February 9th, 2008
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%