Yes, this is one of the bigger problems, and there's no good fix for it.

You just need to clearly state all over the site that your delivery times are 3-4 weeks.

It's unfortunate, but part of the business.

The only way around it is to have products that aren't easily sourceable via Amazon. They're out there, but mostly in very targeted niches.

You also might find that you're really scraping the bottom of the barrel for profits, but the money is still there to be had. I guess nothing ever comes easy, in any business--but there's still money to be made.

Wow, I made it up to the payment portion of your checkout process. Not a single mention of the shipping time. The button says "Complete Order" so I assume this is the last chance to notify people before they pay.

That's shady as hell, dude.

> You just need to clearly state all over the site that your delivery times are 3-4 weeks.

You definitely don't do this... at all. It's clear that you've intentionally buried that information in a separate "How we ship" page. Nobody thinks to look for that, they'll all assume shipping is the standard 5-10 days unless otherwise indicated.

If this is actually working and not causing tons of angry emails/refund requests, congrats. But I'd feel like a jerk doing that to people.

Thanks for that -- I actually think that's good feedback, and something I hadn't thought of.

We do have the shipping times listed on 3 different pages accessible from the top nav (and bottom nav), one of which is labeled 'How We Ship'.. so I dunno. It's not really something I'd considered before this, or had offered as feedback (everyone so far has advised me that outlining your details on the Shipping page is the industry standard.) And I can definitely say that I have many more visits to the FAQ and Shipping pages than I have orders, so I'm guessing people actually do read them. But again, I can't say for sure, and I haven't seen complaints about it.

It also might have to do with the products themselves. These are unattached pieces of metal/wood for the most part, at lower prices than you'd see in a guitar shop.

Beyond that, Oberlo and Shopify are setup for these kinds of businesses, so users get a stream of emails confirming each order and tracking the package throughout the journey. That seems to be enough, so far, at least. But like I said, I think that's fair criticism and something I'm actually looking to change on the checkout. It would be great to load in a shipping time on checkout pages (this information is available from the vendors), but that's not supported yet, it doesn't look like.

Assuming a specific shipping time would be ultra-weird to me - why is 5-10 days "standard". There's no default shipping time anywhere, unless you count the specific next day ones. Certainly wouldn't claim it as "shady as hell".

"Standard" shipping in the U.S. is considered 5-7 days, especially for small items. 10 days is generous.

20 days is certainly pushing the limits of what customers will tolerate without advanced notice. Many people would probably be calling for refunds after 2 weeks if they weren't told "This will take 2-4 weeks to ship" (which his site does NOT do).

30 days would be absolutely unacceptable to most people.

But unless there's some kind of information to mislead you into thinking that it should be 5-7 days, it's not the fault of (or even a dark pattern) by the company. I could understand calling it out if it were a bait and switch, but think it's an entitlement issue to assume any kind of shipping time.

Don't be ridiculous. It's misleading to not warn people that you have exceptionally long shipping times, far beyond any standard and several times longer than what 96% of customers expect (5-7 days).

If you ordered a cheeseburger at a takeout place and they said "Thanks for your order!" then took 3 hours to make it, would you say "Oops, it was my fault for assuming it would be ready in a reasonable amount of time!"

No, you'd be frustrated and asking where your food was, especially since you'd paid for it 2 hours ago and they never warned you about how long it would take.

How many sellers have delivery times like that? Do any have 1-3 day shipping?

Is it because all products are coming from the far east?

I'm looking into making a dropshipping app, but for my niche anything more than 1-3 days would be a non-starter.

You can get AliExpress suppliers to ship DHL or UPS Express, which takes 3-5 days. It varies a bit due to customs. The problem is that it's massively expensive, and doesn't make sense for a single small item.

We have established suppliers now, many of which we originally found through Alibaba/Aliexpress, and we order hundreds or thousands of items at a time (I run a small chain of cell phone repair shops), but even then shipping on a couple medium-sized boxes can run $80 and up.

I don't think I've seen anything less than 7-12 days, and that's only if the seller has a U.S. warehouse. AliExpress is definitely not the place for fast shipping.

Most sellers on there only have China warehouses, and the free shipping option is 2-4 weeks+.

You can check whatever you're interested in on AliExpress though. It's the consumer version of AliBaba, which means the price and shipping info are always included in the listing. AliBaba is the one where you need to negotiate all the terms: Price, shipping, minimum order quantity, etc.