It’s been a while since I made a post, but here it is. The intention of this post is to clear out any misleading notions of dropshipping and hopefully maybe even give you a idea what and how to succeed in dropshipping.

From what I’ve been seeing in all my years being around the dropshipping arena, I’ve seen countless of ads that tell you that you can get rich from dropshipping quick and easy! Not saying that that’s not true, but it’s really portrayed in a misleading manner. I say that because majority of people that succeed in dropshipping have put their share of effort into it and spent quite some time on it just like any online business.

Getting back to the main topic “Persistence a Key to Success”. Why is persistence so important?
First of all, when your dropshipping you are an online business and most likely you have a website and also a domain name. You can not expect to get a huge consistence amount of traffic right off the bat when you start your website. Well, for the most part at least. Most inexperience dropshippers don’t realize this and just live in their own fantasy world where traffic is suppose to just come out of no where.

Unless your going to spend big money on advertising with stuff like Adwords you are not going to get any sort of large instant traffic. Why is persistence so important for dropshipping or for any website so to speak? Because of SEO(Search Engine Optimization). The best way to get your website out there in the long-run. Not only do you get better Search Engine Ranking the older your website/domain is, but you also build up loyal customers as time goes on.

Basically what I’m saying is if your not having success right away, don’t be too worried because it’s usually like that. Instead keep working on your site to make it better and continue to market it with any creative ideas you got. Not to say that sometimes it is right to call it quits, but some people just quit a bit too early.

A lot of times what attracts people to the concept of dropshipping is the get rich quick and easy. Especially for people new to the dropshipping those ads can be very appealing. At least I know it caught my attention at first. In a sense these types of ads are a good thing for the dropshipping industry as it brings more about more dropshippers. But in another sense it can be very damaging to the dropshipping industry and just give dropshipping a bad name to say the least.

Dropshipping in reality, is not a Get Rich Quick quick scheme for the most part. Because of this reason, some people call dropshipping a scam because many companies out there will give the idea that it is easy money, where in fact it is just like any other business which requires work and determination along with patiences for growth. Hopefully my opinion here will broaden the view of both the people that think dropshipping is an get rich quick scheme and the people that think its all just all a big scam. Because for the most part it is neither. There are dropshipping companies that are scams just like there are with most internet businesses. There are also instants where you can get find dropshipping is a get rich scheme. It does happen but just not very likely. In instants that it does happen, comes when you find an untapped source. When it comes to the internet, if you are able to find something that people will want, and are the only one selling it. You can easily make a lot of money unlike if you were selling at a physical retail store. The truth of the matter is that lots of people that shop on the internet do so because one it’s easy and secondly they are looking for things they can’t find in their neighborhood. For example the company Cafepress that allows you to sell personalized items. There are people that make quite a bit of money with them even though their prices are extremely high. Their base price for their sellers are already more expensive then what you would normally pay as an end user consumer but why are some people still able to make money? Because their personalized items, therefore if they want it, it might be just the only place they can get it. Hopefully I have been able to erase some of the myths and fables of dropshipping for some people.

One thing about selling on the internet as oppose to having a business on corner of a street is that when selling on the internet, you have the potential to sell to many more people. There are things that are better when it comes to selling products at one physical location. One being it usually takes more effort for your consumers to buy from your competitors if they are already at your store or shop; but having the whole world as your potential customer is not one of them. So while you are selling on the internet, try to sell to as many people as you can and are able to. This sounds like a given doesn’t it?

The reason why I made this post is because I have been seeing a lot of individuals, especially people living in the UK that will say things like. “I want to find a dropshipper from the UK ” or “I’m only interested in selling to the UK” Honestly, who cares where dropshippers are based, as long as you can make a profit. That’s the point isn’t it? I mean if you want to sell to the UK, fair enough. But there are lots of other dropshippers out there that are not based in the UK but will shipped to the UK or world-wide so to speak. Some dropshippers will even allow you to pick the currency you want to use on your site, so I don’t see the point of closing your eyes to the potential dropshippers you have available to work with or to the available people you could sell to world wide. I’m sure there may be some slight benefit from using a dropshipper from your home country. Maybe it’s easier to communicate to them for you. The point is by having your options open, the benefits you get from this will most likely always outweigh the Cons.

Sorry for those that may think this is a pointless post, but the fact of the matter is that there are people out there that will only work with dropshippers from they live and only sell to the region where they live. This defeats one of the advantages for having an internet business. You may or may not have seen this, but I’ve personally seen it multiple of times and it’s almost as it just ingrained in their behavior without any logical reasoning.

So all I have to say is if your selling on the internet. Open your mind, consider the possibilities of selling world-wide if you have that option. And leave your options open for dropshipping companies wherever they are based. The unexpected place, just maybe the most profitable as no one expected it and you’ll be the first to find this untapped source.

Internet sales as with everywhere else dramatically increase during this time of year. Specifically November and December when people are out there buying their presents for Christmas. Some studies show an increase of 2-3 times of sales during this time of year.

This is why it is very crucial that you are ready and well prepared and not miss this opportunity. Some things to keep in mind is that postal services are also generally slower during this time of year as it gets really busy. Also you should very clearly know how long products will take to arrive to your customer if possible as it could be a huge disappointment if they get it after Christmas. You should also consider giving out Christmas sales or coupons if that’s an option for you.

Anyways good luck to all you dropshippers out there. I hope you expierence a healthy increase in revenue. ^_^

Cheers and Happy Holidays!

A niche is a distinct segment of a market.

For average joes like most of us will probably not be able to compete directly againist those online superstores like walmart with their cut throat prices. This is because they purchase inventory in extremely large quanitys, enabling them to get it for a much lower cost.

So instead of trying to have a website with as many items at possible,
for the lowest price possible. You should emphasize on a niche
market targeting specific pool of audience only. Provide good service, make
your site appealing to your niche market and give it a bang that is give it
a unique feel to your niche market. This can increase traffic and more importantly
build customer loyalty. The key to make their visit an enjoyable one. ^_^

For Example, you can sell games only. Or if you want to go even further you can
sell only RPG games. Design your website that will be appealing to RPG fanatics
by having attractive banners and buttons related to popluar RPG Games.
Give a little extra bang to your site, by having a blog where you rant about all
the RPG goodies, or have a forum for your users to discuss RPG games with each other.
There are numberous ways to increase your customer bases, so be creative.
Remember, even though price is important, it is not the only factor! There are also
other ways to win over a sale!

Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS)

One very important thing, I find that beginners fail in. Believe it or
your website’s usablility is one of the most important factors. People
that surf the net will scan through your site and decide in 10 seconds
whether or not they will spend another 5 mins on your site or leave.

If your site seems messy or they don’t know how to navaigate to something
they are interested at, you can except them to leave.

So how do you keep it simple? Well, the best way to do so, is to keep
it a standard. People like looking at something they are used to.
So do not have some extravagate way of getting to a specific page.
If you going to do something unorthadox, then you better have a good reason
for doing so.

There are many benefits to dropshipping online as you may imagine. Different dropshipper may have different advantagess and disadvantages. But just to list the top 3 which we think are the most important and most apparent amongst the majority of dropshippers online; we are going to say they are Inventory Storage Space, Handling of Shipment and Risk of Failure. I will go through each one of them individually.

Inventory Storage Space

Inventory Storage Space, is the space needed to store your products for sale. Now, for many of us we don’t own a warehouse or large storage room to store our inventory. Dropshipping allows us to have a wide selection of different products to sell, without the burden of having to find a place to store the inventory. As you might imagine how fast our rooms would fill up if we had store them in there.

Handling of Shipment

This is basically what defines dropshipping. If you are already selling on the web, you probably know the amount of work it takes to run a successful site. Doing your research, marketing your site, handling customer support, designing logos, and so on. Bottomline, there’s a lot of work, and there’s always room for improvement. With a dropshipper, there’s at least one less thing you have to worry about. That is packaging and shipping out products you sold. Imagine if you had to package all your products and drive down to the postal service to ship them out regularly. Not saying its not possible to do that, but its definitely saves a little bit less work, when your supplier does it for you.

Lower Risk of Failure

And Finally, lower risk of failure. This may be just the most important benefit of dropshipping of all. For one, I don’t think many of us could run a successful site, selling products that we buy from our wholesaler. Why? Just because we run the risk of not selling it. If you bought 15 IPod and only sell 10, you are left with 5 which you will have to basically buy it yourself. With Dropshipping You Sell, before You Buy! You will never have an outdated inventory on hand that you can’t sell.

Remember these are not the only benefits of dropshipping, they are many more and they vary from dropshipper to dropshipper. For example some dropshippers gives you an Intergrated website with everything you need to start selling right away like Custom Dropshippers.
With that said, keep in mind that everything said here, is for the majority of situations and not every situations. For example some wholesalers can give you credits, when you return goods to them that you can’t sell. Feel free to comment ^_^!

And remember to do your research! Work smart, not just hard!

For those people who like to design images of their own, this is a great dropshipping opportunity for them. Imagine if you could dropship custom product that you design. You upload any image to a product such as a t-shirt, mug, mousepad, lighter, sticker and there you have it. A Custom product that has the image you upload on a product of your choice.

Well, Custom Dropshipper lets you do this! You can sell on both Ebay or on your own website with everything you need. With over 200+ products to choose from the possiblities are endless. The best thing about being able to sell custom products, is not only do you sell your own creation, but you will probably be the only person in the world selling it. This mean you have leverage, since you won’t have any direct competition. If you interested in reading more information and details of this dropshipper, click here!

I think that article will give you a pretty good idea, of how it all works.

It’s worth a click! www.CustomDropshipper.com

This is a continuation of my previous post “Online Marketing Tips Pt.1″. Hopefully at least one of these tips have sparked an idea for your online marketing campagin.

11.)Exchange Links

Another great free way to advertise your site, is to request link exchanges to related sites. In this way not only do you benefit in getting additional traffic, it might just help you boost your PR. But Beware of who you exchange your links with. STAY AWAY FROM LINK FARMS!!!

12.)Submit your site to directories

There are lots of directories out there, both paid and free. If you are willing to pay to submit your site to a directory, one to consider is the Yahoo directory. Otherwise it’s also a good idea to look for specific niche directories that you can submit your site to that is relevent to your site.

13.)List on shopping comparsion sites

If you willing to pay and you are selling a product, this is definitely something you would want to consider. Especially, if your product price’s competitive. Here’s a few shopping comparsion sites worth checking out. (Shopping.com and BizRate)

14.)Email Marketing

Email Marketing, quite self-explanatory right? You pay, make an email and have it sent out to thousands or even millions of people by a email marketing company. Usually email marketing has a very negative image with people due to it being looked at as spam. Email Marketing is generally very ineffective and has a very low conversion rate as you would image. But they are quite cheap if you calculate it per email.

15.)Set up Affiliates

Setting up an Affiliates is a way so that you can get other people to advertise your site or product for you. If you interested in setting up and affiliate program check ShareaSale out.

16.)Write Articles

Writing articles on relevent topics to your site, then leaving a link to your site is a very good way to market your site for free. One place you can do this is EzineArticles

17.)Get on the News

Although difficult and often not successful but still worth a try. If you got a interesting product or website that is very different from others, you could try to email a newspaper, radio or just any media company. If your lucky you might just have an article written on your site ^_^!

Thats all for now guys, if you haven’t read the “Online Marketing Tips Pt.1″ click on Category “General Marketing” to find it.

As many of you may already know, there are lots of sites out there that give reviews or comparsions of dropship companies. If you done any research yourself on dropshipping companies, you probably came accross them at one point or another. The question here is are they worth a read.

First lets remember that these review sites are out there for their own interest. Many are have afflitiate links to those dropshippers and make a commission on every sale that are directed to their site.

One of the most popular review sites is www.dropship-review.com. Its provides you with considerable amount of information on 6 legit dropshippers(5 not including NetDropshipper).
Many people will look to this professional looking site for guidance and research. But what many people don’t know is that this site is run by as a seperate business by Doba. And as surprising as it may seem, Doba seems to have a pretty good review there. Although, they state that they will try to be unbias, its still important to keep that information in mind.

Other review sites tend to glorify dropshipping companies to persuade readers. After all they they get a percentage of the sale. I am not saying all review sites do this, but many do. There will be review sites that try not to be bias at all but they will still be opinions.

In the end, I believe that dropship review sites are still worth a read as they do contain a lot of fact. All I am saying is, it is important to keep in mind that some review sites may tend to be bias.