Hi, I am interested in dropshipping. However, I don't understand the whole concept about it. Is it necessary to have a merchant account? What is that? After the customer paid and credit card charged, the money will instantly deposit the payment into the merchant bank account, right? How long does this take? Then after the payment is cleared, the merchant will order from the dropshipper right? Please post your answers here. Thanks.
The concept is very easy. Let's say that you want to sell at ebay. So, you find a dropshipper. For example mouse pad dropshipper. Let's say that, the price that the dropshipper offer for a mouse pad is $10. So, you sell it at ebay for $15. And then recives a costumer. So, he pay the price to you paypal. And then, you will inform the dropshipper about it. And you pay them $10 and they will send the mouse pad to your costumer. So, your costumer will get the mouse pad, the dropshipper will get $10, wgile you will get $5 without doing nothing. (sorry for my bad english)
Dropshipping is as saif says, though I have found most charge more than I can get the product elsewhere or charge too much for shipping. A merchant account allows you to process credit cards from your site. This is often a bank that charges for the service, process the card, then direct deposits the funds to your account. If you are going to process credit cards with a merchant account Most companies like visa give you a time limit in which you have to send the product or you can be fined. You also have to be compliant with Visa or you can be heavily fined (something stupid like up to $20,000 or some such thing) My customers credit card purchases make it to my bank in about 48 hours. I believe that is about the norm. If you are planning on opening up a merchant account you will want to learn about the holds they may put on your money when you begin. Depending on your average order price they may hold up to 10 times this amount for 90 days or so. It is for their security they say If you do this you may find yourself having to ship the product before you get your payment. Nothing ticks off a customer worse than slow delivery.
So basically to do dropshipping, I must have a shopping cart that accepts major credit cards and paypal, and what system to uI don't want a merchant account. Is there a payment gateway system that anyone will recommend for international dropshippers to use so that the credit card purchases will make it to the bank in 48 hours?
Yes its a must to have at least premier paypal account when you used it to received payment. After you have received the payment. You make an order with the dropshiper company then paid it. Dropshiper company will handle the rest for you such as shipping the item to the customer house.