Global Selling: Three Categories Beginners Should Avoid (DropShipping). Brand Marketing Diary (4)

Previous two articles introduced jewelry + clothing, two major categories beginners should avoid:

• Global Selling: Three Categories Beginners Should Avoid (Clothing)
• Global Selling: Three Categories Beginners Should Avoid (Jewelry)

In the end, you'll find that category pitfalls have common points, regardless of which major category. In other words, if you have correct认知 in product selection, you can挖掘到不错的小细分品类 in any major category.

Pets, home, outdoor—which category doesn't look competitive and difficult? But indeed, many people can secretly find细分小类目 in these major categories and make money quietly.

Today, we won't "讨伐" a specific category, but talk about a跨境电商舶来品: "dropshipping."

What is DropShipping?

DropShipping is essentially no-inventory dropshipping. That is, you don't need to handle products at all. If a customer places an order, you directly order from suppliers who provide dropshipping, and the supplier ships directly to the customer.

Wow, doesn't that sound wonderful? No inventory, no product management, no supply chain, shipping logistics, warehousing worries... One computer, one person, say goodbye to self-internal friction, learn self-reconciliation, after being laid off at 35, learn global selling using DropShipping, no inventory no cost, earn millions monthly.

Does that sound familiar? Don't rush, let's细数dropshipping's three major sins.

Complete Loss of Supply Chain Advantage

First, dropshipping is an English word—easy to understand, this thing was invented by foreigners. Right?

Well, let's think about why foreigners invented this and why they need it?

Foreigners can also build independent sites and do e-commerce, no problem right? But let's take an example—Tom in Australia, what's his biggest困境 when running through the independent site process?

Products. They can't get low-price, high-quality products. You know, China's powerful supply chain (low prices, rich products, excellent quality) makes foreigners垂涎不已, but does this have anything to do with them?

Some say, yes, Tom can also ship to foreign countries first. Whoa, have you calculated the shipping costs? The delivery time?

So at this time, smart Chinese supply chain merchants and some smart Toms figured out a method—I, Tom, build the site, drive traffic, and you Chinese factories please help me ship directly from China to customers, no need to ship to me first. This way, Tom completes the闭环 using the DropShipping method.

So do you see? DropShipping is a畸形产物 for foreigners.

Precisely because they can't take advantage of efficient supply chains, they were forced to come up with such methods.

You don't know where you saw this term—either foreign websites or domestic割子. If you think slightly about the essence, you'll find it可笑:

Why do we in China挤破头 to play global selling? Isn't it to leverage China's supply chain advantages? Using price advantages and product diversity to卷老外 sellers, then斩获老外 customers.

What happens? You foolishly research dropshipping, thinking it's great, so convenient. Then unknowingly use the same "supply chain" as foreign sellers, and these so-called dropshipping sources are just global selling players like you and me—they just found such opportunities to割老歪.

Who would have thought, they also割 their own people.

And those manufacturers doing DropShipping sources—who do you think they're making money from? They pack for you, ship for you, prepare product detail page info for you—do they do this for free?

Chinese products are abundant and cheap, dozens of yuan per product, delivered the next day, you pack and label a bit, call some shipping company, third day on the plane to the target country. With such a smooth process, you still want to save?

Supply Chain Advantage Gone; What About Your Operational Advantage?

DropShipping in terms of product and user experience has almost no operational scalability.

Want to customize your own packaging? Want to include small gifts with products? Want to optimize product size to reduce shipping costs?

Sorry, none of these are possible because you don't handle the goods, you can't接触 these tasks at all.

No Advantages Whatsoever, Market Already Saturated

Foreign e-commerce penetration isn't as high as China's, which is why we see current platforms competing and independent sites getting a share.

So of course it's possible that any form can get a piece of the pie, and dropshipping may indeed have profit potential to some extent.

But you know, this low-barrier behavior—countless违规 DropShipping sellers are doing it, they don't provide after-sales or even ship.

So this type of DropShipping website has been "marked" by many customers—if it smells like dropshipping, they almost won't buy.

An interesting personal share: I used to like browsing Reddit related sections for teaching or discussions. In e-commerce or shopify sections, many people like to post their sites for audit, asking why they can't sell.

The most common netizen comment is: Your website looks too much like a dropshipping site.

Dropshipping has become a "negative" characteristic of not getting orders, yet you still want to research and ask around.

Some Common Sense:

1. Look for things with barriers: It's 2023, family—stop fantasizing about barrier-free, easy money.