Deja Vu All Over Again

The Holiday Season is already in full swing here.  The usual influx of new customers is well under way too.  Luckily I have changed the way we set up new accounts.  After a short week long vacation last week, I had an inbox full of questions from potential new accounts.  Here are a few I always get.  Let me see if I can lay out all the answers in one post.

• Why don't you have images of all your products?
  
  Well, if we were to take 22,000 photos, we wouldn't be in this business, we'd be running a photo studio.  Seriously, we can't get images of all of our items from the manufacturers.  Some manufacturers are very good about giving us usable images and some look at you funny when you ask for a CD.  We try to take pictures of all the new items as they come in, but we are limited in the number we can do per day.  So we may be doing images for the fishing section for a month straight and you won't see anything because you want knife images.
  
  
• Some of your items are out of stock?  How will I sell them?
  
  You won't, because we don't have them.  We are going to run out of items from time to time.  If we didn't we wouldn't be here.  Most items are reordered and on their way to us long before we run out.  But that is not always the case.  A factory can be out of something and we may not know because not all manufacturers keep their customers informed.  My suggestion is do not offer items on your site if we are out of them.  This leads to our next question...
  
  
• Do I have really have to update my site every day with the stock status of your items?
  
  If you want to be in this business, I would hope so...  This one always amazes me.  If there was a website I could put up that didn't require work to make money on it, I would have one and I would not be doing this.  Your website is going to require constant updating and tweaking.  If you don't want to do that, then don't set up a website, you're wasting your time.  I will be introducing something soon to allow you to see current onhands without updating your site.  But you should not be afraid to work at updating your site.

I guess what I am trying to say in a not so subtle way is, if you want to sell our products or anybody's products online, it is not going to be a walk in the park.  If it was, everybody would be doing it.  It requires work to be a successful online seller.  Our biggest drop ship customers have put years of work in to get where they are.  If you are looking for a quick buck, this is not the place to do it.  You can be very successful doing it, but you will deffinately have to work for it.  One suggestion I try to give to new customers is don't try to sell everything we have.  Pick a small section and grow it from there.  I can't stress that enough.  You don't need to be the next Amazon.

If you asked any of these questions, don't feel bad.  There is no such thing as a stupid question.  I just don't want you to think this is an oil well waiting to be tapped.  It is a gold mine that needs to be mined and worked over time.  From some of the emails I get, I think these books that tell you how to make money online paint an unrealistic picture of what you have to do.  Don't believe everything you read.  Do some of your own research and make sure this is the business  you want to be in for a few years, not just the Holiday Season.

Also, don't take this as me slamming drop shippers.  I personally love the drop shipping part of our business.  I started the drop shipping program here and have been working it and reworking it for years.  I am more than willing to do what I can to help any of you.  I just can't help you if you have unrealistic expectations.

Happy Holidays and Good Luck!