Dropshipping to Profits

by Denise Washington Entrepreneur

Online stores and eBay PowerSellers. Hundreds of them. You have lots of questions. Where do they find the products they sell? Is it expensive to get started? Can I do it? The answers to the questions are, "..of course you can. You can start for under $75 if you're selling on eBay and under $200 if you're setting up your own online retail store. It's really quite easy with wholesale dropshipping.

What is dropshipping?

With dropshipping, there is no need for you to buy or stock inventory in your basement. Customers make a purchase from your website. You place the order with your dropshipper and submit your payment. Your dropshipper processes the order then ships the item to your customer. It will appear as if the product came from you. Isn't that great? Of course it is. No stocking, no shipping, easy!

What's the catch?

No catch. Wholesalers are anxious to move their products. Dropshipping is just one model used to sell those products. They make money, you make money.

How much do I pay the dropshipper?

Your wholesale discount can range anywhere from 30% to 75% off the manufacturer's retail price. You determine the price your customer pays for the product. For instance, you sell a decorative hand blown vase for $39.99. The customer places an order and sends you the money. You turn around and pay the wholesale dropshipper the agreed upon wholesale price of $19.99. You've made a profit of $20.00. Sell 100 of those vases and you've made a $2000.00 profit. Didn't I say it was easy?

Sounds great, but how do I get started?

First, you have to determine what you want to sell. You don't want to sell any old thing, so find out what's selling. eBay has a tool called "eBay Pulse", that lists the most popularly searched items on the site.

Next, find a wholesale dropshipper with a website that showcases their products. Submit your application to the wholesaler and they will respond in an email with your log in information. Logged in, you can find your wholesale price. There are some wholesale dropshippers that want you to have a company name as well as a tax id number. This is to keep the general public from shopping on the wholesale site with no intention of having a retail site or selling on eBay or Amazon.

If you just want to sell your products on eBay, you just need to setup your eBay account and start selling by uploading your product image and product information.

If you want to sell from your own professional online retail store, that takes more steps. These are the things you need to do if you want a serious site.

Research the the item you want to sell. Important questions you'll want to ask are; is there a demand for the product, can I make a decent profit, how much will it cost to ship, what's the competition like? If there is a good demand, you can make a decent profit and shipping is not expensive, go for it.

After you've researched your product, grab yourself a domain name, preferably related to the type of items you will be selling in your store. For an online store, you'll need shopping cart software. There are free ones, like ZenCart and AgoraCart. There are paid carts with hosting like BigCommerce and Volution. I chose BigCommerce because of the customer service and the 15 day free trial which allowed me to setup my store and check it out before signing up.

Next, you will need to upload your products and product info to your store.

How will I get paid?

You'll want to go to your local bank to open a commercial checking account. The shopping cart software you choose should allow you to accept at least Paypal. Other options include Google Checkout, Authorize.net, Secure Pay and credit cards. You will need to open an account with the companies mention, which is free and link the account to your bank account. When your customer places an order, they will pay you through one of the payment gateways just mentioned. The money is then deposited into your account which you can withdraw to your commercial bank account.

That's about all there is to it. You've found a wholesale dropshipper and now you can sell online or open your own online store. To see what you can do check out Sarongs4U, an online retail store.

Resources Box
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