So, since dropshipping is what got my accounts terminated and the reason I came here I figured this was an appropriate place to make my 1st post.
Yes this is 100% correct. It can be done. I did this just by watching various youtube videos, reading webpages and stuff like that. It was approximately 2 years in the making before I created a new account to drop ship on. I didn't want to taint my 10 year old account with the negatives I knew I'd receive.
My main source was Lowe's. Bigger margins but more hassles. So I slowly started adding Home Depot items and while my margins shrank, so did the hassle.
My listings were lower than some of my competitors, not all. I was up to 120+ sales a day, $35,000 a month with a profit around 18%, not counting gift card savings and cash back sites.
Prices were roughly 20% above costs. But also there were many top selling items that were 50% above costs that were selling 10+ a day.
I only had roughly 350 listings running, with a 2nd tier store so I had free listings up to 1000 a month. Fees pretty much max out at 10%, with a store its 9% with a few categories having lower fees.
I had absolutely 0 paid services. I did it all myself working roughly 6 hours a day. I'd work a couple hours in the morning when I woke up placing orders, handling customers that asked questions thru the night and listing 2-5 items (usually listed 2-5 items a week cuz I'm lazy lol But some weeks I'd get to 10 items) then I'd work a couple hours around noon, again placing orders, updated tracking numbers and dealing with customers then repeat again around 8 or 9 at night. That was just me. I could have easily just spent 3 or 4 hours doing it all around 6 or 7 at night but I had nothing else to do besides nap, watch TV or play video games so "playing on ebay", as I called it, is what I done.
Fees - roughly 9-10% according to my ebay invoices including ALL return costs and store costs. Paypal of course is 2.9% plus 30 cents (never really figured the average fee cost here)
Home Depot -
I only had about 20 HD listings and my profit margin was roughly 10% after all said and done. No returns to deal with - if an item was lost or damaged, I would live chat with HD and either get a free return label or in most cases a refund sent in the form of a gift card (since I paid with a gift card) to my email within minutes. I never price matched, just loaded my cart to get the free shipping and placed the orders. I had a resale tax ID so I sent it to them, got the account set up and paid 0 taxes on items.
Gift cards for HD - could never really get any type of discount. Occasionally I'd find 5% on ebay and buy it but mostly I just bought them thru Kroger and gathered up fuel points to save $1 a gallon on gas. My truck has a 32 gallon tank and gets 14 mpg so I made more money there than any discount lol Excessive points were put on a different Kroger card and sold at a rate of 6000 points for $50 ($1 off a gallon of gas 6 times). So I was making/saving a little money there. Add another 1.5% cash back credit cards reward here as well. $30,000 in gift cards = $450 cash back.
Cash back - Huge money maker here. The site I use pays 8% back. I get between $350 and $400 deposited into my paypal account every single Monday evening. This also includes my Lowes purchases at 2% but swapping Lowes for straight HD - you get the point.
Paying fees with a rewards card - Ebay fees were between $3,000 and $3,200 a month, using a 1.5% cash back card that's another $40+ a month. (This will no longer be an option now that I have to go stealth lol) Again with Lowes sales, but switch with straight HD you get the point.
Lowe's gift cards - 5% off every time never less than and about 75% of the time I'd get them at 10% off. Again credit cards rewards.
Coupons - $20 off $100 orders + free shipping is 20% savings. However, no tax ID option so you pay sales tax at time of purchase -5-7%
Cash back - 2%
Returns/refunds - Huge pitfall as you get NOTHING from Lowe's. You can get a label for free but they refund thru in store credit and send it to your customer lol So you never see it. So I would either refund/reorder or pay for the label and get it shipped to me and resell it on a local app to recoup some money.
Cancellations - would come and go because of the coupon. March was horrible for me! Tons of cancellations. My profit shrank to about 12% in march lol The refunds for the cancellations, of course went to the customer in the form of store credit so it was all loss.
So short story long - Yes, I think you can make 28% profit margins with straight HD items and a little underhandedness. Tho it will be hard with paid services and I'd recommend shooting for 15-18%. People are dumb and know nothing about ebay and allow themselves to be "scammed" by sellers. I had probably $2000 worth of sales that were OOS and the buyers never responded to me and by the time I saw or remembered I couldn't cancel them nor would I take a defect on my account because they went MIA so basically it was "free" money.
Product markup - 20% - 13% fees = 7% + 8% cash back = 15% + 5% gift card savings = 20% + 1.5% CC CB = 21.5% + haggling for 10% discounts = 31.5% = Yeah I can see 28% if you are on top of your game.
I had a lot of fun with this model. Tho it was stressful at times and ultimately cost me 3 ebay accounts. Including my main 10 year account that I am sad I lost but because I found this site, I'm actually looking forward to rebuilding lol
Well there's part of my story
Hope you learned something as I know how hard it is learning this model. But if you truly want to learn then just jump in, start doing it and learn as you go. For all the videos I watched, pages I read, nothing taught me more than just doing it.
Oh and PAY YOUR TAXES!!! Do not mess with the IRS!
Now I'm off to buy a new phone, get a new address and a mobile hotspot to start my new adventure! I'll be back to buy the book shortly lol
Re: 10k Net Profit Dropshipping from Homedepot to Ebay ONLY 
