Manual Dropshipping Review: Suliman Farooq eBay Course Worth It?

Are you looking for an eBay dropshipping course? If so you’ve probably heard of Manual Dropshipping by Suliman Farooq, a $397 course that claims to show you how to build your very own 100% manual eBay dropshipping business.

There’s also a bonus course on how to use Lowe’s as a supplier which is a home improvement store in the USA but actually a clothing store in other parts of the world.

What is Manual Dropshipping About?

The course claims to be the most effective eBay dropshipping method that will create a 6 or 7 figure eBay business without any software and only a few hundred listings in your store.

It sounds too good to be true, but let’s dive in and see what’s on offer.

Who is Suliman Farooq?

The best place to find information on Suliman is over on Youtube where he operates under the brand ‘Success with Sully’ and currently has a little over 11,000 subscribers.

At 21 years old, he claims to have dropped out of college to start a few dropshipping businesses including an Amazon FBA business. On his channel you can expect to see videos on eCommerce, dropshipping, entrepreneurship and personal finance.

He’s a regular poster with a few videos per month, mostly focusing on eBay material.

After watching a few of his videos, he clearly knows what he’s talking about when it comes to eBay dropshipping.

Over on Instagram he has a small following, hardly any photos and a few travel pictures. Not quite the IG I was expecting to see from a 7 figure store owner.

Manual Dropshipping Review

Spoiler alert, the manual part involves paying a VA to go through and manually check the pricing on your supplier website. It’s strange why you’d pay a VA to do this when software can automatically do this for you. Prices with suppliers change every day, there’s nothing worse than selling a product that’s out of stock or way more expensive when you go to ship it.

Regardless the course is hosted on Teachable platform which ensures video and audio quality looks great and is responsive on every platform such as mobile, tablet and desktop.

I found the videos easy to follow along but at times quite basic.

Course Example

One of the examples provided in the course includes some ‘Southwire Romex 250’ 12-2 WG Non-Metallic Cable Copper Electrical Wire which was apparently sold 1,670 times at $62.45 on eBay. I searched this product on Lowes and the cheapest price I could find was $58.74.

That means the profit was $3.74 per sale however, this doesn’t include eBay or Paypal fees which would be 10-15% of the sale price per unit.

So that $3.74 quickly becomes a negative figure. Maybe I’m missing a trick here but even if the product was $10 cheaper at Lowes, you wouldn’t actually be making any money…

Also what happens when a Lowe’s product arrives damaged or comes in a Lowe’s branded box with a packing slip? According to Sully, less than 1% of customers complain about it, despite paying more than they could have bought it themselves.

Course Content

The course is split up into 12 modules each offering various videos. There is too be fair a lot of content here.

Module one looks at the introduction and the basics to eBay dropshipping. I’d assume you’d probably already have done your homework here on what all these topics are. You also get videos on how to switch from software to manual dropshipping.

Lastly you can join the private mastermind group which at the time of print had 100 members with an average of 10 posts per day.

Module 2: Setup

The first actual content module goes through creating an email and setting up a new Paypal account and eBay store.

This business model is targeted towards USA citizens. While possible, it’s much harder for internationals to start.

Read: How to start a US business from overseas.

You’ll learn how to setup your business store policies such as returns, warranty etc. You also learn how to set your site preferences and your return addresses. If you’re an international person what return address are you going to use? You’ll need to use a mail forwarder (expensive).

Lastly learn how to add Paypal to your listings.

Module 3: Supplier Selection

There are three short videos in this module on the things to look for when choosing a supplier.

There is a recommendation on suppliers Sully has used over the years and his reviews. It’s clear Lowe’s is his supplier of choice.

Finally there’s a video on committing to one supplier for ease of use.

Module 4: Product Research

Videos in this module include why you shouldn’t set profit minimums or daily listing standards. Also there’s a video on why Sully doesn’t use product research tools and listing software.

There’s his famous two step process for successful manual product research.

Read: 17 product tools for finding winning dropship products.

Module 5: Manual Product Research Examples

Module five goes on to show you examples of bad items you shouldn’t choose. This is a two part series covering 40 minutes.

The content is great here, Sully shows you real life examples on what to avoid and what to choose, i.e. good products.

There’s a third example on manual product research and a quicker option. Remember you are listing hundreds of products so you need to be smart here so you don’t waste too much time.

Module 6: Listing Products

This module looks at listing your first items and calculating your potential profits before listing the item. As I mentioned earlier, it’s hard to see how much profit you can make listing a retailers product on your own eBay account but Sully goes through a real example to show you.

There;s a video on listing your first item and creating the content for the sales page.

There’s videos on keeping tabs on your competitors and how to compete with them.

The last video is to do with listing limits which you will all experience especially if you’re starting a new store. You can read more about this from Powerselling Mom.

Module 7: Deal With Out of Stock / Price Issues

Sully has a strange method for dealing with out stocks and that’s the name of this course, ‘MANUAL.’ It revolves around using a Virtual Assistant to check the price every few days to ensure you are aware of any price increases and out of stocks.

There’s videos on when to delete or remove a listing from your store.

There’s a super effective bonus way to fix 99% of your out of stock issues which is unique to the course so I won’t give that away in this review.

Module 8: Important Things to Know

This module is important as it covers some of the likely scenarios you’re going to face. One of those is Paypal holding your funds and asking you to verify your supplier and/or stock.

There’s also a video on upgrading your eBay store subscription so you can save on reduced fees.

Lastly there is a video on VERO items and how to avoid listing these and getting banned on eBay. You’re not allowed to sell some tradmarked products unless you’re a licensee or have rights to sell these products. An example here might be NFL merchandise or Beat by Dre.

Watch this video before listing products, it might just save your ass from getting banned.

Module 9: Before Processing First Order

This module looking at what to do when you get your first eBay sale which hopefully will come sooner rather than later.

There’s a video on keeping your eBay orders in tack and organized with a free template included for all students.

There’s videos on cashback sites and discounted gift cards.

Module 10: Using Lowe’s

This module is juicy as I’d never considered using Lowe’s to dropship. Most courses recommend using Amazon, Walmart or Best Buy to dropship products to eBay customers.

From experience, I was actually doing this 10 years ago and back then people were pissed when an Amazon box arrived at their door with a ‘gift card’ packing slip hiding the price. I can only imagine it’s more problematic these days however Sully claims it’s no issue at all.

You get an introduction to Lowe’s and how to setup an account.

You learn how to check if an individual item has free shipping or not and how their dynamic pricing works.

Sully recommends buying Lowe’s gift cards in bulk which allow you to fulfil customer orders using them. This works out to be a saving of 4-8% depending on when you buy them. I guess these gift cards would then cover your Paypal or eBay fees depending on which subscription you’re on.

Lastly there’s a video on sales tax exemption which again could be problematic for anyone who isn’t a US citizen.

Module 11: Processing Orders on Lowe’s

There is a video on how to process orders on Lowe’s which is actually a step by step over the shoulder training video.

You also learn how to check order status on Lowe’s and what to do with Lowe’s order cancellations and dealing with their customer service.

I can only imagine when you process 100 orders a week to random addresses all over the world you’re going to attract the attention of someone at Lowe’s.

It’s not clear what happens if they ban your account or withhold your orders for potential fraud. I’d have liked to have seen a video on this topic?

Module 12: eBay Customer Service

Lastly the module looks at customer service on eBay and how to upload tracking numbers into the platform to avoid customer service issues.

You also get free scripts for dealing with customer service.

You will learn what to do with eBay returns which inevitably will occur and how to deal with these at Lowe’s and get your money back.

It would have been good if there was a video on what to do if the product returned is damaged or fraudulent. I’m sure you’ve heard of those scammers who buy something on Amazon, open the box, replace the good item with a damaged or fake one and send it back asking for a refund and repeat the process.

Next is a video on dealing with Paypal resolution cases and order cancellations.

Finally a quick trick on how to get negative feedback removed through consultations with buyers.

Can You Make Money Dropshipping on eBay?

Personally I think you can but if you’re using supplier such as Walmart, Lowe’s, Best Buy and Amazon you’re really going to struggle to make any serious money. While some consumers are stupid and would rather buy on eBay, most like to shop around and find the best price.

The price fluctuation on supplier websites, coupled with the potential for your product to be out of stock by the time you go to fulfil the order is a concern. Having only a few negatives out of hundreds on eBay can affect your ability to trade and get discounts on listing fees.

Using software is definitely the best way to monitor SKU availability and pricing in my opinion.

The cost of listing all these products from other suppliers is also time consuming and anyone that has sold on eBay before knows how difficult it is to make any decent profit margin. When you factor in eBay fees and Paypal fees you’re already losing 10-15%. I can’t imagine you being able to sell most products available on Walmart for 20%+ on eBay when Walmart have their own eBay stores so you’re left with what, 5% profit?

How many items would you really need to sell to make 6-7 figures per year at that profit margin? Thousands.

And dealing with returns, warranty claims, fraud would be a logistical nightmare too!

Better Alternative to eBay Dropshipping?

eBay is good if you’re buying products at a wholesale price. It’s not the platform to resell Walmart products for minimal profits. If you want to sell Lowe’s or Walmart products then,

You’d be far better starting a Shopify store which has no fees (you’re already saving 10%) and then using Google Shopping Ads to get your products featured on the first page of Google.

From here you can then up sell, cross sell and offer different delivery options to make more money.

You’re also not risking your business by getting a few negatives that could shut your store down overnight.

Alternatively you could look into dropshipping products from actual suppliers or using Aliexpress dropshipping.

Best Drop Ship Course?

At $100 less, eCom Elites $297 plan offers 200+ videos on dropshipping and looks at selling products from real suppliers and China. eBay drop shipping is far less profitable and time consuming and this course makes that point very clear, instead focusing on selling products with bigger margins.

You get extensive product research, Facebook Ads, Instagram Influencers, Google Ads, Google Shopping, Bing Ads, Snapchat, Pinterest, Twitter and SEO. There’s also a Facebook group with thousands of other students! You can read my review and compare for yourself.

Manual Dropshipping is definitely the best eBay dropshipping course I doubt you’ll make the 7 figures you think you will.

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Last Updated on August 27, 2019 by Rhys Dale