DOBA Do Not Sign Up With Doba Orem, Utah

I was looking for drop shippers to use to supply merchandise for several online stores that I was creating intending to sell a variety of types of products. An Internet search turned up Doba, a company positioning themselves as sort of a middle-man between a seemingly large number of drop shippers and people in my position looking for merchandise to sell online. 

I tried to find some information about them but couldn't find anything substantive (one of the reasons for my writing this). 

Looking at the Doba website they appear to be on the level, posting testimonials and lots of "educational material" on the subject of drop shipping. From all outward appearances, they appeared legitimate. I contacted them with some preliminary questions and got a pretty heavy sales pitch ending with what sounded like a pretty strong guarantee. For approximately $360 they will give you a huge discount on your first year of membership (which ordinarily costs at least twice that if not more) and, if you don't make that money back, they'll refund it as long as you log in to your account at least 3 times a month.

Please note that I was initially told on the phone that it was only 3 times a month but later, when I called to cancel about half-way through the deal, I was told that it was 4 times a month. That turned out to be irrelevant in my case as apparently I only logged in twice one month, thereby forfeiting all my money. But, though that bothered me a lot, that's not my primary complaint. 

The problem is, you can't get any sense of what the pricing is from these drop shippers before you join. Once you become a member, you will find -- much to your dismay-- that the so-called wholesale prices at which you're supposed to be able to buy the merchandise are in many cases not any lower than the retail price you can find anywhere else online. In fact, in a large amount of instances, I actually could find stores selling these exact items for less than I was able to buy them for from my Doba drop shippers. Doba is quite aware that this is the case and even has educational materials that strain to persuade you that low pricing isn't important. Well, it may not be the only factor that determines a store's success but if you can't even buy the wholesale merchandise that you're trying to sell for less than your competition is selling it for online retail, there's no way that you can possibly make any money. 

Oh sure, they will show you some highly inflated "retail price" that's 30-50% higher than your cost but you'll soon find that no one is selling the items anywhere near that retail price.

On top of that, if you do think you've found some supplier where your purchase price from them will allow you to have some margin and successfully sell online - think again. If you go to eBay, Amazon, or any of the other marketplace websites, you'll see literally dozens of others exactly like you all trying to sell the exact same item at the exact same price (or lower) than you could possibly sell it for.

I've successfully sold merchandise online directly through drop shippers (not a middleman) before so I do know something about how this is supposed to work. 

Additionally, I noticed they had, without my consent, signed my account up for automatic renewal which, when my initial membership expired, would have hit my credit card with about a $1,500 charge. When I called to have them remove that, the said they would. But, sure enough, when the membership period ran out, there was an attempt made by them to hit my card. Fortunately, I had changed card numbers for an unrelated reason and the transaction didn't go through.

I strongly urge anyone trying to make a business of selling merchandise online to avoid Doba like the plague. You won't make money with them and they will find some technicality to weasel out of that guarantee.