Drop-shipping...

Drop-shipping... Advice Please... Rate Topic:

#1 Gareth Daine

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Posted 29 March 2010 - 10:08 AM

Hi Folks,

I'm interested in starting up an eCommerce store, after seeing recent search engine results/sales using Magento but unfortunately I have nothing to sell yet and I was looking in to the possibility of drop-shipping and I was wondering whether any of you guys had any experience in this area and whether you could give me some advice on the subject.

In the future I will have things to sell, electronic products such as Magento and WordPress themes, as well as plugins and extensions for these platforms but for now I'd like to get something up and running to test things out.

Cheers

Gareth

#2 Gareth Daine

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Posted 01 April 2010 - 08:44 AM

Thought I'd bump this thread and see if anyone has any info.

#3 mediaslave

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Posted 15 April 2010 - 12:51 PM

Dropshipping is a funny thing, pixmania does excellent drop shipping for electronic products, but , once you work out the profit margins you realise you make peanuts per transaction. So only if you really sells tons of stuff you won't make much money. Added that you then have to deal with complaint, shipping errors, broken products etc etc it seems hardly worth while.

Also it is seriously hard to compete with big online stores like amazon and ebuyer who have incredibly low prices.

I say this because I spent quite a bit of time looking into this.

I think one options is to contact template, compoment etc developers and sell their items for them with a profit share.

#4 nellyshark

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Posted 15 April 2010 - 02:02 PM

My understanding of drop shipping is that the retailer does not keep goods in stock but transfers orders to wholesalers etc etc. Is this right? In the event that I am correct would say selling business cards for example be an idea, you design the cards, get them printed at a printers and shipped. Just an idea, might not even be what your asking tbh, the sun has my brain fried?

#5 Gareth Daine

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Posted 15 April 2010 - 02:09 PM

Thanks guys.

@mediaslave - Yeah, that's mainly what I've found. I'm thinking about contacting manufacturers direct. I think this is what places like Amazon and various other online stores like Littlewoods do.

@nellyshark - That's actually a really good idea, but will involve a lot of work in the outset. I really want products to go. Thanks for the suggestion.

#6 nellyshark

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Posted 15 April 2010 - 02:19 PM

Gareth Daine, on 15 April 2010 - 02:09 PM, said:

@nellyshark - That's actually a really good idea, but will involve a lot of work in the outset. I really want products to go. Thanks for the suggestion.

If you were based in Ireland I would have the perfect idea for you but alas you are not.