easy returns, and the customer already trusts them.
The only reason is either a lower price, which is often tough for a dropshipper to do as they are not buying in bulk, although that's really the secret to dropshipping is finding those hidden gems with a bit of margin left
or
the other reason someone may buy from you is you have a very unique product or a very unique collection of products. If I want to buy a new motorcycle seat for example sure they have them on Amazon but I have to browse around and find one. HOwever if I come across a site which sells nothing but parts and accessories for a 80's Suzuki Cafe Racers or something like that I may shop there as they have everything geared towards me and if they have a good blog or good products I'm going to assume they've picked out the best parts and accessories out there for that particular bike.
That said no customer in their right mind is going to visit JimsCellphoneAccessoryShop.Com to buy a phone case for $15 when they can go find the same case on AMazon for $7 with 2 day shipping.