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I was wondering if Wealthy Affliliate would be a good place for a dropshipping business? I already have a business name and a website name figured out as well as a dropshipping co
The absolute best dropshipper is Amazon in my books. Lowest price and instant shipping. Otherwise search your niche on Google to find out if there are others you can contact.
Ken
Absolutely Kenny, starting with Amazon would be a great way to learn dropshipping as many WA affiliates already have Amazon accounts and are familiar with Amazon. Dave
If Wealthy Affiliate allows me to paste this link below. It seems to have a lot of information to direct you in the right place.
https://au.oberlo.com/blog/amazon-dropshipping-guide
BTW, can you recommend some good dropshipping companies, preferrably no monthly or setup fees? Thanks in advance.
Honestly, I did some research on Doba and found some really bad reviews on them. I was going to use them to but have steered away from them
Hi Dennis,
Actually you can build any kind of business website that you want and that could include selling products via a drop shipping supplier.
You say you don't have a niche. So what kind of products were you thinking of selling via drop shipping? Wouldn't that be your niche?
Be careful because you will need to factor in the cost of shipping as well as the retail price, which can eat into your profit margin.
Yes, you can add affiliate banners. You would just need to make sure that they are relevant to the purpose of your site. For example, if you are selling online educational products, it would make sense to include WA banners.
~Jude
Hello Jude,
I'll be selling self defense products. Yeah, i guess that would be my niche. I just have no idea how to blog just yet, but i will learn eventually. I appreciate the reply.
-Dennis
Hey Dennis,
You say you have no idea how to blog, but you wrote this post, didn't you? Welcome to the world of blogging!
You're well on your way to mastering writing, i.e., you took the first step!
Best Regards,
Jim
Hey Dennis,
While the concepts behind Wealthy Affiliate are geared towards affiliate marketing, there's certainly no reason why they can't be applied to your dropshipping business, at least the concepts of driving traffic via content creation, etc.
There's a term in the industry called ad blindness which mean that people are training their minds to kind of ignore ads that they see on websites. That's not to say no one ever clicks on ads. Google wouldn't be the behemoth that it is if that were the case. It's just that this particular strategy may not be as lucrative as you'd like it to be or as it was in the past.
Remember though, that Google is not a big fan of websites cluttered with affiliate links. Part of that could be because they would rather have you clutter your website with their Adsense advertising rather than affiliate vendors :) But nonetheless. They are a big player and they make a good portion of the rules.
Having said all that, if your dropshipping endeavor becomes lucrative enough to carry the business, you could strategically place some banner ads and test it out to see if you get conversions.
It's always about testing in business. No one way is necessarily right or wrong. If you try it and it works then you go for it. If not, scrap it and move on.
Best Regards,
Jim
Hey thanks for the reply Jim. That totally makes sense. I'll just do the dropshipping website separate using google adsense, and learn how to blog, figure out a niche and use another domain for the affiliate marketing.
Hello Jim. I see this post is quite old, but I just read it nonetheless. I was just wondering- you said google doesn't like websites with affiliate links. Isn't that the main purpose of WA? To teach us how to use affiliate links on blog sites to make money?
Hey Jamie,
If you take a look at what I wrote back then:
"Remember though, that Google is not a big fan of websites cluttered with affiliate links."
The operative word being "cluttered". Google does not like the concept known as thin-affiliate sites. These are sites where their only purpose is to sell and that primarily contains affiliate links on every page.
Google is not against affiliate links in and of themselves. They just want sites to add value and be more than just thin-affiliate sites.
The training here at WA advocates adding value and to adopt more of a centralized approach to your affiliate link strategy. Instead of having each page/post contain affiliate links, have a few pages with affiliate links and point all the other high value/high content pages/posts to those few affiliate/sales pages.
Of course, you will always find exceptions to every rule. If your website is eCommerce-based, Google does not necessarily penalize that. Otherwise, sites like Amazon would no longer appear in the search engines. But, even with Amazon, they offer content via product guides, extensive reviews, etc., that makes them more than just eCommerce.
Hope this helps,
Jim
See more comments
Dropshipping Business through Wealthy Affiliate.
I was wondering if Wealthy Affliliate would be a good place for a dropshipping business? I already have a business name and a website name figured out as well as a dropshipping co
In Wealthy Affiliate you create reviews for products and add affiliate links to those products.
In Drop-shipping you create reviews for products and add a shopping cart button to purchase those products.
Absolutely you do not have to create a separate website for Drop-shipping, as long as the website is promoting a single niche. Otherwise it would be confusing. (I wouldn't purchase a motorcycle exhaust on a women's clothing website).
WA teaches you to become an expert in your niche to give you authority so visitors can trust you. With this trust you can promote anything in your niche.
I am a wholesaler always seeking drop-shippers to move my product.
If anyone, for example, has a niche promoting board games or alternative health/spirituality, I would be more that happy to setup a drop-shipping partnership with them. However, I wouldn't be comfortable having my board games on a website promoting Defense Products, it just doesn't fit :-)
I must add here that I was dropshipping a Marshal Arts card game made in the US that would suit the above niche. So each case is unique.
Stay within your niche and dropshipping will work.
It is true there are many Drop-shipping companies that provide products that provide small markup, but remember this, the customer pays the freight charges, not the drop-shipper.
Remember Affiliate Marketing only provides about 6% of the sale.
Compare that with the example below.
I have a board game that retails $29.95
I offer it for $15 to a drop-shipper or $10 to a Wealthy Affiliate member.
Customer pays $15 postage and handling.
Drop-shipper sends me $10 + $15 + the customers postal address.
I send the customer the board game.
The Wealthy Affiliate Member did not even handle the physical game and just made $19.95 on their Wealthy Affiliate website.
I am happy because I made $10 simply by visiting the post office and sending a board game.
The customer is happy because they obtained a board game not available anywhere else in the world (in my case).
All the drop-shipper had to do was setup a PayPal account and add a PayPal Shopping Cart Button on their niche website.
So in conclusion: Absolutely, Drop-shipping is definitely compatible with a WA niche website (providing it is the same niche).
Have a great day. Dave
Drop shipping can be tricky. I believe people can and do make it work and in your case it's very niche, which helps. But, some of the problems are:
- the drop ship fees from vendors (usually above and beyond the shipping charge) which can blow out margins considerably
- customer service (returns, etc), which the drop shipper, not the vendor, handles
- out of stock from vendor (which can be a big problem for auction selling)
- order entry & payment processing (again drop shipper not the vendor takes care of this)
- bundling products from multiple vendors, fees for each, separate shipping, etc.
- Vendors often require resale certificates from drop shipper's state of business. This gives tax exempt wholesale status to the drop shipper. However, the drop shipper or vendor would have to deal with sales tax in several instances where the vendor sells in that state.
When someone finds a decent product to drop ship that has high margins, it's only a matter of time when competition jumps in to undercut. In your case this may not be as big a problem due to your niche, but it's a problem I know many drop shippers have complained about in the past.
One place where it could work is using the products as a loss leader. The idea being that you sell a product that takes a slight loss or breaks even to get people to buy other related and higher margin products. Or, it could be used to get customers on an email list, etc.
Again, I know people are making it work. But, it has many more "moving parts" than an affiliate business.
Best Regards,
Jim
Hi Jim, thank you so much for your detailed reply. i totally agree that Affiliate Marketing is a great deal easier than dropshipping. As you said less moving parts. Dropshipper has to send customer details to wholesaler. Dropshipper has to calculate postage costs (which can be automated at the cart). Dropshipper has to contact wholesaler to have the wholesaler post replacement (damaged etc). Dropshipper has to pay wholesaler's PayPal account. Wholesaler has to send product physically.
Yes indeed, many moving parts.
But in my case, it is a personal relationship with a wholesaler on a Wealthy Affiliate community that is not a Dropshipping network.
That is why the WA Affiliate marketer would have to have the correct niche and setup PayPal Business account to add shopping cart buttons and postage calculators onto the website.
But hey, when that is all setup, that WA member can join dropshipping networks to add products to enhance their website.
Dropshipping is not for everyone and unfortunately margins can be thin as you mentioned.
Having a personal relationship directly with the wholesaler removes the out of stock and returns issue.
I successfully located manufacturers in my niche directly from around the world and worked directly with them.
So Dropship Australia for example is less personal.
The markup from working directly with the manufacturer is worth the effort finding them. And the relationship is more personal and negotiable.
Any way, I agree with everything you said regarding joining a Dropshipping Network. However, keep in mind working directly with a manufacturer is a whole new ball game.
Have a great day. Dave
I searched and found wholesalers directly, here is an example of a manufacturer of a Martial Arts board game that was not involved in dropshipping. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/40642/martial-world-trainers-edition
I found them because I was a member of Boardgamegeek.
If your passionate about your niche you will find wholesalers.
I contacted them and explained dropshipping.
They agreed and sent a game for me to play.
They sent images and descriptions etc.
This is just one example.
If you work dropshipping as a business directly with the wholesaler rather than a Dropshippers Network, you avoid the high fees and create a greater margin and a personal relationship with the wholesaler.
Cheers Dave
The absolute best dropshipper is Amazon in my books. Lowest price and instant shipping. Otherwise search your niche on Google to find out if there are others you can contact.
Ken
Absolutely Kenny, starting with Amazon would be a great way to learn dropshipping as many WA affiliates already have Amazon accounts and are familiar with Amazon. Dave
If Wealthy Affiliate allows me to paste this link below. It seems to have a lot of information to direct you in the right place.
https://au.oberlo.com/blog/amazon-dropshipping-guide
BTW, can you recommend some good dropshipping companies, preferrably no monthly or setup fees? Thanks in advance.
Honestly, I did some research on Doba and found some really bad reviews on them. I was going to use them to but have steered away from them
Hi Dennis,
Actually you can build any kind of business website that you want and that could include selling products via a drop shipping supplier.
You say you don't have a niche. So what kind of products were you thinking of selling via drop shipping? Wouldn't that be your niche?
Be careful because you will need to factor in the cost of shipping as well as the retail price, which can eat into your profit margin.
Yes, you can add affiliate banners. You would just need to make sure that they are relevant to the purpose of your site. For example, if you are selling online educational products, it would make sense to include WA banners.
~Jude
Hello Jude,
I'll be selling self defense products. Yeah, i guess that would be my niche. I just have no idea how to blog just yet, but i will learn eventually. I appreciate the reply.
-Dennis
Hey Dennis,
You say you have no idea how to blog, but you wrote this post, didn't you? Welcome to the world of blogging!
You're well on your way to mastering writing, i.e., you took the first step!
Best Regards,
Jim
Hey Dennis,
While the concepts behind Wealthy Affiliate are geared towards affiliate marketing, there's certainly no reason why they can't be applied to your dropshipping business, at least the concepts of driving traffic via content creation, etc.
There's a term in the industry called ad blindness which mean that people are training their minds to kind of ignore ads that they see on websites. That's not to say no one ever clicks on ads. Google wouldn't be the behemoth that it is if that were the case. It's just that this particular strategy may not be as lucrative as you'd like it to be or as it was in the past.
Remember though, that Google is not a big fan of websites cluttered with affiliate links. Part of that could be because they would rather have you clutter your website with their Adsense advertising rather than affiliate vendors :) But nonetheless. They are a big player and they make a good portion of the rules.
Having said all that, if your dropshipping endeavor becomes lucrative enough to carry the business, you could strategically place some banner ads and test it out to see if you get conversions.
It's always about testing in business. No one way is necessarily right or wrong. If you try it and it works then you go for it. If not, scrap it and move on.
Best Regards,
Jim
Hey thanks for the reply Jim. That totally makes sense. I'll just do the dropshipping website separate using google adsense, and learn how to blog, figure out a niche and use another domain for the affiliate marketing.
Hello Jim. I see this post is quite old, but I just read it nonetheless. I was just wondering- you said google doesn't like websites with affiliate links. Isn't that the main purpose of WA? To teach us how to use affiliate links on blog sites to make money?
Hey Jamie,
If you take a look at what I wrote back then:
"Remember though, that Google is not a big fan of websites cluttered with affiliate links."
The operative word being "cluttered". Google does not like the concept known as thin-affiliate sites. These are sites where their only purpose is to sell and that primarily contains affiliate links on every page.
Google is not against affiliate links in and of themselves. They just want sites to add value and be more than just thin-affiliate sites.
The training here at WA advocates adding value and to adopt more of a centralized approach to your affiliate link strategy. Instead of having each page/post contain affiliate links, have a few pages with affiliate links and point all the other high value/high content pages/posts to those few affiliate/sales pages.
Of course, you will always find exceptions to every rule. If your website is eCommerce-based, Google does not necessarily penalize that. Otherwise, sites like Amazon would no longer appear in the search engines. But, even with Amazon, they offer content via product guides, extensive reviews, etc., that makes them more than just eCommerce.
Hope this helps,
Jim
See more comments
In Wealthy Affiliate you create reviews for products and add affiliate links to those products.
In Drop-shipping you create reviews for products and add a shopping cart button to purchase those products.
Absolutely you do not have to create a separate website for Drop-shipping, as long as the website is promoting a single niche. Otherwise it would be confusing. (I wouldn't purchase a motorcycle exhaust on a women's clothing website).
WA teaches you to become an expert in your niche to give you authority so visitors can trust you. With this trust you can promote anything in your niche.
I am a wholesaler always seeking drop-shippers to move my product.
If anyone, for example, has a niche promoting board games or alternative health/spirituality, I would be more that happy to setup a drop-shipping partnership with them. However, I wouldn't be comfortable having my board games on a website promoting Defense Products, it just doesn't fit :-)
I must add here that I was dropshipping a Marshal Arts card game made in the US that would suit the above niche. So each case is unique.
Stay within your niche and dropshipping will work.
It is true there are many Drop-shipping companies that provide products that provide small markup, but remember this, the customer pays the freight charges, not the drop-shipper.
Remember Affiliate Marketing only provides about 6% of the sale.
Compare that with the example below.
I have a board game that retails $29.95
I offer it for $15 to a drop-shipper or $10 to a Wealthy Affiliate member.
Customer pays $15 postage and handling.
Drop-shipper sends me $10 + $15 + the customers postal address.
I send the customer the board game.
The Wealthy Affiliate Member did not even handle the physical game and just made $19.95 on their Wealthy Affiliate website.
I am happy because I made $10 simply by visiting the post office and sending a board game.
The customer is happy because they obtained a board game not available anywhere else in the world (in my case).
All the drop-shipper had to do was setup a PayPal account and add a PayPal Shopping Cart Button on their niche website.
So in conclusion: Absolutely, Drop-shipping is definitely compatible with a WA niche website (providing it is the same niche).
Have a great day. Dave
Drop shipping can be tricky. I believe people can and do make it work and in your case it's very niche, which helps. But, some of the problems are:
- the drop ship fees from vendors (usually above and beyond the shipping charge) which can blow out margins considerably
- customer service (returns, etc), which the drop shipper, not the vendor, handles
- out of stock from vendor (which can be a big problem for auction selling)
- order entry & payment processing (again drop shipper not the vendor takes care of this)
- bundling products from multiple vendors, fees for each, separate shipping, etc.
- Vendors often require resale certificates from drop shipper's state of business. This gives tax exempt wholesale status to the drop shipper. However, the drop shipper or vendor would have to deal with sales tax in several instances where the vendor sells in that state.
When someone finds a decent product to drop ship that has high margins, it's only a matter of time when competition jumps in to undercut. In your case this may not be as big a problem due to your niche, but it's a problem I know many drop shippers have complained about in the past.
One place where it could work is using the products as a loss leader. The idea being that you sell a product that takes a slight loss or breaks even to get people to buy other related and higher margin products. Or, it could be used to get customers on an email list, etc.
Again, I know people are making it work. But, it has many more "moving parts" than an affiliate business.
Best Regards,
Jim
Hi Jim, thank you so much for your detailed reply. i totally agree that Affiliate Marketing is a great deal easier than dropshipping. As you said less moving parts. Dropshipper has to send customer details to wholesaler. Dropshipper has to calculate postage costs (which can be automated at the cart). Dropshipper has to contact wholesaler to have the wholesaler post replacement (damaged etc). Dropshipper has to pay wholesaler's PayPal account. Wholesaler has to send product physically.
Yes indeed, many moving parts.
But in my case, it is a personal relationship with a wholesaler on a Wealthy Affiliate community that is not a Dropshipping network.
That is why the WA Affiliate marketer would have to have the correct niche and setup PayPal Business account to add shopping cart buttons and postage calculators onto the website.
But hey, when that is all setup, that WA member can join dropshipping networks to add products to enhance their website.
Dropshipping is not for everyone and unfortunately margins can be thin as you mentioned.
Having a personal relationship directly with the wholesaler removes the out of stock and returns issue.
I successfully located manufacturers in my niche directly from around the world and worked directly with them.
So Dropship Australia for example is less personal.
The markup from working directly with the manufacturer is worth the effort finding them. And the relationship is more personal and negotiable.
Any way, I agree with everything you said regarding joining a Dropshipping Network. However, keep in mind working directly with a manufacturer is a whole new ball game.
Have a great day. Dave
I searched and found wholesalers directly, here is an example of a manufacturer of a Martial Arts board game that was not involved in dropshipping. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/40642/martial-world-trainers-edition
I found them because I was a member of Boardgamegeek.
If your passionate about your niche you will find wholesalers.
I contacted them and explained dropshipping.
They agreed and sent a game for me to play.
They sent images and descriptions etc.
This is just one example.
If you work dropshipping as a business directly with the wholesaler rather than a Dropshippers Network, you avoid the high fees and create a greater margin and a personal relationship with the wholesaler.
Cheers Dave