Of course if drop shipping was so lucrative, they’d be doing that instead of bilking hopefuls with their expensive courses on Udemy or wherever.
This sounds very lucrative. Are there any courses I can take, which would teach me how to make lots of money by creating courses for others?
However, there are plenty of legit dropshippers that sell items already on this side of the ocean. You are probably familiar with Wayfair, but may not know that they were almost 100% drop ship at one time.
A couple years ago, most products sold on their site were still drop shipped, though they were beginning to get some warehouses to hold inventory.
I have done ecom for dropshippers that sold things like furniture, lighting, bean bags, jewelry, and security systems, where the companies were run from one or two room offices and the products shipped from other companies' warehouses in the USA or Canada.
It's very doable once you get the relationships in place. That's not trivial, since these manufacturers and distributors do not make it known that they are willing to drop ship, and they will only do it if you can convince them that you have a legit business already running, but if you get a legit business running and start talking to sales reps, you can absolutely move $500K+ USD worth of product per month without ever looking at it.
In a pyramid scheme, you would be buying the product and holding onto it.
Of course if starting a business was so lucrative, they’d be doing that instead of bilking hopefuls with their expensive courses on Udemy or wherever.