Daniel Parish, owner of DG-RC eStores and all its related sites

Many people have said that they’re “self made” or “started with nothing”. I always wondered what they meant by that. Well, now I know.

First let me introduce myself. My name is Daniel Parish and I’m the owner of DG-RC eStores. See the links on the left for some of the businesses I run, I'm also a compulsive online store or eStore creator. The online stores sell, well, anything really. What follows in this article is the story of how I started my home business from nothing and when I say nothing I mean nothing.

You’ll see how I did it, it may even help you to do the same and start earning an extra income with just your computer and an internet connection. This is not a get rich quick scheme and it may not work for everyone. I will not be selling you anything (unless you want to buy something from one of my sites of course) and I will not be giving you any false illusions that “if you do this you’ll be a millionaire in a year” or “you can earn 100,000 a week” I have, over the years, earned enough to keep me out of the red and have a better standard of living. I’m by no means a millionaire; I class myself as comfortable and happy.

How it all started

I was in full time employment at a very low wage. After trying all the online schemes that promise the world including multi level marketing (MLM), which is basically the same as the old pyramid selling. I came to the conclusion that (A) they’re a waste of my time and (B) they were costing me a lot of money that I didn’t really have.

I still needed to get some more money from somewhere. So, I went back to basics, namely, sell something. But what, how and what with?

First port of call was eBay, as it is for many. I was looking for something, anything that I could resell for a profit. The problem was I didn’t have any money to buy something in the first place. I couldn’t borrow from parents, my father had passed away a few months before and my mother was on a pension in a council bungalow. I couldn’t get a loan, I had a credit rating of “You’re joking, don’t ask again” and I didn’t have (and probably still don’t) any business or financial skills. But what I did have was the “need to feed” myself, wife and 2 teenage kids.

I know that there are a lot of eBayers that buy and sell on eBay and do very well. But I didn’t have any money to buy the first item. What I needed was to have something to sell that hasn’t cost me anything. Great, I’ll sell something from home, but what? And the eBay fees, what if I don’t sell it; I still have to pay eBay...

It may have been a stupid idea but I was sure I could find a way to get more money by selling something that I haven’t got. Yep, even writing it down now sounds stupid... And I now the outcome.

After weeks of looking at eBay and other auction sites, and tying my brain matter in knots I decided to forget the whole thing and get real. I was never going to earn anymore money and will have to sell the house and down size.
I then thought “If I do sell up, I’ll treat myself” I know it’s selfish, but what-the-ha. It was whilst looking for a treat for myself that I had an idea.

I was looking at radio controlled helicopter on eBay (I’ve always wanted an RC plane or helicopter) I noticed that the same model was coming up at different prices, from different sellers but they were all shipped from Hong Kong even if the seller wasn’t based there. And they all had the same description. This made me think, “where are they being shipped from and how much are they, really”.

After only a couple of hours searching I found a company in Hong Kong that sold this particular helicopter and more items at good prices. I emailed them and asked if they could ship direct to the customer and what their best price is for this helicopter. The reply (in broken English) was that yes they can ‘dropship’ and the best price is $xx.xx and $x.xx shipping fee.

“What is dropship?” I asked myself. Again a couple of hours searching online and I had my answer and an epiphany. I know it sells on eBay; I’m getting it for a very good price even with the shipping fee. I worked out that I could sell it on eBay cheaper than anyone else and still earn a profit.

The basics of dropshipping are, you (the seller) advertise an item (in this case an RC helicopter) at a price that’s cost + fees + your profit, the buyer buys it and pays you, you pay the dropshipper the agreed price who will then pack and ship it to your customer in an unmarked package. The result is, you’ve made a profit and haven’t spent a penny.

Dropshipping sounded good to me but I still had questions. Unfortunately, I was running out of time, overdrawn with bank charges making my more overdrawn and still two weeks till payday. The only way I will know if it works is to do it. It was time to bite the bullet and step into the unknown.

I wrote a description of the helicopter included some pictures from the manufactures website. The other auctions used pictures from the dropshippers website, that’s how I know I had found the same company. It was then posted as a Buy It Now at a price that gave me about £30 profit after eBay and PayPal fees and, very important, I offered free shipping from Hong Kong. Offering free shipping and a cheaper price than anyone else on eBay was my genius moment. I’d sold it within a day.

Now it was time to see if this dropshipping thing works. I placed the order with the dropshipper at the agreed price, paid them with the money that was paid to me and waited. Four days later the eBayer left me some great feedback. It was shipped perfectly and received in excellent condition. It worked, dropshipping works. I haven’t paid out a penny and I’ve got just over £30 clear profit.

I relisted this helicopter on eBay and offered 5 of them. I sold all 5 before the auction ended. I was on a roll.

I was having success on eBay and was able to buy stuff that would normally only be a treat for us, like a joint of beef for Sunday dinner. It was time to move to the next stage, my own website. There are a couple of reasons for this the main one being fees. When you have anything on eBay and you offer PayPal as the payment method you have two lots of fees to pay. By having my own website I can get rid of at least one of them.

I registered a domain name and got some web space and remember I’m still using the profits. I’ve never used any of my own money.

Right, great, excellent, I have a website that says “Under construction” now what?

I wanted a site that I could add products to and a shopping cart to take the money. I also, wanted for free. Again a quick search of the internet and I found loads of free ecommerce software. The one I preferred was osCommerce; it’s got a great community with some excellent contributions and modifications that are quite easy to install.

I installed osCommerce to the site and went about changing the look. I added a company logo, changed the colour of the borders, buttons etc... And then added ALL the items from the dropshippers site. This took a couple of weeks, but when finished I had a website with around 60 RC models and hundreds of parts for them. It could also take orders and payment via PayPal.

When I received an order, all I had to do was email the order to the dropshipper, pay them and enjoy the profit.

The McDonalds approach

After a few months of success with this dropship I wondered if the manufactures themselves would dropship at a trade price. I thought I’ll try my luck and ask, contacting them was easy through their website and surprisingly, after looking at my site, said that they would (I later found out that at the time I was the only one they done it for) .

I now had a dropshipper and a manufacture both sending goods direct to my customers. That was not enough for me I was now on a mission. Using my site as a base there was no reason why I couldn’t duplicate it. McDonalds stated with one outlet and just simple duplicated that outlet somewhere else; they could then serve more customers in the same time. Duplicated that worldwide and you get 24/7 profit.

My original site was a ‘.co.uk’ which although can be seen worldwide is many seen in the UK. A ‘.com’ is seen worldwide although is historically thought of an American site. I purchased the ‘.com’ domain name and redirected it to the ‘.co.uk’ and ultimately made the site ‘.com’ and redirected the ‘.co.uk’. I checked the SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), which I’ll not be going into here. I submitting the site with all the top search engines and waited. Gradually, orders from around the world were coming in.

Still not content with that I created another site with another domain name... and another... and another. Before long I had 10 sites selling RC models, furniture, DVD’s and even had one that sold everything from watch batteries to 8 berth tents. All of them using dropshippers from around the world.

So much stuff, so much time not enough profit.

Although using dropshippers is a great way to start a business from nothing it does have its bad side as I found out. If you have as many sites as I did and use so many dropshippers there is a lot to do. You need to check all the items are still in stock at the various dropshippers, if they’re out of stock you need to change the status on your site manually. The last thing you want is the have to do is cancel an order because the dropshipper or even manufacturer is out of stock. Also, the profit you earn will fluctuate depending on the exchange rate. If you buy in USD and sell in GBP it’s great if the exchange rate is 2USD = 1GBP but if it’s 1USD = 1GBP, as it was at one point in 2008-09, then you’re going to be selling at a loss unless you put your prices up, you could run the risk of pricing yourself out of the market.

Buying at a dropship price is usually more than wholesale. This is understandable from the dropshippers point of view, they’re packing and shipping one item at a time, more manpower and materials cost more money. If you have limited storage space, dropshiping is still the way to go and I would recommend it. However, to enjoy extra discounts and a higher profit margin then you would need to look at wholesale.

Being me, I wanted wholesale on the cheap. I purchased a load of RC helicopter parts wholesale with the profits from dropshiped sales. All the stock came in a 3' x 2' x 2' box. I sold all of them and tripled my money.

Now I have a number of websites and use both dropshippers and wholesales. But I have never put in any of my own money. This gives me the freedom to expand into any field I choose.

I hope my story helps you get out of the red and have a better standard of living. There is one thing I would finally add. Remember that your customers always come first, if you can help them, then do so even if you may lose a couple of quid. That one happy customer could bring you another five. Never underestimate the power of 'word of mouth'.

Starting a business from nothing. My Story.