By Trevor H. – October 27, 2021
Finding ways to monetize a website is a problem most are left with after creating content. There are many ways to make money from a website. Some sell their own products, ask for donations, others try dropshipping.
Here we will discuss our own experience with dropshipping and what thoughts we were left with to bring some meaningful insight.
First off – What is dropshipping?
Instead of getting all technical, dropshipping is basically a process where a business sells the products of other businesses, suppliers. You don’t handle or store any products. You make the sale, forward the information to the dropshipper, and they do the rest.
Sounds easy, doesn’t it? It’s not. Well, it wasn’t for us, anyway. The only thing we were left with after testing dropshipping as a way to monetize, was a pounding headache.
Here we are. Make Dinero Baby receives thousands of visitors every month. Our content is working, and users hopefully find the site useful.
Presently, we work with Google Ads which is bringing in a few bucks everyday, but it’s definitely not money we can live off. It doesn’t allow me to quit my day job as a supermodel.
Dropshipping has been a business practice used for decades now, and many use it and win, but many lose. How dramatic. Either way, our team prefers action rather than to conduct multiple hours of research. We began experimenting. It was time to try dropshipping.
We viewed our site and wondered, “What are some physical products we could sell from it?” We needed to find products that relate to our business, brand and overall theme.”
Educational books, lighting for video creation. It came to us easily. Our viewers come to the site for jobs, blogs and to learn. Let’s give them what they want.
Now that we had an understanding of what we could sell, we needed to find a supplier, a dropshipping service. A short Google search later, and we stumbled upon Aliexpress. One of the most popular online market places on earth.
Our experiment was getting exciting. We uploaded a plug-in that connected our site to Aliexpress, and slowly but surely, progress was made.
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We began researching products that were a good fit for the site. We found many interesting products, devices that people would seemingly want to get their hands on. The cost of products was reasonable, which meant we could have a decent margin of profit.
This whole dropshipping experiment seemed as if it was going down the right road. But as our team drove up the road of prosperity, we stared ahead into the distance to notice a cliff. Our goal of using dropshipping to monetize the website was about to come to an abrupt end.
When we viewed the length of the shipment of products, I was amazed to see how much time it took. They had courier services that could deliver products faster but then the prices really didn’t seem that attractive.
The other shipping alternative was cheaper, keeping the prices down, but thus the customer would have to wait anywhere from 2 weeks to over a month for their product.
From our end, we could only imagine customers emailing everyday with regards to the shipment of their ordered product. The amount of complaints could be excessive.
Even if the customer was told that the product would take over a month to be delivered during the checkout process, we’re certain we would be left with impatient customers.
We also checked many customer reviews and there were many complaints of people not receiving their product.
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Furthermore, the users that visit our site are from many different countries, and speak different languages.
Not only was there a language barrier, but when it comes to shipping to various countries, how would we go about that? We were biting off more than we could chew.
The passion for the dropshipping model had fallen off the cliff, and exploded into flames.
The main reasons for not going ahead with the project –
- Would a customer in Colombia or Spain accept waiting from two weeks to over a month for a product without complaining? They could call there bank to cancel payment, causing charge-backs.
- How would we deal with the language barrier when most of the site users are Spanish speakers?
- Can we take care of all these logistical tasks without hiring someone?
- Would our website be able to keep a solid reputation if we encounter too many issues?
Hear me out –
I, myself, would rather go to a store and buy something then have to wait a month for it. I am frugal but not that frugal.
Look, Aliexpress is one of the biggest companies in the world. The decision to not go through with the dropshipping plan was because it was more trouble than it’s worth for our team.
We tested the business model and decided nope.
If all our users were from one country, perhaps it would be easy to manage. We could make one massive bulk order to a warehouse and the process of logistics would then be easier. However, if we went that route, it wouldn’t be dropshipping anymore.
In this case, it was the right choice to pull the plug. It was a relief.
With regards to monetization, we need to involve a plan that can be sustained. This business model could definitely be the right move for another group of people, just not us.
Dropshipping is a huge industry that is set to generate $591 billion by 2027.
Conclusion
If you’re thinking about going ahead with a dropshipping website, get dedicated. It will be a long road ahead. Could you be prosperous in your endeavours? Absolutely.
Perhaps finding a professional dropshipping web developer could be of assistance.
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