$130.000 turnover / year success story....We are going to quit Dropshipping!

anonymous1971

Active Member
Yes.....$130K turnover in 2018......with sales in just a small country.
Yes.....just 3 hours work a day.

But this year we are happily and finally going to stop with dropshipping.......because it literally kills our business.

Do not be fooled by the success stories you read here.....only 0.1% is successful with dropshipping. Here's our story........a success story with true negative experiences you should know about before starting a dropshipping company.

The lesson I've learned is: When you start dropshipping and you reach a impressive turnover goal........try to build your own stock and work towards a hybrid sales model 50-50 dropship / own stock till the turnover is high enough to have 100% own stock. At this point we have bought stock from the 20 best sold products in our store, and sent these products to our customers with next day delivery in our own designed branded package >>>> PROVEN FACT = 1 in 50 return rate which is extremely low. I'm not bullshitting you here.....I'm a statistics freak, i know my stats.

Why? > FACTS

1. Main reason > It destroys our brand and values our business low on the long term.
2. No recurring sales and below 2% returning customers...no lifetime value.....because people see the products they have bought come from Ali Express and will never ever buy from you again!!! KILLER 4 YOUR BUSINESS!
3. Delivery times.......wayyyyyyy tooooo loooooong.
4. Over $400 / month in lost packages that are not traceable.
5. Ali Store owners....they do not give a shit about you. Even if you buy for thousands of dollars they do not give a shit about you.

Addition 1. Sometimes we have customers who order 4, 5 or sometimes 8 products at once........We do business with 14 Ali stores......can you imagine how it feels like for my customers to have 4, 5, 6 packages delivered on different days instead of one package? Trust me......i do not talk bullshit here....this happens a lot. Customers are extremely frustrated and will never ever order again in our store.

look at this image........this is how my customers receive this shit......it says ALIExpress.

Ali Shit.jpeg



Addition 2. NEW STRATEGY. Since customers have to wait for their package for a looooooong time and then receive a shitty ugly packed package from Ali Express I have decided to try a different strategy. When a customer orders products from our store we order these products from Ali Express and have them sent to our warehouse with the ordernumber of the customer on the package. We will then repack and rebrand the products and pack them in our own branded package and then sent this to the customer.

Results April 2019 New Strategy.

1. 70% less returns from customers > Saved us almost €600 - €900 in money back returns!
2. 95% less support tickets. Obviously when we ship reading glasses in our own branded box there are less complaints!
3. 100% customers that do NOT say they never received the order!!!! Saves us €800-€1200 a month!!!
4. 100% no loss of canceled orders by customers due to loooooooong deliver time. Now canceled orders will still be delivered to us to sell again. Saves €500 - €1000 a month.
 
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Yaros

Moderator
Staff member
Thank you for sharing your story! I am glad to hear that you moved towards a new stage! As we know many huge companies started their business with dropshipping but later developed their own business models. So, dropshipping can be perfect for start and then lead you to your own stock, warehouse or even your own manufacture.

I quite agree with you that dealing with 14 Ali stores can be a disaster for your dropshipping business. That's the reason why I strongly recommend working with 1-2 primary suppliers. It is not an easy trick for some niches, but if you have such a possibility, try to focus on one good supplier your store will work with. This brings the following benefits:
  • If someone orders several items from you at once, your supplier will ship everything in one package.
  • It is much easier to communicate and develop a business relationship with one single supplier.
  • You can ask your supplier for branding your packages (stickers, flyers, etc.).
  • All product descriptions and product images are created in one style, so all your products you sell in your store will look nice and professional.
When you search for a good supplier, pay attention to the number of years this supplier has operated, its rating, the number of followers, and the quantity of positive reviews in the last 6 months.

5stats.png

The ”number of followers” parameter is often underestimated, however according to our experience, a greater number of followers usually means that this supplier has good quality products, detailed item descriptions, fast shipping, and very few negative reviews.

Other things to consider when you choose your primary supplier:

1. Good product descriptions

Now we are developing a store in solar energy niche. Look at this product from our supplier: the images and description are really good. You only need to edit the title and remove some content from the description. Dealing with a supplier that has detailed product descriptions will save you a lot of time.

2. Shipping time and international warehouses

2-stockship-png.113305


As we can see, our supplier has several warehouses (including U.S. based), free shipping, and rather fast delivery:

China – 20-25 days with free shipping
USA – 4-7 days with free shipping
Germany – 4-7 days with free shipping
Spain – 4-7 days with free shipping
Australia – 4-7 days with free shipping
Russia – 4-7 days with free shipping

3. Pricing

Take some of the top selling products from your supplier and compare their prices with prices on Amazon.

6Amazon.png

The prices of our supplier are much more competitive compared to Amazon prices on like items.
 
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Mar

Moderator
try to build your own stock and work towards a hybrid sales model 50-50 dropship / own stock till the turnover is high enough to have 100% own stock.
In our country and I know it is almost the same as other countries, when you import large quantity of products, you need to be a registered importer. If you are not, the goods you import will be confiscated. Assuming you are able to have the physical products, you need to have a warehouse and hire people to manage it. This will add to the cost of running the business.
Delivery times.......wayyyyyyy tooooo loooooong.
This is a misunderstanding. Dropshipping has nothing to do with long delivery time. Even if a product is ordered directly in AliExpress and the shipping method is Free shipping, the delivery time is the same. Also, some sellers ship orders immediately as soon as the order is confirmed, some sellers don't, again dripshipping has nothing to do with it.
look at this image........this is how my customers receive this shit......it says ALIExpress.
This happened to you, but it don't mean it happened to everybody. I saw a lot of packages received, it don't show AliExpress. This depend on the seller you are dealing with. Good luck to your business.
 

Yaros

Moderator
Staff member
This happened to you, but it don't mean it happened to everybody. I saw a lot of packages received, it don't show AliExpress. This depend on the seller you are dealing with. Good luck to your business.

Yes, right. I often purchase from AliExpress myself and have never seen AliExpress labels on packages but as we can see, it can happen.
 

anonymous1971

Active Member
In our country and I know it is almost the same as other countries, when you import large quantity of products, you need to be a registered importer. If you are not, the goods you import will be confiscated. Assuming you are able to have the physical products, you need to have a warehouse and hire people to manage it. This will add to the cost of running the business.

At this moment I buy small amounts of stock from Ali Express until we made enough turnover and have money reserved to buy larger quantity from local distributors. The plan is to outsource warehouse later but at this moment we pack and sent ourselfs.

This is a misunderstanding. Dropshipping has nothing to do with long delivery time. Even if a product is ordered directly in AliExpress and the shipping method is Free shipping, the delivery time is the same. Also, some sellers ship orders immediately as soon as the order is confirmed, some sellers don't, again dripshipping has nothing to do with it.

Please do not romanticize it...............delivery times are just too long. Does not matter, we quit dropshipping.....it is ruining our brand and our business.

This happened to you, but it don't mean it happened to everybody. I saw a lot of packages received, it don't show AliExpress. This depend on the seller you are dealing with. Good luck to your business.

I will upload more visuals.......70% of the packages i receive from Ali from over 10 suppliers has shitty packaging and Ali express as sender on it or store name and address sender. It is really really really simple and you can twist and turn any way you like it.........When people buy from you and receive a shitty Ali express package after 14 - 25 days they never do any business with you again.
 

Mar

Moderator
I have decided to try a different strategy. When a customer orders products from our store we order these products from Ali Express and have them sent to our warehouse with the ordernumber of the customer on the package. We will then repack and rebrand the products and pack them in our own branded package and then sent this to the customer.
Shipping the order to your address and shipping it again to the customer would make the shipping time double, not to mention the shipping cost. I don't see how this new strategy would help. Anyway it is your business and you can do what ever you want and I am not bothered a bit if you stop dropshipping. Again good luck to your business.
 

anonymous1971

Active Member
Shipping the order to your address and shipping it again to the customer would make the shipping time double, not to mention the shipping cost. I don't see how this new strategy would help. Anyway it is your business and you can do what ever you want and I am not bothered a bit if you stop dropshipping. Again good luck to your business.

When we ship orders to our customers the delivery time is same or next day. We have a contract with the largest national package delivery company who delivers next day. When a order comes in from Ali we repack with our branded packing and ship the same day to our customer so it is not double long delivery time.
 

Andrzej13

Member
How u can do that, just 3 hours work a day? How you make orders as fast? I has over 200orders a day and it stle a lot of my time.
 

Direct Webstore

Well-Known Member
Well, I'm very concerned regarding this thread Subject.
You mean you don't believe it? You may be right. You may be wrong. Who knows?

Especially when there's no screenshots of sales, figures and bank statements. But even those can be Photoshopped ... ;)

Meanwhile, I'll just worry about developing my own sites and not waste time being concerned what others claim they are doing or not doing or have done or not done.

But going 50/50 droppshipping and fulfilling yourself and eventually going 100% fulfilling orders yourself IS a common route. There's quite a few on Youtube who talk about doing it.

Then again, there are also HEAPS of people doing very, very well just drop-shipping 100%

;)
 
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cleve

Member
If the package comes with aliexpress brand on it, it is not nice at all....., hope never happen to me. :(
 

anonymous1971

Active Member
If the package comes with aliexpress brand on it, it is not nice at all....., hope never happen to me. :(

Well. Since we receive all the packages before rebranding and sending to the customer I will soon put a photo online what a true nightmare AliExpress truly is.....The packages are mostly with the address of the Ali store......very badly packaged.......and although we write IN CAPITALS that a store should not include invoices, brochures, businesscards, etc.........most of them do this anyway.
 

Direct Webstore

Well-Known Member
If the package comes with aliexpress brand on it, it is not nice at all....., hope never happen to me.
It would be pretty rare. It's never happened to me. (I order stuff form Aliexpress for myself too) Yarros said it's never happened to him, and I've also never heard of it happening to anyone else ... until now. Probably they are all coming from the one isolated seller they are using. To the O.P ... are they?

It would be quite simple to contact them and ask them not to use packages marked with Aliexpress. If they don't comply, change sellers. Or tell them you will change to another seller ... that may force them to comply.

I have the feeling we're not getting the full story here regarding the seller and/or sellers the O.P is using and a bit of drama is being thrown in as well. And having said that...I'm off to do something more constructive .. lol

;)
 
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