If your reading this you’ve probably already invested hours, weeks or even months of your time searching for products to sell on Ebay or your website. I’ve read that the majority of Ebay Powersellers make little profit.

This presents a dilemma, if the so-called experts aren’t making a decent living how can you expect to?

The 2 factors crucial to your online reselling success are:
1. Finding quality products that will sell.
2. Finding these products at a cost that allows you to sell at a competitive margin.

Most people will use Google or other search engines to find these products. This method has a few flaws. Firstly it is extremely time consuming. But more to the point, the wholesaler’s that will rank in Google will have search engine optimised their pages, ensuring your results are biased to the worst type of life form – the middleman.

Another popular method of searching involves contacting manufacturers directly and asking them to supply a list of wholesaler’s in your area. This can be time consuming and difficult, but in the end can pay off.

A final and little discussed approach is to buy a wholesale directory. This technique is often written off, as these directories are typically out of date. However, nowadays some directories employ full time staff to research and present current and quality wholesale suppliers.

You might think, "Why pay for something I can get for free?" This is probably true but it depends on how much you value your time.

As always you get what you pay for. Don’t expect to get information allowing you to triumph over your competitors for $20.

A great evaluation tool is http://www.ripoffreport.com/. You can see what (if any) complaints have been made against the company and assess the quality of the information.

In summery, work smarter, not harder: Assess the value of your time vs. the value of information and your computer-induced migraine might even disappear.

If you hope to own an eBay business, and make a full time living at it, you can easily make that dream come true even if you don’t have a product of your own to sell. eBay provides many people who want to quit their corporate nine-to-five jobs with a way to make a good living, without having to put up a lot of start up capital. This is made possible with the help of drop shippers. Drop shippers send merchandise to the customers of business owners. If you have an eBay business, you are a business owner. This will allow you to offer a wide variety of stock in your eBay store, without having the need to warehouseall of those products!

All you have to do is set up your auction, and sell the product. You then pass the customer’s information on to the drop shipping company. The drop shipper does the rest, and they will even use your company information, as well as your company logo if you have provided it to them. When the product arrives at your customer’s home, they will have no ideathat your company didn’t send it. The drop shipper will package, label, and ship the products that you sell, allowing you more time to set up even more auctions, for greater profits.

You must establish a relationship with several drop shipping companies in order to become successful. In the beginning, most companies will require you to pay for the items that your customers order before they are shipped. You need to fill orders in a timely manner, so you should pay for the items with a credit card for speedy service. Eventually, you will be able to have the drop shipper fill your orders, and then bill you for them later.

When you set up your eBay auctions, make sure that your reserve price is set higher than the price that the drop shipper will be charging you for the item. The idea, of course, is to earn a profit! Depending on the item you are selling, a markup of about 10% should be about right, but you should do some research to see if the item is selling for a lower price in another eBay auction, or through other online sources.

By starting an eBay business using the drop shipping method, there is essentially no financial riskinvolved. The product will be sold before you pay the drop shipper for the item. This is one of the few businesses where you can actually turn a profit before you have expenditures!

If you have been researching work at home job opportunities than no doubt you have come across drop-shipping. You have probably seen a hundred ads trying to sell you an E-book that will tell you all the secrets to eBay or been tempted by a "free" instant auction success kit of some kind, right? If you have been unfortunate enough to become a victim of any of these scams then you may have dismissed eBay and drop-shipping as a legitimate business. Don’t give up just yet! Motivated individuals can build a successful eBay drop-shipping business with zero dollars out of pocket. But How?

There are several factors crucial to your success as a drop-shipper. First and most importantly you must choose a drop-shipper that is approved by eBay and there are only TWO. Once you have selected your drop-shipper you need to select products to sell. Avoid selling products that are already highly saturated on eBay. For example, everyone and their brother is selling MP3 players at the moment so your chances of getting sales is much lower than if you target a less crowded market like belt buckles. Try and build an inventory of related products so you can pick up extra sales from your customers. If you sell computers and a customer decides to purchase a desktop unit from you he may also purchase a printer or other accessories if you have them in stock.

Pricing is always a sticky area for beginners. The number one mistake new drop-shippers and eBay users make is forgetting to factor in the fees when listing their items. For example….you can get a hunting knife from your drop-shipper for $70 plus $4 shipping for a total of $74. You decide to list it on Ebay for $80 for $6 profit…right? WRONG! There are fees for accepting Paypal payments for your auction, their are listing fees and there are eBay’s final value fees. In this example you would have actually lost between $2 and $5 depending on your listing format. There is a very simple formula to avoid this problem an insure you always make a profit. If you are interested in the more detailed aspects of product pricing visit my in depth free guide.

Once you have your business model established how do you drive customers to your products? If you are using ebay than you are already way ahead of the game. Ebay has over 60 million users and you can easily drive them to your products through a variety of tools already available to you right on ebay! There are tools to enhance your auctions such as listing designer, bold and highlight options and gallery photo options. There are also ways to expand your business and lower your listing fees by opening an ebay Store. The serious entrepreneur should spend some time utilizing ebay’s many message boards, FAQ pages and live help options to explore these and many other tools in depth.

I explore these factors and more in my free complete set up guide for new drop-shippers which can be viewed by following the link below. My guide is intended as a tool for serious individuals who are dedicated to their success. There are no E-books or software to buy, and no sales pitch.

If you want to acquire products to drop ship or wholesale, where do you look? There are all kinds of wholesale and drop ship list for sale on eBay. There’s likely to be lots of decent companies right?

Not true, according to Chris Malta, the Product Sourcing Editor for eBay Radio:

When you see all these “Incredible” lists and books and packages of wholesaler suppliers and drop shippers for sale on eBay and the rest of the Internet, for anywhere from $5 to $50 or more, what you’re seeing 99% junk.

There are thousands of scammers, snake oil salesmen and con artists on the Internet who are just lying around waiting to AMBUSH you when you begin looking for REAL wholesale suppliers to do business with. Believe it or not, there is a whole niche industry built up on the Net around this kind of scamming! The folks who run these scams have all the moral fiber of a box of hair, and the only reason they even recognize the word ‘Scruples’ is from the TV ad for the party game.

You may have even fallen prey to one of these con artists, selling you their "insider" wholesale/drop ship list of suppliers. Me too. I’ve purchased so many lists that I can’t even recollect how many. I don’t know why, but I tend to find the "good" in people, and I was "sold" by these marketing schemes time and time again, even after being scammed by the latest one. Finally, after so many disappointments, I had HAD ENOUGH. I decided to get to the bottom of this appeal we all have with wholesale/drop ship companies, and find out if there really were any LEGITMATE drop shippers for purchasing “hot” consumer goods at great prices.

I literally contacted the administrator of every wholesale drop shipping website I could find. Posing as an investor, I managed to persuade the owners that I was seriously interested in purchasing their entire website and business. That way, once the cartoonish money bags flashed in their minds, they would grant me free access to their member’s areas to examine what I would be "buying". Well, I was appalled with 99% of what I found. Many of the owners actually bragged about how many people purchased their useless subscriptions. I repeatedly found:

*outdated lists

*non-working links

*links leading to other sites that asked for more money

*no help section

*no real email support

*no refunds

I quickly realized that these so-called wholesale/drop ship lists were totally pointless. And the owners knew it, yet they were laughing all the way to the ATM machine! Needless to say, I didn’t respond when they asked if I was still interested in purchasing their websites. Surprisingly, while sitting through all of the scam artist’s websites, I was able to locate a group of individuals that actually ran legitimate programs.

The owners were common folk like you and me that found a way to earn extra money working from home on their computers. Their membership areas were impressive, with an impressive amount of quality information on how to make $100-$200 per day on your computer doing very little work. I even chatted with a few of their customers in several online forums, and they confirmed that they were earning extra money using the information that the websites had provided them with. It was like I found a few diamonds in the rough. But don’t take my word for it, you can drop by the over two dozen sites I found. See what you think.

They do charge a minimal fee for access to their program, which is to be expected for any legitimate enterprise that actually has people on staff who are dedicated to helping you get earning online. What a warm group of people! Anyway, if you do decide you are interested in any of the two dozen companies, I advise you to join post-haste, as the owners have informed me that they are getting so many new members by word of mouth referrals that they will be blocking off membership completely by month’s end. (By the way, you didn’t get this news from me!) They don’t have a large enough staff to welcome many more people, and they are driven to providing excellent service to each person. Well, my quest to find legitimate Drop ship companies has come to an end. I have to mention I was thoroughly disappointed with most of what I found, and I strongly urge you not to take any chances doing business with any companies other than the twenty four I will share with you.

Whatever you do, I hope for you and everyone you love a healthy and prosperous year.

Take care and I wish you all the best.

First off, you will need products to sell. Be very carefull when looking for dropshipping suppliers online there are many unscrupulous people that will take advantage of you. There are a couple of rules to follow when choosing a dropshipper. One, a real dropshipper will never charge you a fee to sell their products. Two, a real dropshipper will want proof that you are a legitamate business. They may ask for any or all of these; Business License, DBA, Federal ID (EIN), and/or Sellers Permit. A very good source of real wholesalers is the WorldWide Brands OneSource Directory. They sell a directory of REAL dropshippers and light bulk wholesalers that they have resarched for you.

Secondly, you will need a venu where you can reach prospective customers. You may want your own website or to sell your products on ebay. For your own website you will need a domain, a webhosting account, and shopping cart software. EZ Dropship Cart is a great cart for dropshippers. Ebay is also a great way to reach perspective customers, the only problem you may run into is that some manufacturers place no auction restrictions on their products.

Thirdly, you will need a way to accept your customers payments. Paypal is a fast easy way to get started, you pay fees only when you have transactions. While credit card processors offer lower per transaction fees, they require setup fees and monthly fees that are geared tword large voulme sales.

Lastly, you will have to get Legal, this is where most people faulter. They think it sounds hard, complicated, and expensive. And actually it isn’t any of those. Just visit your states website to find out what you need to do business. In most cases a DBA can be used in place of a Business License. But either way most states charge around $20.00. Some states, not all, require you to get a Sellers Permit or Resale Certificate. Either way all the resources you need should be available at you states home website, usually under a small business section. While you may not have any employees I highly recommend getting a fedeeral id. It costs $4.99 online and you get it instantly.

Dropshipping is promoted as being one of the best and easiest ways to make money selling on eBay & the internet. At least that’s what the owners of the countless dropshippers lists available on eBay & the internet want you to believe. It sounds easy, simply sign-up for a wholesaler’s dropshipping service then start advertising their products in online auctions or on your web site. People buy the products, you notify the wholesaler, pay the wholesale price & pocket the profit, without having to lift a finger.

Is that really what happens? Is it really the secret to your future financial success?

The concept of dropshipping first started in America many years ago, due to a VERY competitive wholesale market. Wholesalers were having difficulty selling their products for a decent price; so one clever person came up with the idea of drop shipping. The wholesaler would add a small premium to the wholesale price to cover the costs of extra handling of the item, and offer entrepreneurs the opportunity of selling the item for them, without having to carry any stock or deal with shipping. Once a few wholesalers started, it forced other wholesalers to do the same; otherwise they would lose their market share, and most likely go out of business. This is why dropshipping is such big business in America.

This is NOT the case in Australia, as our market is nowhere near as competitive. It’s only recently that a handful of so-called wholesalers have started to offer a dropshipping service. When you think about it, why would a wholesaler want to be bothered selling just one of a certain item, as well as packing & posting it? Obviously they wouldn’t unless they were forced to, to keep their business afloat as many are in America. Australian wholesalers don’t have to do this to stay afloat.

Many of the dropshippers in Australia aren’t actually real wholesalers (as the real wholesalers can’t be bothered wasting their time with it). Some of them may be discount stores that sell items at a discounted retail price, while others are businesses that actually buy from the real wholesalers, place a large mark up on the price and offer their services as wholesale dropshippers. In reality they are more like retailers. With the prices they charge for their products, it is exceptionally difficult for anyone to make a living by selling them on eBay. The prices for most items on eBay are already at heavily discounted retail prices, so you would be lucky to break even.

The situation with Asian dropshippers is no different, even though you would expect their prices to be cheaper. Like the Australian wholesalers, they don’t have to dropship to make very good money, but some of them have realised that they can obtain exceptionally high prices for their merchandise by offering to dropship to western countries. With labour costs being so much lower in the Asian region, it puts even more profit into the `wholesalers` pocket. I recently checked the prices of several items in a well-known Asian dropshipper’s catalogue, namely digital cameras. These cameras were selling for LESS on eBay, than the dropshipper was charging. The Canon digital camera was available from the dropshipper for $469.00, but was only selling on eBay for around $430.00. A huge $39.00 loss (plus eBay fees) for the poor person selling it, but a whopping 100% or more profit for the Asian dropshipper.

In Australia, Asia and the UK, the only people who are profiting from dropshipping are the dropshippers themselves as they don’t need to offer the same competitive prices to stay in business as is the case in the US. Due to the high cost of freight, it is pointless trying to sell items from US dropshippers to the Australian market.

Why would you want to pay someone else an over inflated price for just one item, when most wholesalers only have a minimum order of no more than $500? Some wholesalers don’t even have any minimum order quantity – you can buy one item at a time if you want! By buying directly from the wholesaler, all the extra profit is going straight into your pocket, and not to some middleman.

In summary, there is really only 3 ways to make money from drop shipping:

1. Create your own dropshippers list, & sell it to poor, unsuspecting newbies who don’t know any better – not a very ethical way to do business.

2. Create your own web site, aimed at the US market, & deal with the US dropshippers. You could also try to sell on the US eBay site, using the US dropshippers, however this may not make you much, if any money, due to the huge competition from everyone else in America doing the same thing and forcing eBay prices down.

3. Start your own business, purchasing products from Australian wholesalers, & then dropshipping them for other people - you become the dropshipper.