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Thursday, January 23rd
Doba is a dropshipping platform for both aspiring and well-established e-commerce entrepreneurs. They are based out of Lehi, Utah and were founded in 2002. Doba offers a variety of products from both China and the United States that can integrate with online stores. They've served over 600,000 online stores with their millions of products and AI-driven product selection tool.
Wide variety of categories
There is a vast list of categories of products you could sell through Doba like home and garden, beauty and health, outdoor products, clothing, accessories, sports, pets, electronics, computers, office supplies, just to name a few. They even have a whole category dedicated to TikTok shop selections that you could market through the platform effectively. Other sites they integrate with are Amazon, Shein, eBay, Newegg, BigCommerce, Walmart, Square, Shift4Shop, and Shopify.
Easy list-to-store process
To give an example of just how many different items you might have access to via Doba, we specifically shopped for ebikes and had 361 results. Bikes alone gives you over 13,000 hits on products. When viewing an item, you'll see where it ships from, how many days it takes to leave the warehouse, and a series of photos. There's a button that lets you "List to Store” so you could add the item to your own website right away.
14-day free trial
To see pricing on anything from Doba or use filtering tools to sort through the items they have listed, you'll have to log in. To create an account, you'll need to provide your email address, name, and phone number (that will have to be verified through text). You will have a 14-day free trial to get started and then there are 4 plans you can choose from depending on the size of your business.
4 membership options
The cost for a "Start-Up” membership is $24.99/month. This allows you to list 60 items in your inventory, 30 monthly product exports, and 1 storefront integration. The "Business” membership is $49.99/month and allows for 2,500 products to be listed in your inventory, 2,000 monthly exports, and 2 storefront integrations. The "Business Pro” membership, which Doba says is their most popular, is $174.99/month. This allows you an inventory list limit of 7,500, 5,000 monthly exports, and 5 storefront integrations. Lastly, the most robust membership is the "Enterprise” for $299.99/month. This gives you an inventory list limit of 15,000, unlimited monthly exports, and unlimited storefront integrations. A more detailed list of what comes with each membership can be viewed on Doba's website when you go to sign up.
Useful info on where to start
Doba has a very active blog with articles that could be helpful with titles like "How To Start Dropshipping with No Money”, "How To Start an Online Store Without Inventory”, "Build Your Ecommerce Website in Minutes”, and "From Niche to Riches: Profitable Dropshipping Business Ideas You Need To Know”. Whether you decide to work through Doba or not, these types of articles are a helpful read to anyone who is just venturing into this line of business.
Seriously disgruntled customers
Doba has an "A+” rating from the Better Business Bureau. However, this isn't a full-picture representation of how customers and sellers feel about the company. They seem to be making big efforts to get high ratings on third-party sites (whether they are honest or not is hard to tell), but there are quite a few people who adamantly claim that this company has scammed them. There are complaints about poor product descriptions (which we noticed as well), suppliers that are close to MSRP so it is hard to make profits, and complicated integrations. On the flip side, there are those who say that Doba is at least a place to get started with a wholesale dropshipping business and it is straightforward enough to get the ball rolling.
It's a gamble
We aren't overly thrilled with the product listings from Doba, and after reading through what people have said about doing business with them, it seems like more of a gamble than we are comfortable with. Because of this, Doba has not earned one of our top ratings.
A major hangup people often run into when starting their own business is the need to increase inventory regularly, rotate products, and make seasonal changes to continue growing and meeting customer needs. This results in having more and more inventory to store, higher overhead costs, and having excess product from months or years previous that didn't sell well that you don't know what to do with. It is this cost in particular that can sometimes sink a new retail business and prevent them from being operational for long.
If you're wanting to be in charge of your own retail business, dropshipping companies could be your best friend. They make it so you don't have to store your own inventory and they'll take care of all the shipping processes for you. You'll work with the company to select products, add your own price markup, and get set up so they can send out orders once you've obtained a sale on your website. It unlocks a world of convenience and takes a load off of you as a business manager.
With dropshipping, you can expand your product lines regularly without having to carry so much of the overhead cost. You can add new products to your shop within minutes and stop selling items that aren't doing as well. For this reason, if you're starting a new business or running into issues with how your current one operates, trying out a dropshipping method could be the solution for you.
It doesn't take a whole lot to become a reseller of goods through a dropshipper since you don't manage the inventory or need a warehouse to store it all. If your business is small enough, you can run it all on your own. You'll just need to set up a website, create your own brand, purchase product, promote and manage sales, and communicate back and forth with customers whenever needed. It's nice to have some financial knowledge and organization as well, but you really don't have to be an expert in any of these things. Many people run and operate their business alone with the help of a wholesale dropshipping company and are quite successful.
If you have a knack for sales and dream of working for yourself on your own schedule, becoming a dropshipping reseller will appeal to you. If you cater products to your target audience well and take advantage of different social media channels, online ads, email lists, and other means of marketing, you'll have a solid customer base. You may be able to make much more than you are at your current full-time job while not having to answer to anyone else about how you run things.
There are many companies that offer wholesale dropshipping, so how do you select the best one? We've done some deep dive research on 10 of them to help you find the ones that will best meet your company goals. Here are a few major things to consider when weighing your options:
The experts at Top Consumer Reviews have researched the most efficient and reputable wholesale dropshippers available to you. We're confident that you'll find a company that helps you take your business to the next level and offers you the means to achieve financial success!
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