Re:Software Engineer loses $2000 dropshipping for 6months
by sacks2k on Thursday July 09, 2020 @11:32PM
(#23787873)
I started dropshipping in 2009 and it was my first business. I had some money in the bank, but used credit cards to fund my operation.
I never had to spend money on ads because I used existing marketplaces which essentially had built-in marketing. I wrote software that allowed me to add a massive amount of products, sync pricing, and remove products when they were no longer available.
It worked surprisingly well and I was able to make a decent living for about 5 years. It was by no means a way to passively make money. I was working 50-60 hours/week to keep everything running smoothly and manage customer questions and returns.
I eventually gave it up and moved onto to other ways of making more money with less hassle. It's a time sink unless you are able to scale it to millions of dollars and hire employees to manage customer support.
Payment providers also really don't like dropshippers. I was constantly fighting to get my money transferred (I once had $50,000 held for over 2 months) and bending over backwards to make my customers happy.
You will also pay a certain percentage in returns and lost orders. If you are dropshipping from overseas, you will need to get really good with dealing with customs issues, making sure you aren't selling counterfeits, and making sure your supplier is actually telling the truth about their products and shipping them out consistently.
It's also really easy for suppliers to steal your customers. It's much better to have all of your products shipped to you and then white label them/ship them out to your customers directly.
Re:Software Engineer loses $2000 dropshipping for 6months
by geoah on Friday July 10, 2020 @04:15AM
(#23789307)
> Wait, what is “that other thing” I’d have told myself to do?
Well, I guess you’ll just have to read until the end to find out
...
> If I could go back in time and tell myself what to do in order to save time, I’d tell myself to go sign up for StackThatMoney (STM) and start reading through all the tutorials + traffic source guides.
ps. I did not read past the “well I guess” part as I got a tad annoyed at the tone, just scrolled to see what the other thing was.
Re:Software Engineer loses $2000 dropshipping for 6months
by redhathacker on Thursday July 09, 2020 @10:43PM
(#23787637)
Signing up for that site at the beginning is genuinely what I would do if I were do it over. Knowledge is power. Literally a $5000 learning curve for $99
Besides, my advice was to sign up, then ask for refund within the first 3 days after reading as much as you can. You get 3 days to do it. Then circle back to it once you need more info or advice
Seriously though, dropshipping is a dumb first business model to do if you're an internet marketing newbie.
I never had to spend money on ads because I used existing marketplaces which essentially had built-in marketing. I wrote software that allowed me to add a massive amount of products, sync pricing, and remove products when they were no longer available.
It worked surprisingly well and I was able to make a decent living for about 5 years. It was by no means a way to passively make money. I was working 50-60 hours/week to keep everything running smoothly and manage customer questions and returns.
I eventually gave it up and moved onto to other ways of making more money with less hassle. It's a time sink unless you are able to scale it to millions of dollars and hire employees to manage customer support.
Payment providers also really don't like dropshippers. I was constantly fighting to get my money transferred (I once had $50,000 held for over 2 months) and bending over backwards to make my customers happy.
You will also pay a certain percentage in returns and lost orders. If you are dropshipping from overseas, you will need to get really good with dealing with customs issues, making sure you aren't selling counterfeits, and making sure your supplier is actually telling the truth about their products and shipping them out consistently.
It's also really easy for suppliers to steal your customers. It's much better to have all of your products shipped to you and then white label them/ship them out to your customers directly.
Well, I guess you’ll just have to read until the end to find out
...
> If I could go back in time and tell myself what to do in order to save time, I’d tell myself to go sign up for StackThatMoney (STM) and start reading through all the tutorials + traffic source guides.
ps. I did not read past the “well I guess” part as I got a tad annoyed at the tone, just scrolled to see what the other thing was.
Besides, my advice was to sign up, then ask for refund within the first 3 days after reading as much as you can. You get 3 days to do it. Then circle back to it once you need more info or advice
Seriously though, dropshipping is a dumb first business model to do if you're an internet marketing newbie.