Dropship Marketing
The plus and minus sides of dropship marketing, and what many dropship wholesalers offer their customers to assist the partnership.
Two great problems confront people wanting to get into retail marketing. First is the cost of securing a good location. The second is locating and purchasing the initial inventory. Together these can appear to be a mountain larger than Mount Everest.
Dropshipping
Internet marketing coupled with dropshipping can offer the small businessperson a solution to both. Dropshipping involves an agreement with one of the many dropship wholesalers that can be found on the internet. These companies provide helpful services to new and existing businesses.
Generally, the agreement involves an upfront payment to the dropship wholesaler for the rights to market their products. This can range from a small number of items to over one hundred thousand unique offerings. Often the cost is not linked to the size of the company, or the number of items offered for sale.
Website Development
It is common for the top dropship wholesalers to offer websites to you that come loaded with their inventory. In some cases, using these sites will create more cost to the retailer. Even when there are additional charges involved, these rarely exceed what it would cost to hire a private web developer.
The websites provided by the dropship companies are attractive, and customized with your business name and logo. They are stocked with key words to help your site get good rankings in the more popular search engines. A good traffic flow to the website means increased sales. Checkout facilities are built into these sites to provide a smooth purchasing experience.
Inventory
Customers will purchase items for wholesale dropship. Most companies are set up so that you receive all of the proceeds of the retail sales. This allows you to set your own selling prices for the inventory. The dropship directory will include your wholesale price, the selling price, and the item names and/or inventory codes.
Customers will only see the retail price and a picture with a description of the product. You may choose to operate with a smaller profit margin to try to increase sales from your site to beat competitors who use the same wholesale dropshipper.
Dropshipping the Orders
The dropship wholesaler will ship purchased items from their inventory directly to your customer. You will be invoiced for the wholesale amount plus shipping and handling. This should allow you pay the invoice and produce a profit. It may take a little practice to get the right combination of price and quantity to maximize your profits.
Possible Problems
Start slowly with a new dropship wholesaler. Plan to solicit friends and family to test the company’s ability to ship on a timely basis and provide good products. Remember, you will be responsible for the integrity of the transaction.
Know the precise return policy of the dropship company before starting to sell. This will help you to clearly state these policies before purchases are made. The best way to keep good customer relations is to be up front about these policies.
Dropship wholesaling is an excellent way to keep large amounts of inventory available without purchasing products or warehouse space. You sell the products without ever having to touch them when it works right.
1 Comment
You know, I totally came into this expecting to be hit with technical jargon and a wave of higher microeconomics that lost me too early on to tell.
But then, I was drawn in because I’d never heard the term “dropship marketing”… it’s quite buzzy, really.
This is excellent… it’s a deceptively practical marketing method, and you basically hit the simplest but most easily overlooked technicalities.
One of the most satisfying reading experiences I’ve gotten from a blog all week.