I know people who have had good success with dropshipping but only within their hobby/interests niche. They freely admit that “This is the cheap chinese one but it gets the job done.” And word gets around that they are trustworthy and reliable.
Comment on Is there a real, actually working way to earn money online without having a job?
pixeltree@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 days ago
How unethical are you ok with being? Dropshipping is an easy way to make money with low effort but it’s a pretty shitty thing to do
Delphia@lemmy.world 4 days ago
pixeltree@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 days ago
I don’t have any problems with cheap chinese stuff, I have problems with the people who make storefronts that, when you order off of them, they go buy the thing from a cheap chinese site and put in your shipping address. They are relying on games SEO to direct people to them and make money by literally doing nothing.
Delphia@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Yeah thats what I meant about “within their niche” They try and buy the shit themselves for their hobby and have a storefront and only rep for products they reasonably stand behind.
Doing the “to the masses” type products dropshipping is usually a losing game because theres always someone more unscrupulous who will do more underhanded shit to be 10c per item cheaper.
titanicx@lemmy.zip 4 days ago
What exactly is that a shitty thing to do? It’s simply running a business. It’s no different than going down to Walmart and purchasing anything.
pixeltree@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 days ago
Unless you have a sign saying “You’re paying me to buy this for you from alibaba”, I consider it very dishonest. Perfectly legal, but borderline scammy ethically imo.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 4 days ago
This is the same thing your local department store does. It sells shit it buys in bulk, much of it manufactured in China.
Dropshipping gets scammy when you start implying you produce the stuff you’re selling IMO.
pixeltree@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 days ago
Your local department store has to have a physical location and stock, they’re physical goods in a physical location, adding value to you by way of letting not have to travel to a bunch of different people producing the things you need. Dropshippers literally just order something to your address for a marked up price. They are adding cost with literally no value to you.
titanicx@lemmy.zip 4 days ago
What do you think just about every person does on apps like Amazon walmart.com etc. Almost all of them are drop shippers or people other than direct manufacturers. Almost every single store you purchase from almost every single website you go to is a form of a drop shipper. If you don’t know this and you don’t understand how retail works there’s always a manufacturer then there is a warehousing then there is somebody that purchases it and then there is the end store that you purchase from whether it’s retail brick and mortar or it’s online. If you think you’re buying directly from the manufacturer and you’re buying from other places other than the manufacturer’s website you’re almost guaranteed to be purchasing from some sort of type of drop shipper.
chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
I don’t want to make accounts on lots of sites and search all of them every time I buy something, so I think of it like a convenience fee if the way an ebay package is wrapped implies the seller arbitraged it from elsewhere.