How to set up a shopping site

[joeychgo]

can anyone give insight into this?

What im thinking is dealing with drop shippers -- whats involved in setting a site up like this? where can I find good dropshippers?

[Chris]

If you only want to deal with drop shippers you're better off just building an affiliate program driven site. Your profits will be about the same and your work load will be less.

[joeychgo]

my fear is people will go back to the site directly instead of through mine. Plus, I want to set the pricing

[Chris]

Well you'll have a difficult time finding a drop shipper that allows you decent profit margins.

[joeychgo]

figures LOL thanks

[Chris]

If you really want to make an online store I recommend you buy and warehouse your own inventory. You don't need a whole lot of room to start with if you keep the number of products low or if you choose smaller products (jewelry).

[incka]

I'm looking into renting a warehouse in 6 months time to start a few ecommerce stores. If I've got $30,000 in the bank by then I'm definatly going to do it.

I might try dropshipping, too see how ecommerce works before setting up a business shipping things.

[chromate]

Chris is right. But don't expect an easy ride getting a good supplier either for your chosen product. So far I've had a nightmare with it all, mainly due to a lack of a trading history in retail (ie, not being able to provide previous / existing suppliers as referees etc). It seems like no one takes you seriously to begin with. However, I've just heard from a supplier that I thought had written me off. So I've got my ecommerce project moving again - at last!

Hopefully, the hard work will pay off in the end!

[chromate]

I might try dropshipping, too see how ecommerce works before setting up a business shipping things.

If you had $30k capital to kick the project off, then I wouldn't bother with drop-shipping. Drop shipping may be useful to get a store going if you don't have the initial finance to buy in your stock. But if you're not in that situation, then you should probably just do shipping yourself. The shipping's probably one of the easier aspects of an ecommerce store anyway? And of course, when the drop-shippers screw up your shipment, which every now and again is probably quite likely, then you will be held accountable by your customer. (as I think Chris pointed out in another thread)

[joeychgo]

I have no facilities for storage and wouldnt want to carry an inventory anyway. I want this as an addition to my site and a benefit to my members, not as a primary site.

[swarrier]

I was also considering drop shipping as a testing ground for a real e-com site. But it sounds too good to be that easy.

Does anybody have any experience with the "drop-ship source directory" from worldwidebrands.com? Are there any good suggestions ?