EBay Dropship Products Sourcing–The Hidden Danger

Will dropshipping be the poison that kills your eBay business . . .

I’ll come to the point. I’ve talked about this before, but this is so important that it’s worth revisiting. The secret of eBay power sellers and eBay “wholesale” product sourcing is the acquisition of low cost goods. By “low cost,” we mean prices below wholesale. The real secret, the naked and unadorned secret to this is buying in bulk quantities. The larger the bulk, the better because the greater the quantity, the lower the price. Not everyone can buy in bulk, however, and though I actually have a solution for you, that’s really the subject of another blog post.

Is Dropshipping the Best Model for an EBay Business?
Probably not IF you are planning on selling mass market consumer goods to the public. The reason is that eBay is already a wholesale selling environment. That means that most prices on eBay are generally either at wholesale or below wholesale. This, in turn, means that if you, as a reseller, purchase goods from a wholesaler at wholesale prices, then your starting eBay price will probably be at or above most of the other prices already showing on eBay. Your chance of breaking even, especially after eBay and PayPal fees are applied, is very, very slim.

Keep in mind that a true wholesaler is a business that is required by law to demand proof of your sales tax permit. The sales tax permit, of course, allows you to purchase from wholesalers without paying sales tax. What I’m getting at is that with respect to product sourcing solutions for home business, most of your big warehouse dropshipping companies such as megagoods.com, dropshipdesign.com, shopster.com, doba.com and so forth, are not true wholesalers. Even though they advertise wholesale prices, they are in fact retailers offering discounts on the prices of goods and generally requiring recurring fees for use of their service. As such, their prices, no matter how much below retail or close to wholesale, are usually too high to consistently break even on eBay.

Not that you can’t do it, but to make it work you have to carefully research specific products and painstakingly compare them to products being sold on eBay. I guarantee you that on eBay, you will not be able to break even trying to sell “thousands” of products via any of the sites mentioned above without giving very careful thought to exactly what you are selling. Keep in mind that I’m talking specifically about the eBay selling environment. Dropshipping, even with the sites above, can work very well in an ecommerce venue. So how does this all fit together? Feel free to sign up for a free newsletter or take a free video tour of our favorite catch all solution.

 

 

 

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