Is anyone importing/selling/dropshipping products on Amazon as a side hustle?
05-25-2015, 04:32 PM
I searched under "amazon" and "import" and found nothing that directly addressed this question, so if it is a redundant thread let me know. There is one thread about ecommerce and dropshipping but im more concerned with Amazon specifically.
Ive been doing some reading the past few days and noticed a few posts about importing various products from overseas or wherever and selling it on Amazon for a profit. I just wanted to see if any of the fellas here could possibly drop some knowledge about their experiences doing so. Im looking for ways to get a piece of the online pie and I figure someone else may also benefit from this info.
A few of the main questions that come to mind:
1. Drop shipping vs having the inventory physically delivered to you, which is preferable? They seem like two different practices but a lot of the material im reading seems to blend them together. There have to be obvious benefits/drawbacks to each.
2. What kind of numbers were you looking at in terms of initial start up costs and investment?
3. Speaking of dropshipping, A thread I read on another forum states that the guy just purchases the item directly from another supplier i.e Best Buy and has them ship it directly to the buyer's address and has them (best buy) mark it as "gift" so that the buyer cant see what it actually cost the seller.
If im understanding this correctly, he waits for the money to be deposited in his account and then buys the product, has it "dropshipped" directly without ever handling the actual product and takes in whats left as his cut. This seems a bit shady and underhanded, but a lot of people seem to be doing it. He says his clients are more than happy with their product/prices and it all falls within his promised 7-10 days of delivery time. During this course he has supposedly invested $0 and uses UPC codes to mass upload several units at once.
This is the thread I was reading in case anyone else wants to check it out:
link
4. I know a lot of sellers import from China real cheap and sell on Amazon for a profit and make a decent income that way. Without giving too much away what are some good examples of the types of products/goods used to achieve this method? Also how big of orders did you have to buy to initially break into this?
5. Ive heard Amazon's fees are pretty high at something like ~15%. How do you factor this in?
6. What kind of numbers did/is this amazon business generating in your experience?
Forgive me if these are basic questions, there is just an overload of gimmicky information claiming $20k in 5 weeks and its becoming a bit dizzying to sift through it all on google. I just want some realistic, real life examples of this.
Ive been doing some reading the past few days and noticed a few posts about importing various products from overseas or wherever and selling it on Amazon for a profit. I just wanted to see if any of the fellas here could possibly drop some knowledge about their experiences doing so. Im looking for ways to get a piece of the online pie and I figure someone else may also benefit from this info.
A few of the main questions that come to mind:
1. Drop shipping vs having the inventory physically delivered to you, which is preferable? They seem like two different practices but a lot of the material im reading seems to blend them together. There have to be obvious benefits/drawbacks to each.
2. What kind of numbers were you looking at in terms of initial start up costs and investment?
3. Speaking of dropshipping, A thread I read on another forum states that the guy just purchases the item directly from another supplier i.e Best Buy and has them ship it directly to the buyer's address and has them (best buy) mark it as "gift" so that the buyer cant see what it actually cost the seller.
If im understanding this correctly, he waits for the money to be deposited in his account and then buys the product, has it "dropshipped" directly without ever handling the actual product and takes in whats left as his cut. This seems a bit shady and underhanded, but a lot of people seem to be doing it. He says his clients are more than happy with their product/prices and it all falls within his promised 7-10 days of delivery time. During this course he has supposedly invested $0 and uses UPC codes to mass upload several units at once.
This is the thread I was reading in case anyone else wants to check it out:
link
4. I know a lot of sellers import from China real cheap and sell on Amazon for a profit and make a decent income that way. Without giving too much away what are some good examples of the types of products/goods used to achieve this method? Also how big of orders did you have to buy to initially break into this?
5. Ive heard Amazon's fees are pretty high at something like ~15%. How do you factor this in?
6. What kind of numbers did/is this amazon business generating in your experience?
Forgive me if these are basic questions, there is just an overload of gimmicky information claiming $20k in 5 weeks and its becoming a bit dizzying to sift through it all on google. I just want some realistic, real life examples of this.