Is dropshipping or reselling good business in India or is it a dead business? Is it worth it and profitable? Do you also have the same questions popping into your mind because you have also come across this new buzzword in the market and are more than curious to know all about it?
Well, I had the same questions in my mind and the best way to find out is to get your hands dirty and see by yourself. Let’s see what I realized when I did it for around 2 months.
Let me pen down the problems one by one, maybe if you are a drop shipper using those reselling apps like Meesho, Glowroad, Shop101, etc, you would be able to co-relate 🙂
Customer issues in reselling
- Customers in India complain so much about the price. They will ask you the price of the product, go back to Amazon or Flipkart to check the price, take a screenshot and send it back to you asking why are you charging more. Even though it is just a negligible difference in amount they will start mistrusting you. Lolz.
- Okay, after facing such instances, you start comparing and keeping competitive prices of the products but is it worth the time you invest in doing this extra piece of overhead research? There will be one or the other seller of the same product on Amazon/Flipkart too, competing at a lower price range, and finally, you will end up nowhere for most of the products.
- It is very hard to compete with the big players like Amazon, Flipkart, and other major e-commerce giants because when you put up a competitive price, you are taking a hit on your already less margin and when you do so, you bring up a mental and economic pressure on yourself.
- Luckily, If you have one or two hit products, you will get hundreds of messages asking about the details and prices of the product. Your phone will be ringing and ringing the whole day and out of a hundred, you will get one or two orders. Is it worth it?
Supplier issues
- Let’s see. You did your part well. You negotiated with customers and got them and yourself a fair deal. If I am not wrong, there is more than a 60% chance that the supplier will make mistakes while sending the products. example: you ordered 2 quantities of the product, and the supplier sends one quantity. you face the wrath of the customers. You take all the accusations of being a fraud and not being a good seller. Is it worth it? think!
- Most of the time, the product wreckage causes havoc. The supplier has to take that hit on the pocket as the customer will not accept the broken product and return it. Don’t relax, it will hit your credibility too as a drop shipper because you are the interface to your customer, not the supplier.
- There is another problem that resellers are facing. When the delivery person calls up the customer, they are openly telling to the customer that there is a courier from Meesho. Now this is a major flaw in the delivery because when the customer hears the word Meesho or Glowroad dropshipping or any other reseller app, they think – “What exactly is this Meesho? let me try out.” Once they start trying out on their own, obviously you will stop getting further orders. Another thing to notice is how the delivery guys come to know if it is delivered from Meesho or so. think.
Fraud in reselling supply chain
- Ok, Head toward Facebook. Search for the Meesho group. join it. Keep a watch over the group for a few days. you will notice how much fraud is going on with suppliers as well as drop-shippers.
- Suppliers are getting returns and getting charged for them. if that is not enough, customers are returning the products and while returning, they are keeping the original product and putting in some crap things in the return box/package.
- on the other hand, the customer data is getting leaked and since most of the dropshipping is happening on a COD(Cash on delivery) basis, the customers are getting cheated by the imposters or fake deliveries. Think to yourself, what will happen? who will be deemed responsible for this? Meesho? Supplier? You? or the customer, who unknowingly paid for a crap just because he/she was waiting for the order delivery?
- It will be a loss for you because you will have to pay to customer from your pocket as they will definitely return it or demand the return or the original product. on the other hand, you will have to keep following up with the company like Meesho and spend your precious time with their useless customer care and end up in huge loss as these reseller app companies will not take responsibility and they will not pay you back, 989% of the times!
It is not the matter of Glowroad vs Meesho or x vs y. The point is that the infrastructure or the basics is not fully adaptable to the Indian market which is the biggest drawback.
Product quality in dropshipping
60 – 70% of the time the product quality is not good. Most of the time, you will notice the products are of cheap quality or not worth the price. Most of the time wrong product types, dimensions, etc. are shipped to the customer.
Improper sales channel
These days, reseller company like Meesho has started pushing ads through all the channels, be it Youtube ads, TV ads, or any other form of Ads. Now the question is if you are telling the entire world to do reselling, the whole meaning of reselling becomes null & void.
Reviews of reselling apps
Read reviews of Meesho yourself and decide. each and every 1-star rating is true and the exact problems faced by Meesho users/resellers. This is just one reseller, there are several out there in the market. Maybe this is just one of their marketing strategy to establish themselves in the e-commerce market but I am sure they will never be able to establish themselves if they follow this kind of flawed strategy where the primary element, i.e. customer satisfaction is at stake.
What is the Solution?
Here I have mostly focused on the problems of this business model. It mostly concerns the problems when you try to tweak the dropshipping and make it a reselling business. I don’t say it is a bad idea at all, in fact, it is one of the best ideas which will definitely grow if done properly. Really wish Amazon and Flipkart had opened its door for reselling but why would it? duh!! 😀
Further Readings
If you want to do proper dropshipping, you will have to do a little bit more than reselling. I will discuss this in detail in my next blog on How to Make Dropshipping and Reselling Work in India. Feel free to drop in any comments to let me know your viewpoints on this topic in the comments section below.
Still eager to start the dropshipping? Check out our other blog on How to Make Money with Dropshipping
Feel free to share your thoughts on this topic in the comments section below 👇 We would be happy to hear and discuss the same 🙂
