DanKru
New Member
As a German living in Germany I plan to open a dropship shop in German language exclusivly for the European Union market.
For me there are many factors for price calculations in my dropship offers. Here I will consider 2 factors only, because if these 2 are bad, all others are irrelevant.
These 2 factors are based on comparison:
The Price of competitors.
The delivery time of competitors.
Maybe there are potential customers out there, that do not compare prices and delivery times on different platforms, but I expect my customers to do so, I know, I always do.
There is a table of recommended markups here around, I don't know what that is based on, for me it's nonsense. The markets do make prices, not theory or fantasy.
And there is a statement here around saying, that long delivery times do not matter. Nobody likes to wait for anything, wanted or needed or not or what. I know I hate to wait, no matter what.
Now here is why I post this: more and more suppliers from Hongkong, Shenzen etc. offer their products on platforms like Ebay, Amazon etc. to (almost) the same prices like on AE, Wish, Joom etc.. Big difference: delivery time 2 - 4 days!
What??
On German ebay: Item location: Frankfurt, Bremen etc.. So these Chinese companies obviously have (or pretend to have) warehouses here in Europe where they ship from, for (almost) the same prices they offer on AE. They have a European VAT number in their legal informations, but they can and will not pay VAT, or they will make losses. Ebay doesn't care, and European tax authorities can't get them anyway. If they have fake "Item Locations" in Europe Ebay doesn't care either.
Some products on AE have "Ship From" options. Most of them ship (or pretend to) from Spain, what does not help me as a reseller, because the prices are (almost) the same as on ebay or elsewhere, only delivery time is better. But I have to take VAT from my customers, (or they will get me) so I will make a loss, or have to take higher prices, markups that my customers will not pay, or they would be stupid, and I don't expect my customers to be dumb.
In order to show you, what I mean, here is a part of my project URL:
https://www.dkbiz.de/home/geschenk/ds1/
what is a downsell.
Here are screenshots from AE und ebay.de.
As you can see, there is no way to compete.
Of course I would order the products I chose for sale for myself to see how reliable the supplier is, but as you can see in one screenshot, I would not wait to October 1 for a result (2 months). In the meantime everything could/would change, starting the game all over again. When I would change my offers to other products, where a markup is possible today, and start advertising, maybe next week I'll find it on ebay cheaper than my buying price, not so funny ...
How do you guys see this?
For me there are many factors for price calculations in my dropship offers. Here I will consider 2 factors only, because if these 2 are bad, all others are irrelevant.
These 2 factors are based on comparison:
The Price of competitors.
The delivery time of competitors.
Maybe there are potential customers out there, that do not compare prices and delivery times on different platforms, but I expect my customers to do so, I know, I always do.
There is a table of recommended markups here around, I don't know what that is based on, for me it's nonsense. The markets do make prices, not theory or fantasy.
And there is a statement here around saying, that long delivery times do not matter. Nobody likes to wait for anything, wanted or needed or not or what. I know I hate to wait, no matter what.
Now here is why I post this: more and more suppliers from Hongkong, Shenzen etc. offer their products on platforms like Ebay, Amazon etc. to (almost) the same prices like on AE, Wish, Joom etc.. Big difference: delivery time 2 - 4 days!
What??
On German ebay: Item location: Frankfurt, Bremen etc.. So these Chinese companies obviously have (or pretend to have) warehouses here in Europe where they ship from, for (almost) the same prices they offer on AE. They have a European VAT number in their legal informations, but they can and will not pay VAT, or they will make losses. Ebay doesn't care, and European tax authorities can't get them anyway. If they have fake "Item Locations" in Europe Ebay doesn't care either.
Some products on AE have "Ship From" options. Most of them ship (or pretend to) from Spain, what does not help me as a reseller, because the prices are (almost) the same as on ebay or elsewhere, only delivery time is better. But I have to take VAT from my customers, (or they will get me) so I will make a loss, or have to take higher prices, markups that my customers will not pay, or they would be stupid, and I don't expect my customers to be dumb.
In order to show you, what I mean, here is a part of my project URL:
https://www.dkbiz.de/home/geschenk/ds1/
what is a downsell.
Here are screenshots from AE und ebay.de.
As you can see, there is no way to compete.
Of course I would order the products I chose for sale for myself to see how reliable the supplier is, but as you can see in one screenshot, I would not wait to October 1 for a result (2 months). In the meantime everything could/would change, starting the game all over again. When I would change my offers to other products, where a markup is possible today, and start advertising, maybe next week I'll find it on ebay cheaper than my buying price, not so funny ...
How do you guys see this?