Now my fellow guardians will laugh at this post 😂 so 6 years ago I started to dropship. I used a few systems to help, and they were overpriced and rubbish, so I went to hell with that. I'll make my own, and honestly, it started my love of Python, and it's where I learned all I know now.
So, I wanted to take a bit of time to spread what I've learned and hopefully someone else will read this and maybe use it or have an amazing idea on how you can program yourself to make some extra cash, as let's be honest as do what we do for the pennies 😂. I also started on eBay, so everything I talk about here abides by eBay's T&CS.
Finding a supplier
Now this is the most important thing: suppliers. They will make or break your drop shipping journey. Don't use Amazon or AliExpress, you may be tempted, but just don't. eBay knows and eBay bands. AliExpress also takes too long, and it's hard to program also Amazon is also hard to program for too. eBay's rules are simple: if an average person can buy from them, you can't sell it. Do your research into suppliers too and message companies, you will be amazed at the number who will be happy to be your drop shipping supplier. Just ask them one, will you send the item to my customer and two, will you not include any invoices? Many of the good drop shipping suppliers will also have an API or an Excel file for you to use.
Now you’re probably thinking, but Simon, this has nothing to do with coding, well, my friends, you are wrong. At present, I have 265000 items and 19000 listed. How long do you think that would take to check for stock and price changes? If we said 5 minutes for every item, that's around 1500 hours, excuse my math 😂, and the problem is by the time you check them, they have already changed. You could go to one of these makeshift services, but there going to cost £100s if not £1000s to use, and honestly, they're wrong or so slow. This brings me to the code
Now the database
So let me explain what's going on here, we have:-
ref - This is the code the supplier will use, so I know that I go to my supplier, search for this Ref, and I will find the product
title - This is their title
link - Now, not all suppliers will give you this, but I can now use this URL to buy their items easily
Breadcrumbs - I use this when uploading to my site, but this is for another post
image URL - when uploading, this will be my primary image
image URL all - this is all of my images, I put this in a list so in my code I can loop it into a slideshow on my listings
additional details - Ebay wants you to provide details on your listings, so not in the description but on the listing so people can search, with some suppliers they don't give you this so you might have to regex the description, also when uploading to your site I normally use these as tags, I do mine as a dicontanty as there easier to index
Description - well, this is quite self-explanatory 😀
stock
price
rrp - many suppliers will give you a Recommended Retail Price, now capture this as you can do RRP = x, our price is b so you save y, nice little selling point
Delivery time - this is important, many suppliers will dispatch items differently, so if one supplier dispatches same day with 48 hours, this can be sold as a quick item eBay loves these but one of my suppliers has a 7 day dispatch time so we change our delivery date on ebay.
added - this is when a product has been added to my database
category - the category they assign in case bread crumbs is empty
delivery - this is the delivery price, some will tell you, some you have to work out but its helpful keeping it separate for later statistics
last checked - this is for my use, it helps me to see if a product has been missed, I can see here this was checked 3 days ago, I do check hourly but I know this item wont be updated as its out of stock, to save connections this wont be updated until its back in stock
last updated - this needs to be removed, I use last checked now 🙂
I always recommend keeping your supplier tables the same, even if the data is different, edit it to match the table, trust me when you get 20-30 suppliers, you will thank me 😀
so we now have the database setup but there is one more thing to do, make a catalogue. I learned this 2 years in and trust me it will save you time,
from a customers point of view it looks professional having your own SKU, from a compeitiors point of view its harder to find your suppliers and from your point of view some suppliers do use the same ref so having a SKU of your own is a lot easier and with Veto, any items ebay hates you can easily mark off.
I think for now this is a good introduction but I would love to talk to you all and if anyone is interested in learning more let me know and I will make a part 2 😀
So, I wanted to take a bit of time to spread what I've learned and hopefully someone else will read this and maybe use it or have an amazing idea on how you can program yourself to make some extra cash, as let's be honest as do what we do for the pennies 😂. I also started on eBay, so everything I talk about here abides by eBay's T&CS.
Finding a supplier
Now this is the most important thing: suppliers. They will make or break your drop shipping journey. Don't use Amazon or AliExpress, you may be tempted, but just don't. eBay knows and eBay bands. AliExpress also takes too long, and it's hard to program also Amazon is also hard to program for too. eBay's rules are simple: if an average person can buy from them, you can't sell it. Do your research into suppliers too and message companies, you will be amazed at the number who will be happy to be your drop shipping supplier. Just ask them one, will you send the item to my customer and two, will you not include any invoices? Many of the good drop shipping suppliers will also have an API or an Excel file for you to use.
Now you’re probably thinking, but Simon, this has nothing to do with coding, well, my friends, you are wrong. At present, I have 265000 items and 19000 listed. How long do you think that would take to check for stock and price changes? If we said 5 minutes for every item, that's around 1500 hours, excuse my math 😂, and the problem is by the time you check them, they have already changed. You could go to one of these makeshift services, but there going to cost £100s if not £1000s to use, and honestly, they're wrong or so slow. This brings me to the code
Now the database
So let me explain what's going on here, we have:-
ref - This is the code the supplier will use, so I know that I go to my supplier, search for this Ref, and I will find the product
title - This is their title
link - Now, not all suppliers will give you this, but I can now use this URL to buy their items easily
Breadcrumbs - I use this when uploading to my site, but this is for another post
image URL - when uploading, this will be my primary image
image URL all - this is all of my images, I put this in a list so in my code I can loop it into a slideshow on my listings
additional details - Ebay wants you to provide details on your listings, so not in the description but on the listing so people can search, with some suppliers they don't give you this so you might have to regex the description, also when uploading to your site I normally use these as tags, I do mine as a dicontanty as there easier to index
Description - well, this is quite self-explanatory 😀
stock
price
rrp - many suppliers will give you a Recommended Retail Price, now capture this as you can do RRP = x, our price is b so you save y, nice little selling point
Delivery time - this is important, many suppliers will dispatch items differently, so if one supplier dispatches same day with 48 hours, this can be sold as a quick item eBay loves these but one of my suppliers has a 7 day dispatch time so we change our delivery date on ebay.
added - this is when a product has been added to my database
category - the category they assign in case bread crumbs is empty
delivery - this is the delivery price, some will tell you, some you have to work out but its helpful keeping it separate for later statistics
last checked - this is for my use, it helps me to see if a product has been missed, I can see here this was checked 3 days ago, I do check hourly but I know this item wont be updated as its out of stock, to save connections this wont be updated until its back in stock
last updated - this needs to be removed, I use last checked now 🙂
I always recommend keeping your supplier tables the same, even if the data is different, edit it to match the table, trust me when you get 20-30 suppliers, you will thank me 😀
so we now have the database setup but there is one more thing to do, make a catalogue. I learned this 2 years in and trust me it will save you time,
from a customers point of view it looks professional having your own SKU, from a compeitiors point of view its harder to find your suppliers and from your point of view some suppliers do use the same ref so having a SKU of your own is a lot easier and with Veto, any items ebay hates you can easily mark off.
I think for now this is a good introduction but I would love to talk to you all and if anyone is interested in learning more let me know and I will make a part 2 😀
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