Home-Business

Drop Shipping Myths

by Stuart Lisonbee

For a lot of people, drop shipping can seem like a perfect solution to start an internet business. While drop shipping has its place in the world, there have been many myths associated with it.

Myths are propagated by people who think they understand something, but don't. You may have heard many things, both good and bad, about drop shipping. But if you want to know the truth about something, you should go to somebody that actually works in the business, rather than someone who has little more than rumors and conjecture.

Having run a business using drop shippers as my product source, as well as having worked in the drop shipping industry, I have nearly 10 years of personal experience with drop shipping. Here are some of the common myths that I have often heard associated with drop shipping and drop shippers.

Myth #1: Drop shipping means big money for little work

Running a business is a lot of work! Sure drop shipping saves you from warehousing, inventorying, and packaging and shipping items. But in the end, you've still got a retail business to run. Furthermore, profit margins are thinner because the drop ship supplier takes on much of the risk involved with warehousing the products.

Myth #2: All drop shippers will be happy and willing to work with me

Some drop shippers will work with anybody. Those drop shippers will typically have a fee associated with them, or else their wholesale price is not as good. Other drop shippers have minimum requirements. For example, you may be expected to have several thousand orders per month.

Some drop shippers will even charge you a non-refundable application fee. If they decide you're not big enough to work with them, you lose your application fee.

Of the more than 50 suppliers Doba works with, several have application fees, a few have monthly fees, and several more only agreed to drop ship for us because we promised them high volume, something we can do thanks to the combined purchasing power of our membership. Fortunately, Doba does not pass along any application or monthly fees, and you never have minimum requirements.

Myth #3: It's impossible to make money with drop shippers

It is true that your profit margins will be thinner, but some of the internet's largest retailers use drop shippers exclusively as their product suppliers. If they weren't making money, then they wouldn't be some of the largest retailers on the internet.

Something that new entrepreneurs often fail to understand is that pricing is only one small part of business. If your focus is exclusively on price, then your business will never succeed because you'll be completely ignoring the many other parts of business that are required to succeed.

I once sold a product in a very competitive market. The product had an average 10-15% return rate, and the mean price was $19.95. I sold my product for $33 and had a return rate of 5%. My website also had a conversion rate about 2-3 times that of my competitors.

Why was I able to sell my product for 65% more than my competitors, maintain a higher conversion rate, and yet still experience far fewer returns? Very simply, I chose to focus on all aspects of my business, rather than just one or two like so many of my competitors were doing.

Myth #4: Drop shipping is the magic solution

Drop shipping is a specific service that fills a specific need. It is not a cure-all solution for business. Before jumping in, you should be sure that your business will benefit from drop shipping, and you should have a well laid out plan for making that happen.

Like all things, there are pros and cons to drop shipping. Make sure you understand how drop shipping will affect your business so your business doesn't end up a myth itself.

Inbound links are the most important factor, optimized content follows

         Inbound links are the most important factor, optimized content follows

It's important to optimize your web page contents for your keywords. By optimizing your web page contents for your keywords, you tell search engines that your pages are relevant to these keywords.

As long as there is no competition, your web pages will get top rankings for these keywords. Unfortunately, there's a lot of competition on the Internet and many pages are optimized for the same keywords.

That's where inbound links come in. If more than one web page is optimized for the same keyword, then the web page with the best inbound links will get the best rankings.

           Your web site must meet certain criteria to get high rankings

First of all, you must optimize your web page contents for your keywords. Search engines must be able to find out that your pages are relevant to your keywords. Use IBP's free tool to make your web pages search engine ready.

After optimizing your web page contents, you have to find out how the links to your web site should look like so that search engines give your web pages high rankings. Use IBP's free linking program to find out on which pages your links should appear and which link text you should use.

As soon as you know how the links to your web site should look like you can build high quality inbound links to your web site.

Using Product Reviews

Product reviews featured in many e-zines can be an especially rich source of information. They can
help you learn more about the products and services currently being offered in your target market
and can help you discover what your market thinks about them. You will see what products and services they really like, and why -- and which ones they would not buy again, even if you paid them to! This information will provide you with ideas about how to develop your own product.

A great way to find e-zines pertaining to your market is simply to type "your market" and "e-zine" into a good search engine. A list of e-zines should appear in the results. If not, dig deeper. Go back to your list of interesting sites to see what sites they link to, or do some research to find out what sites link to them (an easy way to do this is to type "link.TheSite'sURL.com" into the Google search engine). Some of these linked sites may be exactly what you are looking for.

You can also check out some e-zine directories. These are web pages that have a large number of different e-zines and online newsletters listed according to subject. Some offer reviews of the e-zines so you have a good idea of which ones are valued by their readers and which ones are not. Just be aware that e-zines come and go and some e-zine directories are not updated on a regular basis, so you may have to sort through a lot of broken links before you find what you are looking for!

Some directories worth visiting are:

* The Busy Place E-zine Directory (www.the-busy-place.com/celox.php)

* The E-zine Directory ( www.ezine-dir.com )

* Open Directory's E-zine list ( http://dmoz.org/News/Magazines_and_E-zines )

* Google's E-zine Directory ( http://directory.google.com/Top/News/Magazines_and_E-zines )

* Ezine Depot ( www.ezinedepot.net )

For those that you find interesting, bookmark them and sign up for any newsletters they offer.
Keep your eyes open for any mention of a problem people in that market seem to be having. If
enough people share that same problem, they may represent a specialized market you can target
with your online home business!

E-zines and News Sites

E-zine and news sites are a great source of information on what is happening in a home business
market. Find ones that offer information about your area of interest and check them often to see
what the latest news is.

Online news sites are rapidly gaining in popularity and beginning to steal readers away from
newspapers. This is because news on the internet is updated more frequently, so you can find
the latest information right away -- and because most online news sites offer their services
for free!

Sites such as news.yahoo.com, www.nytimes.com and news.googe.com allow you to perform searches in the their news archives to unearth information about a particular topic. Some even provide a "news alert" service, in which they automatically e-mail you an alert about any new story that appears containing a keyword you have identified. My 14 year old niece employs this service with her blogs located at:

http://mesothelioma-tips-and-attorneys-.blogspot.com

http://alzheimers-and-treatment-options.blogspot.com

http://wwwnews2006.blogspot.com

You should also explore and e-zine sites that relate to your market. E-zines are online magazines
that feature articles, product reviews, advice columns, and other forms of information. Some are
general in nature, while others are highly specialized and geared to a very targeted audience. They
are a great way to learn about the issues dominating your market.

Using The Search Engines For Your Home Business

When conducting research online, you'll soon discover that search engines are your best
friends. They have indexed billions of Web pages that you can find by simply typing
keywords into their search windows. They are the fastest and easiest way to find info
on the internet.

The top search engines are Google.com, Yahoo.com and MSN.com

To search for information, type a keyword or phrase into one of the search engines and
see what kind of results it generates. Note: if you put your keyword phrase in quotation
marks ("hiking boots" as opposed to hiking boots), the search engines will do a search on
that exact phrase.

The results you get for "hiking boots" will no doubt include a bunch of sites that sell
hiking boots. Explore these sites! Make a list of the ones you find interesting, so you can
return to them later. Jot down notes on what kind of products they offer and how they position
these products. What are their selling points? How much are people willing to pay for them?
All of this information will help you down the road.

Look for sites that have a professional, clean look. Avoid sites that have a lot of flashy
banners and gimmicky animation. Too much "visual clutter" is a sure bet the site was
created by a real amateur.

Avoid sites that do not include details about the businesses or people they represent.
Professional businesses always include an "About Us" page on their site that tells you
something about their history and the people behind them. If they have not included this
information, either they are amateurs...or they have something to hide.

Look for sites that include testimonials about their products -- along with the names of
the people who gave those testimonials. Feedback from satisfied customers goes a long way
to establishing the credibility of a business. Plus, it will give you an idea of exactly
what people like about that business's products -- which will give you ideas when it comes
to developing your own product!

Go to the bottom of the site's home page and check out its copyright information. If the
copyright year is not current, the site may be old and out-of-date.

Start off by searching keywords that are one or two words long. Then, as you become more
familiar with the market and products being sold to it, start getting more specific with
your searches. Use keywords phrases made up of 3 or 4 words, or even more.

Brainstorm For A List Of Possible Markets

After you know what your skills and interest are, you should start looking for markets
that are related to them in some way.

If you have an interest in gardening, you need to identify markets that relate to that
topic. That could be casualy gardeners, professional landscapers, people who own gar-
dening stores, etc. Or if you are a real estate agent and want to capitalize on your
property knowledge, you might look at markets like home sellers or buyers, fellow
real estate agents, anyone who deals with property transactions, investors and so on.

Make sure you do this with your other interests too. Right now, you will likely be
looking at large, general markets. Get help from friends, family and colleagues to
brainstorm markets that deal with your interests, because they might see things from
a different angle. Visit the internet and see what kind of online presence these mar-
kets have. This will spark ideas too!

As we go on, we'll show you exactly how to do this and introduce you to useful tools
that will make your research easier, so keep returning to learn more and visit our
site which has more tips and a few tools there for you. Click here

Succeed With An Affiliate Home Business Program.

If you have selected a suitable affiliate program to join,
and you are keen to start earning some affiliate commissions,
you will need to know about the key factors to help you succeed.

So, what do you need to succeed with your internet marketing affiliate program?

• Dedication. The first thing you will need to succeed with your internet
marketing affiliate program is commitment to work hard until you get the
profits you want. For you to earn some commission, you will need to invest
money, time and effort into the business.

• Patience. This is the hardest trait to have, yet it is the most important.
You can not earn commissions overnight with your affiliate program, and you
must be patient enough to keep on working consistently, even if you are not making any sales.

• Get your own website and domain name. Having your own website creates the
perception that you are serious about your internet marketing affiliate program
business, and you have long term commitment to it. A professional website and own
domain name appear professional, and you will find it easy to make sales.

• Products, services or business opportunities that are of high quality and
reputation. This is very important if you want to make some sales and earn some
commission. Make sure that you choose an affiliate program that has products
with high demand and are easy to sell.

• A website that is well presented and will prompt any visitor to take action
and buy! This is an obvious one, yet is sometimes neglected. For you to be
successful with your internet marketing affiliate program, your website must
clearly present what you are selling. You must make the presentation of your
website so that you can promote many sales, for example by placing complementary
products close together. Use all the techniques you can think of to help you make
as many sales as possible.

• A ‘useful website that makes visitors want to visit again. Although the main
goal of your site is to make sales; you will also want your site to offer a few
other things that will make visitors stay longer and come back again. You could
offer some free tips and ideas relating to the products you are selling. The idea
is to make any visitor want to ‘bookmark’ your site. Or if they make a purchase
the first time they visit; if they found some free helpful hints on your website,
they will come back again for another purchase, creating good repeat business for you.

• Have a committed strategy for driving traffic to your web site. It is a very
simple fact that more visitors to your site means more sales, which means more
checks for you. Have a monthly budget or plan for driving traffic to your site,
work on that consistently.

• Customer care and personal testimonials can significantly help you succeed with
your internet marketing affiliate program. Have an email system that you check
regularly to answer any questions from your potential customers. Instead of just
placing your affiliate links, try to have some testimonials that highlight the
benefits of the product, service or business opportunity. This will help you make
more sales, thus increasing your checks.

• Offer a free e-zine or short course on your website. Some visitors tha come to
your website do not make a purchase the first time they visit your site. By offering
a free e-zine for your visitors to subscribe to, you are able to keep in constant
contact with your potential customers, and over time, they will become your committed
clients. Internet marketing affiliate programs need a large customer base to succeed,
so you need to capture every potential client.

By following the guideline presented above, you will succeed with your internet marketing
affiliate program. You will need to use these strategies so that you increase your sales
and earn more sales. Building a huge down-line is important in internet marketing, and
having more visitors and more sales or sub-affiliates is important for your business.

Succeeding with your internet marketing affiliate program is easy if you follow the key
recommendations that can guarantee your success, and avoid the common mistakes which
affiliates make.

You can make up to from $50 - $125 a sale with this Affiliate Program

Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet

"Learn how to make a life-changing income of $100,000 to $250,000 with your Internet business... even if you're a computer dummy!"

Review: "The Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet" by Corey Rudl

I've just finished reading the brand-new 2005 version of Corey Rudl's top-selling Internet marketing system, "The Insider Secrets To Marketing Your Business On The Internet," and frankly, I'm overwhelmed by the huge amount of critical wealth-building information he's managed to pack into these two hefty binders and 3 CDs!

But I guess I shouldn't be surprised; after all, when the box containing these materials showed up at my door, it weighed in at over 10 pounds!

That's 10 pounds of the most comprehensive marketing strategies, test results, case studies, tools, and ideas for generating a life-changing income online (from $1,000s to over $1 million) you're ever likely to read!

I'm talking about information like...

• Step-by-step advice for starting your own Internet business in as little as 48 hours!
  
• How to build a top-selling web site... for less than $100!
  
• Where to find hot products to sell (in 20 minutes or LESS)!
  
• 100s of FREE and cheap online tools, resources, and software
  
• How to get 1,000s of qualified NEW visitors to your web site... for FREE!
  
• How to get #1 rankings in the search engines and get tons of FREE traffic from the "Big Guys" like Google!
  
• Secrets to writing sales copy that can increase sales by up to 400% (or MORE)! And much more!

If you're unsure who Corey is, you should know that he's been a recognized expert in online marketing for a decade now. Not only has he generated $40,000,000 in online sales, his sites also attract 450,000 visitor a week!

What's really great about Corey is that he can show ANYONE how to have a wildly profitable Internet business (that takes just a few hours each day to run)...

... even if you're an absolute computer dummy!

And if you already have an Internet business, he can help YOU, too. The advanced sections of his system show you how you can increase your sales by 400%... 700%... even as much as 1,000%!

I give Corey's system the highest rating possible! Its 1,300+ pages of step-by-step lessons contain the exact SAME tested and proven fast-growth strategies he has personally used to generate over $40 million in online sales -- starting on a shoestring budget!

And it's the SAME SYSTEM that literally 1,000s of his students have used to drive "truckloads" of cash out of the Internet.

I strongly urge you to check out Corey's wealth-building system as soon as possible! Click here for a FREE preview.

I need affiliates, will pay $65 per sale....

As a valued reader, I want to show you an exciting opportunity
that is currently earning thousands of other netrepreneurs huge
incomes every single month without the headaches of actually selling
your own product!

The fact is, I don't typically endorse other people's products,
never mind business ventures. However, after generating some serious
profits doing nothing more than making a few simple recommendations,
I just knew THIS WASN'T A SECRET I COULD KEEP TO MYSELF.

The "Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet"
course is the #1 best-selling Internet Marketing course online --
and now you have the UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY to recommend this quality
product to your visitors, customers, and subscribers, and...

EARN A $65 COMMISSION ON EVERY COPY SOLD!

This means that you can easily:

A) CAPITALIZE ON THE LIFETIME VALUE OF CUSTOMERS you may have from
an existing e-business by sending them "backend" offers for the course.
(Statistics have repeatedly shown that, of the people who have bought
from you before, 36% WILL BUY AGAIN!)

B) EARN 250% MORE SALES than you would promoting your own product
by making a "friendly recommendation" as opposed to pushing your
own product or service.

... All without the usual hassles and expense of product development and fulfillment!

It's extremely easy to do because you just post a link, a banner,
or a short letter of recommendation on your web site -- or perhaps
recommend the course in your newsletter or e-zine -- and then
COLLECT A PERCENTAGE OF THE PROFITS (called a "referral fee") when a sale is made!

You don't ever worry about:

- Collecting the money

- Packaging the product

- Shipping the product

- Customer service

... or anything else for that matter! You just do the promotion and collect
your referral fee from the resulting sales!

Typically, affiliates who have web sites with low traffic earn between
$400 - $900 per month, affiliates with medium traffic sites earn anywhere
from $1,200 - $2,700 per month, and heavy traffic sites can expect $4,000+ per month.
Their top affiliates are earning $8,000+ every month!

So if you'd like to learn how you can join the Program today -- at absolutely no cost,
with absolutely no risk -- and start profiting from products that are earning current
affiliates thousands of dollars every month, then I highly recommend clicking here.

But don't hesitate. I've posted this because we're kicking ourselves
for not joining sooner, and as a valued subscriber, I don't want you
to lose out by making this same mistake.

All the best,

Larry

Drop Ship Tips

Drop shipping, like most things, has its pros and cons. Here are a few tips to help you minimize the cons, and take full advantage of all the pros of drop shipping.

To begin with, understand that with drop shipping you will lose some control over inventory and shipping. Thus, you should look for a drop shipper that has quick ship times and also maintains a high level of in-stock items.

Secondly, your pricing won't be as good as it would be if you were to buy in bulk. We're talking economics 101 here. It costs a wholesale supplier much more to address and ship small orders to a lot of different locations than it does to ship a very large order to a single location.

This doesn't mean that you won't be able to find items that you can get higher margins on (I've used drop shipping to sell items that garnered me up to 100% profit margins), but the odds of doing great margins is smaller.

Because of this, when I use drop shipping I try to focus more on margins as a dollar amount rather than as a percentage.

If I sell an item that has a cost to me of $10, and I sell it for $20 for a margin of 100%, I've made $10 on it. However, if I sell an item that has a cost to me of $500 for a measly 10% margin, then I've made $50, five times more than I did on the item that got me a 100% margin.

That's one of the great things about drop shipping: you don't need to worry so much about margins as a percentage because selling a high-priced item has no more risk in it than does selling a low-priced item.

Third, remember the key to satisfying your customers: under promise and over deliver. Take care of your customers! Don't just satisfy them, amaze them.

Finally, do your research. You will be required to do plenty of product research before finding products that will be successful for you.

At first, doing research will likely require several hours each day. But as you become more experienced, you'll be able to cut research time significantly. Personally, I am now able to find two or three dozen products—with just a couple hours of research—that have the potential to sell for good profits on eBay. Of the products I find, I'll begin listing those I feel have the highest potential (knowing which products work best for you takes time and experience as you "feel" your way into the process).

Once I've found a few products, or small niche, that works for me I'll continue selling those products, as well as similar products in the same niche, until they stop selling. Then I'll move on to another product niche.

The beauty of working with a drop shipper like Doba is the fact that they provide you access to so many suppliers (over 40 at the time of this writing and growing quickly) with a combined inventory of over 250,000 products. When your hot seller stops being hot, the next hot seller is as close as your Doba account.