If you have ever tried to enter the dropshipping marketplace, you may have run into a few obstacles. First of all, you have to find suppliers yourself. Some of the companies you deal with may be great, but others could be less than ideal for your company’s needs.
Doba is a company that can help to streamline dropshipping and make sure you get the most for your money.
Not all suppliers do the entire dropshipping process. If you find some that do, you will then have to design a process that works for your company, and the dropshipper as well. This can be a complex process, but Doba has created a platform that makes it much easier.
Doba has worked to solve all of these problems. It is a platform that links merchants to suppliers, especially those that dropship. Doba has been racking up some great reviews on the web as a sourcing directory that specializes in making dropshipping work.
In this review, you can find loads more info on what Doba offers, as well as its benefits, pricing, and customer support options. Let’s have a look at what Doba does best!
What is Doba?
At its core, Doba is a middleman which connects drop shipping companies with aspiring retailers. It also provides your company with the technology to list and sell items from a dropshippers’ warehouse.
If you want to sell goods online and don’t want a household or warehouse full of packages to look after, you can turn to dropshipping. A dropshipper will coordinate the storage and shipping of multiple products for you, so all you have to do is market and sell the products.
One of the issues you may encounter when looking for dropshippers are the costs involved. The dropshipping company often requires you to either take a cut from your own profit margins or increase pricing for your customers, since the profits when you are not buying in bulk are low.
This is where Doba comes in. Doba is good at keeping costs low and matching you up with suppliers that offer the products you want to sell. Doba also has a marketplace of suppliers that are vetted and ready to partner with your online store.
Doba states that it offers 2+ million products to choose from and they can all be dropshipped.
How does Doba work?
If you want to begin a dropshipping store with Doba, you can choose from a wide range of products. It still takes work to decide on what to sell, but with Doba, you can be sure that the products will be of good quality, and you won’t run into dropshipping issues.
Finding Products and Suppliers
The first is to look for in the Doba marketplace are the products you want to sell in your store. Here are some of the tools you can use to search for products on Doba:
Doba has a product feed and featured products at the top of its website. You can filter by category to find products that would work for your business.
You can also check a list of suppliers alphabetically, and then click on one for more information. There is also an online catalog that you can use to find products to sell.
Clicking the sidebar on the left of the page will allow you to search directly, or filter products by category, supplier, brand, price range, shipping filters, and quantity.
Then you can prioritize what comes first in the results from the dropdown box next to “sort by.” This gives you many opportunities to customize your search, and save time.
Exporting Your Data
You can easily export the product listings you find on the platform and transfer all of the details, such as pictures, prices, and descriptions, to your online store into various formats. There is also a little tutorial video showing you how to do it on the Doba website.
Make a Sale
Once you sell your goods to customers, you will have to pay Doba for the product. This is an advantage of dropshipping since you are not paying for anything, and you will make a profit every time your shop makes a sale.
The Rest of the Process is Easy
- Goods are transferred to customers – The supplier gets a notification to ship the item directly to your customer. You don’t have to do anything, it is all automated.
- Receive profits –The profits from your sale are deposited into your account.
Doba’s platform pretty similar to other dropshipping apps on the market, but the big difference is that it works reliably. You don’t have to worry about a shipment taking months, or the suppliers disappearing after a sale is made.
Doba interviews and examines each of the manufacturers and suppliers it features on its platform, so your online business runs smoothly.
Doba Features
Doba has created solid connections with loads of suppliers and can offer over two million products for you to sell in your store. You can choose from many categories, including automotive, apparel, books, electronics, and sports goods.
Some of the things that Doba does best are its pricing and the marketplace it has created. It is simple to add great items to your site and offer low prices.
There are millions of products in the Doba marketplace, and they ship from several different locations over the world. Some even ship from the USA, so it won’t take long for the goods to reach your US-based customers.
The pricing for many of the products is good enough that you can compete with companies on Amazon, so you can earn more profits while making sales, as well as save money for your customers.
Direct Integration into Your Online Store
Doba comes with technical features that make it stand out when compared to other apps.
Its platform allows you to search its marketplace quickly and easily to locate something you want to sell. After you select a product and decide to move it to your store, there is an option for you to immediately send the product information to your online store.
The advantage to you is that there is already a description, title, pricing, and pictures. Many of these details, of course, are brought from the manufacturer so they may not be totally objective, but pre-created product details make it much easier for you to rewrite them later on.
One of the other great parts of the direct integration with your store is that it gives you the ability to bulk import/export large product lists.
Doba compiles a list of all items you would like to sell, then you bring that product list into your store by just only clicking on the ‘Export’ button. This is a super-easy way to create an online store with loads of products in only a few hours.
No Need to Store or Ship Your Products
Like any dropshipping platform, Doba removes all the logistics from your operation. It is a system where the supplier is responsible for all of the storage and shipping.
Doba not only integrates directly with your online store, but also gives you the advantage in storing, packaging, and shipping your products as well via its partner companies.
The main thing you have to focus on is running an effective online store and marketing products that will drive sales for both you, and the dropshipping companies that you use.
The cost savings that these systems create are substantial. Instead of dealing with loads of products that your business would have to invest money to buy, you can just create effective marketing channels, and let your dropshipping partners do the rest.
Advanced Searching and Filtering
The advanced search and filtering features that Doba offers are superior to many other dropshipping companies. Doba has such a deep range of products to choose from that a fast, efficient filtering process is vital to its utility.
For instance, if you look for cooking equipment, you can select the exact categories you want to sell on your store, and have an online shop full of great items without a lot of hassle.
Inventory Alerts
With Doba, you can set up inventory alerts by sending a threshold of when you would like to get an alert when inventory gets too low.
For instance, in case you have a popular item that drops out of stock a lot, you would need Doba to alert you when the items are running low.
This is easy to do with Doba!
Doba would send an alert email to you and you could remove this item from your store to avoid selling a product that was out of stock. This means happy customers and no misunderstandings.
Inventory Management
You obviously need a way to handle all these items when collecting them on Doba’s platform. Doba shows your inventory in a list that allows you to arrange and manage all the things as lists, and also shows you information like quantity available and in-stock items.
Also, Doba has an inventory area in the dashboard which has a tool that allows the export of a bulk list of products that can be listed directly on your online store, or sent to any marketplace which you chose. You can sell products on platforms like Amazon or Etsy, without having to do much extra work.
Data Reports with Full Customization
All of your sales data is saved on the Doba dashboard. This feature allows you to access all your sales information just by logging into the platform. Doba also includes a custom data export feature to avoid the hassle of working with spreadsheets and trying to import spreadsheets into your eCommerce platform.
Your data export page will give you all the sales information or an inventory feed to export. Later, you can choose your online store’s eCommerce platform and the proper formatting for your needs. The export file is then automatically generated, and you can do whatever you want with it.
The Elite Seller Report
The Elite Seller Report has information on deals, trends, and discounts. It is like a Doba newsletter that helps you to spot potential opportunities. There are a curated product list and suggestions for which items to choose to get the most profit. You can also check out the supplier scorecards and then decide who to work with.
Trending and Seasonal Discounts from Suppliers
Being a Doba member gives you the ability to receive all sorts of email newsletters, tips, and information that relate to your suppliers. You might find cool deals from some of the suppliers that work with Doba. These deals come in all the time and feature trending products or seasonal discounts that pop up.
If you notice a deal on products that could be sold in your store, you can take advantage of the discount and earn more profits for your own business. It is great that Doba sometimes features new suppliers in certain categories who give out discounts on new goods or make sweet deals to Doba members.
A Scorecard for All Suppliers
The Supplier Scorecard is a great feature that supports Doba clients. You will be able to find reputable suppliers in less time by looking at their scorecard. You can check to see which suppliers follow up, deliver on time, and make quality products.
Doba has already done the research for you, and you only make a decision based on the work it has put into finding great suppliers.
You can check everything from fulfillment rates to processing times and return policies to shipping carrier options by looking at the performance data from a supplier. It one of the most valuable assets for a dropshipping business, and you can make it work for your online selling business.
Curated List of High-margin Products
Dropshipping is one of the best choices for anyone who wants to start selling a range of products because you do not have to pay any deposit fees to buy wholesale products, nor do you have to deal with logistics, which frees up a lot of time and money.
Doba makes it easy to start off on the right foot by delivering a list of high margin products that you can sell online at a store, or just on Amazon. Instead of doing all the research yourself, you can look through the items that Doba has selected, and choose the ones that work for your brand.
Doba Pricing
Doba will allow you to sell dropshipped items near wholesale prices, but it also comes with a cost. It isn’t free to use the platform, and you will have to pay for a monthly subscription.
There are also charges for every order that you place, although that isn’t as important, as you will be making money on every order on the platform.
Here are the pricing plans that Doba offers:
- Basic plan – $29 USD per month gets you a $0.99 USD per-order fee and allows you to access to millions of products in the marketplace as well as the hundreds of suppliers. There is also a community Q&A, and Doba often offers deals in a weekly email. You also get access to live training webinars and email support.
- Advanced plan – $69 USD per month gives you everything advantages in basic, but also along with eBay data export, an Elite seller report, and live chat support.
- Pro plan – $249 USD per month gives you everything in both previous plans. In addition, there is also Amazon data export, batch order upload, custom data export, street price data, and direct phone support.
- Enterprise plan – Requires you to contact Doba for custom rates. This plan offers some interesting features, including the API integration, shared FTP data transfers, a lower per-order fee, unlimited data exporting, a dedicated client success manager, and merchandising services.
Doba offers a free 14-day trial for testing out, but you will need to supply a credit card to gain access to the free trial. Of course, you can stop payment before the trial ends. There is a Cancellation link in your Account Settings.
Doba Customer Support
The customer support that Doba provides is based on which plan you choose. For instance, one plan gets you to email support, while a step-up provides live chat support. Once you go up one more plan there is a phone to support. Enterprise plan members gain access to a success manager.
In addition, retailer and partner API documentation is provided for integrating the products you choose with your existing or planned web selling platform. Doba is based in Utah, USA, and its main support and sales email contacts are listed on the company’s website.
Doba also provides a useful resources page for users that contains whitepapers, infographics, business guides. It also looks like Doba is active on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, and you may be able to contact the company through social media.
Doba: The Rundown
Despite having a few minor drawbacks, Doba is a compelling option for anyone who wants to start selling goods online and doesn’t want to deal with anything but sorting through a massive dropshipping catalog.
Doba has done a lot of the legwork to make dropshipping easy, and it isn’t hard to see why the company doesn’t have a free option. For anyone that already has a selling presence online, using a platform like this is almost guaranteed to boost profits.
Pros and Cons of Doba
Pros
- The website is easy to understand and use: It is not hard for you to find your way around. Doba has worked to make itself extremely user-friendly. There are many different methods for discovering products and filtering search results.
- Provides helpful and reliable resources for dropshipping: In the Doba site, you can find a wide variety of resources. You can access free resources such as the blog, as well as business guides, a list of suggested business tools, infographics, and white papers without signing up. Doba allows you to access lessons about how to export data to various formats and more once you have an account.
- It’s easy to customize your own inventories for quick reference: When products in your lists are changed, you can review and export data for use in any way you want.
- The integration between Doba and several Shopping Carts makes uploading product info much faster and easier: Taking product details and manually adding them to your listings can be time-consuming. Doba bridges the gap to make the process faster and easier for you.
- Low inventory notifications: If a supplier updates the products in their account close to low stock, Doba will notify you so you can follow the updates and avoid selling more than is available.
Cons
- Membership is not cheap for startups: With its pricing plan, Doba is certainly not the cheapest option, so you will have to be more aggressive about earning that money back than you would with other, less-expensive services. The site does have a money-back guarantee, but you have to prove that you have put in enough effort before you’ll be eligible.
Conclusion
Doba has many strong points. It is easy to export product information, save time with the data integration options, and also navigate through a massive catalog of items. Doba clients will also benefit from the research and ranking that Doba has done, as there are many less-than-spectacular companies in the dropshipping sector.
It might be not cheap at all for startups, but you should be able to make up the monthly costs most of the time. In short, the Doba platform has so many products with reasonable prices and other tools that make a dropshipping business easy to start or expand.
Like any business that requires a monthly investment, it is important that your sales channels are able to create repeatable monthly income. If you are just starting up your first website, this might not be the ideal platform. On the other hand, if you are already making sales on a regular basis, Doba can help you expand with very little effort.
Doba
Pros
- Free Trial Available
- Easy to Use
- Good Inventory System
- Lots of Suppliers & Products
- Export to eBay & Amazon
Cons
- Design could be better
- Need a paid plan
