So you want to be a Dropshipper

So you want to be a dropshipper.

Many people think that starting a dropshipping site is easy and will make them loads of money without any hard work at all.

Set up a site.
Add a few products.
Add lots of profit margin.
Sit back and watch the orders roll in.

HOW WRONG CAN THEY BE!!

Let me introduce you into the real world -

We will start from the beginning. You have an idea to start a dropship business, you will first of all need to find a reputable dropshipper. This involves lots of research. Finding a dropshipper is not hard, finding how good they are is.
Some points to check are:
Where are they located? do you want to import? (that's another story). What sort of products do they offer? what payment do they accept? What are their delivery times? What type of packages do they offer regarding dropshipping? The list goes on.
You will need to put down the pro's and cons of your dropshipper.
Overall if you spend less than a week researching you may find you will not get very far off the ground.

Membership fees.
Many dropshippers charge a fee to join. Why? To give you the privilege of buying discounted products, to sell on at a profit. If it was an open market everyone would be buying at these prices, so your business wouldn't even get started. (It also covers any overheads they may have)

If you decide to make your own site you will need to think of a domain name, something catchy, something related to your products.
You then need to get it hosted. - How much web space do I need? how much bandwidth will I use?. MORE RESEARCH

You then need to determine which shopping cart you are going to use. There are numerous shopping carts available, some free some payable. AGAIN MORE RESEARCH.

So now you have found your dropshipper, decided on a domain name, found a hoster and picked a shopping cart.
You have purchased the lowest cost package (cash flow problems).

You now have to set everything up, web site, payment options, profit margin, add products.

Your dropshipper offers (for example) 500 varied products, each in their own category, each with varied prices. You have to input them manually to your site.
This can take several days (depending on how good you are at typing and amount of time you have). You have to add your profit margin to each product, albeit a specific amount or percentage.
When you have achieved that you will need to recheck for typos, missing links, missing graphics, correct pricing etc.

OMG is that nearly a month gone by already !!!!!!!!!!

So you now have your site set up, your products are all working fine, your prices are correct.
You can now sit back and see people clambering to buy your products............. WRONG

How are they going to know you even exist, you need to get seen on the internet.
You now have to sign up with the major search engines and wait for them to pick up your site.
You will have to advertise your site in as many ways as possible, and keep advertising. - flyer's, signature in emails, word of mouth, business cards .......
See also SEO on the forum. (Search Engine Optimisation)

You MAY start getting customers a few weeks later.

This is only a brief outline of dropshipping, to do a full blown article would turn it into a book.

Remember there are 1000's of people doing the same as you are, so competition will be stiff.

This is NOT a get rich scheme, many people do it as a hobby, and a little pocket money.
Only the dedicated few will ever turn it into a full time occupation.

This is only intended for a website, selling on eBay is more research and hard work.

Search the forum for articles relevant to you and RESEARCH RESEARCH RESEARCH. Maybe then you will succeed.

On an end note - the sponsors on this forum are well known and reputable, you may like to look into them first to save a little time. They do some excellent package deals, and are willing to assist in problems you may encounter.

Hopefully this has given some insight to the misconceptions of dropshipping - If it was easy EVERYONE would be doing it.