Profile #1 - Chinavasion
Overview
Chinavasion is a worldwide dropshipper of electronic products, they are based in Shenzhen, China.
Costs & Ordering
The Chinavasion website is free to join and they never charge any fees, the product prices are available on the website even if you aren’t registered. There is no minimum order when ordering, and they also give discounts the more you order, so the more you sell the cheaper your goods will be meaning higher profit margins!
Shipping
They ship all goods in plain packaging using air express couriers (DHL, FedEx, and UPS). The typical time for orders to arrive is 6-10 days. Coming from China to the UK the postage isn’t cheap but the products are well priced so the overall cost is still very reasonable.
Website & Currency
Their website is very easy to use and has lots of detailed information covering all important information like shipping, contacting them, the dropship process etc. You can order in pounds, dollars or euros. They have a little button in their left navigation bar which you can use to change the currency to pounds.
Product Example
They sell a Super Color Watch MP4 Player 4GB for £27.07, add shipping at £8.97 the total cost would be £36.04 for a very good product.
The product isn’t a brand name, but if you run an established electronics business you could just call it an ‘own brand’ product, which I think also gives the impression your company is larger than it really is. The product also comes with a 12 month warranty which is a great for customer confidence. I think you could comfortably sell this product for just over £50 (on your own website, not ebay!) which even after your payment fees would leave a good profit.
Conclusion – The Positives & Negatives
On the positive side the cost of products is very good. Gadgets and ‘trend’ products seem to be selling very well online at the moment, Chinavasion is a great supplier if you want a piece of the action. The products also have lots of photos and in-depth descriptions which is vital for dropshippers and makes selling much easier. Other smaller benefits include; no sign-up fee, no minimum orders, you can pay via paypal and there are a variety of currency options.
On the negtive side the products aren’t branded, however this is much better than fake goods! The cost of shipping to the UK is also a negative, however this can’t be avoided and is just part of buying from any overseas company, even with the cost of shipping I still think total prices are good considering the prices you can demand from UK consumers.
Other Notes
Watch out for import duty on high value goods and big orders. If you can I would recommend you do a test order to see first hand how their service is and what a particular product is like, it will also let you know if their is any complications regarding import duty. When the product arrives you can then sell it and dispatch it yourself so you don’t lose any money. To learn more read my post about test buying which was published on this blog in January.
Website
Visit the Chinavasion website to learn more about them and use their service.
12 Comments Posted
This list is a good start. I look forward to seeing an additions to the list in the future.
Jen Thomas
Muvar Software
The problem with these items is that their markets are over prescribed, and if you sell your products on eBay you may not sell for a few weeks and still be paying fees.
RE:over-prescribed – That is why I always recommend people to set-up their own website to sell products from, or at least look for alternatives like other auction sites, classifeds etc. Then you don’t have the issue of ebay fees and also have larger profit margins.
RE:jen – I’m not sure how big the list will be as my research so far hasn’t uncovered very many reliable foreign dropshippers, I’ll keep digging
they great products ,already ordered from them
BEWARE! I bought a solar charger from them. It was dead on arrival. Now after submitting the initial support ticket and being fobbed off with ridiculous email replies AND finding that their support telephone number is not in service I am beginning to smell a rat.
I’ve noticed a few people (on forums etc) have commented on a product being dead on arrival. Chinavasion are a large company so some problems can be expected but not ones like this
If anyone is wondering about the quality of products here is a hands-on review I’ve found: http://www.joetech.com/2009/01/01/chinavasions-zoom-video-camera-gets-in-close/
Chris: Thanks for the link. Today, I also received one of their cell phone watches to review. Day one has been a little bit of clumsy learning, but I’ve only had it for about 6 hours. I’ll have a full review up in a week or so, after I’ve had more time with it, so bookmark my blog and watch for it.
I have bought five items from chinavasion for myself two mp4 players two mobile phones and a cellphone jammer. All these items arived in four days and where good quality. I have also dropshiped items from them and had no complaintes sofar. As for import dutys sofar I have found that I have been charged
import duty when I use UPS for delivery of an mp4 player and a mobile phone £15.00 each time yet when I used DHL for the same mp4 player I didnt get charged I also had a mobile phone deliverd by DHL with no duty to pay, dont know why. Also if you are going to setup an online store for your dropshiping you might like to have a look at http://www.freewebstore.org they have ready made webstores that you can customise your self,the checkout is already done for you and they have a number of payment methods already setup ie paypal,google chekout all you need is your password and user name best of all you can get an account with them for free.
Does anyone why Chinavasion has suddenly gone quiet – no responses to emails / no action on orders placed / no one answers the phone ? It has been like this since 27th May 2009.
Are they still in business ?
Can anybody tell me how to setup a Chinese mobile phone to work on the o2 uk GPRS wap I have tryed settings of the net but got no where
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