How to sell wholesale without having any stock or capital?

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Many people love to run a business but simply give up the idea due to capital formation problems. But there are few ways to get around this problem. Ever heard of Drop shipping? If not, it is high time you start learning it.

I found about drop shipping when I ordered a wristwatch from ebay. The seller was from USA but my parcel arrived from Hong Kong. I was curious enough to do a little research on this and I found out that most of the ebay power sellers are actually drop shippers. And they are cashing in millions thanks to this concept. Good thing is, there is no rocket science here. An average guy like you and me can very easily get in to the system and raking it in.

What’s the story here ?

If done correctly wholesale drop shipping can be a very luxurious business opportunity. What happens here is, when some one orders something from you; you contact the whole seller and give the order to him. The customer pays money to you and your seller directly ship goods to your customer. You pay the wholesale price to your seller. The difference in these prices is your profit.

This way, you do not need to have any physical stock with you. Remember, you can do this both off line and online. But if you are planning to do this off line you need to purchase samples in order to show to your potential customers. Drop shipping solves one of our biggest problem of finding capital.

Beware of scams.

Although this business sounds very luxurious, this is possible only if you have a good whole seller who is willing to do drop shipping for you. If you are planning to do this online you must make sure that your seller is not a con artist. To tell you the truth 90% of the online whole sellers do not have any stock with them. So you must select your sellers carefully.

Many people are selling drop shippers lists these days. Do not buy them. If I have a good whole seller I can make more than enough money from him not to sell out his details. I would rather keep his details to my self. These lists gives names of companies which drop ships and many of them could be the same company in different names or just an individual with a phone without any actual product with them.

If you find your seller online, it is always better to visit him. Or have someone check on them. There are lot of firms which does back ground checks on other companies for a small fee. I know this can be costly. But by doing this, you can start your marketing activities without any doubts.

If your seller scams you, eventually you will become a scammer from your customer’s perspective. And that is not pretty. That is why I insist you to chose your sellers carefully. ( Do not worry, There are plenty of good whole sellers. Otherwise there won’t be an ebay.)

How to find a whole seller for you to drop ship?

You can find many good whole sellers who are not new to drop shipping at alibaba and at worldwidebrands. Read this article to figure out how to not get scammed by whole sellers.

One of the best ways to find out whole sellers is to do a search off line. If you can approach them and present your idea, there is a high chance that they will agree to do the dirty work for you. After all, it brings more sales to them.

However it may not be easy as finding a whole seller online, but it has more benefits and it is much more secure.

What you should sell in order to cash in ?

If you are planning to make a fortune from drop shipping keep this simple factor in your mind. Sell high end niche products with a profit margin that leaves you plenty of room to advertise! This way you do not have to worry about advertising cost. ( PPC is the best. ) If you are selling a product for $15 and it costs you $5 to get a customer, there is not much in it.

But if you are selling something for $400 and your profit margin is $100 then there is plenty of room for you to advertise. Even if you spend $25 to get that new customer, so what, you’ve still made $75.00!

Go high end niche and cash in. After all, you’re drop shipping and there is no need to carry any inventory, so go for the gold! Plasma TV’s , LCD’s, snowboards, high end phones are few examples that comes to my mind.

Let’s make some money.

Now you have a very clear understanding about how drop shipping works. Now the matter is getting customers for you to sell your products. You can proceed with the traditional way of making a web site and driving traffic through PPC. It will work; there is no doubt about it. But there are much easier ways of doing this.

You can practice this method on world’s largest online market place, “ebay”. As I said earlier, most of the ebay power sellers are actually drop shippers.

I have run few successful campaigns with ebay and drop shipped N95’s when the market was big for Nokia N95. This was back in June- September last year. I had a supplier in Singapore who supplied N 95’s @ $580 for me. Back then the retail price on ebay was $ 700-$850.

The above image you see is a picture I used in my ebay listings. I had few phones with me as samples because most buyers need some photo proof before placing an order.

I had a nice run till they introduced the N95 8GB. My supplier could not extend his deal with Nokia and our relationship ended unfortunately.

And the other great place to sell your products is “alibaba.com”. I love their market place. When you post a sales lead it is almost guaranteed that you will have at least few inquires within the few hours. And you can always reply to buyer leads and find new customers. They have a great system and the house where I am living at the moment was bought from the money I earned from alibaba.

Ebay gives you one sale at a time. Alibaba gives you $10,000 worth sales at a time. I was drop shipping Nokia N95’s and E90’s to Australia, Germany, USA, UAE and UK. And 50% of my assets in fixed deposits also come from alibaba sales.

Do your self a favor and join this great market place. It is totally Free to join and to do business. Once you are a member, download the “trade manager”. It is a chatting software like msn messenger but the difference is all your contacts are wholesale buyers and sellers.

Build your profile with correct information and post few sales leads with accurate and complete details. If you do everything right you can expect buyers to contact you within few hours. And remember, you can use the same method to find suppliers for you too.

I have given all the information you need without holding anything back. If I have not revealed anything here, that would be my current supplier’s details for gaming consoles. And I am not going to trade that information for anything.

I hope you would appreciate my effort of writing this post. You can share your thoughts in the comments section and if you like the post please give it a thumbs up. That is the best thing I am expecting from you.

Do not forget to read,
How to not get scammed from alibaba sellers.
This is too much work for you? The easy money is at Forex.

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15 Responses to “How to sell wholesale without having any stock or capital?”
Suburban Survivalist Blogger Posted on October 20, 2008 at 7:06 am

Drop shipping can be a way to make money from home while living in the city, and can be a full time job if done correctly. It can also be a suplemental income if that is all that is needed. It can be done from the country or the suburban enviroment, so if one plans to move out the country later, it is a good business to try. As you said however there are a lot of pit falls to look out for!

lvs Posted on October 20, 2008 at 12:59 pm

you have written a very well researched article here. Amazing I had not even heard of drop shipping until I read this article. I am told Amazon also initially worked on this concept. Now ofcourse they have physical warehouses.

The elimination of physical stock is as you rightly pointed out a wonderful profit opportunity if done right!

anshul Posted on October 20, 2008 at 2:58 pm

Very nce articles friend. You have very quality articles. Hope you will continue to write these articles for us.

Sofhal Jamil Posted on October 22, 2008 at 4:29 am

It’s a nice post. I hope you can keep on doing it. Salaam.

SBA Posted on October 23, 2008 at 8:21 pm

Your article will help a lot of people looking for a way to supplement their income in today’s economy. Also anyone needed startup capital of other ventures. Excellent. Hits all the important points and cautions. Thumbed already.

jana Posted on October 26, 2008 at 10:41 pm

I don’t know how you find time and strength to write all these, but whatever it is, just keep it up.

Kaman Fernando Posted on October 27, 2008 at 3:31 pm

This is what I call comprehensive writing. All the information we need is right here. I am an alibaba trader my self. I found few buyers for my stuffed animals business through them But this is the first time I am hearing of drop shipping. But it sounds fantastic. should give this a try.

Amantha Posted on October 31, 2008 at 9:13 pm

Nice to see a great work like this from a sri lankan. I have seen many atempts by sri lankan web developers but most of them have flopped over time. I wish you all the best and keep up the good work. Proud to comment here as a SL.

chamath de silva Posted on October 31, 2008 at 9:15 pm

Are there any good t-shirt sellers in alibaba. I mean the trendy ones. In Sri Lanka ther is no place to buy good T-shirts. This is a good opportunity if I can find a good supplier from alibaba. If you know anyone please let me know. Thanks in advance.

a greek friend Posted on February 6, 2009 at 2:50 pm

Your article helps a lot. But still i will have to trust someone i will probably never meet. What if he mess up the order or he sents something that dont work? The buyer will know only my name not his. I was dealing with holesalers for a store i used to work and 10% of products they were sending were broken or wrong color etc. But since we had a stock that was not a big problem. Here if something like this happens i would be exposed.

bingo paypal Posted on February 10, 2009 at 8:27 pm

I am especially looking for information on better ways to help sway a potential client away from a service they are already using without coming across as desperate or “green”.

Swarovski Chick Posted on February 19, 2009 at 5:04 am

I have tried drop shipping baby good in the past and had a very positive experience with the company I dealt with. The one thing you do need to watch out for is returns, we managed to find a company that could do prams, baby furniture etc, the complete range. The only problem was after reading the small print on their site the return policy was 24 hours after the customer received the good. You will never be able to build up a good reputation if you offer those kind of terms, and if you accept the good back, you could soon end up out of business.

RLShawdotcom Posted on May 29, 2009 at 1:39 am

Great post..I knew alot of people were drop shipping on ebay but as for Alibaba..i didnt know that. I guess this would be a good time for to hop on board and get my dropshipping rolling

worldwidebrands Posted on June 8, 2009 at 2:46 am

A very informative read for the potential on-line business owners as well as newbies exploring the business options.
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Rene Posted on July 28, 2009 at 7:15 pm

Thanks greatly for his information. In the process of starting an online store in Sout Africa and just thought I should google to see what else is there to explore. Drop shipping sounds brilliant

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