The truth about dropship amazon programs.

by Robert Leavitt

I haven't posted on this blog for a little while, and for that I apologize.  I wanted to give everyone on update as to my whereabouts.  I am just breaking into "blogging" and internet affiliate marketing.  There are many advantages to affiliate marketing.  It allows you to collect a commission or percentage of each sale you drive to a website.

Several places have affiliate programs and I am going to give you a brief list of things to look out for as scams.  As you all know, the internet is a giant scam and it's always trying to prey on people that emotional.  I read an excellent article in a doctors office the other day.  I am not sure what publication it was in, but the title was something along the lines of "How I was a con-artist for 30 years and conned millions of people out of millions of dollars".  The most important thing I remember from this article was this:

• People that are being conned don't ask questions, they answer questions.  

If you are involved with someone that is trying to sell you something (usually the next best thing) they will ask you a bunch of questions and prey on your emotion.  If you are driven by a "get-rich-quick" attitude and always looking for huge rewards with no work or risk, let me be the one to break this horrible news to you.  It doesn't exist.  There is no such thing, in the online world, or outside as a "get rich quick" scheme.  I have read several programs and I am a sckeptic by nature, and there are so many people preying on "work at home" and the like keywords right now it's not even funny.

Have you seen the ads for amazingmoneymachine or dominate-whatever it's called.  They are both drop ship programs for Amazon.  These programs promise things like a 6 hour work week, cutting and pasting descriptions.

I have "drop-shipped" from amazon to ebay.  It is possible, however there are a lot of things they aren't telling you about this.  First of all, the only way you are going to get someone to "brown-box" ship something for you, is if you contact that vendor directly and set it up with THEM.  Chances are if they are selling on amazon, they are selling on eBay too, and your not going to compete with the price to begin with.

If the item is fulfilled by amazon, it is not going to happen.  Amazon has an affiliate program.  They don't have a "drop-ship" program and anyone that is telling you to "click this link" on their site to get "brown box shipping" from amazon is a scam artist.  It's not a "brown-box" link.  It's just a link to amazon through their affiliate ID so they get a commission on whatever you buy.  The item will still arrive in a box all covered in amazon tape and smiley faces.  And you will have egg all over your face!

At this point your customer will be upset.  They will find out that they could have gotten the item for much less, and even though this is America and we practice capitalism, people get upset when they find out they didn't get the best price, and they just payed you X number of dollars to "click a couple times".  It leaves a bad taste in there mouth.  It's not illegal according to either eBay or Amazon policy (unless you use Amazon Prime for 2 day shipping, then you are breaking rules), however it is highly frowned upon and it's a not-so-good way to make a very small profit margin.

• Your customer is gonna leave you bad feedback, lowering your ratings.
• It's HIGHLY competitive, and anoyone with topseller status will get a break on the eBay fees and be able to undercut you.
• The margins stink.  It's not worth sacrificing your rating over a few dollars.
• If you pick an item that has authorized resellers selling, they most likely will grab you on a copyright infringment for the pictures, causing eBay to take down the listing, and potentially getting you in a heap of trouble if you violate this policy several times.

• If they generate a return, your stuck out of pocket until amazon refunds you, because it's NEVER gonna happen in the time you have to refund your customer on eBay.  If they return ship it to your drop-shipper with the proper numbers in the first place.  Otherwise they send it to you, and now you are out shipping again, and you have to wait some more for the refund from amazon.

Oh... what do you mean they didn't tell you all that when you signed up for that program they just charged you a few hundred dollars for?  I mean did you really think that you were going to cut and paste your way to a cruise in the Bahammas?

Don't feel bad.. I fell for this too.  I actually didn't pay anyone, and I don't know those things I outlined above because I had a divine intervention.  I know them because I made those mistakes too.  I'm not trying to be hard on you, but sometimes a dose of reality is necessary to give you the push you need to make something positive happen.


DropShipping is real.

Look at that statement, notice is says DropShipping is "real"  it doesn't say, "Dropshipping is real easy"...because it's not.  It's HIGHLY competetive and attractive becasue of the very low cost of doing business.  When something is that competitive your chances of sucess (especially when you are a novice) are next to none.

I have nothing to sell you at the moment.  Just trying to get you back to earth.  I will discuss some of my current ventures when they are farther along.

Here is a peak at what my most recent project is:  http://fertilizernumbers.net

As always you can contact me directly at voicesmicro@gmail.com.  Don't contact me with some mentor program regarding how to get rich quick or I will find you and rip off your arm and beat you to death with it.


You can learn more about Robert Leavitt on his Google Plus page.