I want to create an ecommerce site that sells iphone cases and other accessories relating to that, what would be the best way to accomplish this? Would I need to purchase the products wholesale? I don't know too much about dropshipping, can that type of model work for a $20-$25 case? I can create a site using wordpress and some ecommerce plugins, but I am still trying to figure out how to get the product, anyone have any insights to share? Thanks
You could buy them in batches wholesale and ship them out yourself or you could dropship them which can work and may also be cheaper depending on the product and supplier. What sorts of cases are we talking here - the cheaper silicone ones or the more up market ones.
It would be the more upmarket ones, cases in the $20-40 range. Where would I get the inventory though?
I think you should starting ecommerce website for mobile cases and that is brilliant idea for those who want to change the cases of their mobile and don't even have much time they can be beneficent by home delivery from this website.
alibaba.com/trade/search?SearchText=iphone+cases&IndexArea=Products&fsb=y has lots of cases some with small minimum orders. Only problem I see is that every cornershop in london sells cases, chargers, stolen phones etc and I would guess it is the same for most cities.
Alibaba is full of scammers. Check out dhgate.com, they supply knock off products like alibaba but they use escrow so you wont get ripped off.
I recently been in contact with a supplier/dropshipper in China, Im starting to drift more toward electronic equipment. Something with higher margins since shipping costs eat at margins. I don't want to carry inventory so I will dropship from china since the price is right
I would recommend Magento as well. But first of all I would recommend taking a look at the market and figuring out how you are even going to compete. If I search IPhone Cases right now I get about 87 Million general results and about 2 million exact results. The leading competitors are Otterbox, Amazon, Apple and Zazzle, which are all companies with multi-million dollar marketing budgets. So unless you have a new product or are attacking a very small micro-niche then I would rethink this. I do not mean to be a debby downer or ruin your idea, I just do not want you to waste 6-12 months and $5,000-$10,000 to learn that these companies are rather large. I mean I work for Verizon Wireless as a primary career and we have OtterBoxes stocked on our shelves so this tells you they mean business! Hope this helps, Nick B.
You could also try using Prestashop for a full-blown webshop. We use it in our webshop which sells packaging machines and materials. Its full of great features. You can check out our website if you want to see how it functions or just go to the Prestashop website and look at the wide variety of free templates available there.
Update: I created my site through wordpress and ecommerce plugin jigoshop. I am in talks with two dropshippers and have four listings on ebay as sort of a test run. I also changed my product to high end headphones since the margins are better for dropshipping. wish me luck
What about going the Affiliate route and really promoting it hard, maybe Amazon and then you'll be looking at auto earnings, just get your SEO done and do it that way. Otherwise look at Puckator for dropshipping in the UK for gifts and the like.
Dropshipping can sometimes be risky, as your suppliers may run our of stock or delay postage times, leading to unhappy customers. Having said that if you have multiple suppliers for your iPhone cases it will reduce the risk as you are not soley dependent on one supplier.
I would suggest that you can drop ship iphone cases and mobile cases from a wholesale supplier like Chinabuye. Then you can start selling it creating your own ecommerce site online. I does it started one year back, my supplier is chinabuye and am ordering my products in bulk and selling them. They have wide ranges collections of iphone cases at better cheap deal. Check with their site for more information that may help you.
It's not easy to start an e-commerce website, especially if you want to drop ship, you have to be very careful with drop shipping websites, best is not to look for them, as the one who claims to drop ship are scammers. Find some whole seller and ask them if they drop ship, be sure to check the market average prices before choosing to sell a product. You should focus on high end cases, as said before there are already too many online shops out there.(+ also include other accessories on your shop). Whole seller research tip (google, bing ...) : Terminology -- > "Payment term", "container load", "purchace order", "sold by pallet", "dealer information", "dealer signup", "dealer account", "dealer discount","become distributor", "reseller price list" ... I'm sure you understand what I mean. I wish you good luck.
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