Some companies in the wholesale business have been slammed for passing themselves off as drop-shippers when really they’re just aggregators.
Let’s explain:
A drop-shipper is someone with a warehouse full of products they will sell individually at wholesale prices to you and ship direct to your customer. Three people in this equation: You -> the drop-shipper -> Your customer.
An aggregator is someone without a warehouse, a middleman who acts on your behalf by dealing with the drop-shipper. Four in this equation: You -> the aggregator -> the drop-shipper -> the customer.
Oh-oh. Looks like someone in the middle could be taking a slice of your profits.
Not so, says top aggregator Doba.
For a start, they’re upfront, telling website visitors exactly what they do and that they don’t have any warehouses.
Second, Doba says it makes its money from membership subscriptions and does not take a cent from your profit margin.
Third, by combining all members’ purchases – that’s ‘aggregating’, yay! – Doba can actually leverage lower wholesale prices from the supplier than you’d be able to get by yourself.
Add to that, you only need deal direct with one company instead of many different drop-shippers for your bucket-loads of different products, and using an aggregator could start to make sense, especially if it’s the only eBay certified drop-ship service provider, which is what Doba claims to be.
And they know their stuff. Doba CEO Jeremy Hanks is the author of Drop Shipping for Dummies and a regular participant at eBay Live!
They connect you with 170 wholesale distributors and manufacturers, many of whom might otherwise be reluctant to work with small home-based businesses. Doba negotiates the price and guarantees you won’t find lower from a similar service – or if you do, they’ll give you 120 bucks in member services.
You get access to a million name-brand products – probably the largest selection of products available from a single drop-ship source – with tasty profit margins said to be in the range of 33% to 75%.
It’s tough to find out their fees unless you first sign up for a free 7-day (sometimes 14-day) membership but we can tell you that their basic monthly fee is $29.95, rising to just under $60 for a full bells-and-whistles service. Discounts are available for annual membership.
The free trial is worth considering because you get access to their searchable product catalog – mostly brand name stuff and education resources (including a 45-minute video tutorial) that’ll make you smarter than the average drop-ship trader.
No wonder this Orem, Utah, business has just been ranked among Inc magazine’s fastest growing private companies. They’re zipping up the business charts faster than Fred chasing Barney...Yaba Daba Doo...I mean Doba!
