Killer Dropship Hints For Better Profits And Happier Customers

So you’ve started running a dropship business on eBay or one of the eBay alternatives and you want to turn the low-cost supply chain management system into a veritable cash cow.

Basically you want to optimize the dropshipping system so you make the most amount of milk for the minimum of moo. And it would be nice if you could keep customers happy at the same time.

Here are six quick tips to make sure you get the best feedback from customers while still remaining profitable and competitive:

Buy Samples Of Products You Want To List

Before selling any products it is almost essential to buy some samples yourself to make sure the product is as good as you are going to say it is and if there are any issues you need to warn your customers about.

You know your customers better than anybody else, so you will have a good idea of how they think, what they will look for and the difficulties they are likely to face with a particular operating system/method of operation.

You need to understand the product you are selling because there is a very good chance that one of your customers will ask you how to work it.

While the dropshipper will no doubt answer your questions your customer won’t appreciate the longer time they will have to wait for an answer.

While it does mean you have some inventory on hand, which seems to be counter intuitive with a dropship system, it won’t take up much room and will save you a whole raft of customer service problems.

Have Plenty Of Cheap Spare Accessories On Hand

Again this might sound counter intuitive in a dropship system but it actually makes good working sense.

Customers HATE having to wait for anything and that includes those little things that make using their gadget easier to use.

So, while you might be comfortable waiting the one week it takes for your supplier to get the accessories from their warehouse to your customer your customer is not going to be as forgiving.

Especially considering you could send them the item in two days, or maybe even faster.

It won’t cost you much, doesn’t take up much room and saves you thousands of dollars in reputation management and customer retention.

Here are some things you might want to consider stocking up on:

• USB cables
• headphones
• SD cards and memory cards
• generic adaptors and power chargers
• generic Ni-CAD batteries

Keep An Eye On The Calendar And Plan Ahead

 
If you’ve been involved in ecommerce or, if you’ve sold products on eBay for longer than a year you know what kinds of havoc Christmas can cause your business. That goes double if you’re using a dropshipper.

And, if you’re dropshipping/sourcing from China then you also need to figure out how to work around China’s two golden weeks where the whole country effectively ‘downs tools’.

So how do you avoid problems during this time?

The first thing to do is to stock up on popular products. Shipping and stocking can be chaos during this time, especially if you are shipping anything from overseas, and again it will get to your customer faster if you ship direct from within the country.

This is especially true during times like Chinese New Year, when factories stop manufacturing and couriers stop shipping for five straight days.

The next thing to do is to keep customers up to date about potential delays.

My colleague, David Tsang has already talked about the importance of keeping the customer in the loop through the whole process and at no time is this more important than when you expect shipping or delivery delays.

So keep a calendar handy, keep emergency supplies on hand and keep in touch with your customers and you will survive the silly seasons with your seller reputation intact.

Start With One Country Or One Region

If you are new with dropshipping I suggest you to start to market with one country or at least one region that you understand or know the idiosyncrasies of. It will enable you to become familiar with the products in one market before branching out into other markets.

Once you become an expert and have sufficient resources you can develop your website for other regions of the world.

Choose The Quickest Shipping Method

Customers are usually eager to receive the package as soon as possible.

While airmail is a pretty good deal if you have a bricks and mortar business it isn’t the way to go for eBay dropshippers. It is usually advisable to use couriers like DHL UPS or FEDEX unless you let your customers know that their package will take between 7 and 15 days to deliver and they can accept that .

Get The Best Discounts With The Chinavasion Level Up Program

 
With dropshipping it’s usually pretty hard to get good prices on single priced items, even if you are selling a great number over a long time.

Chinavasion always rewards customers loyalty, especially our eBay resellers, and have a level up program to get long-term customers the same great details, no matter if they buy 50 pieces at a time or one.

Now you have all the keys to be a excellent eBay reseller , the best is to put these advice into practice and watch your business grow.