AuctionCut

Dropshipping, in theory, seems like a great way to make money with no upfront costs. Unfortuantely, it is impossible to gauge the quality of an item when it is not in your possession. What if the buyer ends up with a broken or defective item? What if they end up with an item that is entirely different than what they purchased?
It is YOUR reputation on the line, not the dropshippers. With that said, I am sharing my first (and last) experience with dropshipping.

I found this company called HS Shopping while searching "dropshippers" on Google. I clicked the link and was directed to a page advertising tons of DVDs and DVD boxsets at a price that seemed too good to be true (turns out, it was!) They had the complete season of LOST, Family Guy, Movie Collections, you name it! The site claimed that the movies were all 100% authentic, factory direct, and of the best quality.

I checked around on EBAY to see which items were being bought and sold. I decided to run a few Buy-It-Now auctions for the Harry Potter DVD Box Set. Hey, I had nothing to lose- I didn't have to purchase the item until it was purchased from me. And I didn't have to worry about shipping either, the company would do it for me! Boy, was I wrong!

I decided to start with auctioning 5 boxsets. They were immediately purchased by E-Bayers. I then went on the dropship site, paid for them and inputted the customers' addresses, and sat back smiling about how I'd just made a quick 75 bucks.

As far as HS Shopping goes, this is what I've learned:

Products are cheaply made defective obviously knock-off pieces of crap. They are sent from China, not the US, so contrary to what they'd like you to believe, your customers will know that they are recieving dropshipped merch.
But it gets alot worse!
This company makes money by dropshipping broken bootleg items (different than the pic on their site, sometimes a completely different item than the one you ordered!) that no customer would want, then they make it impossible to get a refund so that they keep the money and run!!!
The DVD boxsets are not "Authroized Chinese Versions" or "Factory Direct" as they claim, they are the same bootlegs that you can pick up for 3 bucks on Canal St in New York

Out of the 5 Harry Potter DVD Boxsets that I ordered for dropship customers, ALL 5 BUYERS sent me irate e-mails demanding their money back!
The box title is not in English as the pic on their site depicts, it is in Chinese. Out of the 5 (2-disk) box sets I had shipped to my Ebay customers, all of them contained 1 functioning DVD while the 2nd one did not work at all. One person did not even recieve the Harry Potter DVD I ordered, it was some movie called "Polar Ice". I also had complaints that the DVDs were obviously bootleg, there was no writing on the disks, they are just regular DV-R's that someone copied off the computer. All the titles are in Chinese, and the movies are badly dubbed. The quality is the same you'd find from someone who brought a video camera in a movie theatre and recorded it.
Upon hearing this, I immediately refunded the buyers money.
Then I tried to get my money refunded.
This company makes it virtually impossible to get a refund. In order to get my money back, I'd have to have all my dropship customers return the DVDs to me unopened (at their expense), at which time I would have to send them back to China (at my expense) and I may or may not get a refund. And this all has to be done within 7 days. These buyers are upset enough as it is, and now they are expected to immediately go to the post office and spend more money shipping me the DVDs? So that I can spend more money turning around and mailing them back, within a one week period?! The cost of shipping alone from the US to China equals the price I already paid, so theres no way to not lose money on this!

Also, when I found this company it was through a search engine which automatically directed to the DVD sale page. When I went back on the site, I noticed their link for clothing they sell- $600 LV bags for twenty bucks, fake Rolexes, etc. And this is the company that wrote me back when I complained and claimed that all their goods are AUTHENTIC!

Please stay away- not only can you lose your Ebay account for selling counterfeit items, you will also lose customers and trust. In the end, its probably best to stick with selling goods that you physically have in your possession.