Is drop shipping a better option to manage inventory for selling online?

Drop shipping is a supply chain management method in which the retailer does not keep goods in stock but instead transfers customer orders and shipment details to the manufacturer, another retailer, or a wholesaler, who then ships the goods directly to the customer.

The idea of dropshipping is that a wholesale drop shipper (the supplier) offers you the option of selling products without buying them first. They also act as service providers who prevent you from having to:

• Store items
• Package and ship items
• Risk money on items when you aren’t sure about how they will sell

When you buy from a wholesaler offering dropshipping services, they add a fee to cover the costs involved with offering this service.

How dropshipping works

• Select the vendor and products based on your niche
• Mark up your profit margin based on product demand
  
• Advertise and market your products
  
• Customers visit your listings, initiate payment and place orders
  
• Vendor ships the product to the customer
  
• Keep your margin and initiate the payment to the vendor

Why start dropshipping?

Low startup cost

• You don’t have to purchase a product unless you have already made the sale and have been paid by the customer. Without major upfront inventory investments, it’s possible to start a successful drop shipping business with very little money.

Easy to get started

With drop shipping, you don’t have to worry about:

• managing or paying for a warehouse
  
• packing and shipping your orders
• tracking inventory for accounting reasons
• handling returns and inbound shipments
• continually ordering products and managing stock level

Low overhead

Your overhead expenses are quite low, as you don’t have to deal with purchasing inventory or managing a warehouse.

Location independence

As long as you can communicate with suppliers and customers easily, you can run and manage your business from just about anywhere with an Internet connection.

Wide selection of products

You can offer an array of products to your potential customers because you don’t have to pre-purchase the items you sell.

High scalability

By leveraging dropshipping suppliers, they will handle the additional order processes, allowing you to expand with fewer growing pains and less incremental work.

What’s not in your control when dropshipping?

• Lack of control over product quality and deliveries
• Lower margin compared to bulk purchase of products
  
• Risk of supplier running out of stock
  
• Product returns and refunds pose logistical problems and affect profits