Working the Big Guns

Selling on Amazon and eBay

WHY DO IT: Some projections say that retail ecommerce sales will grow to a whopping $4.058 trillion in 2020, making up 14.6% of total retail spending. No wonder everyone wants in on the game. Maybe you’re completely new to the exciting world of dropshipping, but with numbers for online transactions this big, odds are you’ve engaged in a selling and/or purchasing experience on big on-line platforms such as Amazon, eBay or Google Shopping. There are reasons why you may want to integrate your dropshipping store with an account on Amazon or eBay, but there are some things you also have to take into consideration when doing it, so we lay it out in simple terms here for your consideration.

INSTANT ACCESS TO LARGE AUDIENCES: The strongest argument to go for it is the fact that you get instant access to a huge audience without worrying about marketing, SEO or paying ads to get more traffic. You register your account (or connect to the already existing one) and you start selling. These are well established platforms, people know about them, go there to find products and best deals, and this gives your store a chance – millions of people will see your listings. These are strong, fairly stable markets, so you can still get good prices. Amazon also offers its own fulfillment warehouses (Fulfillment by Amazon), which allow you to complement your drop shipped items with products of your own without having to deal with packing, shipping or warehousing.

You get a good reach, you do not need to invest as much in marketing, and you can start selling pretty quickly. These are the main reasons for us here at Dropship Explorer to offer you the possibility for integrating your store with your account(s) on the on-line selling giants.

That said, however, there are some things to consider before you go for integration.

CONSIDER FEES: First off, there are fees. This is not necessarily a hindrance to doing business this way but it is something to consider when creating your prices. The eBay success fee, for example, can be up to 10% or higher of the sale prices of your items so it can eat into a considerable chunk of your profits. Also, with eBay, there is the constant monitoring and re-listing of your products due to the auction nature of its model.

WORD OF WARNING - BEWARE OF MISTAKES AND BAD REVIEWS: One other thing that you may want to think about is the fact that it is relatively easy to get your account on Amazon or eBay in trouble if something goes wrong with one or several of your transactions. Wrong packaging, wrong item, misplaced shipment - that is sometimes enough to get you in Amazon’s black books and have your account suspended. And then it’s a lot of work to get it back up.

For this reason, it is probably most advisable to not integrate your dropship store and an Amazon/eBay account at the very beginning, before you’ve had time to test the relationship with your supplier(s) and you are certain that the fulfillment process for your orders runs seamlessly. Because so much of the order delivery process is out of your hands, you want to work out all the kinks and then you’re ready to use platforms such as Amazon and eBay.