If you are interested in dropshipping or selling on eBay, perhaps you have heard of Doba, a huge dropshipping company. When I decided to try and find a dropshipping company to sell my own products on eBay, I discovered Doba and decided to give their dropshipping company a try. Below is my review of Doba’s dropshipping services, so you can decide if dropshipping with Doba is right for you.
Dropshipping is a fairly exciting idea for people looking to work for themselves, especially on eBay. Dropshipping is when a company offers a wide variety of products for you to resell on sites like eBay. They list the price of their product (usually at a wholesale or marked down price) and you relist the item for sale on eBay, marking up the price so you make a profit. When your item sells on eBay, your customer pays you and then you buy the item from Doba and have it shipped directly to your company. As a business owner, the pros to dropshipping are endless! You have no upfront cost of buying inventory! You don’t have to store or house any items. Doba already has pictures of all the items so you can use their pictures on your eBay website. You also have access to a wide choice of items to sell, from makeup to furniture to clothes and electronics, instead of having to buy all the same products from a wholesaler or manufacturer. Doba claims to have over 1 million items available for dropshipping that you can almost immediately list for resale on your eBay store. (No waiting for inventory to reach you). Doba’s dropshipping system makes being an eBay entrepreneur quick and easy.
Are there any cons? I joined Doba’s dropshipping site with stars in my eyes, dazzled by all the money I was about to make dropshipping on eBay. However, there were a few discrepancies. First of all, like most dropshipping websites, Doba’s “wholesale” prices were too high for me to be able to mark up enough to make any money (especially after eBay fees). Doba also included a dropshipping “fee” that marked up the price even higher, and their actual shipping costs were outrageous! (Remember, you have to pay to have the product shipped to your customer). With most eBay buyers becoming accustomed to free or low shipping costs, any dropshipping company that makes you pay high shipping costs is taking money that is coming out of your profit. Also, while Doba may have offered a number of different products for dropshipping, very few of them were name brand. Non name brand products are much harder to sell on eBay. Also, not only did Doba charge a dropshipping fee on individual purchases, but you also have to pay for their dropshipping services! (I received a 14 day free trial). Now you have to factor in the $60 a month into your business expenses which gets outrageous, especially if you are already paying for an eBay store.
My dropshipping experience was not at all as star studded as I have envisioned or was led to believe. In my experience, I don’t see how anyone can actually make any amount of profit with any of these dropshipping companies, Doba included. Although they claim to have a large selection and charge for their wonderful dropshipping services, I couldn’t figure out how they were any different than any other, and so far none of them have made me any money.
