Drop shipping

[doma1n]

Hello all,
I have a good opportunity to set up a drop shipping business on a website I own and would love to know if anyone has any experience in this field. Advice you can give, good reads, work involved, or your expertise before I begin.
At the moment the website has affiliate links so no work involved apart from promotion, with commissions upto 7%, droppshipper offering 15% for same product range.

I would appreciate your thoughts, advice or comments
Thanks

 

[donton]

I could write a book on it, but will keep it short.

With affiliate you palm the customer onto someone else and take your commission.

With drop shipping, you have to deal with the customer service side of things. If the drop shipper sends something late or by a slow delivery service, you will take the flak for it. The customer doesn't care it isn't your fault, and you'd be surprised how impatient people can be. If the product is faulty you'll also take the flak - along with any general customer queries.

A lot of drop shippers don't accept returns either in my experience (they are required to do so where an item is faulty, but not where a customer changes their mind). Which means you have to get the item(s) sent back to you, then refund the customer. If the item has been used or opened, you can't resell it as new and may take the loss on that.

I spent around 6 months dabbling in drop shipping. I did over 6 figures on it, and made the transition away to holding stock in my own warehouse just as fast as I could. Holding your own stock brings its own challenges and costs, but ultimately you have more control.

Perhaps not the answer you were looking for, but I hope this helps!

 

[doma1n]

Thanks for the reply Donton,
So I suppose it's worth secretly testing the delivery and returns service of the company before any deals are done. It's a good point, thanks

 

[dog]

What type of products do you sell? Should you always look for products which aren't on Amazon? How do you gain traffic? Seo, ppc, mix of both?

I could write a book on it, but will keep it short.

With affiliate you palm the customer onto someone else and take your commission.

With drop shipping, you have to deal with the customer service side of things. If the drop shipper sends something late or by a slow delivery service, you will take the flak for it. The customer doesn't care it isn't your fault, and you'd be surprised how impatient people can be. If the product is faulty you'll also take the flak - along with any general customer queries.

A lot of drop shippers don't accept returns either in my experience (they are required to do so where an item is faulty, but not where a customer changes their mind). Which means you have to get the item(s) sent back to you, then refund the customer. If the item has been used or opened, you can't resell it as new and may take the loss on that.

I spent around 6 months dabbling in drop shipping. I did over 6 figures on it, and made the transition away to holding stock in my own warehouse just as fast as I could. Holding your own stock brings its own challenges and costs, but ultimately you have more control.

Perhaps not the answer you were looking for, but I hope this helps!