Anybody running a business online would have no doubt heard about dropshipping, the supply chain management method that is sweeping the internet.
The dropshipping community a rapidly growing one; there are thousands of dropshippers and millions of online retailers and traders using their services with several dropship forums and dozens of drop shipping blogs providing people with information.
Put quite simply dropshipping is a supply chain management system where the manufacturer ships the products directly to the retailer's customer but the retailer makes the profit.
This means the retailer doesn't have to pay for, or store, items he won't sell freeing up space and money. It also reduces the number of hands the item passes through as the product goes directly from the wholesaler to the customer.
However, there is still a large number of retailers and traders on the internet who still have a lot of questions about dropshipping. Some of these questions include:
How does the dropshipper guarantee my customers won't just start buying directly from them?
I've seen lists of dropshippers for sale on eBay, are they any good?
Won't I still have to transfer customer details to the wholesaler, won't that remove some of the timesaving benefits of drop shipping?
How does the wholesale drop ship company guarantee my customers won't just start buying directly from them?
There are a variety of dropship company service providers out there on the internet, from dropship agents to wholesale dropship providers and dropship wholesalers, but most use one of two ways to maintain their customer's client base blind shipping or private label shipping..
Blind shipping: When drop shipping companies send out products without any of their own advertising or logos on them.
Private Label dropshipping: When the client of the dropshipping company provides shipping notices to go in with the package, allowing the client to customize and ad value to orders.
An industry standard is a long way from being developed though and a number of firms offering a dropshipping service could be heavily in debt, be operating fraudulently or not offer you the best service.
I've seen lists of dropshippers for sale on eBay, are they any good?
You don't need to have spent much time on eBay to have seen the list of dropshipping companies and dropshipper wholesale suppliers for sale on the site, often for a very low price.
Unfortunately, these lists are often filled with these dead or fraudulent sites, meaning they aren't even worth the little money you initially paid for it..
You will often enjoy more success by approaching a wholesalers or factory agents directly or using a wholesale dropship company. They usually keep up to date more regularly and are more reliable at sending out products.
But wont I still have to give the wholesaler each of the orders?
By making some adjustments to your payment system you should be able to get customer's details sent to your drop shipping company automatically.
The first thing you will need to do is to set up your shopping cart so that it will notify the drop ship website automatically when a customer has placed an order and pass on all the customer's details in a format suitable for the drop shipper to fill out the forms necessary to start the shipment.
Most e-commerce sites already have a shopping cart but they will need to check that their carts are compatible with their wholesale dropshipping company's invoice system and then find out what needs to be done to make the whole process automatic.
It is easy to see why drop shipping has become more popular, it reduces the amount of times an item has to be handled before it gets to the end customer. With a little more research, you too could be reaping the benefits of this exciting this exciting supply chain management process.
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Rose Li is the PR Manager for Chinavasion... the premier source of information on importing wholesale electronics from China.
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