EBay Drop Shipping: How to Separate the Fakes from the "Real Deal"

Using a drop shipper is an excellent way to build your eBay business quickly and easily. But where can you find them?

Sure, if you go to Google right now and conduct a search for "Drop Shipping," you'll get millions of links. And within the first twenty or thirty you'll find some dropshippers that you can use with eBay.

But, are they really drop shippers?

I'm going to let you in on a little-known secret. Most of the drop shippers you find online are not genuine drop shippers.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying they'll steal your money and never ship your products. What I mean is, most of them are what you call "Middle Men."

A middle man is someone who buys from the original manufacturer or wholesaler, marks the product up to make his profit, then sells it to you.

No, to get the real wholesale prices, you have to avoid middle men. But, online, it's hard. Here are a few ways to spot a middle man:

1. The listed "Retail price" will be higher than you've ever seen the products sold for.

2. Sometimes the price they charge you will be higher than normal retail.

3. They charge a "drop ship fee" per each item bought.

4. They charge you just to view their catalog, calling it a membership fee.

A real drop shipper is, in actuality, a "wholesaler" who buys their product directly from the manufacturer and sells to retailers. Their drop ship business is secondary. In fact, to be honest, most wholesalers don't offer dropshipping services. They want to sell in bulk rather than dealing with one item at a time.

This is where most eBay sellers give up. I should know. I myself have literally spent hours and hours for days at a time searching the web for a dropshipper that offered quality products at wholesale prices. And to this day I've never found one on my own.

This includes all the "wholesale directories" that I purchased on eBay that were only full of outdated links to manufacturers that wouldn't have sold to me anyway because I was not a distributor.

I felt like throwing in the towel more than once.

What I learned is, it takes a lot more than good internet searching skills to find a true, affordable drop shipper. It takes a knowledge of business practices that most of us don't have. It takes having contacts in the manufacturing and wholesale industry. sometimes in far away countries.

There are a few people out there who have created lists of genuine drop shippers who will work with eBay sellers. They're not the ones selling wholesale lists on eBay for $3.00, but they are out there.

So, when you go looking, do your research, look carefully, ask questions and make sure that any directory you go with true wholesale prices and guarantees your satisfaction.