The dangers of dropshipping
While scrolling or posting on Instagram, you might have come across random comments or messages from people offering you a sponsorship by wearing their brand. In this race of popularity, you might be interested to gain new followers while being paid to promote a product. Watch out though, you should probably think about it before getting involved.
What is dropshipping?
According to shopify.com, “dropshipping is a retail fulfillment method where a store doesn’t keep the products it sells in stock. Instead, when a store sells a product using the dropshipping model, it purchases the item from a third party and has it shipped directly to the customer. As a result, the seller doesn’t have to handle the product directly.”
On paper, this business model is great if you want to start your own e-commerce: less capital required, easy to get started, flexibility, wide selection of products to sell…However, the reality is quite different.
Let me explain something that happened to me months ago: I received a DM asking me if I was interested in promoting watches from an unknown brand. The person who contacted me had a legit Instagram profile and so was the profile of the brand. I checked all the feedbacks, saw there were ambassadors across the world and everything seemed fine. What made me suspicious was the fact that they wanted me as an ambassador by offering me a promocode to get a watch…In the end, I still had to pay a certain amount of money to get their product. This is when Google became my best friend: I typed in the name of the brand + reviews and I ended up discovering they were doing dropshipping by reselling 5,00€ watches from AliExpress for almost 50,00€. In the end, I politely declined their offer.
Why is it problematic?
Firstly, people end up being scammed by receiving poor quality products they paid full price. Secondly, as a consequence, some consumers won’t trust buying online anymore, which is bad news for honest sellers. Thirdly, depending on the product promoted by influencers on Instagram, some of them can put people at risk! It can be allergies from an unknown beauty product, an electronic device not compliant to safety standards, etc.
A lot of influencers and reality TV stars use their platforms to influence their younger fans into buying products they don’t even need. These celebrities play on the lack of self-confidence and the naivety of their audience just for money and fame.
What can we do about it?
Before purchasing anything online, make sure that you are on a reliable and official website: check the reviews, the comments with pictures and don’t hesitate to use Google. Nowadays, I still discover shops and brands by word of mouth from friends, it’s way more interesting if you want a genuine feedback regarding the quality, the price and the shipping service.
If possible try to buy locally to help sellers settled in your country. As they say, it’s good for the economy.
Regarding your kids and teenagers, make sure your credit card is not linked to anything so that they don’t buy behind your back and have a chat with them to see if what they want is trustworthy.
In conclusion, always check the sources first and consume responsibly.
