Many people new to drop shipping want to know how much money can you make through drop shipping? This solely depends on yourself and the following factors:
- Are you in a profitable niche?
- Are you selling cheap or expensive items?
- Do you drive (targeted!!) traffic?
- Does your store look professional?
- Does your store look and feel trustworthy?
- Do you manage to present and market your products in an exciting way?
If you can answer all these questions with a “yes” (or most of them) you can make some good money in a matter of weeks of posting your listings.
But it could also take as long as several months to really get everything going and seeing any real profits.
If you are new to drop shipping and you really don’t know what you are doing, turning a profit in your business can take awhile.
General tutorials are only going to take you so far. Having money to invest and previous marketing experience can also be of great help.
There is absolutely no “rule of thumb” for how long it will take you to make money from your drop shipping business nor how much money you can make. Every case is so completely different.
Theoretically speaking, you can earn your first sale as fast as you list your first item on eBay or Amazon. But to make consistent sales you need to know how to do things properly and learn it correctly.
And of course it depends on how many hours you put into your new business. Some people quit their day job after a few months, while others after a year or so and others just want to do it as a side business to earn some extra money for vacations or their children’s college tuition.
With drop shipping, there is a learning curve here and I suggest that you start with an online training course. I recommend SaleHoo to start with. You will get up-to-date-training, automation tools, access to reliable suppliers, and a great customer support team. With the help of SaleHoo, you can get started right away and make your first sale pretty quickly!
How To Find Reliable Drop-shippers
You Can Enlist The Help Of Google
Using Google to find high-quality suppliers may seem obvious, but there are a few rules to keep in mind.
You have to do an extensive online search. Wholesalers are terrible at marketing and promotion, and they are definitely not going to be at the top of the search results for “wholesale suppliers for product X.”
This means you will likely have to dig through LOTS of search results, possibly hundreds to find the wholesaler’s website listed way down at page #65.
When you do find a wholesaler that you would like to work with, don’t judge the website by its appearance. Wholesalers are also notorious for having poorly designed ’90s-style websites.
So while a well-designed website may indicate a good supplier in some cases, many legitimate wholesalers have cringe-worthy homepages. Don’t let the poor design scare you off.
Use lots of modifiers in your online searches. Wholesalers aren’t doing extensive SEO to ensure that you find their websites, so you might need to try various search queries.
Don’t stop at just “[product] wholesaler.” Try using modifiers such as “distributor,” “reseller,” “bulk,” “warehouse” and “supplier.”
How to Spot Fake Dropshipping Wholesalers
Depending on where you’re searching, you’ll likely come across a large number of “fake” wholesalers.
Unfortunately legitimate wholesalers are traditionally poor at marketing and tend to be harder to find.
This results in the non-genuine wholesalers, usually just middle men appearing more frequently in your searches, so you’ll want to be cautious.
The following tactics will help you to discern whether a wholesale supplier is legitimate or not.
They Want Ongoing Fees
Real wholesalers don’t charge their customers a monthly fee for the privilege of doing business and ordering from them. If a supplier asks for a monthly membership or service fee, it’s likely not legitimate.
It’s important to differentiate here between suppliers and supplier directories. Supplier directories are directories of wholesale suppliers organized by product types or market and screened to ensure the suppliers are legitimate.
Most directories will charge a fee either one time or ongoing. So you shouldn’t take this as a sign that the directory itself is illegitimate.
They Sell to the Public
To get genuine wholesale pricing you’ll need to apply for a wholesale account, prove you’re a legitimate business and be approved before placing your first order.
Any wholesale supplier that offers products to the general public at “wholesale prices” is just a retailer offering items at inflated prices. But here are some legitimate dropshipping fees you’ll likely encounter:
Per-Order Fees
Many dropshippers will charge a per-order drop shipping fee that can range from $2 to $5 or more, depending on the size and complexity of the items being shipped. This is standard in the industry, as the costs of packing and shipping individual orders are much higher than shipping a bulk order.
Minimum Order Sizes
Some wholesalers will have a minimum initial order size, which is the lowest amount you have to purchase for your first order. They do this in order to filter out window-shopping merchants that will waste their time with questions and small orders but won’t translate into any meaningful business.
If you’re dropshipping, this could cause some complications. For example, what do you do if a supplier has a $500 minimum order, but your average order size is around $100? You don’t want to pre-order $500 of product just for the privilege of opening a dropshipping account.
In this situation, it is best to offer to pre-pay the supplier $500 to build a credit with them to apply against your drop shipping orders.
This allows you to meet the supplier’s minimum purchase requirement (as you are committing to buy at least $500 in product) without having to place a single large order without any corresponding customer order.
Here Are Some Reliable Dropshippers To Start With
SaleHoo
Oberlo
Dropship Direct
Sunrise Wholesale
Wholesale 2B
Wholesale Central
Megagoods
If you are looking to sell designer perfumes in your drop ship business, here are 3 perfume distributors that you can check out.
Luxury Perfume
Fragrancex
Fragrancenet
How much money can you make through drop shipping is totally up to you. You can sign up for a for a free webinar hosted by SaleHoo to learn how to get your drop shipping business up and running in no time at all. So that you can make your first sale in a matter of weeks in stead of several months!