Setting up a satellite shop

longstockings

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I am a web designer by trade and specialise in Ecommerce.
I want to setup a satellite shop that sells pretty much everything relating to satellite and quality tv.

I am currently sourcing contacts but wondered if anyone had any trade links they would be prepared to share with me or if you run a satellite shop already whether you fancy supplying me.

If you are interested please pm and I'll get in touch with you as quick as I can

I wish to be just a dropshipper and the paragraphs below explain quite well what I am looking for

What is Dropshipping?

Dropshipping is a process of selling Products without having to stock any overhead. I would sell the merchandise at a cost the supplier would determine. After the customer pays me for the item, I would pay the supplier their price and send them the customer's details. The supplier would then ship the product out to the customer, and the difference between my price and the suppliers price is my profit.

How Does Dropshipping Actually Work?


Let's say I purchase an item from a suppliers site for £20.00. I would sell that item for a price determined by the supplier, let's use £35.00 plus £4.50 shipping for an example. After I collect the payment of £39.50 from the customer and their mailing address, I would forward the £20.00 plus £4.50 shipping to the supplier, and keep the £15.00 as profit, never having to touch the Product, as the supplier ships it out to the customer.

If anyone can help me out with this as mentioned above please pm me
 

Marts

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Very interesting post. Will watch for any response :-righton

Regards - Marts
 

joeuk2000

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It is interesting, hope it works well, I can understand why you would want to do it as a dropshipper as the profits are there for the making.

However who would the customer turn to if they had a faulty unit? I presume yourself as the dropshipper as you have entered a contract of sale directly with them, I wouldn't thought the customer would agree to dealing with the supplier directly as they didn't buy it off them?

i.e if i buy a kettle from Argos and it is faulty, I take it back to Argos not Russel Hobbs?
 

Marts

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But there again. if one buys from Amazon ??? ;)
 

jimbo

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Marts said:
But there again. if one buys from Amazon ??? ;)
Amazon are still responsible for 'managing' any faulty goods to a successful conclusion.

Joeuk2000 makes a valid point and I am interested in the reply.
 

longstockings

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Well the day has been a success. I have emailed about 10-15 different satellite retailers on the net and have had 1 reply of yes we can supply you.

I don't wish to name any names or anything but they do have a fair selection.
The only hard part is that the images are fairly grim and sourcing nice ones is time consuming. That should make it really hard to work out who the supplier is.

I am hoping that the fact that I have stock (not on site yet) and am selling will encourage larger distributors to take me seriously and supply me. Therefore I buy cheaper because I am buying from further up the chain and can reduce my prices while still making the same or maybe more profit.

Don't get me wrong I am not just in it for the money and see this as only a way to subsidise my rubbish (typical of the Westcountry) wage.

I do need to setup a secure server and find a payment gateway system that isn't expensive like Paypal.

Oh and yes I would take responsibility for a faulty product as it was me who had sold it.

Edited by Admin
 

pant

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something that it has to do with the site and only the site cause i was an i am working with oscommerce sites this "welcome guest" is annoyning and over-used.check it at your english.php.Very nice and simple with light colours.Good work
 

Lancelot

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Don't want to knock you on your **se my old mate - good idea, and a lot of the worlds larger companies work like this as i'm sure you are aware.

But with the 'www' being what it is ...

What is stopping your very cheapest supps from undercutting you should you make a go of it ?? as they know who you are and can 'do you' at will by spending VERY little on blasting their cheaper thing across the net as they (your supplier) by nature will be buying in far larger quantites than you.

Only volume could save you and.................there is the catch22.
L. :)
 

longstockings

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This is always a concern and though I can't stop that from happening I do think the better looking web site will triumph of which suppliers sites are usually terrible.

Suppliers supply traders and therefore are not used to dealing with the general public and maybe lack the marketing ability to get their site seen.

Cost is always a factor but it depends on where the customer feels happiest to purchase from

One customer may buy from Ebay and save a few quid another customer may not like the thought of the risks involved and wants to buy from an online shop with which hopefully a good name will be associated.

You just don't know what's going to happen but as a dropshipper I have sworn to not undercut my suppliers price. Doing so would be suicide as they would stop supplying me.

I could go on but I think this answers your question
 

Marts

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Continues to be an interesting thread this LS. Have you drawn up a practical business plan and submitted it to whoever for their appraisal?

Regards - marts
 

longstockings

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I did download some software to help build one but because I don't need any funding for this project I don't think it matters that I do not have one.

All I need to make sure of is that the site pays for itself and that I get some kind of wage for my efforts.

Since my last post I have secured a couple more suppliers and have started populating the shop with products starting with Satellite Receivers.

This is a slow process as finding good quality images is near impossible and the information I am using from the suppliers is badly written MS Word html so I'm having to strip out all the html and then rebuild the page completely.

The first receiver took about 2 hours to add to the shop but I am getting quicker.

You may be thinking that it isn't worth bothering but if I do something I like to do it properly.

I have decided to use Paypal as the payment gateway because there is no setup fee or monthly charge though the transaction charges are expensive.
I would hate to be paying out £20 a month and get no orders at all.

I need to get an idea of how many orders I am going to take before I switch to one of the banks merchant services.

I'll keep you posted as to my progress
 

chris

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Credit card fraud will be your biggest problem, You will find that about 70% of all your orders will be made on a stolen or made up credit card.

PayPal will claw back all fraudulent payments out of your account and i think they can do this up to about 6 months after payment... You have no protection. You will lose the goods and the money and the police are not interested.

So be warned!!!
 

longstockings

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Paypal is a snap to set up but that is the only thing in its favour
I tried paypal once and instantly found a problem with it so I will not be using it again.

Apart from the amount you have to pay in transaction charges 20p + 1.9% value of transaction you run into the I didn't validate my payment details so my spending is capped issue.

Marvelous, someone wants to buy for example the new Dreambox for £349 and signs up, chooses delivery option and gets transferred to paypal so I get the money. BUT they have not verified there payment details so they cannot continue or will have to check their statement in 4 days time looking for paypals 4 digit code.

Who the hell is going to do that and still purchase the item from me.

Screw that I'm going t have a word with the bank

As for current shop progress I have added all technomate, technisat, fortec star receivers and set my prices up.
 

longstockings

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I have spent months working on my satellite shop targeting the keywords that I think customers will type into the serach engines only to run into the Google sandbox effect.

For those that have not heard of this it is Googles way of barring new sites from a high position on it's ranking and it has been holding holding my website back for months and still is.

Since starting this project I have had just 1 order though this could have been much higher if I had taken the easy way out and use Google Addwords.

My shop only excepts payment by cheque as Protx charge £20 a month and without customers I would just be throwing money away.

I have used Google for around 10 years and thought it was the best engine but MSN has put me at number 4 of its listings for the word Technomate.

I suppose I just want others to know my experiences and how hard it can be so that anyone who is thinking about setting up a satellite store knows what is involved.
 
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