Scams & Drop Shipping Frank Ross on 05 Nov 2006 08:09 am
Drop Ship Scams
If you browse the web for business opportunities, you will often come across businesses advertised as ‘drop shipping’ opportunities. Drop Shipping businesses are set up so that someone else does the handling of the product for you and sends the product directly to your customer, without you (the business) being involved in the shipping. While this sounds great in theory, it rarely works in practice when presented as a service - a common approach for drop ship scams.
The biggest problem with these kinds of services is that the are “middlemen” and the prices they offer are NOT wholesale (even if they say they are). It’s hard to compete when you’re buying products at retail to re-sell.
Another problem with them is competition. In these scams, everyone who subscribes to their ‘drop ship’ website will have access to the very same set of products. That means you will have a difficult time differentiating yourself and carving a niche for your business.
The only way to do Drop Shipping as a business is to do the product research yourself, find your own suppliers who will do the drop shipping and get yourself setup with them. Sounds hard? Well there is no easy money and who said Common Sense E-Commerce would be easy?
on 29 Sep 2007 at 7:54 pm 1.chris said …
Dear Frank,
I recently was a victim of a third party scam. It all started when I searched the internet for drop shippers. I came across a company called DSDI or www.dropshipdirect.com I read their policies. everything seemed great and straight forward. DSDI even has a thing where they take three days before they approve you. This method they use makes DSDI customers feel special. I felt special. I felt as if not anyone can be a reseller through DSDI(dropshipdirect.com). After a few days, I was accepted and was very happy. I wanted to represent their MEYDA TIFFANY items. DSDI has rules placed all over their site about there being a minimum price you can charge for each Meyda item. Meyda has the same policy. no less than 1.8 times the wholesale price. I listed 2000 items from DSDI on my website. I spent weeks on it. Lots of hard work only to find out, every time I entered my item on google(to see how my prices were), a website popped up that would have the same item up for 50 to 300 dollars cheaper than what your the strict rules are. This goes against Meyda and DSDI rules. In all reality, www.Megahanson.com is making a about ten dollars off a 1,000 dollar tiffany lamp. This is ridiculous and marketwhoring! You would assume off hand that megahanson.com is a great company because of their dirt cheap prices however I have discovered some things that are affecting hundreds of business owners on the net.
1) Meyda has a strict resell policy.
2) no less than 1.8 times the wholesale cost
3) most DSDI customers are following these rules.
4) www.Megahanson.com is not following these rules and will lose their Meyd contact.
Here is what i have found out. These are facts!
DSDI (www.dropshipdirect.com) changes the SKU’s on Meyda items to read DSD10000 (for example)
DSD is in front of the number. I noticed Megahanson.com is using DSDI(dropshipdirect.com) SKU’s on all their Meyda items. So I went to DSDI (dropshipdirect.com) to see what they were charging for a particular item. That same item is being sold for 15.00 less than what DSDI sells it to their customers for, by megahanson.com
MY conclusion: The owner of www.Megahanson.com
is an employee of DSDI or owner who is either stealing meyda items from work to resell them or its an owner who is ripping off their customers by setting a policy to follow Meyda guidelines and then turning around and hogging all the business. This is really sad for DSDI members who are following the rules. We have families to feed and when you search a product, megahanson.com’s stolen goods appears at the top of every google search. Knowing the dealers cost from Meyda directly, I can honestly say that megahanson.com is stealing from work or not following rules to make a tiny profit. The owner of Megahanson.com has to be an employee for dropshipdirect.com because If a DSDI member was to sell an item this low, they would be making about five dollars. Something needs to be done. So many online owners are being scammed. Also to mention that hundreds of product ads on www.dropshipdirect.com have notes on them that this is not included and that is not included with it. and yet the picture they provide, shows all the items it should include. after being fed up with DSDI (dropshipdirect.com) I spoke to the manager at Meyda tiffany and became a licensed dealer through Meyda directly. I have discovered that all items in every picture are included with Meyda. My point: DSDI is ripping off their members. Someone is not including items that should be included for that product. Please everybody; you can investigate this your self. These are facts! My advice:
1) don’t buy from www.megahanson.com
the merchandise is probably stolen.
2) don’t ever become a DSDI member. The employees there do not follow company rules they compete with your pricing after setting strict pricing rules on you.
on 01 Nov 2007 at 3:06 pm 2.Jerry Dexter said …
Chris,
We’re not quite sure how you add 1+1 to end up with a total of 3. DSDI INC is a wholesale distribution company and never sells directly to the public. Additionally, the company you are referring to (megahanson.com) is NOT our organization, nor is it controlled or managed by DSDI employees and/or agents. We presently work with more than 26,000 retailers, and we promptly investigate any complaints MAP pricing complaints made by the reseller community.
on 09 Feb 2008 at 2:33 am 3.Anonymous said …
And you think anyone is going to believe that when its coming straight from the wolves mouth itself?