Advantages Of Dropshipping In E-commerce

By Author: Ann Hoskins
Total Articles: 30
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Are you one of the many people who are interested in getting started in ecommerce? One of the first questions you'll need to answer is: where are you going to get your inventory? Drop shipping is one source of items for resale.

When you use a drop-shipper, you generate the customer orders and then the drop-shipper, who may be either a manufacturer or a wholesaler, sends the merchandise directly to the customer.

There are three main advantages of using a drop shipping wholesaler. One is price, another is convenience, and the third is risk management.

The drop shipping company, since they are the wholesaler, buys in quantity. They are a way for a small merchant to buy goods at wholesale prices. You get the price breaks of volume buying without having to spend a lot of money at once and tie up your funds in ...
... merchandise.

You never have to worry about maintaining and warehousing an inventory. Here is where the convenience factor comes in. The drop-shipper takes care of all fulfillment, that is the packing and shipping of the goods to your customer. You can devote your efforts to sales and marketing and never have to get involved with shipping. This becomes very important as your business grows. You can sell more without having to devote more time to non-sales activity like shipping.

Because you are not actually taking possession of a large amount of goods at one time, your risk as a merchant is minimized. You don't have to worry about being stuck with a warehouse full of items that were hot last season but are now out of date. You will be able to move fast. This is one of the big pluses of being a small business-the ability to make quick changes. You can capitalize on the latest seasonal fad item without having to worry if it will be around in a few months. On the other hand, if the fad item really catches on and becomes a standard household item, you can continue selling it as a solid week-to-week moneymaker on your website.


Ann Hoskins has been writing and publishing articles about wholesale and drop shipping. She is a business consultant and has been specializing in logistics management and shipping for more than 10 years.