Sourcing low-priced physical goods and offering them for "free"

[Sutra]

In regards to affiliate sales, some people offer low-priced physical products for "free" and ask the customer to pay just the shipping & handling, which is something like $5 - $9. Obviously that's not "free" but the tactic works. After purchase the customer is sent into an upsell/downsell funnel.

Down the line I'd like to do that too within my Autoresponder. In order to do so I'll need to, ideally, source the goods for $1 - $3 then have them dropshipped to the customer.

My question then is, where do I go to source cheap physical goods and have them dropshipped to customers in the US?

 

[Goldorak]

I think most of the folks doing this are ordering from aliexpress. The problem with this are delivery time are very inconsistent. Things can take sometimes 6 weeks to reach destination or never reach destination.

 

[Sutra]

I think most of the folks doing this are ordering from aliexpress. The problem with this are delivery time are very inconsistent. Things can take sometimes 6 weeks to reach destination or never reach destination.

Well...that sucks.

hah.

Don't want my users waiting for six weeks. No bueno.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Here's the problem I see with this... the goal seems to be to turn a tiny profit on charging extra for shipping and packaging under the guise of "free" and then push upsells on the backend to luke warm traffic that wasn't willing to pay for product in the first place. Even if you're building a list, it's a cold list.

Why not just push products that offer real value that people are willing to come out of pocket for, and then do traditional marketing to pique their interest, move their emotions, and spark their intellect? And if you want to sweeten the deal, add these "free" products as bonuses.

 

[Sutra]

Good points @Ryuzaki

The reason I thought about this to begin with is because I link to an affiliate product in my AR. The affiliate uses this model and some of my subs sign up for the "free" offer. I figured I would cut him out and do it myself.

However, the points you brought up make sense so I'll have think on it some more.

 

[rogerke]

Why not just push products that offer real value that people are willing to come out of pocket for, and then do traditional marketing to pique their interest, move their emotions, and spark their intellect?

Yeah, good luck getting a positive ROI using traditional PPC methods with these kind of products. Pretty much impossible bro.

Good luck getting clicks through newsfeed ads when you offer some '3D butterfly wall stickers' for the regular price of $9,99. Nobody is interested.

Now OTOH if you 'dump' the price to $0.49 people are very eager to click. Still, the method as-is doesn't work as well, but if you add your own twists like a 'share for even more discount' button on product pages and don't show the actual S&H costs until customers already put in their address and have their cc ready... believe me you got a gold mine right there. Just test it yourself

That being said, unless you don't care about gettinga shit ton of complaints - don't dropship products from China. Just get them physically and ship them out yourself. Just make sure you offer products that you can put in an envelope to keep the shipping costs down.

 

[Sutra]

The way the affiliate I mentioned does it is by offering the products through his AR. Haven't seen him do a PPC campaign, though it's possible I just haven't seen his ads. He seems to have a ton of products available and sends out an email about another "free" offer several times a week.

Anyway, I definitely don't want to ship anything out myself. I used to run an online store for MMA gear. The two things I hated the most were

1. Preparing the items for upload (pictures, photo edit, etc) and...
2. Shipping. Fuck I hated packing everything up and dealing with deliveries.

So won't be doing that again, hah.

 

[Calamari]

Most of the people doing this @Trankuility are giving away small items that just get dropped into a padded envelope and shipped. Very easy.

I know one person that does this through facebook. He has a passion page and gives away stuff that his audience already loves. It costs pennies to buy when you get them in bulk but people sell them for dollars. He gives them away for free and makes a nominal amount on shipping.

He build his list and his Facebook audience as well as a targeted list of buyers. He does also up sell them at a later date but because his audience is already so passionate about the topic he doesn't have to be aggressive about it.

 

[Sutra]

Some point down the line offering something small and cheap would fit my audience. And it would flow nicely into an immediate upsell and set the tone for large upsells down the line. I really just don't want to deal with shipping anything out myself, hah.

Have you ever tried Amazon fulfillment? Not sure if it would be cost effective to have the goods stored in their center and have them do the shipping.

 

[Samwise89]

I guess if you're turning even a penny profit shipping out or at least dealing with all this stuff, it's not a "loss." Until you calculate your time involved.;

If you can automate it all then your eventual profit should exceed the loss even with your time included, if you can tweak your upsell funnel well enough.

I agree with others though, you'll have to do a real good job of warming ice-cold greedy traffic after you've already taken a loss on sending them free items.