Our readers could see a wide variety of dropship sites that sell (successfully) various products online.

Today’s case study – a drop ship business selling swords. Yes, it is possible to make money dropshipping this sort of products. Read the below to see how to do this and how much you can expect to make in the long run.

If you feel all you miss is just a bunch of verified dropship suppliers – here is a comparison of top product sourcing catalogs – you can also get more information by checking the separate reviews.

Ok, here comes our latest case studies – more to come soon.

Over 8k Visitors Last Month, Many Top Ten Rankings in Google

•    URL: www.heavenlyswords.com
•    Established: 28 Feb 2007
•    Uniques/Month: 8,478
•    Page views/month: 58,168
•    Monthly Revenue: $2,487 – $3,109
•    PageRank: 4
•    Min bid: $18 000
•    BIN: $43 000

Description:

You are bidding on a successful and growing drop ship business. The site mainly sells swords, of all kinds, but also sells other related items such as helmets, axes, etc.

The domain name was registered on 2/28/07 and the store actually opened its doors on October 1st, 2007. Since then the site has had steady growth.

Here is a quick visitor count break down:
October: 2,112
November: 3,772
December: 5,929
January: 9,979

The site ranks very well in Google, having at least 13 top ten listings. Most searches provide double listings in Google. A few noteworthy keyword examples and their position in Google:

#3 for anime swords
#3 for kadaj sword
#5 for fantasy swords

The site has over 1,000 indexed pages according to Yahoo Site Explorer and over 100 keyword targeted backlinks.

Site is built using X-Cart version 4.1.8
The following add-ons have been purchased for X-Cart and are currently in use:
Batch Product Update Mod – allows for editing multiple items at once.
Category Meta Title Mod – allows for custom category page title tags.
Newest Products Mod – allows recently added products to show up in one place;

Since this site is built on X-Cart, it is 100% customizable to your preferences. If you don’t like the layout, the color scheme, or anything else you can simply change it. The X-Cart forums are very active and helpful. They have answered all of my questions and helped me customize the site. I will transfer my X-Cart forum access to the buyer.

Site is hosted at GoDaddy; hosting will expire on 12/4/08. The domain is registered through GoDaddy and will expire on 2/28/09. The SSL certificate was also purchased through GoDaddy and will expire on 8/9/08. Each of these has been paid for through the expiration date. There are currently two email addresses attached to the domain. One is for general information and the other is for returns (as of today, there has only been one return).

There is a toll free number attached to the site. The call volume is very low; the cost of the number itself is also extremely low. At your option, you could forward all incoming calls to a voice message and call them back at your leisure; or you can get rid of the number all together if desired.

The site accepts all major credit cards and PayPal. Currently the site uses Authorize.net to process the credit card payments.

Currently, the site has a relationship with six (6) drop ship vendors. I will notify each one of the vendors personally regarding the transfer of ownership. The site currently has 234 products for sell, this is not even 1/10 of the available inventory from each vendor. This is because all of the product descriptions are 100% unique. This isn’t just another generic drop ship site; the unique content is what continuously grows the site as Google loves fresh and unique content.

All items have 100% unique descriptions; each description was written specifically for this site. A lot of the images are unique as well; all images have a ‘watermark’ identifying them as belonging to this site. I usually upload between 5 – 20 new products on the weekend. This can take between 1 – 4 hours accordingly. I have written some of the descriptions myself but I find it a better use of my time to pay a real writer and simply upload their content.

The site is growing in popularity both with customers and with the search engines. I am starting to get repeat business which is very good. Also, previous customers are starting to talk about the site in forums and on their blogs.

Markup is around 50%. A few items have more markup and some have less, but you should expect to make around 50% profit on each order. Last month saw $1,277 in profit; $2,555 gross revenue.

Revenue Details:

Average Order Value: $68.33
Avg. 30 – 45 orders per month

This is a real business; work will need to be done on your part unless you plan on outsourcing. Having said that, the work is very minimal. When an order comes in you will be notified via email or you can simply login to the store interface. The email notification will contain the actual invoice so all the needed information is at your fingertips. Typically, after receiving an order notification email simply proceed to the vendor’s website and make the purchase, using the customer’s information as the shipping address. One vendor requires an email instead of logging in to their site. Half of the vendors email the customer their tracking number and the other half will email the information to you for you to forward it to your customer. This typically takes about thirty minutes per day, depending on the number of orders that come in.

Traffic Details:

Overall Stats:
7.97% Direct Traffic
18.17% Referring Sites
73.84% Search Engines

Detail:
Google Organic 36.98%
Yahoo Organic 16.91%

We continue our popular case studies series of the online dropshipping business for sale.

Reading these posts you should get more ideas about:

-    what products to dropship
-    how to market your dropship business
-    where to find reliable merchants
-    how to build long term relations with customers and suppliers

We also refer you to the comparison table of top real dropship supplier lists, but it does not mean that you should focus just on those products sources (though according to our reader’s responses these two dropship sources are really worth what they charge: this one and this one).

Do your own research to find and set up relations with merchants directly.

Today we publish dropship candy store case study

Store averages a 39% traffic growth each month

•    URL:  www.esnacks.com
•    Established: 30 Apr 2007
•    Uniques/Month: 11,000
•    Page views/month: 40,000
•    Monthly Revenue: 7,500
•    PageRank: 3
•    Min Bid: $35 000
•    BIN: $50 000

Description:

This e-commerce candy store currently brings in around $1,100 – $1,400 of monthly profit after expenses. I am looking to sell the site for around 3x net although a motivated individual could easily make their money back in less than a year by making some obvious updates to the site and by marketing it.

I am looking to sell this business in order to raise funds for another project of mine. The e-commerce store has an excellent domain and is custom designed and built on a custom shopping cart which exclusively uses Google Checkout and PayPal as the checkout methods. The administration tool for the shopping cart is also custom made. All orders are placed through a drop-shipper who has very few other online retailers, a contract is in place with this drop-shipper.

Included With This Sale:

- Website
- Administration Tool
- Email List of All Previous Customers (currently around 800-1000)

Problems with this business:

- Although we bring in a high volume of orders there are many orders that our drop-shipper has to backorder or are out of stock. If you purchase this site I would suggest establishing a relationship with a second drop-shipper to cover these orders which would probably increase your monthly profit an additional 15%-20%.
- Like every e-commerce store you will need to answer customer service emails. We currently do not offer a phone number on the site (like Amazon.com) and instead require people to submit customer support requests via our contact form or email.
- Admittedly I do not do a good job at managing margin levels or adding new products. If you were to adjust products prices and add in newer products then you would probably see around a 10%-15% increase in monthly profit.

Opportunities for this business:

- Add in the ability to take credit cards directly on the website. Currently only Google Checkout and PayPal processing is used which may deter potential customers from ordering.
- Update the categories and homepage. I haven’t updated the homepage or category pages since I started the business. I imagine this would help increase sales even more.
- Market the website. This site is not marketed in per click engines or through any advertising. Email marketing may not be a bad idea, especially since we have hundreds of emails of people who have previously ordered through the website that you can market to. I imagine if you were to market the website then obviously the order volume would increase.

Revenue Details:

Unique traffic comes in (primarily from search) and orders through the website. Once an order is placed we relay it through our drop-shipper at a lower fee and keep the remaining difference. Every month has always exceeded the traffic levels of the previous month. We have seen an average unique visitor growth of 39% each month over the previous month.

Traffic Details:

Unique Visitor Traffic Growth Statistics
Average Monthly Growth: 39%
December ‘07 to January ‘08 – 19% Growth (9,270 to 11,000 (estimated))
November ‘07 to December ‘07 – 27% Growth (7,278 to 9,270)
October ‘07 to November ‘07 – 22% Growth (5,980 to 7,278)
September ‘07 to October ‘07 – 85% Growth (3,235 to 5,980)
August ‘07 to September ‘07 – 7% Growth (3,034 to 3,235)
July ‘07 to August ‘07 – 73% Growth (1,751 to 3,034)

This is a story from our case study series. The case studies section grows with every passing week and it is a good source for persons who need some practical tips from those who are experienced in this business: find info on relations with merchants, customer service, traffic sources, advertising costs and channels, etc.

The new case study is intended for those people who believe that they can set up reliable and long lasting relations with dropship merchants and not for those online entrepreneurs who are certain that dropship business is scam.

• URL: SportsmenExpress.com
• Established: 17 Nov 2004
• Uniques/Month: 20,660
• Page views/month: 60,794
• Monthly Revenue: 5,000 average
• PageRank: 3
• Listed: 28 Dec 2007
• Winning bid: $17 500

Description:
Sportsmen Express offers a large selection of camping gear, hunting gear, firearm accessories and law enforcement equipment.

I’m selling www.sportsmenexpress.com for the sole reason I do not have time to take it to the next level. 95% of the business is totally automated and you don’t have to do anything, it’s that 5% customer service that I don’t have time for. We are partnered with a Sporting Goods supplier that “blind” drop ships all of our orders. If you’re not familiar with the term, blind drop ship just means our supplier put our company information on the package so the customer has no idea it wasn’t shipped by us.

Please note that if you want to continue selling sporting goods from the current supplier, you must set up an account with them. This requires a Retail Sales Tax Certificate and setting up an AHC Direct Debit account with them. I will provide serious buyers with the contact information.

In August 06 we invested 20k to have the website completely redone with many automated features to help us manage the business and promote the website. Active Media (www.activema.com)was the company that did the work and SE is listed on their featured projects portfolio. The website is php based and runs on a linux box with Apache.

Website Features:
Sends Confirmation Email to Customer & Admin when order is placed.
Sends shipping confirmation email when order is shipped.
Google Base/Froogle Feed generated and uploaded weekly. (15,000 products in Google Base)
Sitemap generated weekly (over 19,000 pages indexed in Google)
Auto Out Of Stock Notification- Customer can request to be notified when an item is back in stock, website sends email automatically
Ability to send promotional emails to customers (3500 customers listed in database)
Ability to set up discount codes & promotions.
Setup customer groups for discounts.
New products automatically downloaded into database from supplier.
Apache Rewrite installed so all keywords are in every products url.
Ability to set keywords, description for each product for SEO.
Website has a Forum, but is currently turned off due to no time to control the spam.

Many more features that I will be happy to show a serious bidder via phone call guided tour.

We currently do around $5-6,000 a month in sales with ZERO advertising. Profit runs around 15%-20%. You have the ability to set the markup for any single item or category to whatever you want.

Expenses:
The website runs on a VPS server though WiredTree.com for $89 a month. There is an 800 number I will tranfer to you through gotvmail.com that usually runs $30 a month if you want it. SE has a Yahoo Directory subscription that is paid until July 08 ($299).

Potential: If your savy at website promotion and know how to drive traffic, this website has a ton of potential. I never promoted the phone number on the website as I wasnt available to take phone orders. If you put the phone number in the footer and had someone available to take calls, sales would increase dramatically. I have received numerous emails from potential customers saying they didn’t buy because they couldnt find the phone number.

We do not have a BIN in mind, though would like to at least get back what we invested in the websites makeover.

Also included in this auction is the domain name sportsmAnexpress.com, which just redirects to SportsmEnexpress.com

Revenue Details:
The website currently does around 5-6k a month in sales on average. December blows that out of the water with 10-12k but that is not the average. Our profit margin is between 15-20% which can be adjusted to any level. With no advertising profits are around $600-1000 a month after expenses.

Traffic Details:
90% of the traffic is organic from search engines, 85% is from Google.

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