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Need answers?
Start with the most frequently asked questions below. If you still
have any questions feel free to contact us at
dropshipping@madgadgets.com
Becoming a Member
Purchasing & Selling
Shipping
Becoming a Member
What is Drop Shipping?
Drop Shipping is a method of merchandising that allows anyone to
sell products without first buying and stocking an inventory of
those products. In short, you would take orders and payment for
items of merchandise on our website, forward these orders on to us,
and we then ship the items direct to your customer.
Under this system, you do not have to invest any money in a stock of
merchandise before it is sold. This permits you to devote your
entire time to the promotion of sales. Other advantages of this
system are: elimination of losses on un-sellable goods, elimination
of packing and shipping expenses, and minimization of space
requirements.
Do I have to operate as a registered company or have a VAT# to
join?
You do not have to operate your business as a registered company or
provide a VAT# to join; however, that doesn't mean this is something
you should ignore entirely. There are many individuals who make a
good profit selling on the online auctions operating as sole
traders. If you are planning on starting a long-term online retail
business however, we suggest that you search the internet for
information regarding online business legalities and compliance.
You can run your business as a sole trader/proprietor and claim your
earnings under your national insurance number on all tax returns,
but again, you should consult with your accountant for details.
Can I join your program if I live outside of the
United Kingdom?
Absolutely! Our program is made available worldwide with the
exception of a very small number of geographical areas. However, the
vast proportion of our products are available to our members for
re-sale within the UK mainland only.
Are there any requirements to join your program?
There are no requirements to join our program. All we ask is if you
decide to join that you are truly committed to making this venture a
successful one.
How long has Madgadgets been drop shipping?
We
have been drop shipping for quite some time and have become very well established. We are highly recommended by a
number of different drop shipping directories including
Wholesale Pages,
and we are a member of the
SquareTrade organisation for professional online
retailers, and have a tremendous amount of experience in the
industry.
What is the
£9.99 + VAT ‘Account Creation Fee’ for? Are there any other 'hidden'
fees?
By
charging a minimal Non-refundable setup fee of £9.99 +VAT we feel this qualifies you as
someone who is truly interested in making this business venture a
success and not just someone who is going to waste our time. With
affiliate programs industry experts estimate that 95% of affiliates
who join a program never take the first step in getting started.
They procrastinate and never get started.
With
the £9.99 + VAT setup fee we feel that you are more inclined to follow
through after you sign up and truly put the effort and time into
your business that is required. The payment is non-refundable
as it covers the administration involved in creating your new
account with Madgadgets.com
There are no other required fees whatsoever other than for the
merchandise you sell and the shipping costs of that merchandise. We
will be working one-on-one with you in this program and a
considerable amount of time and effort goes into each and every
relationship.
How many members do you have?
Unfortunately this is not something we can share with you. It is a
statistic we use for internal purposes only. We can assure you
though that if we feel we are getting too many member's who are
creating too much competition amongst each other we will no longer
allow new drop ship member's to join our program. We would much
rather have a handful of active member's who produce significant results
than 10,000 member's who do nothing but create internal competition
in the marketplace, drive down prices, increase the need for support
and technical assistance on our end, and at the same time do not
increase the overall drop ship revenues of the company as a whole
but rather just decrease the average sales volume per drop shipper.
How many different products do you have?
Since we release new products every week we are unable to post a
static # of products available at this time, but we always strive to
maintain a minimum of 5000 - 10000 available and in-stock items for our
members. You may notice that we do not stock any cheap and tacky low
value items that a number of the bulk dropshippers offer on their
websites....we feel that this simply introduces no discernable value
to our service or our customers.
How much money can I make?
Your
income potential is truly only limited by the amount of time and
effort you put into this venture, and by the amount of experience
and business savvy you have accumulated over the years. This is not
a "get rich" scheme nor do we make any claims of it being so. If
you're looking for this then we hate to tell you but it doesn't exist!!! The
people drinking champagne on expensive yachts on those commercials
are actors.
You
can however make a decent income with our program, either to
supplement your regular job or as a primary income source alone. We
have many resellers who spend a minimum of 20-30 hours a week
reselling and marketing our products. This is their full-time job.
Our top resellers generate around £5,000 - £6,000 / month in gross sales, but this didn't
happen overnight. They have put a lot of time and effort into
building their business and are now reaping the rewards.
Based on the fact that we continue to release new products on a
weekly basis, and the growth of the internet in general, this
monthly sales volume for our top resellers continues to steadily
increase. Our part-time sellers typically generate around £500 - £1000 /
month in gross sales. Their income is limited simply by the fact
that they do not have the time to market all of our products, like our top
full-time resellers do, and instead are limited to marketing
only a fraction of the products that we have in stock.
Does
this mean that if you join our program and commit to selling
part-time or full-time that you're going to see these results? No,
it does not. The OPPORTUNITY is there, however for you to see these
types of results, you need to stick with it and make a time commitment to
reselling our products.
Purchasing & Selling
How do I know
your products will be in stock when I go to order?
Our inventory
is controlled electronically so we are notified immediately if there
are any inventory shortages. We use advanced sales forecasting and
modelling to predict our required inventory levels based on past
sales, trends, and seasonal fluctuations as well. We make sure to
re-order from our manufacturer in ample time to avoid any inventory
issues as we know a shortage in inventory can be detrimental to your
business. To date, this has not been an issue. If however it did
become an issue in the future you would be promptly notified by
e-mail of the situation.
Do you ship C.O.D.?
No, we
currently do not.
What is your guarantee on each item?
All of our
items come with a full manufacturers warranty.
How can I
pay for my merchandise? What type of payments do you accept?
Our primary method of receiving payment is via our automated and
100% secure PayPal shopping cart system which is integrated into our
website. If you do not currently have a PayPal account then simply
follow the link below to create one - completely free !!!
Is there a minimum order amount?
No there is not. Whether you have 1 order you submit to us a month,
or 1,000 a week, your orders will be processed the same way.
However, we do
limit your very first drop ship order to a maximum of £100 in value, but this only
applies to the very first order you place, as a security measure.
Do I have to collect VAT from my customers when I sell
a product?
Whether you charge or collect the VAT from your customers is totally
up to you. We charge UK VAT rate for our
membership fee's and on our products.
If any further clarification is required it is recommended that you
check with your accountant to avoid problems in the future.
Will I have access to my order history and customer
data?
Yes, we offer a complete order tracking system to all members which enables you to track and view all current orders and also view your order history. Each order status is updated in real time to enable our members to keep track of every stage of the order process, from order processing through to order despatch. It is all part of our continued commitment to
OVER deliver to our member's.
How do I obtain the product pictures and descriptions
for my website and/or auction listings?
As
one of our member's you will be entitled to the full usage of our
detailed product descriptions and quality images. You can either
simply 'copy & paste' the descriptions directly into your marketing
medium, or simply save both images and descriptions onto your PC for
use at a later date.
What is the cost for the merchandise I sell?
We
have chosen a market penetration strategy and are more concerned
with building our brand and our company name than making an
immediate short term profit from our newer members by charging
inflated prices therefore we stick to the lowest prices possible at
all times.
Is there a set retail price I must sell your products
for?
You are free to resell our products at whatever price you deem
necessary based on your own marketing tactics, techniques, and
personal opinions of our merchandise...and are still only
responsible for paying the drop
shipping rate. You may also want to factor in your sales
venue costs (eBay, Yahoo! Store, Amazon, your own website, etc.), and your
advertising budget when pricing our merchandise to help maximize
your profits.
This also applies to the shipping and handling charges that you
assess to your buyers as well (although we strongly discourage
charging excessively high shipping rates to your buyers). You set
all the prices for your business!
Does Madgadgets sell directly on any auction sites?
No we do not. If we did, we would feel as if we would
be cheating our member's who work hard to promote our products.
Instead we focus on building an experienced team of drop shipper's,
educate them about our products and help them in being successful in
selling both online and off, and form a professional business
partnership with our members.
Do I have to pay income tax on the money I earn from
sales?
Unfortunately we are not in the position to give legal advice here.
It is the law that all individuals and businesses must report earned
income and profits from sales on a regular basis; however laws vary
as per what the minimum earnings requirements are, and what taxes
need to be paid.
This question is best answered by your accountant.
Do you charge a fee for drop shipping my orders? Are
there any additional fees involved?
There are no additional fees whatsoever beyond the 1.) initial sign
up non-refundable fee, 2.) cost of the merchandise, and 3.) actual cost of shipping
the orders to your customers.
What happens if a customer has a problem? How do
returns work?
We
provide technical support via e-mail 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
Please direct your enquiries to
dropshipping@madgadgets.com and we will respond to you with an
answer, which you can then relay to your customer.
All
of our items come with a full manufacturers warranty. If for any
reason your customer is not completely satisfied with their purchase
they may return it for a full refund. Please notify us immediately
if you require the use of this facility, as all returns must come
from our dropship members and not from our members end customer.
How do I edit or cancel an order after it has been
placed?
If
the order has yet to be shipped you may change the order by simply
sending us an email at
dropshipping@madgadgets.com detailing the changes required, or
notifying us of the cancellation. We cannot accept an order
cancellation once the order has been despatched, although we will be
happy to refund the order minus the shipping costs once returned to
us.
Shipping
Do you ship to P.O. Boxes and/or military addresses?
No. Not at this time.
Do you ship internationally?
No. We no longer dropship any items outside of the mainland UK.
How much is shipping?
You
are allowed to charge whatever shipping fees you want for your
auction and marketplace sales. We discourage charging exorbitantly
high shipping rates however and recommend that you charge prices
that are in line with what we charge you for shipping.
Each individual item has a
corresponding shipping rate and we advise each member to check this
shipping cost before producing marketing material or auction
listings to ensure that you have covered the cost of shipping each
item.
An
“item” is referred to as one single product unit. Any product that
is shipped in multiple packages is considered to be the same as far
as shipping rates are concerned, and treated as one item. However,
if you place an order which includes multiple seperate items, then
the combined shipping costs will be incurred. For example, an order
for a LCD TV, a battery charger and a camera to the same single
delivery address, will incur the combined shipping charges for each
item.
We
are constantly working on improving our shipping methods and
reducing costs, but at the same time, we are subject to carrier
increases as well. Therefore shipping charges are subject to change
either up or down, but will stay relatively the same.
Therefore many drop shippers wishing to ship internationally have
chosen to instead purchase in bulk from us and do their own shipping
in their local geographic region. This way we can pass the shipping
savings on to you when purchasing in bulk, and delivery times are
improved.
How often do you ship orders?
We
ship daily Monday - Friday at approximately 12.30PM & 4.30 PM
What carriers do you use?
We
currently ship via the Royal Mail Postal Service & various courier
companies. If you require
special arrangements for an order to go out via a specific carrier
service then please contact us at
dropshipping@madgadgets.com and we will do our best to
meet your needs.
How do I know when my orders have been shipped?
All orders received during our standard business
hours will usually be processed and shipped within 24 hours. Our members can check each order's status from within our member's area and know exactly when it has been despatched.
We ship on Monday - Friday at approximately 12.30 PM & 4.30 PM.
How long does it take for shipments to arrive to my
customers?
Depending on your geographic location, product being delivered, and shipment method chosen, it
will take anywhere from 1 to 7 days for your customers orders
to arrive. We would usually expect any order for UK mainland
delivery to arrive with your customer within 3 - 5 working days from
the point that the order has been "Processed". Unfortunately, we are
unable to guarantee these delivery times as we have no control over
our 3rd Party delivery partners. |
