I posted once already, and got some replies which were somewhat helpful. But sourcing remains a mystery to me.
I live in Japan and am interested in opening a shop for customers in Japan. My goal is to make a modest amount of money to supplement the loss of a couple of customers for my regular business. If it turns into something bigger then great!
I get the basic idea of Shopify, and I have domains already I can use, but I can’t figure out sourcing.
There is a blog post by Shopify that talks about drop shipping (https://www.shopify.com/blog/16665772-alibaba-101-how-to-safely-source-products-from-the-worlds-biggest-supplier-directory) but the article itself admits there is no financial merit to the end customer because they could also shop Alibaba the same way for the same price. So is drop shipping really a good model for a Shopify store?
I also checked out Print on Demand services. But the shipping costs! I can’t believe end customer would buy things like custom T-shirts at those prices.
Of course with both drop shipping and print on demand it can’t hurt to try because the first three months are just $1/month. But still - I’d like more feedback.
Thanks.
I’m still thinking about what to do. I’ve also signed up as an Amazon reseller and was approved, but I have qualms about getting started there as well. While there might me more traffic (might) it seems nice to have things more under control in my own store.
So … any good sourcing general suggestions for this newbie who would like to get started?
Thanks.