DS Domination beta Review: Dropshipping products?
DS Domination went into beta launch on August 23rd. Currently there is no information on the DS Domination website indicating who owns or runs the business.
The DS Domination “about us” page does not share information with the general public unless they join the company:
You are not allowed to view this page. This means you have not yet activated your purchase of this product.
Interestingly, the DS Domination website domain is registered to a “Kevin Hokoana” using an Army Post Office Box (APO) address in “Armed Forces Pacific”.
Despite the domain being registered to Hokoana however, DS Domination affiliates are crediting “Roger Langille” as “behind the company”, claiming he ‘ has been a top seller on EBay almost 10 year and was doing more than 7 figures a year!
A thread on the popular Warrior Forum (published on the 27th March, 2013) provides some additional information, indicating that both Kevin Hokoana and Roger Langille are seasoned affiliate marketers.
I have promoted some products for Kevin Hokoana, and made some affiliate sales, but he does not answer emails, and getting hold of the guy is next to impossible. I have even phoned him in the states, but no joy.
I work with Kevin as well and had trouble getting paid until I found out that he’s an Air Force Major and was unavailable for a few weeks straight due to the North Korea stuff. I know Roger (his partner) really well too which is how I found that out.
I already have Kevin and Roger on Skype, and the promises keep coming about payment, but so far… nothing..
I won’t be promoting anything else for them, because they are simply unreliable, and traffic is valuable, and I will be pushing the traffic to somewhere it is appreciated, and for affiliates promoters that respect their affiliates, because these two certainly don’t!
Meanwhile Roger Langille credits himself as “the eBay trainer” on his personal blog, claiming to be a “Titanium Seller”.
Currently, I am designing automated systems to allow people to monitor inventory, as well as automatically upload thousands of items in seconds. These systems will allow automation of eBay to take it to the next level and beyond.
On the executive side of things I haven’t seen anything Roger Langille has been involved in but as an affiliate I’ve seen his named pop up as an affiliate of MyShoppingGenie (now defunct recruitment-based app opportunity), Visalus (weightloss) and Sozo (coffee berry).
Finally there appears to be some ambiguity as to where DS Domination operate of. As already mentioned, the company’s domain is registered to Kevin Hokoana using an APO in what appears to be Japan. Meanwhile the company’s Terms and Conditions state:
These Terms and Conditions shall be construed in accordance with and governed by the laws of the United States and the State of California, without reference to their rules regarding conflicts of law.
You hereby irrevocably consent to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state or federal courts in San Diego County, California, USA in all disputes arising out of or related to the use of the Site or Service.
And then a third address pops up on DS Domination’s Privacy Policy Page –
This site is owned and operated by
DS Domination
15201 Mason Rd. Ste 1000 #145
Cypress, TX 77433
Whether DS Domination is based out of Texas, California or Japan is unclear.
Read on for a full review of the DS Domination Beta Launch MLM opportunity.
The DS Domination Product Line
DS Domination has no retailable products or services. Instead, the company bundles what appears to be some sort of Amazon based dropshipping platform with affiliate membership.
On the DS Domination website there’s a promo video that states
any user can create an income within minutes. Simply by copy pasting product information from one company to another.
From the sounds of it and given Robert Langille’s claims about drop shipping and ebay, this appears to be some sort of service that automates the listing of Amazon products on eBay at a marked up price.
This appears to be something Langille has offered before, as discussion in this WarriorForum thread from January 2013 outlines:
Hey Warriors, anybody have any info on this guy? Someone sent me to a pre-recorded webinar of him talking about his Amazon/Ebay arbritage system.
Any experience with his membership site? I think its like 47 bucks to start. Thanks!
The guy advocates signing up for suppliers using ‘their descriptions’ and ‘their products’ and selling it for a higher price.
Well, here’s the problem with doing a ‘push to eBay’ system: You will be EXACTLY the same as every one else. You will not set yourself apart from anyone else and you will have no skills in undercutting any of your competition.
Interestingly enough, using Amazon to dropship items is against their terms and conditions.
DS Domination sell the above “service” for $19.95 a month.
The company all appears to upsell membership, adding additional dropshipping supplier availability.
- Unleashed – $249 (one time payment)
- Elite – $99 a month
- Monopoly (no details provided)
The DS Domination Compensation Plan
The DS Domination compensation plan appears to be matrix based, with affiliate membership fees pumped into the matrix by new affiliates and then re-distributed back out amongst existing affiliates.
Monthly affiliate fees are also re-distributed out amongst affiliates as part of DS Domination’s commission structure.
At the time of publication, DS Domination itself provides no information on its website about its compensation plan. The company’s affiliates however are advertising the income opportunity as being based on either a 10 level matrix or unilevel.
Commissions are paid out as a percentage, with how much of a percentage being paid out dependent on what level an affiliate is placed on:
- Level 1 – 50%
- Level 2 – 10%
- Level 3 – 5%
- Level 4 – 3%
- Level 5 – 2%
- Levels 6 to 10 – 1%
100% of the commissions paid out by DS Domination appear to be affiliate funded and a combination of membership fees and training upsells.
Joining DS Domination
Basic affiliate membership to DS Domination (Pro) is $19.95 a month. Elite membership is $99 a month and then there are the Unleashed ($249) and Monopoly (???) upsells.
Conclusion
In the blueprint you will learn how to buy cheap in amazon and other places and sale high in eBay.
You can start for $20 per month and begin earning an income by simply copying products from one site to another.
DS Domination (which I believe stands for “dropship domination” doesn’t appear to make much sense as an MLM business opportunity. On its own the concept of buying products from one shop and selling it at a higher price elsewhere sounds feasible, when combined with an MLM opportunity though it leaves little room for legitimacy.
As evidenced by DS Domination’s compensation plan, when you’re dealing with something that you’re essentially just providing “how-to” advice for, that leaves company membership as your primary product.
In MLM, if a company is pushing affiliate membership as their primary product then recruitment is the name of the game and pyramid scheme issues present.
With 100% of the commissions paid out in DS Domination being sourced from affiliates and primarily tied into an affiliate paying monthly membership fees, DS Domination enters pyramid scheme territory.
You sign up as a DS Domination affiliate, you pay your affiliate membership fees and then recruit others who do the same. The more affiliate you and your up and downlines recruit, the more commissions you make.
Furthermore it’s important to note that any commissions made as a result of using eBay, Amazon and any third-party services are external to the DS Domination comp plan, which only pays out on affiliate-funded fees.
Bottom line?
“How-to” advice doesn’t qualify as an MLM product on its own, you need to be offering retailable products and services to end-users to demonstrate legitimacy and value in both your product and company.
DS Domination fails in this aspect.
Footnote: The above review was written based on information currently available on DS Domination. Pending any changes to the DS Domination business model and compensation plan, I’ll conduct a follow-up review when the company launches.
There’s no date provided on the website indicating when this will take place, so I’m not sure when the company expects to officially launch.
Let me see if I understand how this works:
Find some random stuff you like on Amazon, presumably last sold for pretty high prices on eBay to make a profit. Copy the URL to this DSD and it’ll automate a listing for you on Ebay.
Then if some dumb schmuck bid high enough, charge them big S&H then just enter their shipping address while you pay for it out of your pocket once you got their money? (Presumably you got Amazon prime so shipping free?)
Only works once per sucker. Once they got an envelope that says “fulfilled by Amazon” they’re gonna say WTF? I could have gone to Amazon! Of course, there are thousands of suckers on eBay, I supposed…
But with price comparison engines built into browsers nowadays (I have “InvisibleHand” installed, automatically finds items across multiple online vendors) this service is much like Empowered… Charging big $$$ for something you can do yourself for FREE. (And you still have to pay eBay for listing fees and whatnot!)
Hmmm… Not illegal, but a bit under-disclosed, IMHO. Borderline deceptive.
Hey Oz,
Long time reader here from Arizona. I bought Roger’s ebay training from before DS Domination days. It is the real deal and I’ve been doing very well with it for a while (about $1500 a month in net profit).
For one, you’re thinking that this is about Amazon to ebay – while that is the easiest, that’s not the main focus and Roger clearly states that amazon is just to get started and understand the ropes – after that there are a bunch of other product sources that he goes over.
As for the DSD side – I’m obviously involved in that as well – it’s ore updated training than the previous ebay one, but there are afew others things in here:
1. On the webinar last night they covered how they connect into cpa offers to provide cashflow to help source products and sell on ebay in case you don’t have any funds to get going.
2. They said they have additional software coming out that currently costs $70+ per month.
I’m only involved in this as a customer. Have no intention of promoting, don’t need to. There’s cpa stuff, ebay sales, sales on other locations, commissions from amazon and cash back from some of the sources.
Clearly, this is a stand-alone product – to me at least its very clear because I have been using it since before there was any mlm/affiliate side attached to it.
I’m not sure if you’re saying that all digital products are categorically a pyramid scheme??
Just one more note guys – since I noticed you didn’t have anything written on Monopoly:
Monopoly is about selling products on Amazon, which as you know is MUCH harder than usual. They’re not only showing how, but have connections in place for getting UPC codes and a lot of stuff like that.
To me so far this seems like a really good platform for sellers with just an mlm commission structure attached to it. They do distinguish between affiliates and customers as well very clearly.
That’s my take on it at this point. Of course how they build the company and the ‘culture’ of it will determine what side they emphasize most.
BTW, I’m not defending this as a principle – I’m categorically opposed to things like empowernetwork.
That’s a T Le Mont Silver Sr favorite…
Not sure if the comparison to Empower is fair at all. No one would EVER pay money for a free wordpress blog without the attached opportunity. That’s a pyramid scheme where the blog is the ‘excuse’ for the mlm.
I don’t think that’s the case here primarily because according to the info I received they’ve been selling the product very successfully already and have just attached a multi-tiered payout to it.
I saw their webinar recording earlier and 95% of the time they just talked about the training and the product and then only briefly focused on the affiliate side of things.
To me that sounds fair and not at all like empower bs.
The biggest difference to me was when this indian gentleman was speaking and he said something like don’t spend all your money in a go – get the basic one, start generating revenue, then get other stuff as you are ready to scale up. If you’re having success, then share our platform with others.
That is the OPPOSITE of empower bs about ‘go all in’ and give thousands of $ to the daves for a free blog and info on how to make money selling empower to others.
@Mark
But the concept remains the same no?
Copy and paste product description from A to B, mark up price and hope some poor schmuck buys it?
Returns and refunds must be a nightmare.
What is the “product” exactly?
As for it being standalone, I saw no retail offering in DS Domination. You pay your membership fee and you’re an affiliate with access to the compensation plan. Whether you personally recruit or not to generate commissions is irrelevant.
Nope. Not saying that at all.
Had a marketing video by Trent Wideman sent in via email:
Red flag pops up at [3:32]:
“Making money on eBay” is not a viable MLM product. Couple that with recruitment commissions and things only get worse.
At [9:50] Hitesh (Juneja) is also named as a third admin/owner of DS Domination.
Hitesh Juneja… Wasn’t he sysadmin on Kingdom Craze?
Good, I’d *hate* to see that’s the extent of the lesson. I’d imagine he had some secret sources he’ll reveal when you pay for the course.
The next question is what’s to prevent *those* sources from listing their own stuff and “cut out the middleman”, as they say? There’s already bazillion vendors selling directly out of Hong Kong and China.
Well, I was in a pretty sarcastic mood this morning, but I think my point is the same. The general concept I’ve described seem to be accurate, but there are of course, additional sources (probably “madeinchina.com” or “alibaba” or somethin glike that) besides Amazon that can be tapped for better margins.
So you can definitely pay for the lessons and learn those secrets… so what that does MONTHLY fee get you? Hmmm?
You had Juneja identified as an agent for Kingdom Craze.
Some memory you got there. I get snowed under with the amount of information I have to process to put content together for BehindMLM.
The same names just keep popping up like rubber duckies, eh?
Using the trade name “Monopoly” and the corresponding intellectual property of Hasbro is a potential land mine if DS Domination has not reached a licensing arrangement with Hasbro.
Look, for example, how McDonald’s USA LLC refers to its Monopoly licensing arrangement with Hasbro:
http://news.mcdonalds.com/US/releases/MONOPOLY%C2%AE-Game-at-McDonald-s%C2%AE-Returns-with-a-Chanc
Lots of info in that McDonald’s news release worth paying attention to, including the all-caps “NO PURCHASE NECESSARY” disclaimer and references to the odds of winning a prize.
If DS Domination isn’t a Hasbro licensee and is charging (or planning to charge) a fee to enrollees in a “Monopoly” game, it potentially is playing with fire under both the trademark AND the sweeepstakes laws.
I have seen nothing from DS Domination that even references Hasbro, despite the repeated references to “Monopoly.” There are photos on Facebook of a Monopoly board game in which the logos of both DS Domination and Monopoly appear.
DS Domination affiliates need to find out if the “program” is licensed by Hasbro.
Meanwhile, there is at least one video in which a DS Domination affiliate is trying to lure DS Domination prospects by waving a check from Visalus — while at once videotaping his own back office at PayPal to show affiliate earnings flowing in and who they are from.
The video alone raises privacy concerns for his clients/customers in other “programs” because sloppy editing has resulted in the exposure of their names. So, if you did business in the past with this emerging DS Domination pitchman, you could find your name appearing in a promo for DS Domination.
If you join DS Domination under him, well, he’s already showing sloppiness and a proclivity not to care all that much about the privacy of customers, so maybe YOUR name will appear in one of his upcoming promos for DS Domination.
PPBlog
DSD Monopoly is meant as the dictionary definition of the word, ie “exclusive control”.
It teaches you how to sell on Amazon as well, and where to find products that you can profit from, how to get massive discounts on fees, etc.
Really good training. Probably one of the best ones. But it has nothing to do with the game Monopoly lol
There is also an additional $9.95 affiliate fee for those who want to promote it. That distinguishes between the customers and the affiliates. You also need to own a specific training in order to get commissioned on it, providing you paid the affiliate fee.
Well, your comments certainly are interesting, given that the DS Domination Facebook site is openly publishing an image of the Monopoly board game that marries both the Monopoly logo and the DS Domination logo.
So, the consuming public could be led to believe that DS Domination has some sort of tie to Monopoly/Hasbro. If what you say is correct — that “DSD Monopoly is meant as the dictionary definition of the word” and “it has nothing to do with the game Monopoly” — then why is DS Domination using Hasbro’s intellectual property in an effort to drive sales for DS Domination?
What the MLM industry may be facing here is yet another example of an MLM company and/or its affiliates trying to create legitimacy by osmosis by implying an upstart firm has the endorsement of a famous company.
This at once dilutes the famous company’s trademark and creates confusion in the public’s mind about ties between two companies.
Good luck to DDS is it finds itself explaining to Hasbro that it meant the “dictionary definition” of Monopoly even as it or affiliates were publishing the Monopoly logo and marrying it to DDS.
PPBlog
Texas address is a Postbox Etc.
http://www.superpages.com/bp//Post-Boxes-Etc-L0101190783.htm
Nothing matches in California corporation search for “domination” (lots of companies, none matches this one)
Can’t find a matching corp in Texas either.
It may be a “dba”.
Fictitious business names are not filed with the Secretary of State’s Office. There is no provision in California for registration, in a central registry at the state level, of fictitious business names.
You must contact the city and/or county clerk and/or recorder where the principal place of business is located for information regarding filing or registering fictitious business names.
Could be. DBA is registered in the county office, not at state level. Still, if they didn’t incorporate, it really screams fly-by-night business (not that incorporating helps in that regard, it’s simply one of the factors).
Just for the heck of it, I searched County records in Harris County (Cypress, TX) and got nothing. Nothing in San Diego county, CA either.
I take that back. This search thing in Harris county is borked.
And that traced to:
That name sounds familiar…
Indeed, Power Results Academy was reviewed here, and Jason Rose is also linked to Kingdom Craze.
Someone sent me the full DS Domination comp plan via email.
$9.95 a month affiliate fee, affiliates must buy-in at a level to earn commission or “have 7 customers” (no mention of retail requirement).
Pro ($19.95) and Elite ($99) are the monthly fees and Unleashed ($249) and Monopoly ($499) are the upsells.
I’m not seeing this as a viable retail service. Once you know the third-party suppliers what do you need to keep paying monthly access fees for (sans $9.95 affiliate fee)?
This is just going to wind up being a bunch of affiliates paying $9.95, buying into various levels and shuffling around their access money each month.
I’ll do another review when the proper DS Domination website goes live (September?) with the full comp plan.
Here’s how straightforward it is:
There are 5 products for now – Pro, Elite, Unleashed, Monopoly and Market Xtreme. You do NOT get paid to share this with anyone. If you want to promote, you sign up as a distributor separately.
Customers and affiliates are completely different from each other. On the webinar last night they said the current customer to affiliate ratio is higher than 5:1 and it’s getting wider.
The customer at each level gets training, and they have software that is really going to be the main part. I currently do a LOT of dropshipping so I can tell you upfront – the training is by far the best I’ve seen out there.
The software updates that were described last night both are WAY over the value in what’s being charged. I currently pay $190/month in costs for similar software to help automate my dropshipping.
The biggest factor again to me is that they already have almost 3000 customers – from before they EVER had a mlm side to this. This ‘review’ is trying to make this seem like a recruitment thing when it’s not ANYTHING like that at all.
I’ll see if I can get a webinar copy from last night – these guys are BEYOND legit. The indian man (Tesh?) got on and explained how they really don’t want people buying all the products immediately and to build slowly and focus on using the product, not on promoting all the time. It’s as opposite for Empower and other options like that.
Seriously guys, it ticks me off that very rarely something legit comes out that’s actually helping people and there are still people on the sidelines trying to tear it down.
This is a legit selection of products with an affiliate side attached to it. The customers and affiliates are completely separate and they personally insist that they want you to use the products and make an income with dropshipping, not just become big time promoters alone.
Again, to me it looks like the people reviewing this have NEVER done dropshipping in their life! I do this for a living and I can tell you the value is far beyond the prices right now.
I see this totally as a legit retail offering and I would buy this in a heartbeat with not a thought of promoting it as an affiliate (which is what I’m doing). I’ve only shared this with a couple of my friends who’ve been wanting to get into dropshipping as well – and not because I want commissions but because the training and coming software is that good.
Disclaimer: should they release crummy software or don’t follow through on releasing the software, I would take this back and agree more with what’s being said.
@JoshQ
Ah, as I suspected.
What they had before the launch of DS Domination is irrelevant. And I’m calling further BS on the prior company having 3000 paying customers.
3000 people paying money each month to be “trained” to copy product information from one website to another? Right…
Software that does what? Automate CTRL-C, load up a new URL and then CTRL-V?
As far as DS Domination goes, sounds like they’re counting total prior customers of other ventures to calculate a 5:1 ratio. Misleading.
The actual number of DS Domination non-affiliate subscribers (ie. customers who signed up since the 23rd) vs. affiliates is the relevant number. Just a hunch, but I’m punting you’ll find it negligible.
@ Oz,
Well, you’re wrong both counts. They were very clear that they have not imported any existing users into DSD. The customer to affiliate ratio defined is out of their current user base of around 1000 or so (again, this was clarified last night).
No, the software is not just automating copy-pasting. What it’s SUPPOSED to (and I say that because its not out and if it does not do this, I will be inclined to agree with you) track your profitability across hundreds of listings, optimizes them to prevent losses on sales, manage the images and listing templates and also streamlines the ordering process.
But even if it did not do that, your subjective evaluation of whether it is worth it or not is pointless. What matters is if someone else is willing to pay for it. I would never pay for a Justin Bieber concert, but many others would.
You might put down the existing software that I use to make my ebay templates and to manage my inventory, but I’m happy to pay almost $200/month for it because it’s more than worth it for me.
Well you just showed your ignorance of Dropshipping with this. It’s not as simple as copy-pasting info. Obviously! If it was others, including you, would be copy-pasting information instead of running review sites to make money with adsense.
The point of their platform is that it MAKES it as easy as copy-pasting info over because of the hidden features they go over and the upcoming software systems.
As for the question of do they really have 3k+ customers from before they became DSD – sorry but your calling BS is BS in itself. They showed their members area and their existing users in the intro video a month before they made DSD live.
I’m sure I could hunt that video down somewhere but I remember them showing the existing product and user database + comments of existing users and how they planned on attaching an aff side to this.
They did what every other company in the world NEVER does – they showed their product is in demand, has happy customers, and that the affiliate side is to help grow it, not to overpower it.
You could simply edit your review and state ‘I don’t see the value in the product and software, but then again I’m not involved in drop shipping. If that’s what you’re interested in, it might be worth checking out but that’s your decision’.
Instead you’re trying to attack every random part of the company from their previous record to their existing user base – all of which are things you have no way to verify.
Again, like I said, I have no interest in promoting the company as an affiliate, but your attacks on the product side are unjustified since I’m an expert user and know the value.
I will hunt around or ask my referrer for the screenshot of their previous members area.
Right, so they did exactly what I said they did – import customers from something else and try to pass them off as DS Domination customers.
Let me be clear, the only retail customers that should be counted are those that joined after August 23rd. Any guesses as to what the ratio of retail customers vs. affiliates that have signed up is?
If it’s not even out yet let’s not waste our time discussing it. Promises are just that and are entirely irrelevant to the here and now.
“Worth it” directly correlates to people paying for it at a retail level. People weren’t paying for DS Domination’s tiers as they are today, so passing off what the owners were running before doesn’t cut it.
Yet this is precisely how DS Domination and its affiliates are marketing the company. See video screenshot example in the review and marketing video example in the comments.
“If you can copy a product desription from A and paste it over at B, you can make bajillions!”
If DS Domination and its affiliates are misrepresenting the opportunity than there’s even bigger red flags that need to be addressed.
Leave emotive marketing BS out of this. Analysis is just that.
So you’re not there as an affiliate, yet you’re on affiliate webinars and in contact with your “referrer”. And you’re for some reason tracking online analysis of the company … because that’s what retail customers do.
Are you paying a monthly affiliate fee?
And if so, have you recruited anyone (do you have a downline)?
And just incase it wasn’t abundantly clear:
Importing customers from company A and claiming them to be customers in new Company B is not on. It’s misleading marketing and deceptive.
The only retail customers that count are those that have joined DS Domination since August 23rd, the day the company went live. Any customer who was imported from something else is irrelevant.
And finally, if the software platform isn’t even out yet – what on Earth are customers paying for?
Seriously are you not capable of reading? I just CLEARLY wrote that they have NOT imported customers from before DSD into DSD. The ratio is based on JUST the members since Aug 24th – out of the 1k or so members. While they have around 3k from before DSD that are SEPARATE. Then you go on your long silly tangent when you are PURPOSELY lying about what was said.
As for this comment of yours:
“So you’re not there as an affiliate, yet you’re on affiliate webinars and in contact with your “referrer”.”
Again, your lack of reading comprehension is showing. Clearly I said – the webinars are 75%+ about the actual product, the benefits of each and updates on what’s going on with the dropshipping scene. They talk about the affiliate side (which any company would!) but that’s not the focus, and I’m glad for it.
(Ozedit: offtopic derail attempts removed)
1. They clarified that 5:1 ratio is from existing DSD members – roughly 1k+ in the past 3 days.
2. They have around 3k members from before DSD days.
3. The webinars are A LOT more focused on the products, the training, and dropshipping than just the affiliate side. Out of the 90 minutes, maybe 15-20 are spent on affiliate side of things.
Of course I’m interested in the well-being of a legitimate, GREAT company that’s helping people – including me provided their software is released soon. And even if I WAS an affiliate what difference would that make?
(Ozedit: offtopic derail attempts removed)
And just to clarify – what’s in there currently is obviously well FAR beyond the price of it. I paid $5500 for the sources and product types back with Alibaba to get the connection in with the right product types and for product sourcing. $19.95/month is nothing compared to that.
I made the point that for me, I was more interested in the software. In their webinar a couple nights ago, they showed live all the people who had already made money within 24 hours using their dropshipping training. No company ever shows results like that because they can’t.
I’m involved in dropshiping and I’ve learned things in here that I was unaware of – like the cashback sources that will generate at least an additional $7k for me this year just by making a small change to my business.
Again, DSD is about joining and using the product, not about joining and promoting to others like all other companies.
We’d be allies against the standard pyramid/mlm fare if you had enough decency and humility to see where you were wrong.
The ratio is based on JUST the members since Aug 24th – out of the 1k or so members.
So what, 1000 non-affiliates since the 23rd and 200 affiliates? If that is the case, let’s hope it continues then.
Personally I don’t see the long-term value at a retail level as the model is problematic. Replication wise the more people copying and pasting items from one website to another only dilutes the opportunity.
Case in point, T LeMont Silver was babbling on about some guy who sold some knives “from Amazon to ebay” (which let’s face it, is all this is for now).
Naturally now you’ve got every DS Domination affiliate under Silver scouring Amazon for knives to hock on eBay.
And that’s ignoring issues of Amazon Prime policy violations and refunds (do items go back to Prime or the DS Domination affiliate?
The reason I’m skeptical about this is I’m betting the owners marketing DS Domination to their existing lists. These aren’t organic retail customers.
DS Domination is yet to prove itself stand-alone on the retail side of things. As familiar as you are with dropshipping I am with MLM. Long-term, once you’ve milked DS Domination for it’s list of websites to copy and paste from, there’s no need to keep paying monthly fees unless your an affiliate.
The platform might automate the copy/paste process but it’s not out yet so it’s a moot argument to make.
Doesn’t sound like a retail customer to me. We don’t get them around here, we get affiliates.
Answer the questions:
With no platform, as I understand it there currently is no product.
Webinars and a list of dropshipping suppliers is not an MLM product.
Personally, it’s a self-liquidating type of business. Once you learned it, there’s no keeping them around. Not a SUSTAINABLE business, unless there’s something JoshQ’s not telling us…
3k members from which company? Power Results Academy, or something else?
Oz,
I see your skepticism and maybe if I was so mired in the MLM side of things I would think similarly. But I’m more into dropshipping so I see the value that you don’t. However, we can agree to disagree on that part.
It would be fair to state that you don’t see value in it, but that means nothing about everyone else who would. One of the mlms I was involved in had coffee as a product – I bailed within a week because I don’t drink coffee and once I really started looking at the numbers I couldn’t see any sense in it.
But I wouldn’t claim that ‘coffee is a stupid product’. I’d state that I didn’t see value in it because I couldn’t consume it in the first place.
To answer your questions:
No. I don’t pay the monthly fee, and I have not referred anyone. I have directed 2 of my friends to dsd – and even that wasn’t as an affiliate. I don’t care if they sign up with my link at all. I make enough with dropshipping that I don’t need to worry about making $20 as an affiliate.
You said:
First, affiliates would be looking to promote DSD to others – why are they scouring amazon for knives? Maybe you mean DS Domination members referred by him?
Second, again, you don’t understand dropshipping. They’ll scour, and they’ll post – some of them will make some sales too, and most will not. But if they just post one product, they’ll fail. And that means they haven’t gone over the training and resources of DSD either.
Once again – your opinion about the product when you don’t know anything about dropshipping is pointless.
I once purchased blueprints for different dynamos for electricity generation. Now, for many people that isn’t worth $10 because they won’t use it. For me it’s worth $1000 (I paid $97 for em).
You’re ignoring the whole understanding oh how the market really works. Now further, an advanced expert would probably be able to put a much better estimate on what these blueprints are really worth.
Your entire opposite to DSD at this point can be summed up as “I don’t think DSD is worth it”. Okay, that’s your opinion, and that means you don’t want to pay for it. So don’t. But you are not involved in dropshipping so we can’t consider your opinion anything more than a personal random value judgement. You have absolutely no credibility in judging a product you haven’t seen or tried nor are involved in the industry at all!
I am in the industry and to think that what they have in there is not worth $19.95 is beyond stupid. I would’ve reached my level of income 3 years ago if I had the information laid out in there.
Look, the basic point is that the company is legit, the product is legit. I’m using it, and hundreds of others are as well. A VAST number are getting incredible results based on the live feed on their webinar. You’d be doing a much greater service exposing Empower in greater detail, or the countless other schemes like Xplocial and so on.
Norway, I don’t know what Power Results is. Before DSD, the dropshipping course was sold in Networking-Insight. I purchased that many months ago. This was just a course with no mlm side to it. It was sold for $50-$300 at the time.
DSD is the same product (with updates, some new modules, additional sources and upcoming software). They’ve just attached an affiliate program to it. I see zero problems with that and believe EVERY company should be forced to follow that model – first sell your product yourself and prove it has a market and that the users like it and then approach affiliates.
That was how I first heard about this too – there was a video I saw where they showed the results from their users and then announced there’s an aff program coming up. I know the results are real because I am in the industry and am so aware of the training.
That was the only reason I even joined the coffee company I referenced earlier – because it was promoted to the ebay buyers (which I don’t get because the coffee company was kinda stupid and I left).
To a very small extent I can see what you’re saying but I’m sure you’re not involved in dropshipping, right? I am, and I would pay $10k for what is in there just because I totally get the value.
You think that someone who is making $500+ per month with the basic $19/month product is not going to stick around? Of course they will – in fact they will upgrade to get to the next level in dropshipping.
Now, the one little part I do agree with is that yes, eventually someone could possibly get to the level of expertise where they can do this themselves. But even so you will want to keep access open to the support or the updated information.
This world changes VERY fast – sometimes week to week. Having a resource like DSD is invaluable. Further, once the management software is released, that’s a whole other factor.
Bottom line – for those of us actually doing dropshipping, DSD is a no-brainer. Due to the mass appeal, I can see why it makes for a great product to promote as well. I don’t see a problem with either. If you don’t see the value in dropshipping, then you don’t buy it. That’s pretty simple isn’t it?
That’s a fair enough call, however the focal point here will always be the MLM side of the business. Combing one with dropshipping training doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense longevity wise. Less so on a retail level.
Hold up, before you project the notion that I don’t see value in dropshipping as the reason behind my skepticism, let me call you out on that. It’s not the case.
Please don’t insert your own reasons behind my analysis. You left the coffee company for your own reasons, that’s got nothing to do with my scepticism of dropshipping “training” married to an MLM income opportunity.
Thanks for answering. Out of curiosity though, how do you have a link if you’re not an affiliate – or was that a hypothetical?
Also given that there’s nothing retail wise on the DS Domination website other than a 1:30 min promo video, what exactly did you direct them to?
One of the farces of a recruitment driven scheme is to showcase affiliates using the product. The “product” here being ebay commissions (putting aside the fact that it’s not an MLM product).
It’s similar to affiliate forums that discuss product niches. Whenever somebody publishes a success story the first question is usually “what niche are you in?” People want to copy, and with a fixed product range and only a certain percentage of those products delivering a margin on ebay, it’s not going to be long before DS Domination’s customers and affiliates find themselves undercutting eachother.
This process will only accelerate if they automate the system with software.
Finally, affiliates can sign up to the tiers so I’m not sure why you’re suggesting they would only be looking to promote DS Domination to others (this sounds like you’re familiar with single-level affiliate marketing, not so much MLM).
That’s a nice story, if not entirely irrelevant once an MLM business opportunity is added to the equation.
No, it can’t. I have concerns over retail viability in the long-term. You can have hordes of affiliates proclaiming the “value of DSD” (value of what anyway? There is no product at the moment…), that doesn’t translate over to retail viability.
Do you see yourself remaining a retail customer for 12 months with the company? If so, why? At what point are these guys going to start regurgitating themselves? They can add a few more dropship suppliers but logic would dictate you lead with your premium ones (especially if you’re charging hundreds of dollars for the list).
What then?
What is going to keep me paying $99 a month for a year after I have said list (which I can buy as an upsell and ignore the monthly membership fee?)?
Or would it be easier to pay $9.95 a month (which provides me with what exactly? Just the income opportunity? That brings up issues of “pay to play” on its own), buy-in at every level, recruit new affiliates who do the same and earn money via the downline once enough affiliates have been recruited over multiple levels.
Retail, what retail? You can completely ignore it.
$19.95 a month is different to “$19.95”. What price do you put on the dropship supplier list? Is it worth 12x$19.95? 24x$19.95 – this all comes down to retail viability which I’m not seeing.
Affiliates love making this argument and it’s a silly one. I don’t need to drive a car to appreciate it’s retail value in the marketplace. Nor do I need to try a shoe on to understand it’s product value.
Dismissing constructive dialogue over the retail viability of a dropshipping list within a greater MLM context would be the equivalent of me brushing off your comments because you’re not an affiliate of the company.
You’ll find the discussion a cut above that here.
And what product would that be? As I understand it there’s no platform… so what exactly are retail customers paying for?
With no product, professing the legitimacy of DS Domination as an MLM income opportunity seems rather absurd.
What they do or don’t do has nothing to do with DS Domination. Stay on topic.
I understand playing 1 time fee. What’s to keep them coming back? Or is that something you’ll cover in the course?
I know the basics, but I’m sure you have special tricks and tips that you’ll share for a price. So the question is… are you acting as middleman / matchmaker for the people who want to score such bargains to be sold on Amazon?
I can see you scoring limited qty of items and offer it to your top members, and the management software will list it for them using standard eBay templates. I *do* see the value, but I’m sure someone who REALLY wants to succeed will figure out who the real supplier is and try to order directly bypassing you.
So you pretty much have to 1) keep the real supplier a secret and 2) use a different real supplier every “batch” to keep the people coming back. (The limited qty is to keep them from flooding the market and kill the prices).
So you’re really making money from your affiliates two to three times: training, access to your secrets, and possibly, profit from the limited merchandise.
How close did I get? 🙂 I imagine it’s pretty far from how you operate, but enlighten me.
Ugh, and people wonder why I’m so sceptical of MLM marketing.
If anyone’s wondering about the DS Domination customer figures, I’m reading nobody has to pay the affiliate fee till September.
‘Hur dur, let’s launch a company and we’ll tell everyone we have an affiliate option… but not actually charge people for it’
‘That sounds great! That way we can run around the internet telling everyone how many customers we have to get the ball rolling!’
‘What happens in September then?’
‘Oh I dunno, who cares. Maybe we can release a gaming app… those seem pretty in right now.’
So pretty much there’s no differentiation right now between customers and affiliates. They’re just signing whoever up right now and then in September the “if you pay us $9.95 a month LOOK AT ALL THE MONEY YOU’LL MAKE !” bait and switch kicks in.
I’d bet the house on there being nowhere near 5:1 retail customers vs. affiliates come the end of October (2 months of differentiation).
Here we go again…
Thanks for the info.
Power Results Academy is the owner of d/b/a DS Domination, according to post #21 / #22.
It seems to be an idea aimilar to DS Domination = sell training and upgrades for something in a recruitment driven system.
Intentionally or not, JoshQ has exposed the difference between an individual experience and the type of objective overview Oz and BehindMLM seek to provide.
Had this sent in from a reader, it’s the address that pops up at the bottom of emails DS Domination send their affiliates:
Oz, you can make a value judgement about a car or a shoe because those are markets you are familiar with. If tomorrow a company appeared selling nuclear reactor coolant as a product, none of us would have a clue as to whether the pricing was correct.
My point was that it’s a niched product that needs either an expert in the niche OR needs a comparison to similar services/products.
Again, your ignorance of dropshipping shows. I explained how this is an ever changing industry – sometimes on a weekly basis. I currently pay $797/year for another dropshipping source site.
There are quite a few such sites and every single ‘good’ one has a subscription – one time models don’t exist because this is constantly changing. The only ‘one time’ costs ones are forums where users are expected to share with each other (which is a BS spamfest).
Paying $19.95/month for a constantly updated source list is dirt cheap. But DSD is also offering training on them, as well as the tricks of running the business properly (no other source site does this).
Further, this is entirely discounting the fact that there’s additional software being added in to make this even more value packed. No real dropshipping source list or contact system is sold on a one-time basis.
Look, my point is that it is valid to make a comparison and say “DSD is too expensive compared to the other sites” or “DSD’s info is lame compared to other sites”. But instead you made a statement that you are not qualified to make – which is “This has no value.” when clearly it does have an incredible value to those of us in the niche.
No, again, you don’t understand the niche. The sources constantly change, the products that are profitable change seasonally and sometimes weekly. There is no flooding of the market possible because it is entirely demand driven.
You can list the same item a zillion times – it’s only going to sell in proportion to the buyers for it. At some point if too many people are selling the same product and trying to undercut each other, the one with the best optimization and source wins. All of this is what intelligent dropshipping is about, and again, FAR beyond a $19.95/month cost.
What a stupid statement littleroundman. I was asked if I was an affiliate and I answered that. Stop twisting words to suit your biases. Am I supposed to speak for a group of people when a personal question is asked?
False. My account clearly has ‘Affiliate Status: Inactive”. On the webinar they said this clearly — you can use the affiliate link if you want right now, but you won’t get credited for any sales starting Sep 1 (that means in 3 days).
So unless you’re a paying affiliate, you won’t be promoting this, right? Because if you DO promote but don’t pay as an affiliate, you’d not get credited anyway. From what I understood, they did so to give enough time for affiliates who wanted to promote to get activated.
For me, it shows me a link, but also tells me that I’m inactive and need to pay $9.95 right now. Takes me to a checkout for affiliate signup if I click on it (I obviously am not planning on activating that).
I understood their calculation to be based on anyone who had used their link vs those who had not. If anything that form of calculation seems even more stacked against them since I’m sure there are people who will promote if they have a free link but won’t if they have to actually register as an affiliate.
So for all its worth, their ratio is likely BETTER than 5:1, not worse.
Again Oz or whatever your real name is, I understand your skepticism given this niche as a whole. However, you cannot throw out baby with the bath water. This product has exceptional value. The pre-existing business proves that.
I, as an expert, find this to be of superb vale. Their live webinar feed proved beyond doubt that their users love it and are getting great results. They emphasize the product and not the promotions. They even emphasize not buying their products until someone is ready for it and to take it slow instead of buying higher priced options until someone has reached the point where it makes sense to upgrade.
There is clear distinction between affiliates and customers and the company seems to be customer driven and not affiliate driven.
To me, it checks out on all aspects. Their sales videos NEVER even talk about the affiliate program attached and just talk about the product and what they are getting in it. I worry you are painting one of the few real and good things out there for the average guy with a broad brush mired in biases caused by Empower and their ilk.
I can “appreciate its retail value in the marketplace“.
Please do not waste my time telling me what I meant when I made it perfectly clear the first time. Telling me what I meant and then disagreeing with yourself is a complete waste of both our time.
If you need an expert to convince people of the value of selling dropship supplier lists, let’s stop even pretending retail is viable.
Yeah… and this is something you think retail customers are going to pay for? Right.
Now let’s think about that for a second… almost $800 vs. $19.95 a month (and an attached MLM compensation plan that gobbles up most of the money in commissions).
Doesn’t really add up when you look at DS Domination itself as a business, does it.
Yeah affiliates are preloading the comp plan with their downlines until they start paying affiliate commissions.
Meanwhile by not charging anyone anything the company can run around harping on about how many retail customers it has.
When they flip the switch, within a few months a more accurate snapshot of the affiliate/retail ratio will be possible. Right now any ratio is meaningless.
See above, you’re dreaming.
If people who don’t pay affiliate fees can recruit, it’s not retail. They’re participating in the comp plan, only the company is withholding their commissions because they didn’t pay to play.
MLM retail customers pay for a product or service. That’s it, there is nothing else attached.
The pre-existing business didn’t have an attached MLM income opportunity.
What’s easier? Keeping track of suppliers that shuffle around on a weekly basis and bothering keeping track of it all, or just buying in at every level and recruiting new affiliates who do the same.
I know exactly the type of MLM affiliate opportunities like DS Domination attract, and it’s all to do with the compensation plan – not the product(s) or service(s) they attach to it.
Your “expertise” seems to be limited to telling yourself that you are an expert, rather than providing people with factual information?
The topic you claimed to be an expert on was VALUE, the value of the products and services offered by DS Domination. The method you used was your own “perceived value”, an emotional method rather than a rational one.
Some of your “perceived value” also seems to be related to some type of addiction, i.e. some type of “shop-a-holism” for specific types of products and services. Some of your purchases reflected emotional rewards rather than rational motives.
“Perceived value” is about how able your brain is to mislead you. It will typically use the emotional part to add or subtract the feeling of “value” for something. It won’t make you become an “expert” on value, you will become quite the opposite.
You simply don’t reflect the level of expertise you have convinced yourself about. You’re reflecting all the emotional rewards you have experienced yourself through your own addictions, e.g. how rewarding different purchases felt to you.
This is how DS Domination’s webinars are being marketed:
This is like collectible coins, the more people doing the same thing (replication) the less value there is in it for everyone participating.
A hundred people scouring Amazon for products to dropship sell on ebay? A thousand? There’s only so many products that will fit this buy low-sell high dropshipping criteria.
And that’s not even including the non-DS Domination affiliates doing the exact same thing. Langille has purportedly being doing ebay for 10 years, you think this is some new untapped niche nobody knows about?
Work ebay dropshipping and discover it’s profitable. Keep doing it till competition dilutes the overall profitability of the venture. When things slow down, whack on an MLM opportunity that passes up memberships and earn on that for as long as it lasts.
That seems to be the gameplan here.
JoshQ,
One thing you didn’t mention, and it’s very germane: In order to purchase items from a wholesaler, you absolutely have to have a business license. No wholesaler is going to ship anything to anyone without it.
If someone wants to buy Fiskers scissors on Amazon and resell them on eBay, they’re purchasing as a consumer, not a business person, and it makes no difference.
Does DS carefully explain the tax implications of this activity, in that sales, whether as a consumer reshipping or a business buying wholesale, the sale profit is taxable, and has to be accounted for?
Since I’m a fairly active eBay seller myself (not with drop shipping, though), how about explaining for all of us how returns are handled, including refunding return shipping costs to the buyer, etc?
And, one last thing: How about posting your eBay ID so I and others can see your feedback and just how well all of this works for you. It’s not as if anyone is asking for your social, so no harm in it…
Jerry
What I find funny is once you sign up and pay the $19.95 a month, there is no where to cancel your month subscription.
If I saw a item on amazon for $10 then sold it on ebay for $20 then had amazon ship it to the customer.
1. Would the customer be confused about getting the package from amazon instead of ebay.
2. Does amazon send a invoice in the package showing the cost at $10 instead of the $20 dollars the customer paid on ebay.
If I was the customer that bought a item from a seller on ebay and received the package from amazom, I would contact the ebay seller and ask what’s going on. And if the ebay seller didn’t refund me the difference of what my invoice says I would give them a bad review on their ebay account. Any thoughts on this.
Apparently you use Amazon Prime and mark items as gifts and no invoice is shipped. For other product sources you mark as gift.
That said as more people join it won’t be long before somebody messes it up and the negative feedback and complaining to ebay directly begins.
I think the bigger issue is refunds and product support (warranty). From what I’ve read DS Domination affiliates are advised to just refund the money themselves and take the loss.
Dunno how all this translates over on the tax side of things but there’s that too.
Nobody answered the question about canceling your membership. This is set up as a recurring billing to a credit card or paypal so what happens when you decide to leave the business?
With Paypal you go to your account and cancel the subscription. You can call your cc company and get them to cancel…Correct me if I am wrong.
Credit card companies and PayPal usually do not cancel subscription plans. You need to contact the company with whom you signed up and they have a way to release you from your “obligation”, they could take it to collections if you just stopped payment.
Usually it is easy to sign up for such training, etc. programs and not so easy to sign off.
It is against Amazon’s Prime agreement to use Prime in this way. Amazon does not extensively pursue this but they can and sometimes do cancel Prime and they could even cancel orders.
I have a feeling that this company promotes the abuse of the Amazon way too generous return policy as they keep mentioning that people could also make money on returns (getting all their money back from Amazon for a return, yet charging the ebay buyer restocking fees and shipping fees).
Hi, I cant see any difference in this than in a normal business, if you have a shop you would go to wholesalers, markets suppliers , anywhere etc and get the lowest price put in your shop and sell it for a profit.
do the knockers here actually do anything guess not thats why Roger is wealthy I and others i know personally are earning well with this.
jut a small note, there is a world outside the USA, cant you see the potential to promote this in other countries.
ebay and amazon are on the start in this system.
The fact that you have to differentiate between DS Domination and a “normal business” gives you away.
DS Domination is an MLM opportunity and as such needs retail revenue. Care to take a punt at how much company revenue is affiliate-sourced from membership fees?
Whether or not people are making money is entirely irrelevant.
You are delusional to think its going to be successful. Wake up and see the damn red flags. Its going to go down just like Zeek Rewards, and Addwallet. The only difference between DSD and the Titanic is that the boat had a band.
I don’t know if this was express above in all the comments, but you don’t need DS Domination to dropship from Amazon to Ebay.
Anyone really can find a product that is selling from Amazon, then re-word the title and post it on Ebay hoping for some sucker who doesn’t “Shop” around for a better price, buys your item on Ebay. Why would you then need DS Domination ??? Ha!
Ha!
People have been asking me to review DS Domination. Ha ha ha. You just saved me a lot of time. People fall for the most foolish scams, oh I mean “Business Opportunities”. 🙂
Ugh here we go again …scam this scam that …customer this customer that… geez enough already. If people nick picked stuff like ya’ll there wouldn’t be any 5 figure earners in any online business.
I’m learning the ropes slowly but surely…so what if the business opp shuts down who cares! that’s why I follow the leaders and get multiple streams of income that way if one business falls I have others to stay afoat on.
Look at Mack Zidan he makes $100,000 a month building multiple businesses….So with that said DS Domination is awesome and I’m glad I added it 🙂 50% commissions baby!
Not being a scam and having retail customers won’thave any impact on legitimate MLM opportunities.
I’m not particularly interested in Mr. Zidan’s earnings, or anyone else for that matter. The business model and revenue generation is of far greater interest.
The audience here is defined to be “ordinary internet users, without any specific education or profession”, i.e. it’s not adjusted to meet each and every type of personal interest.
I’m not a “follow the leader” type, i.e. I’m not very attracted to that idea. Wouldn’t it be better if you had enough knowledge and experience to recruit him into your downline, rather than having to follow him into different opportunities?
Why, you prefer “out of sight, out of mind” instead? Jump in with both feet and worry about it later kind of mindset better for you?
That’s called “recklessness”, and that sort of attitude, i.e. “f*** due diligence”, is what a scammer would tell his victims in order to reach into victim’s wallets.
There are PLENTY of online businesses that made PLENTY of people rich. Heck, Facebook’s an online business, is it not? Or Google? Or is your definition of online business not the commonly accepted definition?
Did they brainwash you without you realizing it? Are you in a reality distortion field?
IF more people nitpicked (I presume nitpicked is what you meant)…
there would not be so many people getting conned out of their money by unscrupulous ******** that do not care who or how many get hurt as long as they are profiting from it.
All the usual suspects from Empower, IML, BB and MAP are pushing this. Simon Stepsys especially and his army of wanna be millionaires, no surprise there …
I can see Amazon and Ebay eventually coming down HARD on this little setup and those playing it’s game.
What a douchebag way to make money.
Wow, here is another program I would have never stumbled across if I hadn’t seen it on your website. Thanks for bringing all of these awesome programs together in one place. It’s like an MLM Walmart.
Great job OZ keep up the excellent work and keep those opportunities coming.
Oz i have seen about 10 of your reviews and you say they are all ponzis or pyramid schemes, not giving in recommendations what 3 or 4 relatively new companys online do you think are running legitimately right now.
I didn’t write their business models or compensation plans. They are what they are.
I don’t give out personal MLM opportunity recommendations. I’m not trying to recruit you into anything, this is where BehindMLM differs from most MLM-themed websites.
Your due diligence is up to you.
@James
I only found the BehindMLM site because of a personal investigation of Telexfree. It’s been an amazing resource to follow the folly of a scam.
People have written from all over the world here to tell their stories or rant about how Oz is pissing on their party.
Why would you want to have anything other than an honest review of a business? If you’re looking for a real investment than get an advisor and invest in somthing real. You are taking a chance that way as well but at least it’s legal.
If you’re looking for an income get a job, open a business, invent somthing. If you’re looking for easy money….join a scam. It’s your choice.
There’s plenty of garbage on the internet that will be happy to take your money with the promise of “wealth”. That isn’t what you come here for.
@Oz
I’m always amazed at the fact people really don’t want the truth. Cover crap with frosting and sprinkles and they’re happy. That’s until the sprinkles melt and the frosting starts to slide off and they see what they’re eating. hmmmm.
Then it’s great indignation….”hey you fed me a load of s**t.” ?????? Helloooooo?????
So another monthly fee product is coming out this month, “Supremecy”.
Basically it email spams someone who wins one of your ebay auctions with related Amazon products.
$34.95 a month…
Also currency trading appears to be an offshoot program they’re going to launch. Binaries trading (guessing if currency relationships will rise or fall over a period of minutes).
$49 – $399 a month, with how much you pay determining what your income is.
Lots of talk about “automation”, “risk-free” and “investment” – which should raise some regulatory eyebrows. They’re calling it “Options Domination”, and it has a separate MLM plan attached.
Monthly revenue-share plus recruitment commissions were mentioned but nothing concrete yet.
Unregistered securities + recruitment commissions? Ruh-roh…
Are they changing their name too? 😉 What’s next? Ultimatum?
Apparently the Options Domination is being run “by some other guys”. Something about them being worried about the legalities and not wanting the two companies to be seen as the same.
Given they’re importing the entire DS Domination affiliate-base into this “new” and “unrelated” company though, fat chance of that happening.