Dropshipping plays a big role for serious eBay sellers. Most eBay sellers are dealers or middlemen.

Dropshipping is selling an item without actually having it. Where do you think eBay sellers get their product, especially high priced items? Once the item sells, the seller then buys the product from the manufacturer and it ships it direct to the buyer. You get the difference from the list price minus dropshipping fees and eBay fees. 

Most dropshipping sites are not manufacturers but they link the sellers to manufacturers. You just pay a monthly or one-time fee. Monthly fees can be as much as $40 and one-time fees up to $299. 

One of the drawbacks of dropshipping is the availability of the product. Say, you listed the item while it was in-stock and someone bought it but when you were ready to pay for it, you found out it was already out-of-stock. How can you make sure this doesn’t happen? Dropshipping companies suggest you dropship the product to yourself or maintain at least two units with you to avoid this scenario. Duh. Kind of refutes the basic idea of dropshipping. 

Some dropshipping sites advertise that they have a trial period for seven days. Beware. I signed up for one hoping I can browse the catalog and sell right away. But I couldn’t go to the wizard because they have a series of education or training. Well, there’s nothing bad about education or training but I already know what I want to sell and didn’t want to learn what sells and what doesn’t. I did try to take up the courses but I was supposed to wait for an email day by day for the next seven days in order to take them. To cut to the chase, I called customer service and bailed out. 

They already got my credit card number upon sign up so I had to make sure I would not be charged.  To make things worse, I have to deal with an unfriendly customer service assistant.