Drop shipping is one of the first things that come to mind when Malaysians think about starting their first business.
It’s because with drop shipping, you don’t need to spend money on products you don’t know will sell or not. Instead, you work out a relationship with a supplier who has an inventory of the products you want to sell and get them to ship out the products on your behalf whenever you make a sale.
You make money by profiting the difference between the price you are selling your product at and the price that you are buying the product from the supplier.
It seems simple enough. So, why isn’t most people successful at making money with drop shipping in Malaysia?
The truth is that there’s a lot more to drop shipping than just buying low and selling high.
In this post, I will explain to you what drop shipping is about, but more importantly, the myths people have about drop shipping that keeps them from building a successful long-term income source from this business model.
By understanding this, you’ll have a higher chance of succeeding in your drop shipping business in the near future.
Let’s get into it!
Update: My goal of US$1,000/day with Shopify Drop shipping just started. Follow my journey here!
First, What is Drop shipping?
Entrepreneur Magazine describes drop shipping as
An arrangement between a business and the manufacturer or distributor of a product the business wishes to sell in which the manufacturer or distributor–and not the business–ships the product to the business’s customers .
As a drop shipper you do not have to carry any products. Your main role as a drop shipper is to market your products and provide customer service.
Usually this means setting up a branded e-commerce website and getting people to buy from your website through marketing efforts like Facebook advertising, IG advertising or SEO.
Once a customer makes an order for a product or several products on your site, you make an order for the product from your drop ship supplier.
You provide them with your customer’s delivery address instead of your own address so they can send the products directly to your customers.
In a drop shipping arrangement, your supplier will not include any information about their company so it looks like you are sending out the products to your customers yourself.To make it easier to understand how this works, take a look at the graphic below:
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Common Ways Malaysians Drop shipping
Here are some of the most common ways Malaysians are making money with drop shipping:
1. Drop ship on local marketplaces like Shopee, and Lazada or international ones like Amazon or eBay. Get drop ship suppliers locally or from common suppliers like AliExpress.
2. Drop ship on IG or Facebook. Get drop ship suppliers locally or from common suppliers like AliExpress.
3. Drop ship on a branded e-commerce website. Get drop ship suppliers locally or from common suppliers like AliExpress.
Of the three, I recommend spending most of your time building the third type. The reason for this is that you don’t own the marketplaces you sell on or platforms like Facebook or Instagram.
The marketplace or platform owners can make overnight changes that wipe out your business (and income) entirely without notice.
As such, this article is mainly focused on the third type of drop shipping.
Pros of Drop shipping
Now that we’ve looked at how drop shipping works, let’s take a look at the biggest benefits adopting a drop shipping model can give to your business:
Pro #1. No need to spend money on stocks
With drop shipping, all you have to do is upload product pictures and sell them. This drastically reduces the cost of starting your business as you won’t need to invest money into products upfront.
Pro #2. Easy to test and find winning products
As your cost is pretty much fixed to a website and marketing costs, you can test as many products – even up to thousands – to find one, or a few that will give you the best returns.
Pro #3. Low overheads for stock keeping and fulfilment
Without having to keep inventory with you or doing the fulfilment, you do away with all the costs related to managing a warehouse full of products or fulfilling products for customers.
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Cons of Drop shipping
Drop shipping does not come without its disadvantages, however. Here are some of the cons of using the drop ship model for your business:
Con #1. Inventory not in your control
Since the inventory is not in your control, anything can happen. Your supplier may decide to discontinue a product without letting you know ahead of time, or products may go out of stock without prior notice.
Not having the products can result in customers become highly dissatisfied with buying from you, or worse, public complaints that may cause harm to your website reputation.
Con #2. Easy to copy business model
You won’t be the only one drop shipping from your supplier. It’s likely that hundreds or even thousands of others are doing the same thing.
This can make your business model easy to copy as anyone can sell the same products as you.
How Do You Make Money as a Drop shipper?
Like any business, you make money with drop shipping by profiting the difference between cost and revenue.
The only difference is that with drop shipping, you don’t have to keep stocks of products. It takes care of the inventory and fulfilment part of your business.
For example, say today you are a drop shipper for perfumes. Your supplier sells you the perfume for RM10. You put the perfume for sale on your website for RM30. To market the product, you might spend RM5 per product sold.
This brings your profit to roughly RM15 per product.
This isn’t unlike any other business out there.
Myths about Drop shipping
Myth #1. Drop shipping can help you make passive income
Like franchising, some people believe drop shipping can help them generate passive income. They think, ‘Since other people are helping me to send the products, I don’t have to work hard.’
This is not true.
Like any business, building a drop ship business is hard work. To get the results you want, you must be ready to put in the time and effort to get it.
Your drop ship business may well one day provide you with passive income, but you’ll need to work really hard to optimise and automate your business before you can get there.
From experience and observation, this can take anywhere from 5 to 10 years.
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Myth #2. You don’t have to invest any money
Although you do not need a lot of money to start drop shipping, that does not mean you do not need any money at all.
What people think is their drop shipping profit:
Profit = Selling Price – Supplier Price
In reality, you will need some amount of capital to start. You’ll likely need to invest money in a website, and if you don’t have any marketing skills, you’ll need to invest in courses to help you get started.
Then, there are the costs of marketing themselves. A more realistic profit projection for a drop ship business will more likely look like this:
Profit = Selling Price – Supplier Price – Marketing Costs – Website Costs
When your business grows, you might need to invest in hiring staff to help you manage your business also.
Biggest Mistakes Drop shippers Make
Mistake #1: Not treating drop shipping like a real business
In reality, drop shipping takes care of just one part of your business: the fulfilment.
Every other part of your business is exactly the same as any other business. In order for it to run successfully, you’ll need to optimise your operations, marketing, accounting, and customer service, to name a few.
If you don’t treat your drop ship business like a real business, you’ll likely fail.
Mistake #2. Not investing time and money in learning and mastering digital marketing
Since most drop shipping in the crowded online space, the only way you can stand out in the crowd is by mastering digital marketing.
With good online marketing, you can reach thousands of customers from your mobile phone. When you have a large audience, you will have a higher chance of making sales on your products.
As such, leaving your drop ship business up to chance and not investing any time and money into learning and honing your marketing skills can only mean one thing: failure.
Just putting up a website and expecting to make money will guarantee that you won’t survive.
I recommend getting on board a course or read up on marketing guides to get started.
One of the most important marketing skill is SEO (search engine optimisation). Mastering SEO means your customers will be able find you on major search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo.
Here is my guide to E-commerce SEO to help you get started.
The other skill I recommend getting good at is Facebook Advertising. This is because you’ll need to work on your site’s SEO for at least 3 – 12 months before seeing sustained results, so you will need another marketing channel to keep your business afloat mean time.
For Facebook Advertising, I’ve personally found buying a course to be really useful to guide you along. You can read about an affordable, but highly value-packed one I bought to help me with my own Shopify drop shipping business here.
Mistake #3. Using the same generic photos as your competitors
One of the biggest mistakes drop shippers make is that they use the same generic product photo as other drop shippers.
Of course, when customers see the same exact photo, all they will look at next is the price. They ask themselves, ‘Is this seller cheaper than the other one?’
If not, they move on to the next one.
With not much to differentiate yourself from your competition, you have to aim to be the cheapest. But when you reduce your price, you also reduce your profits. At times, too much price competition may even mean you do not make any profit from your sales.
Avoid this mistake by investing some time and effort in producing unique photos. You can even send the products to you first and take some of your own photos before selling them.
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Mistake #4. Not being picky with suppliers
Even if you do everything right, choosing the wrong supplier can doom your business.
While your supplier handles the ‘behind the scenes’ work, you are the face your customers see. If they have the habit of sending the wrong products or sending products late, you will be in trouble.
That is why you need to work with a supplier whose work ethics you can trust. You can test them by ordering a few products from them yourself or getting your friends to do so.
Steps to Creating a Successful Drop shipping Business
Now that you know the mistakes people have made, let’s move on to how you can create a successful one.
Step #1: Get your motivations correct
Know how much you need to work
As I mentioned before, drop shipping is not a way to make passive income. Like any business, you need to work hard to build your drop shipping empire. Once you have set your mind to do whatever it takes to succeed, you likely will.
Sell only what you know
If you are a man with no interest in beauty products, you may not be able to sell products. No matter how lucrative the business may be, you may still fail if you do not know how to best serve your customers.
Step #2: Pick the right supplier
Picking the right supplier can determine whether you succeed or not. Here are a few criteria you can use to decide whether you want to work with a supplier:
Are they local?
People who shop online expect to get their products fast [source link]. Though overseas suppliers may supply you cheap products, they fail to deliver fast.
If you want them to deliver fast, then the sale is no longer worth it. The cost of shipping will make it hard for you to earn any profit from the sale.
Pick a local supplier so that your customers can get their products fast. Fast delivery will encourage them to order from you again.
Can they send the right products on time?
As a marketer, you are only half the equation. Your supplier can destroy your hard-earned reputation by making a mistake.
As a minimum requirement, your supplier should be able to send the right products quickly to your customers. In Malaysia, the expected delivery time is between 2-4 days. More than that, the customer may consider ordering from another seller the next time around.
A good supplier will be able to deliver the right products within the expected time frame 99% of the time. You do not want to work with a supplier who is sometimes fast and sometimes slow. If they do this, you may end up losing half your customers.
Good profit margin
The main purpose for you to start drop shipping is to gain profits. Before you work with a supplier, ask yourself, ‘Is the cut they give me worth my time and effort?’
For example, if you are gaining 15% per sale, is it worth selling? Or if you are only gaining 5% per sale, is it worth selling?
There is no right or wrong answer. The answer depends on the situation. You need to do calculate your costs and weigh it against the money you stand to make. If you get an overall profit, then proceed with the supplier. If not, feel free to look for another supplier.
The key here is to not settle for a supplier who gives you a cut that is too small for you to sustain yourself.
Provides good support in case of wrong product or faulty product
You must be aware that bad things can and do happen in business.
Your supplier must be one that:
- has the experience to fix any problems that come along the way
- willing to do it at their own cost – if you had to fix the problems at your cost, it would eat into your profits. Remember that you are a marketing agent. Your fee only includes your service as a marketing agent. Your supplier must do everything else.
- you can communicate with them in real time to have the problem fixed… it would be bad if you had to wait for many days for the supplier to get back with you on the issues.
Suppliers who are unwilling to provide support can be detrimental to your drop ship business as the profit margin they provide you may not be sufficient to cover the cost of rectifying faults.
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Step 3: Create a Brand
Many drop shippers overlook this step of creating a brand. They spend little or no time thinking about what their brand is about.
Without a brand, your customers are likely to buy from a cheaper seller when they find one. To prevent this from happening, you need to create a brand your customers can identify with.
Ask yourself:
- What makes my brand different?
- What benefits can I give my customers that my competitors cannot?
These questions will help you create your business’s unique sales proposition (USP). Your USP will be where you can form your brand.
Step 4: Become a Marketing Expert
As a drop shipper, you must be a marketing and customer service expert. If you do not have any idea how to do marketing or customer service, I recommend investing some time (and money) to learn.
Here’s my guide to e-commerce SEO to get you started learning how to get traffic from Google, Bing and Yahoo.
If you’re interested to learn how to run successful Facebook Ads for your Shopify or e-commerce business, I recommend this course.
Step 5: Take action daily
Let’s face it: if you’re only willing to put in a minimal effort to grow your drop ship business, you’ll likely fail.
The more time and effort you put into your business, the faster you will see results. If you want to make serious money from drop shipping, you need to look at it like a full-time job (even if you already have a day job).
It is not realistic for you to expect a high income from drop shipping if you only work on it a few hours a week. Most successful drop shippers work 40 – 60 hours a week at the beginning of their business to get it up and running.
Like any other business, the only way to succeed is to put in your time and effort. If you let too many excuses get in your way, your drop ship will fail.
Step 6: Measure and optimise
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” – Peter Drucker
Measuring your performance can mean the difference between succeeding or failing. But most drop shippers don’t do it because it is hard, especially at first when the numbers are small.
To separate you from failed drop shippers, you need to start measuring from Day 1.
Create a spreadsheet to track (in order of importance):
- Your monthly sales revenue – is it increasing or decreasing?
- Your average order size
- The number of followers you have on your social media accounts – is it increasing fast enough?
Only when you measure from month to month can you see if you are making progress (or not). When you find that you are not making progress, find out why. Then make changes to your business and measure it again to see if your changes help.
This way, you’ll be able to optimise various parts of your business to keep growing it to a five, six or even seven figure business.
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Frequently Asked Questions about Drop shipping
Below I’ve compiled some of the most common questions I get from readers about drop shipping. Hope you’ll find the answers helpful.
(If you have more questions not covered in this article, feel free to send me a message or write a comment below.)
Q: Where do I find a drop ship supplier?
If you are looking for local suppliers, my suggestion is to look for them manually. This means contacting them one by one and making arrangements with them to help you drop ship.
Unfortunately, I can’t recommend any of the current drop shipping websites in Malaysia as I’ve found out that one big named one doesn’t even have stocks in Malaysia for most items they list.
If you’re planning to use Shopify, the most popular drop shipping app is Oberlo.
Update: My goal of US$1,000/day with Shopify Drop shipping just started. Follow my journey here!
Conclusion
Drop shipping is a popular way to start a business. This is because you do not need a lot of capital to start. Your supplier will package and ship your customer order. All you need to do is sell.
Though it may seem simple, many still fail to make a sustainable income through drop shipping. This is because they make common novice mistakes in drop shipping.
That does not mean that drop shipping is passive income. To succeed, you have to treat your drop ship business like a serious business.
Follow the steps outlined in this article and learn from mistakes you and other people make. All the best and I look forward to your success!
Have you started a drop shipping business? Let me know how it’s been going for you in the comments below:
66 Responses
Hi Lu Wee,
Thanks a lot for sharing you experiences and knowledge. I really enjoy reading your posts. Let us keep in touch and learn from each other! Keep up the good work.
Thanks for reading Wen Zhe. Glad you enjoy them. Keep in touch =)
Hi Lu Wee!
Thanks for responding. I have been dying to get in touch with you but I think your Contact Us button does not seem to work previously. I would like to seek your kind advice on a couple of things.
Recently I have started up an online jewellery business in Malaysia. Currently everything is based out of our Facebook page. However, I was wondering whether it is wise to start thinking about setting up an website store? And if so, which one should I use? Shopify seems like the best choice.
Another thing is dropshipping. One of the downsides of dropshipping is that I have no control over the packaging and unboxing experience of the customer. And plus shipping from my Chinese supplier directly to the customer takes ages! Not to mention the shipping costs. What are your thoughts? Would it be wise to just keep some stock in Malaysia, do my own packaging, and ship them out when an order is placed?
Kind regards,
Wen Zhe
Do drop me an email 🙂 Happy to keep in touch!
Keep up the good writing! Looking forward to more.
Hi Wen Zhe,
Thanks for letting me know about my faulty contact us page. I have now fixed it. Send me a message again so I can email you back.
Before I can advise you on whether you should set up your own site, let me know in your email:
– how many orders do you get a month?
– how much do you generate in revenues per month?
– what is unique about your jewelry? Is it possible for someone to get it anywhere else?
– how are you doing your FB marketing – do you do any paid campaigns?
– have you considered selling on online marketplaces?
Thanks, look forward to your email.
– Lu Wee
Thanks Lu Wee! I have dropped you an email! Your contact form is working fine now.
Hi,
That was a fantastic lesson and tips on dropshipping. I am a bit confused on one point- is it better to start an online store selling mens and womens fashion, accessories, gadgets and grooming products all in one shop something like Nordstorm or should I just stick to selling only one category in different shops? If i sell these categories in separate shops online, then my cost of maintaining several shops would eat in to my income generated but I would be selling under different niches and niche marketing would be easier. However, if I am selling all under one shop, then, cost of maintaining shops woud be lowered and time could be saved by downloading all categories just in one shop but i would not be able to sell under niche. But how are other shops such as Nordstorm etc managing to do so well selling all categories under one shop online?
Really I would like to know the answer to this doubt. Thanks much.
Hi Meera,
Nice to see you here.
There are many opinions about this but for me, I have always found more success by starting with less.
Sure, one day if your business gets large enough, the more products you have in store, the better.
But when you are just starting out, you will have too little resources to manage items in so many different categories.
If you spread yourself too thin, you will find it hard to do your very best in each category.
Instead, if you are just starting out, look into finding a niche that you can dominate.
I have seen many businesses in Malaysia that started off selling just one product and now are making 5 – 6 figures monthly consistently.
What products? Some examples: contact lenses, bracelets, gym wear, mini studios.
At the beginning of your journey, the question you should be asking is not: how many products can I sell?
But:
How can I be the best so that the customers keep coming back to me?
What are the ways you can stand out from other people in that niche?
You will find that if you look hard enough, you will find at least 10 ways to stand out. Not only strive to MEET the customer’s expectations, EXCEED it 100x further than your competitors.
Then, once you are successful in one niche, you will easily have enough capital to hire more people to help you build your business in other niches too.
But trying to do everything all at once can doom your business.
Hope that helps you.
– Lu Wee
Thanks and regards for your information and advice, appreciate it Like.
Ken
Hi Ken,
Glad you found it useful.
– Lu Wee
Hi Wee Tang,
I am Doreen and wanted to start an online business but don’t really know where and how to start?
Hope you can shed some lights. Below is my email address.
Hi Doreen,
May I know are you looking for a coach to guide you?
– Lu Wee
A very helpful article!
This comment also helped shed some light on the subject, as I’ve been planning for some time now but unfortunately couldn’t start but at least this will motivate me to pursue it.
–
All the best Aliff! Let me know how it goes =)
Hi.. i need coach for starting up online business.
Hi.. i need coach for starting up online business.
Hi Royce,
You can check out my coaching service here:
https://entrepreneurcampfire.com/coaching/
– Lu Wee
Hi Lu Wee, just to point out that the link above is not accessible. I am new to dropshipping and still learning.
Hi there,
Which link do you mean?
– Lu Wee
Dear Lu Wee,
Thank you for sharing your knowledge on your website. Semoga rezeki anda murah kerana tidak kedekut ilmu. I now see a direction for me to pursue drop shipping as before I was interested in the idea but totally do not know what to do / how to start.
Keep on posting helpful articles. You’re awesome! Thanks.
Hi Danny,
Thanks for your kind words and compliments. Glad to know you have found this useful. Let me know how your business goes =)
– Lu Wee
To all the dropshippers!
My name is Jay from MoneyMatch – an Award-winning Payments company. We are reaching out to help Malaysian dropshippers saving cost when they make payment to their suppliers and believe the dropshippers could benefit greatly from our platform.
How MoneyMatch can help:
When making payment to foreign suppliers, there are expensive international wire/merchant fees. MoneyMatch allows you to make payment with just a flat fee of RM8 with no recipient bank charges, which allows for your recipient to receive full amounts as stated in their invoice, which is a real problem often voice out when dealing with the banks.
We are currently working with many companies and online platform such as Carsome.my, Offpeak.my, ABRA Travels, & Fave, just to name a few and would love to explore partnering with more dropshippers!
Feel free to contact me at 012-2051821 or email me at jaychan@moneymatch.co if you have any questions or if you would like to further evaluate this opportunity.
Thanks
Hi Jay,
I’ve received your e-mail and will get back with you there. Thanks 🙂
Hi Lu Wee,
The only way to dropship in Malaysia is by Kumoten?
Is there any other methods to dropship in Malaysia? I tried to take a look on Aliexpress but the delivery time is too long.
Looking for your reply.
Hi Levi,
Unfortunately that’s the most established one so far if you are looking for something like Oberlo. But even Kumoten gets a lot of its products from China. I’ve also found the prices to be on the high side for some items.
If you are looking for dropship services with wholly Malaysian suppliers, there isn’t such a thing yet. This has to be done manually for now. Means you need to contact the suppliers and arrange dropship yourself.
Hope this helps!
– Lu Wee
Hi Lu Wee,
Thanks for sharing the great article on drop shipping. I was wondering, do you need to get a business license to start drop shipping? And how about the tax part of the business, do we need to file for tax or collect tax?
Hi Jim,
Thanks for dropping by. For any business in Malaysia be it online or offline, we are required to register a company and file tax. So it applies in the case of dropshipping as well.
Hope that helps.
– Lu Wee
I am ornob Rasel from Kuala Lampur. I need help for openkng new company. Please, contac me this number 0164785470.
Whats app, imo…0164785470
Email: excuseme006@gmail.com
Hi Ornob, have already sent you a message.
Hi, it was a good sharing and a useful one too. I am really interested to do drop shipping but I just wouldn’t want to go without the knowledge. So if there is a workshop to attend, please give me the details. Thank you
Hi Logaswari,
Thanks for dropping by. Unfortunately, I do not conduct any workshops at the moment, but I will notify you when an opportunity opens up.
– Lu Wee
Good sharing Lu Wee!
Actually, I have found success in dropshipping back then in 2015. I source it manually from various suppliers.
I have tried Kumoten. It is quite a good platform to start but my advice we have to carefully select products to sell. The reasons are:
1. Price not competitive (quite high)
2. The delivery also not very fast (more than 3 working days)
3. Some of the items are not trending anymore.
However, I have tried selling one item from Kumoten and it went well.
My favorite method of sourcing supplier for dropship is:
1) to scan my newsfeed and find product adverts on social media like Facebook etc. The trick is to choose a product that appeared frequently in your newsfeed. My hypothesis is, the more frequent the ads being displayed, the more popular that product. and maybe it is in high demand.
2) Then I contact the advertiser/ supplier directly and asking whether I can join any dropship programme. If not then I just skip and find other suppliers.
Other than that you can just search in facebook related keywords like: “Dropship Wanted” , “Dropship Diperlukan” etc.
I hope this tip helps your readers.
Sincerely,
Hafiz Azman
Thanks for the tips Hafiz 🙂
HI Lu Wee,
Vinc Wong here, nice and easy understanding explanation for the dropship method. By the way, i’m new to this and had no clue how to kick started to do it (i currently in Malaysia) . Hopefully can contact up with you to get more idea from you.
Hi Wong, sure thing. I’ll send you an email and we’ll talk more there 🙂
Hi lu wee,
Amicias here, I would facing the same problem. Hopefully can contact up with you to get more idea from you.
Hi Amicias,
Just send me a message using the form on your right hand bottom and I’ll see what I can do.
– Lu Wee
HI LU WEE,
i’m a university student currently going to take supply chain management course and i would like to learn more about dropshipping and hopefully get to start dropshipping. i hope to learn more from you as you seem to give wise advice and someone who has much knowledge on the subject.Thank You!
Hi Zu Jie,
Happy to hear from you. Glad you found the information here useful! Let me know what other topics you’d like to see covered.
Best,
Lu Wee
Hi Lu Wee, can help guide me on how start drop shipping, I’m new to this and appreciate for your site’s useful tips.
Hi Lin, sure – do you have any specific questions?
Thank you for your info sharing. It is very clear and insightful to me. I am a full time housewife and staying at Vietnam now. I wish to start the online business and the platform I choose is Shopee. But I still a bit confusing in the Shopee free 5 kg shipping programme. Let’s say if I do dropship with Chinabrand or Kumoten, so who is bearing the shipping cost if the shipping programme is activated ? The dropshipper, me or the customer ? Hope you can help to clarify here. Thank you very much.
Hi Christ,
May I know, you are trying to sell on Shopee Vietnam or Shopee Malaysia? I assume it is Malaysia since you mentioned Kumoten.
I think right now drop shipping from China to local marketplace such as Shopee or Lazada is not a good idea because they are emphasizing on fast delivery as a main KPI. If you can, go for local drop shipper instead.
For the Shopee 5kg programme, now the program has become limited. In any case, the fee is neither born by buyer or seller, but Shopee. This is between you, Shopee and seller.
But when you make the purchase from the drop shipper, you need to pay them for the shipping fee yourself. That is between you and drop ship supplier.
Hope this helps!
Thank you for this article. It’s really helpful. Could you tell me, which platform is better to start selling in Malaysia as a dropshipper, shopify,shopee or Lazada? And do we usually search for dropshipping companies in China. Thanks a lot
You’re welcome. Hmmm, I’d say it depends on your budget. If you have a high budget (e.g. RM10,000 – RM30,000), then you can start with Shopify, otherwise I’d start with Shopee or Lazada since you don’t need to pay a lot to drive traffic to your listings. But the downside is that marketplaces tend to be pretty competitive. In terms of suppliers, I’d recommend using local suppliers vs China ones if you are dropshipping in Lazada or Shopee. Hope this helps!
Hi Lu Wee,
Thanks for sharing your knowledge on here, really helps me to gain more knowledge about dropshipping before going into it.
I have some questions, but the one baffling is getting a supplier here in Malaysia.
I read about kumoten and found out that most of their products are 90% from China and that takes long days for delivery, as you stated above, its obvious customers prefers fast delivery for their order.
I read about Chinabrands and Aliexpress, but I don’t know how fast they deliver to Maladysia.
Or do you have any other idea of how to go about it. I plan starting on shopee and Lazada for a start.
Will appreciate your response, maybe via email coz I just bump into your article while searching for clues on google.
Hi Kay,
Glad you found the information here useful. Regarding supplier, I found that the best way, for now, is to find them manually. Means that you reach out to the supplier and make a drop-ship arrangement with them. It’s a lot more work, but I find that I can usually get better prices this way. Most of the sites here that offer auto-sync feature or self-service drop ship feature on websites offer their products at a high price. Some of their prices are even higher than the selling price on Lazada and Shopee… so no point.
Hope this helps. Please use the contact form if you want to reach me by email.
– Lu Wee
Thanks Lu Wee, will contact you via email.
Hi, My name is Ladak from Pakistan and an running an IT company in Pakistan. I am in Malaysia right now on visit visa and want to start online business in KL. To start business I am establishing a sdn bhd company in Malaysia.
I saw your post and interested to start drop shipping business in KL. can you please guide me from where I can find genuine product suppliers in KL?
If anything else you can guide me please help me out.
Thank you.
Ladak
Hi Ladak,
Hope you are enjoying yourself in Malaysia! It really depends what kind of products you are interested in selling. Is it mostly IT products?
– Lu Wee
Hi Lu Wee,
It is a good sharing articles from you. I have been planning to start an online biz for quite some times ago but never taken any actions. Since I am a few more years come to retire, I think it’s time to start taking action now. Hope can read more about your success story. Cheers !
Hi,
Are you Wong from above? Hope you can create a good income stream for your retirement years too. Cheers!
– Lu Wee
Hi Lu Wee,
It is a very good insightful sharing from you. I have been planning to start an online biz for a long time but never taken any actions. I searched about drop shipping biz about 10 years ago but mots of the drop shippers only drop ship to western countries . That’s the reason I stopped for a long time. But since my retirement age is reaching in a few more years, it’s time to review my online biz plan.
I did have a look of Oberlo recently and read about the success stories but came across some negative comments of using Oberlo and Shopify like the price is expensive and need to pay additional if want to opt for more features and functionality of the Shopify store. And 2 of the interviewees (Matt Riley & Burak Dogun), their online selling sites were not available to be seen. I believe you are a great supporter of Oberlo, can you provide some comments on this ?
Thank you.
Hi Wong,
Thanks for your message. Hope to continue working on this to provide more useful resources for everyone.
Hm… for Oberlo, it really depends which market you are targetting. I find that if you are targetting US, it still works pretty good. However, if your primary target is Malaysians, I don’t recommend it.
As for the selling sites, it’s pretty common for people not to share their sites as it will invite a lot of copycats. So you’ll need to extract the lessons and apply them in your own store.
Regardless of what platform or tools we use, I’d say the only thing that makes a person successful in this field is persistence. Don’t give up when you fail, but keep trying until you succeed and get the income you want.
Hope this helps.
– Lu Wee
Hi Lu Wee,
Yes, the Panda was me. I posted and saw it did not appear here (maybe comments have to be moderated by you) , that’s why I re-posted again, you may delete it. 🙂
Anyway, thanks a lot for your reply and some of the great words. At least I have some clues where to start.
Cheers !
Hi Wong,
Ah… yes. All comments by new accounts need to be moderated. In any case, wish you all the best in your new ventures!
Cheers!
Hi there, my name is Laura. I am keen with dropping shopping but I am very new to this. I dont want to rush into stuffs without proper knowledge and guidance. Do you run any workshop abt it or can you guide me step by step?
Hi, sorry not running any workshops at the moment.
Hi, thanks Lu Wee. I’m learn a lot from your sharing.
Hey Juno, Glad it helps! Hope you’re keeping well.
HI, awesome blog !
I have question that I would like to ask..
I was thinking to start branded dropshipping however I don’t know where to find supplier. I was browsing through AliExpress & Alibaba but their shipping to Malaysia is around 30-50 days???
Hi Ong,
Thank you for dropping by. Yes, it’s very long. For dropshipping from Malaysia, I recommend going with local suppliers. Most of what is available on AliExpress is available locally too. AliExpress is better if you are targetting overseas markets as you can charge more and use express shipping. However, AliExpress is not the only supplier available. Lots of US-based suppliers have popped up. I’m planning on testing them and will create a new report on that.
Hope this helps!
Best,
Lu Wee
Hi Lu Wee
I am starting a dropshipping business that focuses on middle eastern niche market. I am interested in :
1-If AliExpress does not have E-packet delivery and shipment takes 30-60 days, whats the best alternative?
2-When you say contact suppliers directly, can the purchase process be automated like Oberlo?
3-which platform do you think is best to make my website on Shopify or any others?
My Email is abdollahzadehmy@gmail.com
Thanks for the amazing blog!
Hi Lu Wee
Thanks God I found your very informative website for my lecture. Thanks for all tips and knowledge you shared. I started fall in love with reading your post. With the simple explanation coupled with examples, really awesome!!
May God bless your works
Hi Noor,
I’m glad you found this useful! 🙂 Thank you so much for your blessings as well. They are much appreciated!
Best,
Lu Wee
Hi Lu Wee,
Thanks for the informative blog share above. I would like to start an online business through shopee or Lazada platforms but no idea how to kick start with it. I believe drop shipping is the best way to start as I don’t need to spend so much on keeping my own inventory. I was thinking what is the famous products that buyers will search with higher repeat order during this pandemic situation.is healthcare(supplements products), beauty products (facial mask, sun block, skin care) or Slimming products (fibre, detox enzyme). What is your advise? Is it too much of category or is it better to start with minimal category first?