Drop shipping is a very popular method of supply chain management in today's fast paced retail market for a number of reasons.
Many merchants are choosing to drop ship products to their customers for the convenience, the practicality, and the overall effectiveness of the process.
Drop shipping is a low cost entry point to getting involved with online commerce because the business model does not require the retailer to maintain any stock.
There are no overhead costs for storage, no speculating on constantly changing consumer demand, and no endless waits in post office lines.
When you drop ship products the procedure is as follows.
The retailer, in this model, is in charge of promoting a given product.
This can take place on an eCommerce website or, another popular option, through an online auction.
These auction sites are frequented by consumers looking for the best possible deals, and if you've lowered your own costs by avoiding overhead costs and eliminating upfront capitol investments, you could be the retailer offering those great prices.
The next step in the process is simple.
You merely transfer the order to the supplier who, in turn, takes care of the fulfillment and drop ships the product to your customers.
The benefits here are many.
You never have to worry about getting stuck with suddenly unpopular or outdated items.
This will also free up a lot of time so you can spend it researching the market to find new, hot products instead of packing, wrapping, and sending products.
You will also be able to be much more flexible in your offerings, selling as many or as few products as you like.
Getting started with a drop ship business model is not difficult.
It begins with setting up your eCommerce site or auction page.
What you'll need for this is a collection of high quality or professional pictures or images of the products in question.
If you run your own site you'll also need to incorporate a user friendly shopping cart and the ability to accept credit cards.
Content is also a very important aspect of selling online, and content means more than just a pretty picture.
You will need to add attention grabbing title and succinct, interesting descriptions.
Why? Because if you plan to sell online you have to appease two demanding and completely separate audiences.
The first, obviously, is your customers.
A well thought out title and description can entice them to purchase your products.
The other audience, however, is a little more objective.
These are the search engines or applications that a user may employ to find your products.
Search engine spiders or bots cannot index pictures.
The same goes for applications within online auctions.
The search function that they use has to be able to read something if you are hoping to appear on a search for your products.
And now, just because your suppliers are taking care of the drop ship fulfillment, it doesn't mean you can just sit back and let others do your work for you.
Always stay on top of current market research and trends so that your offerings never get stale.
Update your websites and your auctions to include the high-demand items that everyone is looking for.
Finally, one of the most important tips for someone who wants to sell products online and drop ship those items is that you must find a reliable products source.
With a drop ship product source that is large enough and reliable enough you can be sure that you won't have to worry about back orders or products running out of stock.
You'll also need a wide variety of products to truly take advantage of the huge potential on the Internet, and with the right supplier you can be assured that you'll always be able to focus on the products that you want.
The drop ship supply chain management model is a convenient choice for both consumer and retailer.
By following these basic tips and procedures you can get your foot in the door and begin selling online.