Do people actually do the Doba Dance?
My Doba Review
Doba, doba, doba, doba. Of course it sounds amazing! No inventory to handle, no big investments, just pay 49.95 /month for the starter package and your ready to make your million! I’m afraid that the only person making a million with this scheme is the CEO and Head Honcho of the whole deal, Jeremy Hanks. There are tons of other drop shipping websites out there that offer basically the same service, the only draw back: none of them work. Intrigued at first, I signed up. Just about half way through the conversion process I realized that this will never make me a penny. Ok, maybe a penny, but hardly worth my time signing up for the stupid thing. Just about the point where I had to enter my credit card number to complete my “Free 7 Day Trial” was when my heart and mind were on the same page. If this was such a golden money making idea then why hadn’t everyone done it I asked myself? Possible reason: The people just haven’t quite heard about it? I doubt it.
If you’re not familiar with the doba (or dropshipping) process here’s how it works. Doba makes friends with a bunch of big company’s, they get “wholesale” pricing on the products that the big company’s sell, then they offer you as a user those wholesale prices. You then go to ebay, make a listing (the hard work in my opinion) then sell the product to some sucker that wants to pay 10x the amount that it’s really worth! Then you tell Doba that you sold it, they ship it to the person. You pay Doba for the “wholesale” price of the item plus a small dropshipping fee, then everyone’s happy. The buyer got the item you sold them on ebay. You ripped them off because you got “wholesale” pricing from Doba, and everyone wins right? WRONG!
Now I get to explain why I put ” ” around wholesale every time.
This is where I will start my comprehensive show and tell of the Doba money making process:
First, if you log out after signing up you may want to be aware of this:
Your “USERNAME” is your email. The brief confusion could have been avoided by putting (or email address) right by USERNAME.
Next. This is after you figure out what your username and password is.
YOUR DOBA DASHBOARD: “ohhh, how cute!”
As you can see, you have your basic buttons in the top left: Catalog, Orders, Settings and Education. Then just below you will see your typical dashboard features. I will now click on Catalog to illustrate how making money using this site is a complete joke. I clicked Catalog and then narrowed my search by business. In this case I typed in Apple and this is what shows up:
As is seen above. Out of Apple’s arsenal of products, they could only provide 19 items to allow Doba to use. All crap aside, this means that Apple would only allow our Average Joe a 10 dollar discount on 19 of a million products. Hooray! 10 Dollars Off! The Doba user then goes to eBay, lists the item (in my opinion the hard part), waits for it to sell, pays Doba the “wholesale” price + a small dropship fee, then collects the remaining cash. I’m not sure when the Doba CEO Jeremy Hanks last tried to sell something on eBay, but after eBay fees, paypal fees, paying the wholesale cost, then paying the dropship fee, the Doba user would be negative at least $50.00. (negative amount varies depending on how much your time is worth during the listing process). Seriously though.
Lets go through the process with the Apple 4GB 2nd Generation ipod Nano. The “wholesale” price is $225.35 (don’t ask me where they came up with the .35. Probably some really complicated algorythm. More power to ‘em). Do a simple ebay search for recently completed listings and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to notice that a NIB (New in Box) 4GB 2nd Generation ipod Nano sold for 167.73 + 7.50 shipping. Wow! Do the math and you can see that you’re not going to make money. Do this with a few more items as I did and you’ll quickly be discouraged. God help Walmart if they are getting Doba wholesale pricing! That’s all I have to say.
(completed listing eBay Search for 4GB Apple iPod - 2nd Gen.)
Also, please note the 8GB iPod Nano that sold for $185.00 + $9.60 Shipping. This is NEW IN BOX. Doba’s price for the 4GB is only $225.35. What a Joke! It’s a wonder why anyone shops on eBay anymore with the amazing prices that Doba has! Ha!
Conclusion:
Doba: Genius Idea. Brilliant Business Plan. Not feasible. “Wholesale” prices aren’t really real wholesale prices. No room for profit margins. Company not built with eBay, paypal, and other fees in mind. I’m not calling Jeremy Hanks a loser or a brain-dead hippy. As a matter of fact, I guarantee he’s a million times smarter than I. I applaud his genius and laugh at the people who continue to try to sell on ebay from the products offered through Doba. Who knows though, somebody’s got to be making money off it right? We’ll see what the future holds for the Dobanites.
*UPDATE*
So I did the Free Trial, and after about two days I emailed doba and told them to please cancel my account. I thought I was finished once and for all. A week or so later, I realized that on my bank statement I was charged a good 35 dollars or something. I don’t remember the exact figure, but needless to say, I was angry. I got an email back after sending the cancellation request and just brushed it off as a confirmation of my request to cancel. Nope. The email stated their concern about my cancellation and said that I would need to call member services to cancel. Call it my fault, I’ll agree. But at the same time I’ll call it sleezy business practice. Well, I guess I won’t go that far. I understand their need to “protect” their customer’s privacy, but it didn’t make me happy.
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