How to Make Money Drop Shipping 161 Comments
How to Make Money Drop Shipping

Another form of affiliate marketing is drop shipping. There are some real advantages of this business model and it’s something that I’ve been branching out into recently. I’ve learned a lot about this topic from Marc Lindsay and Daniel Turner from The IM Alliance. These guys are guns at ecommerce and drop shipping.

So why do I like drop shipping then? There are a number of reasons this business model is attractive to me, which I’ll break down and explain now.

No Shipping & Handling

Having been involved with affiliate marketing for many years now, I’m somewhat addicted to the idea of never touching products myself, never having to worry about shipping and returns. With that said I don’t think you should discount business models that do involve this, as you can make great money with ecommerce, whether drop shipping or not. However drop shipping does indeed get around having to deal with stock, which is great.

For those of you who don’t know what drop shipping is, let me quickly explain. Drop shipping is where you have a relationship with a distributor and they agree to ship any sales you make from your store, direct to the customer. Some countries refer to this as ‘direct shipping’, but it’s the same thing.

dropshippingOnce you have a good relationship with your distributor, you can often ask them to place your company’s sticker on the box too, so it looks like it got shipped from you.

So you can see how drop shipping really is a form of affiliate marketing, the only difference is that you handle the money from the customer, and then you buy the product from the distributor at a lower price and the difference is your profit.

Huge Opportunity

There’s a massive opportunity with ecommerce stores, as the trend to buy online continues to grow. The US Census Bureau recently started that they estimate the third quarter of 2011 brought in $48.2 Billion, which is almost 2% growth from the previous quarter.

The thing about ecommerce stores is that if you pick the right niche, there can be a huge amount of products that you can drop ship. Which also means a huge amount of keywords you can target for SEO, and often the competition for keywords can be a lot easier, compared to battling it out in a popular affiliate niche.

Another important point, is that with your own store you will build a customer base over time, which you can get repeat sales from, if the niche leans towards repeat sales of course.

Google Loves Ecommerce Sites

It’s no secret that Google does like quality ecommerce stores. They like sites that are the point of sale for the customer, provided the site is legitimate and professional. With all the Google Panda updates in 2011, which were aimed at quality, ecommerce stores can tick all these boxes pretty easily. I did a recent post on SEO Quality Score, where I explained some of the key quality indicators that Google are looking for on sites. If you read that post, you’ll see how an ecommerce site can provide a lot of these quality factors with ease.

Another advantage of drop shipping, is that you can use Google Adwords for more traffic. Google came down pretty hard on affiliate sites using Adwords over the past few years, however ecommerce sites they encourage.

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73 Comments to How to Make Money Drop Shipping

  1. November 25, 2011 at 2:00 pm | Permalink

    Thanks for your very interesting article, It’s answered a few questions for my friends and I and pointed us to look at things from a different perspective.

    Keep up the good work.

    JJ

  2. November 25, 2011 at 6:18 pm | Permalink

    Amazing Post……
    I Appreciate the way of your blogging!!!!
    Looking Forward For More Post!!!!!
    Thanks for sharing!!!!!!!

  3. November 25, 2011 at 9:48 pm | Permalink

    Good read Matt it’s something I’ve got on my to do list but at the moment a bit do busy doing other projects.
    Staying up till 2 am in the morning on your webinars doesn’t help.

    Just Google +1 this for you and in the UK your 3rd on the second page as of 25th November.

    Good luck with your experiment.

    Steve

    Secrets To Becoming A Super Affiliate

  4. Dirk Ignoul's Gravatar Dirk Ignoul
    November 26, 2011 at 2:29 am | Permalink

    Thanks, really interesting info !

  5. November 26, 2011 at 10:47 am | Permalink

    As of 6:45 EST, you are #4 in google.ca.

    Although your competition PR is 2,3,1, respectively.

    Interesting experiment 🙂

    +1

  6. Brad's Gravatar Brad
    November 26, 2011 at 11:50 am | Permalink

    Hey Matt, thanks for sharing this great post with us. Are you thinking of doing a course on this because I would really love it if you did! In the meantime are there any good courses on dropshipping that you can recommend?

    Matt Carter Reply:

    Hi Brad

    There is a great course coming out soon, which I will let you know about once I have more info on it and have tested it.

    Matt

    kayak fish finder guy Reply:

    Great post Matt. I’ve often thought about drop shipping, particularly when I’m actually searching for something to buy for myself and see so many drop shippers on eBay.
    I’m wondering if the new course will include how to get into drop shipping using ebay.

  7. November 26, 2011 at 2:04 pm | Permalink

    Hi Matt,

    I’ve been doing some research about this kind of online business and I learn quite few things that is really helpful.

    One of the problem in the Dropshipping business is the courier. It’s hard to find cheap couriers. If you know some of them, please share it to us.

  8. November 26, 2011 at 8:58 pm | Permalink

    This post it’s 3rd position – first page results in G. for your keyword, and 7th for same keyword but “dropshipping” without space:) You the man^^

  9. November 26, 2011 at 9:48 pm | Permalink

    Hi Matt,

    I tried drop shipping about six years ago but I didn´t have too much success at it.

    I was drop shipping dvds by selling them on ebay, but by the time I paid the ebay commission and the paypal commission I was hardly left with anything myself.

    Because of this experience I never gave drop shipping any more thought.

    I realise now though that dvds was just too broad a niche.

    From six years ago I am now much more aware of how internet marketing works so I could well try this again at some time.

    Many thanks for reawakening this subject for me.

    Marvin Reply:

    @Nigel,
    My story is very similar. My wife and I looked into dropshipping in 2009 using EBay also. The fees were so big that we pretty much abandonded the idea but being a little older and wiser now, it may be the time to reconsider it.

    Thanks Matt,
    You always keep it interesting!

    Marvin

  10. November 27, 2011 at 3:58 am | Permalink

    Hi Matt,

    I find every time something new whenever I visit this blog. Always great updates lead to create nice recap. Drop shipping is really a good idea especially when Google loves e-commerce website. One hard point is to get distributor, otherwise great idea.

    I am waiting the result of your experiment which u are doing with this post. Thanks

  11. November 27, 2011 at 11:09 pm | Permalink

    Very interesting post, Matt, and love your goal.

    Thanks very much.

  12. November 28, 2011 at 9:36 am | Permalink

    Great info Matt- signing up for an Alibaba membership now!

  13. November 28, 2011 at 10:24 pm | Permalink

    Hi I have always been a fan of the dropshipping idea, biggest problem I found is deciding what to sell that gets a reasonable enough profit, also if you have thousands of products to choose from it can be hard to think how to organise the items, i.e in an estore or individual products, as in a cart you have to work out how postage works with more than 1 item if shipper only sells items individually. I’d be interested to read further blogs on this subject if you do them. Zara x

  14. Art's Gravatar Art
    November 29, 2011 at 2:40 am | Permalink

    Thank you Very Much Matt You’re always show a great idea

  15. Holly's Gravatar Holly
    November 29, 2011 at 2:40 am | Permalink

    The problem with oversea suppliers is that you cannot afford the pay the shipping cost for a single item from a foreign country – lose money. You need to find a supplier that ships from the USA – or to whatever country you want to sell to.

  16. November 29, 2011 at 2:42 am | Permalink

    Thanks for the information on this. I think I’d have to agree with the drop shipping being more of a mental thing than anything else. For a newbie like me, until you get a grasp of what you’re doing at that moment as far as your website goes, other ideas, such as drop shipping, remain on the back burner until I get a handle on what it’s about. Articles such as this help explain what to expect or at least nudge you in the proper direction.

  17. Bottom Feeder's Gravatar Bottom Feeder
    November 29, 2011 at 2:45 am | Permalink

    I make my living on eCommerce. I do 100% drop shipping. Absolutely love it. There are so many un-touched markets that you can get ranked in just a few weeks and have and have extra $500-$1000 a month coming in. I really enjoy it, but it is far more work if you have a product that has alot of returns.

  18. bill's Gravatar bill
    November 29, 2011 at 3:02 am | Permalink

    You’re at #2 in Google right now as of 7:55am (pst) Monday morning, 11-28-11. Have you checked out World Wide Brands?

    The only real problem I’ve seen in drop shipping is that the margin for profit was too small. In a few instances I could almost buy the product cheaper retail or usually what happens is that the markup put it well over the price of the competition. Same exact product and service, just more expensive. But that was a few years ago so maybe things have improved.

  19. November 29, 2011 at 3:03 am | Permalink

    Hi Matt,

    I have been using Alibaba for a while and a great resource for those
    who want to get into physical products or drop shipping.

    You buy wholesale at factory prices and sell this to your site or ebay or amazon.

    Great post.

  20. November 29, 2011 at 3:03 am | Permalink

    Matt,
    This post came right in tiem. I am in contact with a dropshipperr right now, but was not sure about going this way or not.
    Your post made me decide to get a little deeper in the subject of dropshipping.
    thanks for the great info….as always
    Eddie

  21. November 29, 2011 at 3:08 am | Permalink

    I agree with the notion that Google appreciates the ecommerce store model over the thin affiliate WP sites that seem to be overpopulating the serp space.

  22. Genevieve's Gravatar Genevieve
    November 29, 2011 at 3:14 am | Permalink

    Hi Matt!
    A course came out on dropshipping a year or two ago; it was very pricy, but many felt it was worth the content.
    I’ve always heard, like one of your posters said, that after fees, dropshipping isn’t always profitable, or at least not enough worth continuing it.
    Let us know about the new course when you’ve tried it.
    Will buy your SEO course soon. Everything you put out is gold.
    By the way, you are number two in Google for your target keyword. Very impressive! Another reason to buy your course!
    Have a good day.

  23. November 29, 2011 at 3:17 am | Permalink

    Hi Matt, I gave you a +1 as I’m interested to see if it helps, please let us know the results of the experiment.

    With drop shipping do you physically have to pay your suppliers or can this happen automatically through Pay Pal.

  24. November 29, 2011 at 3:18 am | Permalink

    Great Mat!!! Like always…

  25. vanessa's Gravatar vanessa
    November 29, 2011 at 3:24 am | Permalink

    Matt, This is amazing info. Thank you. I went on the Alibaba site and went to the link for the buyers leads under the sell tab. Must be some opportunity there. Will definitely want your new course on this.

  26. November 29, 2011 at 3:28 am | Permalink

    Wow, you read my mind. I was just thinking about looking into drop shipping and was wondering where to start. Matt, maybe you should get into the mind reading business!

  27. November 29, 2011 at 3:33 am | Permalink

    I just Google+ this article and then I went to Google to check the ranking of this article…it showed up as #2 in Google and I couldn’t find it anywhere on Bing..

    Your next article on this subject should be real interesting!

  28. Bob's Gravatar Bob
    November 29, 2011 at 3:36 am | Permalink

    Matt

    I actually have had a drop ship site for almost 3 years, and it just continues to do better and better. After doing a few hundred dollars per month my first couple of years with my online store, I’ve now had 4 straight months of $1000 – $1500 in commissions. …SWEET… as I get 20% – 30% commissions on most of the products I sell. That compares to 4% – 10% in “regular” affiliate marketing.

    I also now enjoy mostly pg 1 and pg 2 rankings in Google for competitive search terms in my niche (of course it still takes effort with backlinking and good content to do that – but Google always EVENTUALLY gives my site love!)

    I was actually fortunate enough to stumble across a drop ship supplier who not only provides me with a stocked website (I simply provide pages of content featuring the products that I do keyword research on and find to be popular), but this company also does ALL of my customer service for me! In nearly 3 years of business I’ve only had to deal with two customers who found my personal contact info – the rest go directly to my supplier for complaints, returns, etc.

    It’s the only legit one like that that I’ve found – and believe me I’ve looked! (I wish I could spill the beans about who and what niche, but I’d be cutting my own throat! LOL).

    But even with having the hassles of having to do my own customer service and building my own ecomm web store from scratch, I’m sure I’ll eventually open another ecomm dropship store. It’s just so much easier to rank and make higher commissions!

    Matt Carter Reply:

    That’s fantastic Bob

    Bob Reply:

    One thing about drop shipping is that there are a BUNCH of scams out there looking to take your money. Be careful and research any and all organizations before giving them any money. Search whether there have been scam claims or complaints about each (although realize that there are always going to be a couple of disgruntled people who are just trying to cause problems – so consider the number of complaints you find and the severity).

    World Wide Brands gets an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau (last I checked), so they seem as legit as any. Blueprint Black Edition (and all earlier editions of it) offers a great course on dropshipping. (I’ve gone through the course but have not built a site yet using it).

    Bob

  29. November 29, 2011 at 3:47 am | Permalink

    Great reading Matt!! At the moment a bit do busy doing other projects. nA liitle overwhelmed right now!!

  30. November 29, 2011 at 3:48 am | Permalink

    Thanks Matt
    This is what I’ve been working for the last two years. I learn so much from your courses about Seo for my site. Look forward to see more posts like this

  31. November 29, 2011 at 3:49 am | Permalink

    Hi Matt,

    I run across potential drop shippers quite a bit. One in the last couple of weeks I have been thinking about……but I really don’t want to collect the money. I really am spoiled by affiliate marketing! 🙂 I don’t want to deal with my own shopping cart, etc.

    However, that being said, I recognize the potential of this business model.

    Is there an easy way to handle the money side? Collect the money and track the sales and automatically send this to the company for dropshipping?

    Thanks for taking the lead on this,

    April

    Matt Carter Reply:

    Hi April

    This model does take more responsibility, but remember you can get repeat customers with your own store with most affiliate sites never get. There are advantages of both.

    Matt

  32. kfinney's Gravatar kfinney
    November 29, 2011 at 3:50 am | Permalink

    Great Info Matt. You always bring home the bacon! LOL

    On the same note, I looked into this type of business model a while back and another site that I came up with is Doba dot com. You can google them. They have a free 7 day trial if you want to take a look at their catalog and see whether or not they work for you.

    Thanks!

  33. November 29, 2011 at 4:01 am | Permalink

    Thank you Matt for sharing another great idea with us. I’ll surely try it out.

    I just keep wondering how you can just rank so easily in the search engines. Its simply amazing!

    A long way to go….

  34. November 29, 2011 at 4:07 am | Permalink

    Hi Matt

    Good article. I have been building bigger ecommerce type sites since most of my small affiliate sites got wiped out from Panda.

    It’s true that Google seems to treat these sites more kindly and I like the fact that you rank for many longtail keywords instead of having to fight for just one.

    Also if you look at top results for many product keywords you can see they are often dominated by e commerce sites. Hint, hint.

    Right now I build my sites around Amazon and other affiliate programs. I have considered drop shipping because you make more on each sale.

    What has stopped me is having to deal with returns. It is my understanding that except for defective items which the shipper handles you are stuck with refunding and keeping them. Refunding is not that big of a deal but what do you with all those returned products? Personally I dont have space to store and reship them. Do you know if there are drop shippers that handle this as well?

    Steve

    Matt Carter Reply:

    Good stuff Steve

    Matt

  35. November 29, 2011 at 4:17 am | Permalink

    Hey Matt,

    Great post. I like the idea of drop shipping and adding a portfolio of real goods that I can promote and make decent commissions with. I have heard many people say the commissions are so much larger than you could possibly get with an Amazon or similar physical goods affiliate program. I’d like to hear the results of the +1 experiment too.

    Austin

    Matt Carter Reply:

    Hi Austin

    Yeah I will have more info on drop shipping soon, and as for the experiement, I am now in 4th for the phrase “make money drop shipping”

    Matt

  36. November 29, 2011 at 4:18 am | Permalink

    Thank you for the info, Matt! I’d expect more info on this subjects.
    And still, I’m impatient to know do we have to register a company in order to use that model?

    Matt Carter Reply:

    I will have more info on this over the next few months.

    Matt

  37. Viviane's Gravatar Viviane
    November 29, 2011 at 4:25 am | Permalink

    I confess to being a retailer at heart, so dropshipping would be a natural for me. Look forward to hearing more about this new course. Have you ever looked into Worldwide Brands?

    Matt Carter Reply:

    Yes I have heard of them and will post about them next week

    Matt

  38. Greg's Gravatar Greg
    November 29, 2011 at 4:26 am | Permalink

    Thanks Matt.

    BTW, thanks for introducing me to NPC.

    Life changing!

    +1 also.

    Regards

    Matt Carter Reply:

    My pleasure Greg

    Matt

  39. November 29, 2011 at 4:28 am | Permalink

    Hey, Matt,
    Thanks for the info and encouragement to get into drop-shipping. I tried it for a couple years but my main problem, I believe, was that I had the company I was working with create my website. Of course it was then identical to a number of other sites out there that they had also created. Knowing what I know now, I don’t think Google liked that and I never ranked well and only made a few dollars. I also had to go with their hosting, which cost me more than I was making, so I eventually dropped the whole thing. Now I would like to try again, building my own site and in a niche I’m more familiar with. I joined IM Masters and am excited to learn from them all about creating ecommerce sites, but am also interested in the course you said you were working on in that area. Thanks again for all your help!

    Matt Carter Reply:

    Your welcome Karleen!

    Mattt

  40. November 29, 2011 at 4:30 am | Permalink

    Hi Mat,

    Great post and all very true as i have been drop shipping for 5 years now and commissions are so much higher than normal affiliate commissions. I average between 20 and 40% commissions for the items i sell online.

    Anyone interested should check out Global Sources.com

    Keep up he good work.

  41. Todd Gwynn's Gravatar Todd Gwynn
    November 29, 2011 at 4:35 am | Permalink

    Great advise Matt!
    I’m currently working hard on my first site after enjoying your Rapid Formula program, however this is more excellent information I plan to put into action in the near future. In the past I tried drop shipping from a China based distributor, and selling on Ebay. I had some sales, and was dropped from Ebay. Obviously I didn’t know what I was doing, and that why I was so happy to find your Affiliate Marketing site. Now I can learn the correct way. Thanks!

    Matt Carter Reply:

    Great stuff Todd

    Matt

  42. Joe's Gravatar Joe
    November 29, 2011 at 4:52 am | Permalink

    Hi Matt,

    One company that I purchased their drop ship directory from is World Wide Brands. In the catalogs the founder Chris Malta has fully researched the distributors and manufacturers so that the seller can actually make a profit from these products. Many drop ship directories the products are already marked up very high and the seller can not make a profit from these products. I am not an affiliate of World Wide Brands but hope this info is helpful to your subscribers.

    Matt Carter Reply:

    Yeah I have heard of them, I might do a post on them next week actually.

    Regards

    Matt

  43. November 29, 2011 at 4:54 am | Permalink

    Thanks for this Matt. I hope the Google+1 works

  44. November 29, 2011 at 5:04 am | Permalink

    Hey Matt, thanks for the info on drop shipping. It may be the best way to go with google liking Ecommerce stores. I think anything you can do to get on to googles good side will make your marketing a lot easier.

    Jim

    Matt Carter Reply:

    For sure!

    Matt

  45. Himanshu's Gravatar Himanshu
    November 29, 2011 at 5:05 am | Permalink

    Hi! Matt,

    Nice post!

    I’m also interested in a course focused on drop shipping. Please let me know when you will come up with it.

    Thanks!

    Matt Carter Reply:

    Will do!

    Thanks

    Matt

  46. November 29, 2011 at 5:07 am | Permalink

    Matt,
    Another great piece of information. You really are good at what you do as you continue to add value to your mailing members. As well as this blog, your webinars have introduced us to some quality programs like Sara Young, Andrew Hanson, and your own SEO expert with you and Terry. I really feel like I have a personal coach… Thanks again for continue to add value.

    Dennis

  47. Rick Thomson's Gravatar Rick Thomson
    November 29, 2011 at 5:07 am | Permalink

    Hi Matt,

    How does one handle customer support when drop shipping? It is a bit different in affiliate marketing when you send the customer to the seller, but in drop shipping, you are the seller.

    Rick

    Matt Carter Reply:

    Hi Rick

    Yeah you have to handle the support with drop shipping…phone…email etc…

    Matt

  48. November 29, 2011 at 5:09 am | Permalink

    I would stress you need to use caution when dealing with vendors that are listed on Alibaba. Most are foreign suppliers, I live in the US for clarification. A lot of them deal in knock-offs, cheap versions of the real products themselves. Ask a lot of questions. See if they will send a sample of the product or products you are interested in.

    I do have much experience with Alibaba. Overall my experience has been good. Some not so good. Be certain before you act

    u

  49. November 29, 2011 at 5:15 am | Permalink

    Hi Matt I enjoyed the post, I experemented last year with drop shippimg and it was quite successful, I was using a major brand (Dr Who Stuff) fro charecter online, they were very helpful and I had good success by simply doing seo for major cities here in the UK, Maps doesn’t list for what I was selling so it was quite easy to get the pges onto page one, usually position 1, so I know it works, but here’s the thing to note, my highest traffic periods was when major retailers ran out of the products, so it was always a rush to find what was sort in the shops and check to see if indeed they were still in stock at the supplier, if they were bingo, if not then I would have to alter the site to show out of stock (I replaced it with a pre order button) as I knew when they would be back in stock, anyway to cut a long story shorter Lol It proved too much like hard work – digital downloads never go out of stock, so I now concentrate on those, although it’s getting tougher out there.

    The other thing to do is make sure you have google ads on the site, because other people were advertising on adwords, and when something big went out of stock – up went the adwords revenues. – free training people! this worked well and even though I do not drop ship anymore from this site it still does well on ad revenue.

    Anyway thanks for all of your hepl over the years Matt, you have taught me a lot so I hope this little gem goes some way to paying you back.

    All the best

    John Robbins

    Search On Google

    Matt Carter Reply:

    Thanks John

  50. November 29, 2011 at 5:23 am | Permalink

    Hi Matt,

    I was wondering what kind of software you’re using for your dropshipment-website. Are you using WordPress (as you’re a fan of it) or some special e-commerce software?

    Thanks,
    Ewald.

    Matt Carter Reply:

    hi Edwald

    I will be using CS-Cart, its not too expensive. The other option is megento, but it is more expensive.

    Matt

  51. November 29, 2011 at 5:41 am | Permalink

    Hey Matt, like the post and i’m really interested to see if this post ranks with just likes and plus 1’s

  52. November 29, 2011 at 5:45 am | Permalink

    Nice summary on the Dropshipping biz Matt. I enjoy your SEO videos and have learned some great on affiliate marketing as well as some great backlink building tips to boot.

    I didn’t see you mention my favorite dropshipping locator site (worldwidebrands.com) which for US dropshippers is a goldmine, they offer a list of all companies that will do business with you dropshipping and offer all of the contact info too. I signed up with them about 3 years ago and have been doing great since using only dropshipping. Never touched a single product, LOL. I started out on ebay and then after the fee hikes and changes transitioned over to ecrater and started my own free e-commerce store there selling [url=http://spygearfactory.ecrater.com]eBooks, DVD Players, TV Parts, and Various Electronics[/url] Check out our store to see a great example of a free site that ranks well across the board. If anyone needs any tips getting started I would be happy to assist in any way. Thanks again MATT for the awesome info….

  53. November 29, 2011 at 5:49 am | Permalink

    I take a part in experiment with pleasure. Nice blog and helpful information as usual.
    If you are engage in drop shipping, it means that there can be the money to earn ;-).
    So I added my +1 from Poland. I will wait for your summary.

    Regards,

    Christopher

    Christopher Bielecki Reply:

    From my Google searching (Poland) this blog is now the second for ‘make money drop shipping’ keywords.
    And 5th place in Google searching for ‘drop shipping’ keyword.

    Very interesting results.

    Chrsitopher

    Matt Carter Reply:

    Yes indeed. I do have a PR 6 domain, but I still think these social votes have made a big impact on this ranking, so it is interesting!

    Matt

  54. Jon's Gravatar Jon
    November 29, 2011 at 6:02 am | Permalink

    Great insight here and drop ship is a great business model. The company I work for uses drop ship along with regular product despatch. You really do need a reliable drop ship partner so shipping / customer service does not suffer, but great post Matt.

    Thanks
    Jon

  55. November 29, 2011 at 6:06 am | Permalink

    Hello Matt,

    It’s No.1 now in Google.com. Amazing!

    Matt Carter Reply:

    Thanks Jack

  56. November 29, 2011 at 6:07 am | Permalink

    Nice article on drop shipping……..thanks Matt.

  57. November 29, 2011 at 6:24 am | Permalink

    Thanks Matt for the new insight. We had explored this avenue previously, but your program has taught us a lot about SEO and we plan to check out dropshipping again soon. Thanks again for all your help!

  58. Jon's Gravatar Jon
    November 29, 2011 at 6:33 am | Permalink

    Your post is at #4. Yes “drop shipping” can be a lucrative ebiz. Although it has some similarities to affiliate marketing it does require a bit more thought and careful planning. Having a reliable supplier and a product that has both a hungry market and a reasonable profit margin would be major factors to consider as well as delivery time since most customers don’t want to be waiting too long for the goods after they’ve parted with their money. Look forward to your future revelations of your secret niche.

    Matt Carter Reply:

    Thanks Jon

  59. November 29, 2011 at 6:40 am | Permalink

    You are 5 in google from here in NZ Matt. Gave you a G+, Tweet and FB like. Good stuff.

    Matt Carter Reply:

    Thanks Shaun

  60. November 29, 2011 at 6:46 am | Permalink

    Matt,

    Another interesting topic. My biggest question is raising one’s level of exposure to liability when accepting the responsibility for handling the money – both from the customer and to the vendor?

    It seems that online security would play an even bigger role once you start selling and buying for others through the internet.

    Then I guess you would also need to keep a reserve account in-place for quickly handling the refund costs of returned merchandise plus those return shipping charges as well? On bigger ticket items like washers, dryers, etc. that could be substantial!

    On the surface it looks like the rewards of this business model would need to highly out-weigh the lower risks of affiliate marketing in order to justify the extra hassle.

    But I’m certainly looking forward to more information.

    Thanks for the new idea!

    Cliff

    Matt Carter Reply:

    Hi Cliff

    Yes there definitely is more responsibility needed to do this model

    Regards

    Matt

  61. November 29, 2011 at 6:50 am | Permalink

    Hi Matt
    This is a great way to make money as long as you find a good drop shipping supplier. Just yesterday I add a page to my website about drop shipping.

    Matt Carter Reply:

    Thanks Neil, and you would be amazed at what a few phone calls can do!

    Cheers

    Matt

  62. November 29, 2011 at 6:52 am | Permalink

    Hi Matt great information, will definately look at the drop shipping money making strategy

    Matt Carter Reply:

    Cool Wayne

    Cheers

    Matt

  63. November 29, 2011 at 7:09 am | Permalink

    LOL, I started doing this one month ago. Spot on Matt as always.

  64. November 29, 2011 at 7:18 am | Permalink

    Matt,

    I’ve had a drop ship business for almost 10 years and have made a pretty consistent $1000/month from it. I deal directly with the manufacturer or their exclusive US distributor and they’re more than happy to ship for me.

    On the topic of Google, you’re absolutely right! Google likes ecommerce stores and will rank properly SEO prepared pages very highly. Several of my pages rank in the top three, sometimes one for each of the brands I sell. So that means # 1, 2 AND 3 are mine in some cases. (Of course longevity counts, too)

    The only drawback to a dropshipping business is the ongoing work that goes into it. I have to be here to handle customer service and answer questions a few hours a day and it helps a lot if a person knows something about what they’re selling. So it’s not a true passive income like affiliate marketing but it’s more rewarding in the long run – it’s a real business you build.

    How to find suppliers? Last I knew, there was a business that sold a directory of suppliers who will drop ship and that might be worth looking into.

    Keep up the great work Matt. I just got my wife to subscribe to your mail list and get the free video training. I’ve also recommended you on Linkedin a few times.

    Owen

  65. November 29, 2011 at 7:32 am | Permalink

    In this post you talked about searching out the distributor yourself. Would it be better to use a service like doba that does the legwork for you and charges a small fee each month but has a wide variety of products?

  66. November 29, 2011 at 8:34 am | Permalink

    I hope to try out drop shipping one day – for now though, I feel it is best to stick with affiliate marketing, so that I can learn a few basics (a whole lot of stuff, actually) before I tackle this.

    So I guess what I am thinking about is, first doing affiliate marketing, then possibly drop shipping, then maybe actually buying wholesale and doing shipping (hate the idea, but that might be where the profit is).

  67. November 29, 2011 at 9:12 am | Permalink

    Hello matt, your experiment seems to be working because you’re now rank number one for the term “make money drop shipping”. that one hell of a job with out any backlinking.

  68. Annette's Gravatar Annette
    November 29, 2011 at 9:22 am | Permalink

    Thanks for the info Matt. I must admit I do like ecommerce and tried dropshipping a few years ago selling on ebay and was quite successful. The only ‘pain’ I found was with faulty products that needed to be returned – however the company I was working with was very good but at the time I found it too much hassle but have been thinking about it quite a bit lately and doing some research.

    Do you know much about Amazon’s FBA and would it work for someone in Australia or would shipping products to them be just too expensive. Would be really interested to know if you’ve done any research into this.

    Thanks again for all the great info.

    Kind regards
    Annette

  69. November 29, 2011 at 9:48 am | Permalink

    Hey Matt!

    I used this model several years ago when I was running ebay stores.

    The only problem I had was with inventory issues. I solved that, in part anyway, by keeping an inventory of the most popular items on hand. This gave me a HUGE advatage during peak sales periods.

  70. November 29, 2011 at 10:08 am | Permalink

    Amazing stuff as always Matt, this is something that I would like to learn more about as well, would like to see a webinar on drop shipping, and seo exerpts adacemy is incredible by the way!

  71. November 29, 2011 at 10:10 am | Permalink

    Interesting. I always just assumed dropshipping was very hard to be succesful at but your post is making me think twice. Thanks for the post.

  72. Auntie Trina's Gravatar Auntie Trina
    November 29, 2011 at 10:10 am | Permalink

    International Success!

    #4 for keyphrase Google.ie (Ireland) Mon 11.00 GMT

    wouldn’t all the visitors & comments be a ranking factor too?

  73. November 29, 2011 at 10:11 am | Permalink

    Thanks for sharing Matt .

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About Matt

Hey, Matt here, I'm a full time Super Affiliate, 33 years old, and live in New Zealand with my wife and son.

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