Entering the World of eCommerce Through Dropshipping

Drop Shipping or Dropshipping is a supply chain management technique where you (the retailer) does not keep goods in stock, but instead transfer the customer’s order and shipping details to the wholesaler who then ship the goods directly to the customer. You make your profit on the difference between the wholesale and retail price.

Benefits? – The two best things about dropshipping is: 1) it requires no upfront investment into inventory; and 2) a positive cash flow cycle. It is the easiest way to start and maintain a business. You do not need to have thousands of dollars to buy the stock you are going to sell (the wholesalers have already done that for you) and you will get cash before you need to pay the wholesaler.

Risks – As in any business, some risks are involved in drop shipping. A wholesaler may not have the items you are selling in stock. This means that customers might have purchased an item but it will not ship for weeks. This will reflect poorly on you. A good wholesaler will keep retailers updated, but it is the business owner’s job to be aware of the quantities that the wholesaler has available. Picking a good wholesaler is critical to your success!

Where to Find Good Dropshippers - How to pick a good Dropshipper is the most important decision you have to make. The difficulty is finding them. The internet is full of scam artists who will promote drop shipping as a lucrative “work from home opportunity.”? Some of them will pretend to be wholesalers when in fact they are not. The pitfalls that you need to watch for are:

• Scammers who will sell you worthless wholesaler lists of nonexistent, unapproachable, or out-of-business wholesalers. I have personally purchased some of these on eBay. You can tell who they are by the low amounts of money they charge you. Like most things, you get what you pay for.
• Scammers who will sell you a ready-made site filled with junk that nobody’s buying. They offer you a website, hosting, and a full-product listing which sounds too good to be true. And it is. You pay them for this service but end up finding you can’t sell anything. Why? Because the prices they are offering you are not competitive (they have their own profit margins to look after).
• Scammers who claim to be distributors but are really middlemen who steal your profits by charging you a fee just to pass your order on to the real supplier.

The solution is to find a company that acts as a Dropshipper broker, who has screened the wholesalers, and tells you what you want to know. They don’t tell you what to do or what to sell, but give you the information and tools to make an informed business decision. They are consultants and good consultants don’t come cheap.

Good Reputation – I have been scammed once on eBay and have seen?Dropshipping list?sellers have their auctions cancelled?because they are providing misleading or copyrighted information. Thankfully, there is Worldwide Brands who is the only company to be endorsed by eBay as a?Certified Solution Partner. They?have the largest selection of suppliers and products, and their?their product directory is well-known in the Internet community as the leading provider of legitimate wholesale supplier information.

Do Your Research – Worldwide Brands has four excellent eBooks for you to read about how to properly setup an eCommerce business. All four free ebooks will help you?understand how to partner with the ?manufacturers and distributors to see you as a real retailer whom they can trust and rely on. They’re definitely worth a read.

It takes work to setup any kind of business, even a dropshipping business. Remember, it its too good to be true, it is.

Popularity: 13% [?]