Many people want to drop ship though eBay but they don’t know where and how to start from.  I would recommend interested sellers to follow the below guidelines before expecting any reward by selling on EBay.

Step # 1: You must find out a reliable company that offers drop shipping services of the products which you intend to sell. Be careful and choose only legitimate and trustworthy wholesale suppliers after through investigation. Some drop shipping companies require membership fees, pay it and sign up with one of them.

Step # 2: Set up your account on EBay which would require you to provide your basic information like contact information, address and telephone numbers. EBay also requires you to have a credit card and a PayPal account to sell. This payment mode now does not allow receiving money through cheques and money orders.

Step# 3: Choose the items to sell according to the current price trends on EBay. Choose the items you are interested to sell, and then see their price trends on the EBay though ‘Completed listings’ tab on the left side of the screen. This tab which shows you prices at which the products have been sold on eBay. If you feel your profit would be lower, choose other products.

Step # 4: Once you have selected the items, list them on the EBay by using its various tools. You can add attractive descriptions and images of the products. You can highlight its price and invite people to buy from you. EBay also charges you some fees and commissions depending on the category in which you are listing and the number of your listings.

Step# 5: Once you get the orders from your customers, it’s the time to forward them to drop shippers. Pass the orders only when you have received the payments through PayPal. Communicate the delivery time and quality to the drop shipper and let him do packaging and shipping on your behalf.

Things to Look Out For!

Wholesale suppliers in order to make sure that they are dealing with the legitimate and trust worthy drop shippers must follow the given guidelines.

Check website URL! - Since many drop shipping sites have SSL certificates; it is always advisable to check the URL of the website. If it is starting from http, suspect it since the URL should start from https (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure). Once the URL is right, then enter your personal information otherwise not.

Suspect low prices! – If drop shippers are offering you products at dirt cheap prices and they have advertised their offers heavily on the site, always suspect their credibility. Check their website in detail and if you think they are traceable, they can be real. Make phone calls and visit their offices to check if they are genuine or not.

Investigate offers! – Normally the legal and operative drop shipping businesses update their websites regularly. Check out their offers in detail and see if the prices and the images are current or not. Check all other features of the products as well such as quality, color, size, and the minimum order requirement set by the drop shippers.

Check terms & conditions! – Check the terms and conditions of the drop shipper in detail. Identify who would pay for the insurance? Are there any hidden charges? What would be the duties and fees on the purchase? What are the requirements of refund? What are the return policy requirements and the mode of payment?

Check privacy policy! – Always check the privacy policy of the drop shipper, since it is a highly sensitive matter. Make sure that the private information you would disclose is not leaked by the seller at any cost. Prefer to make payments through credit cards since they are safer. Also inquire if the drop shipper asks you for the unnecessary private information like social security numbers.

Whether to source SEO services to a vendor or build an up an SEO department on your own is a crucial decision for the drop shippers. This decision depends on the scale of business operation and the level of expertise in SEO techniques. However experts say building an in house SEO team should always be preferable for the drop shippers due to many reasons. Some of them are elaborated here.

Cost effective in the long run!

It obvious that short term cost benefits are more in outsourcing your SEO services, but drop shippers must look at the long term cost saving. The cost of purchasing an office, recruiting and hiring employees, office furniture and the cost of training is paid only once but the benefits are for the lifetime of the business. On the other hand, paying commission to the SEO firm which increases over time is always costly in the long run.

Secrecy of business matters!

Since the competition is large in the wholesale industry, there is a chance if your vendor also provides services to your competitors; he can leak your sensitive data to them. Once you lose your passwords, reports, data, and sensitive files, it poses a biggest threat to the survival of your business. Even if the business survives, drop shippers can incur heavy losses. On the other hand, if you do your own working, you can easily maintain high level of business secrecy.

Nobody wants to be dependent!

No firm in today’s’ competitive world want to depend on some other business, since it’s a biggest threat to the long term viability of a business. If the business of the SEO firm flops and it winds up, it would take much time, efforts and money in hiring another SEO firm. This is a very risky task, since many SEO scammers now operate online who make high false promises just to loot money and do nothing in return. On the other hand, keeping your SEO in house mitigates your risk of being dependent on others.

The chances of unintentional closure of dropshipping business can be great if dropshippers do not know how to make and execute best strategies to avoid ruining their businesses. Customer loss is the biggest sign that the business is near to ruin. Following are explained some mistakes, which dropshippers should never make otherwise they would end up their businesses because of customer loss.

Wrong price of products- Dropshippers purchase from the wholesale suppliers at low cost and sell them to the retailers after adding their profits. The problem starts when their wholesale suppliers sell to the retailers at a same rate and in the same market. When they offer same prices to the customers of dropshippers, they can start purchasing from them.

Since dropshippers are intermediaries they must consider souring products from the manufacturers in order to offer better prices to the customers and retain them in their business.  

Lack of product knowledge – Since dropshippers forward their orders to their suppliers and they pack and deliver the products on their behalf, there is a possibility that the customer may not get the exact products he ordered. The lack of knowledge about the exact product quality, design, colour due to not seeing or touching the items, results in customer loss.

Especially those who place trail orders just to check the dropshippers business for future deliveries, never place their second orders due to the products not matching their specifications.

In order to have a complete knowledge of the products, dropshippers must check out the quality and features of the products in advance through samples.

Lack of customer service – No matter how dedicated your supplier is to deliver best quality products exactly matching your customer’s specifications, the customer can always have issues. Since due to dependency on your supplier’s business, dropshippers never have 100% control on their customer service, there is a chance that they would lose their customers due to poor customer service.

For that purpose, dropshippers must give special instructions to their suppliers about satisfying their customers in the best possible way. Moreover, they must also be prompt in handling and answering their queries since best customer service is the key to retain and win customers.

The online dropshipping businesses that cater to the international markets can reach to the millions of the Facebook users and can experience a tremendous boost in their sales with out heavy marketing that eats up their thousands of dollars every year. Dropshippers can shift massive traffic on their website through Facebook, if they build up a compelling business profile on it.

Many online wholesale suppliers now know that their presence on Facebook can heat up their sales but they do not know where and how to start from. This is because the use of the Facebook varies with the nature of the business and the type of the marketing strategies you would like to use. Some Facebook basics for the starters are given below:

Create business profile

First of all, make a business profile in the name of your business with the expectation that it would serve as your official account. Since the users would know you through your profile, keep it impressive, simple, and easy to understand.

Set up an official Page

After this, set up an official page, which should be attractive enough to catch buyer’s attention at a glance. If visitors like the page, they click on the “Like” button. The more are the likes of the people the more are the chances to boost in SEO rankings.

Gear up on promotions

Dropshippers should advertise your offers on your page by highlighting the important and compelling features of your wholesale products. Accept the friend requests and send friend requests yourself to increase your circle. You can also gear up on special occasions by creation of Facebook Events.

Make your presence feel

Update your profile and page regularly. Highlight your special offers from time to time to let others know about your real presence on the Facebook. Inform your customers about the latest happenings of the business and engage them to comment on your activities.

Interact frequently

Daily check your account and respond to the queries of the customers. Talk to the people and interact with them frequently. Not only comment on your threads but also visit your friends’ profile to comment on their recent activities because this is the key to develop relations and win clients.

No “Free Shipping” prevents customers to buy

The phrase “Free Shipping” has the power to grab large amount of customers. According to an estimate, 46% of the shoppers who prefer to shop online cancel their orders when they come to know that the offer does not include “Free Shipping.” They choose the items, place them in the shopping cart and as soon as they realize that the order is going to cost them more due to high shipping charges, they cancel them and go to some other dropshipping site where shipping is free.

According to another study, 75% of the customers who prefer to shop online will likely spend more if the deal they are interested in has the feature of shipping with out even spending a penny. However, the problem here remains with the dropshippers because they cannot offer free shipping from their own expense, since they also pay for the shipping to the manufacturers who commit to deliver their products directly to their customers.

How to offset “Free Shipping” expense?

Dropshippers must offer “Free Shipping” to the customers, but wisely, since this phrase written at the top of their website has the potential to attract a lot of customers towards their offers. The best way through which dropshippers can relax the burden of expense of “Free Shipping” is by making a wise and balanced price policy of the product. The best way to offset the “Free Shipping” expense is by lowering the discount rate on the product and offering free shipping on the product. This is the most balanced policy for the wholesale suppliers as well as dropshippers to boost your sales with out adding to your expense.

No control over customer service

When you directly ship to your customers, you have a complete control over your customer service. You can make sure that the products are dispatched and delivered in good packing and are exactly according to the customer’s specifications. If you are short of stock to meet the customer order in time, you re-order at the right time to avoid disappointing your customers. In contrast to that, when some body else on your behalf directly delivers to your customer, you lose control over these aspects of the customer service.

If your wholesale supplier is running out of the inventory and he has scheduled your order, there always remains a risk that he will disappoint your customer by delivering the products late. Moreover, he may not pack the products safely and if they deteriorate in transit, its the dropshippers reputation that is going to spoil in the market. In this way, dropshippers not only compromise on their customer service but the fear of losing customers also hovers over them.

Do your homework to ensure good service!

In order to minimize the inherent risk of losing customer service, you must do proper homework to locate a reliable and honest supplier for your dropshipping business. The two tricks you can use to ensure good customer service are:

1. First, make sure that the supplier or the manufacturer you are dealing with is reliable and legitimate. Those suppliers who show their willingness to serve you without verifying your legal identity are not real. Real suppliers are those, who provide dropshipping as an additional service and never work with you without checking your license. You can also check their authenticity from their website and talking to their previously served customers.
2. Before enlisting the products of the wholesale suppliers on your dropshipping website, always check their products and services by placing real testing orders. You can always ask for the samples to test the quality of the products and other features. For testing the quality of their services, place hidden orders placed by your colleagues and friends and note down if the delivery matches the specifications, products are delivered on time or packaging is safe enough or not.