1/20/2018 Blog#2 – Drop-shipping from Amazon vs. Oberlo

Drop-shipping from the Oberlo App

The Oberlo app is offered for use through Shopify. This app is a compilation of numerous suppliers that are in China and surrounding countries. It’s very user friendly but like life there’s always a learning curve. When trying to decide what supplier you want to use for new products in your store you will look at price, availability and shipping times. I believe Oberlo’s prices and shipping costs are the lowest you will find anywhere. If you are able to order in bulk then Alibaba is the supplier for you. If you are not set up to order in bulk yet then AliExpress has partnered with Oberlo to offer millions of products at a cost that allows us to make a profit.

Amazon is now full of products being drop-shipped from china. Yes, surprise, we are not the only ones out there drop-shipping from China! The way to tell what products are being drop-shipped from China on amazon is by looking at the ETA on shipping dates in Amazon listings. Many are a month to a month and a half out. Almost all of these items can be found on AliExpress. There is no reason to drop-ship these products from Amazon and pay more for the same product and the same shipping times.

Here are the steps I take to find products for my store, update the product information and customize the listings in my Shopify store:

Start in the Oberlo app and find the products you want to add to your store.
Copy part of the title (with pertinent information in it) and copy it to the search window on Amazon. (9 times out of 10 the item will be on Amazon!)
Click on the title open the Oberlo item so you can see the supplier information which includes your shipping charges, inventory levels and pricing.
Is the item on sale? If the item is on sale make sure your pricing settings in shopify are set to automatically update. This means when the sale ends and your cost goes up so will your selling price in your store.
Can you compete with Amazon’s pricing? There are many sellers out there that only have to make a very small profit. If you can’t compete with these supplier then do NOT list the product in your store. It’s just not worth it.
What is the available quantity to sell? Does the Oberlo supplier have enough quantity for you to sell this item and not run out of inventory soon? You don’t want to list something with a quantity of 5!
What will be your Gross Profit Margin on this item? Is it worth listing?
1. Take your product cost-plus any shipping and handling fees
2. Figure your minimum selling price.
3. Now take the cost and divide it by your selling price… example: cost of 6.50 divided by selling price of 13.99 = 0.4666 = 46% GP (Gross Profit)
4. Your GP needs to cover not just the cost of the product but also any administrative costs of the business and leave you a profit. If you have not already figured out what your minimum GP should be then stop here and go do it. You are only a real business if you know your numbers!
Updating Product Information: If you want to list the product in your store you will click the Add To Import List bar. Now this product has been saved and will show in your Import List. To add the product to your shopify store you will need to update the listing first:
1. Tab 1 –
  1. Update your title: Do not just list it with the title that comes out of Oberlo. Their titles are too long to push to other platforms. My Shopify store is set up to push my products to my Facebook page, messenger and Amazon if I so choose to re-open my Amazon store at some point in time which I do not want to do as of yet but it will be ready for one massive upload when that time comes by doing the work now. The Oberlo titles have a lot of garbage in them too that don’t need to be there like what year the item came out in or the suppliers name brand that nobody has ever heard of before and I’ve also seen the word dropshipping in it. Definitely UPDATE YOUR TITLES.
  2. Collections: If you are manually adding products to the Collections you have set up in your store then you will add it here. I have all of mine on auto to avoid items missing in my store. This is one of the lessons learned that I found to be a valuable one.
  3. Type: I use this to define my clothing as Men, Ladies or Unisex. I suggest you never use “Women” because when you search for Men guess what you will also get the women’s because the word men is in women!!!
  4. Tags: This is where most of my items are filtered into my Collections! All of my Collections have been setup using Rules and are on Automatically add to Collection using these rules. My tags tell my shopify store where to put the items I upload. For example, if I have a Collection called Sunglasses then one of my tags will have to be Sunglasses so it will be automatically added to that department/category in my store.
2. Tab 2 – Description: There is always a bunch of garbage in the Oberlo descriptions that is not needed and could possibly hurt your sales so start by deleting anything that is not needed information. Too much information can kill a sale every time!
  1. Look at the item’s description on Amazon. Do they have better specifications, sizes, material information? Add it to your description in your listing. This can be done with copy and paste very easily and quickly.
  2. Adding Pictures/Charts to your Description: If there is a chart showing specifications of the product or pictures with the product actually being worn or in use by a model then you want to right-click on the picture in the website and copy the URL to add it to your description. You can also create pictures for this in your photo shop programs and add text specific to this product for a more professional look. Adding pictures/charts will make your descriptions come to life, the product be more aesthetic and it if it is a specification chart it will add needed information for the buyer to feel more confident in their purchase.
    1. Click on the add picture icon in the tool bar above your description.
    2. Paste the URL in the pop up window that opens.
    3. Review it in your description and adjust spacing between it and any text you may have above or below it.
3. Tab 3 – Variants: Under the Variants tab you will find a list of variations of this product.
  1. Review the variations and check the box to the left of all the ones you want to offer in your store. Any that you don’t want you just remove the check mark from the box.
  2. Check the pricing – if you have already updated your markup levels in your store settings then your markup will show here. If you need to override this then you do it here. Above each column there is a box that allows you to reset the pricing for both the asking price and the compared at price which makes it appear to be on sale.
  3. Add the weight – Find your weight in the supplier information under the shipping information tab. It is usually in the shipping information or in the description. I have also gone to the Amazon website on the items I have found there and looked to see what the shipping weight for those items are there, it can be found under the shipping information.
4. 4th Tab – Choose your Images: This is where you pick what images you want to show in your listing images. I always pick more images of different settings or poses and always make sure all colors and styles have an image for each.

The Spreadr App and Drop-shipping from Amazon:

For any other products not offered by Oberlo or that may be very expensive, like full body home gyms, I go to Amazon. The Spreadr app has got Amazon’s full approval to be used as an affiliate program that links the customers back to Amazon’s storefront and/or allows us as sellers to sell the products listed on Amazon, mark up the price for a profit and have the orders drop-shipped to the customer. Amazon does not care who sells their products as long as they are selling them! You actually sign up to the Amazon Affiliate program to generate a code to even be able to use the Spreadr app in Shopify. It’s all perfectly legal and legit.

Getting Started:

First you must have an account on amazon.
Go to the available Apps in your Shopfiy store and choose to add the Spreadr app.
Setup your Spreadr app and follow the instructions to link it so it will sync the pricing with amazon on all the products you choose to upload into your store.
Decide whether you will be using the app as an Affiliate for Amazon or as a Drop-shipper. (Note: If you are using it as an affiliate user then this information will not be for you but I will be doing a blog on the affiliate program in the near future just for you!)
Once you have set up the Spreadr app and are ready to start adding Amazon products to your store this is the screen you will see in Spreadr

Here are the steps I use to add a product from Amazon:

Go to Amazon’s website and login.
Search out the product you want to add to your store.
Move your curser to the top of the screen and copy the page URL.
Now go to your Spreadr app site and paste the URL in the box that says Amazon product link.
Hit Add Product button to the right.
It will be added to the list of Products below.
Go to the Edit button on the right of the product you just added.
Edit your Title.
Add your product Type.
Add any Tags needed.
If your Collections are not set to automatic then add the product to the Collection you have already set up. If you have not set up a Collection for this product then save your changes and go to your Collections to set it up. Go back to your Spreadr app and finish your revisions.
Check the Description.
Check the Pictures.
Check the Pricing.
Hit Save.
Hit View to view it in your Shopify store.
Done!

Here is a live link to my store. It is to a home gym I have listed using these steps!

Click Here to see my Listing Live!

That’s it, that’s what I do to list my products in my Shopify store. Once I have filled my store with the available products from Oberlo and Amazon then my next challenge will be to explore finding suppliers in the United States and Canada for better shipping times!

Thank you for stopping by!

Judy