In the era of e-commerce, there’s hardly a person who has not heard this word. If you have ever wondered “What is dropshipping? What is all this hype about?”, this article can explain it.
What is Dropshipping: definition and main principles
Dropshipping is the form of retail where the reseller (and you actually are the reseller) collects orders from customers and transfers them to the actual manufacturer or another reseller (supplier).
In this model dropshipper doesn’t possess any stocks, he only markets the goods. However the reseller markets the goods setting the prices that are pretty higher than the ones set by the supplier, this difference is your profit.
When you open a retail store, you have 2 choices: to hold inventory, or not. You can buy products in bulk, unpack them, and ship them to your customers as you generate sales. OR, you can find a wholesale distributor (supplier) who will warehouse the items for you and ship individual items directly to your customer.
Drop ship, “pack and ship”, “direct fulfillment” – they all mean the same thing. A supplier will ship the item to your customer for you, and you never have to handle the product. Drop shipping allows the reseller to focus on marketing the business and eliminate the hassle, time, and cost of dealing with the actual products they are selling.
In dropshipping model although you don’t need to stock the goods you will still need some money at the very start. The reason is when you receive the order from the customer the money he pays won’t transfer to your account immediately but will be frozen for the safety reasons. At the same time you will have to pay for the order to the supplier which will require your own money.
Is dropshipping worth trying?
Dropshipping business has numerous benefits:
- It’s easy and cheap to set up and manage
- Your risks are very low
- You can run your ecommerce business from anywhere, so it is highly mobile
- Your possible profit and scale of your business are practically not limited
- You can combine dropshipping with other working activities
But you should be ready to some potential pitfalls:
- You badly need reliable suppliers
- Level of competition is very high, so you should have a deliberate promotion strategy
- Shipping issues and inventory management can complicate your customer service
If you have no idea how to find dropshipping suppliers (and trusted ones!), Dropstore will be a useful aid and will help reduce risks for your business.
What is Dropstore?
Dropstore is a company which offers effective automated solutions for profitable dropshipping business with South African Suppliers.
How to start dropship business
Perhaps the easiest and most convenient way to start a business is to create an online store with Shopify or Woocommerce and then integrate Dropstore to Shopify and Woocommerce. It is a powerful integration for sourcing dropshipping products on to your online stores.
If you want to save your time and efforts, you can order a custom ready store – unique and optimized. Besides, you’ll be assisted by a personal manager to supervise the process.
Join our 8,000+ member facebook group, share your shop, start sending it to friends, family and be on the lookout for our next blog post where we teach you how to market your shiny new store!
If you have any questions, you can find help here.
Happy Dropstore-ing.