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Dropshipping is when you sell a product that’s shipped directly from the manufacturer to your customer. It is never held by you in a warehouse or a spare bedroom, and you’re not responsible for the packaging or shipping. Your dropship partner takes care of all that.
Sounds dreamy, right? No warehouse rent to pay, no upfront investment in purchasing inventory, and no shipping work on your end. Those are the perks.
But those are also the drawbacks. You don’t have the inventory in your warehouse, so you don’t have control of a customer ordering something that’s out of stock. There’s no shipping work on your end, so you can’t control the shipping speed, or the packaging. Long ship times = canceled orders. Weird packaging = bad reviews. And, you’ll still need upfront money for advertising, building your website, and all the other steps you’ll need to take to start your business.
And, because you’re basically outsourcing those storing and shipping tasks to your dropshipper, you may not have as great of margins that you would if you took that all in house.
In this guide, we’ll round up some of the best known dropshippers and some lessons from top dropshippers, including what to consider before you get started.
Like any business partnership, before you get involved you need to do your research on who yo… Read More