Whether you have a small aspiring business or a fully established business, it is very important in the present time to take your business online. Taking your business online will provide your global reach 24 hours a day and that to 7 days a week. your products and services will be just a click away from your customers. For establishing a known online platform for your business, you might consider many strategies such as digital marketing, content marketing, branding, etc. in addition to this you should also consider the concept of dropshipping to increase the digital reach of your business as well as will support the exponential growth of your business.
Before we go any further, it is very important to understand “What is dropshipping?”
Dropshipping is a kind of retail fulfillment wherein in lieu of store stocking products, the products are purchased from a third-party supplier. These products are then directly shipped to the customers. In this manner, the seller doesn’t have to directly handle the delivery of the product.
The standard retail model is distinct from the dropshipping model of retailing in the way that in dropshipping the selling merchant does not stock or own inventory. Instead, the seller purchases the inventory from a third- party usually a manufacturer or a wholesaler for fulfilling their customers’ orders.
The merchant is mainly required for bringing in the customers and managing and taking their order in the process of dropshipping. This means that the merchant will only function as the middle man. In such a process the companies make their share of profit by marketing the products sold by the third party.
Studies have shown that more than 33 percent of online stores use drop shipping as their fulfilment model and more companies are switching to this model for their online business services.
What is the history behind dropshipping?
The concept of drop shipping gained popularity around 2006 when AliExperss gained much attention in the United States due to the launch of Chinese E-commerce. At that time people were not aware of the concept of dropshipping. But some clever entrepreneurs took the lead and full advantage and launched their stores to reap profits.
At present time also dropshipping is still profitable because a significant amount of e-commerce activities takes place around the world through online digital platforms.
The dropshipping model has subsequently lowered barriers for the entry of new business services and making it very easy to start, grow and build their own dropshipping store.
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF DROPSHIPPING?
- DROPSHIPPING IS FLEXIBLE: –
The most beneficial advantage of dropshipping is that it can be moulded and handled at your own comfort. You don’t have to report to any bigger authority. This means that you are your own boss. You can work according to your convenience and comfort and that too in the method you want to follow. It by far provides you with one of the most flexible career options that one can pursue.
Dropshipping provides you with the full advantage to take the decision that you believe will be beneficial for you. You can easily list new products whenever you want and plan your selling strategies according to your goals and needs.
In addition to this you will also have the freedom to choose the products and services that you might want to sell. It can even be home-care services.
- DROPSHIPPING IS EASY TO MANAGE: –
Dropshipping retail methods are very easy to manage as you just need to find the appropriate suppliers and set up everything with them. Once you are all set up with your selling strategies, then you will only be responsible for that for your online storefront and will only have to focus on managing that.
In addition to this, you can work from home with just a little more than a laptop and you can work at the time that is most convenient for you. As Dropshipping does not require you to make many commitments, you can manage everything with little hassle.
- DROPSHIPPING DOES NOT DEMAND A LOT OF CAPITAL.
If you want to start your own business and do not have much capital, Dropshipping can be a good option that you should consider to give your business a start-up. Because starting a Dropshipping business requires so little, you can get started with minimal funds.
For dropshipping, you would not require any high-level investments, and you can build your entire business using your laptop only.
Even when your business will expand and grow your cost will email efficiently low as compared to the traditional business expenses.
- DROPSHIPPING DOES NOT REQUIRE MUCH CUSTOMIZATION AND BRANDING.
Custom-made products usually require alterations and modifications according to the customers. But in dropshipping you do not have much control over the product itself. The product is usually branded and designed by the supplier itself.
In some cases, the suppliers can accommodate the products of business, but then also the suppliers will have full control over the products. A minimum order quantity is required for any change or modification of the product to make it visible.
Through Dropshipping you did not have to worry about the hassle of managing and dealing with product modifications and alterations.
- DROPSHIPPING IS EASY TO GROW.
Dropshipping gives you the most advantage when you scale up your business as you will not need to alter your business model to a large extent. Your daily share of work will mostly remain the same but you will have to put more work into sales and marketing in order to grow your business.
In addition to this, the biggest benefit of Dropshipping is that your cost doesn’t skype when you try to scale up your business. As a result, it is easier to keep growing at a pretty fast rate. You can do almost everything by yourself only or can gather a small team to increase efficiency.
- DROPSHIPPING IS EASY TO START.
The biggest liberty that you will get through Dropshipping is that you can start your business at much ease. You do not indeed have much qualification and knowledge to start your business. If you are aware of some basics you can start your business in no time and learn rest on the course of your journey.
The reason why Dropshipping is so easy is that it requires very little from your side. You would not require a warehouse to store your products or a team to manage the delivery and quality of your products. Plus you do not need to require to spend a certain amount of capital from day to day on your stock maintenance.
All this indicates that you can start with your business today and within a few hours you can start getting everything up and running.
SOME TIPS FOR YOUR DROPSHIPPING STARTUP: –
- UNIQUE SELLING POINT (USP): –
You have to consider the fact that what makes your business better than the other or what advantage do you offer to your customers that others do not offer.
You can set up your platform in many ways to make it more attractive and customer friendly. You can add Custom fonts ,Your own photography ,A great-looking logo, Personal website design and Unique products .
- USE MULTIPLE SUPPLIERS
Having access to multiple suppliers can be a huge advantage for your dropshipping business services. Inventory overlapping can be the best way to improve your order fulfillment. If your first supplier goes out of stock you can still rely on the second supplier for the product delivery. In addition to this, it is also risky to be dependent on only one supplier as if in case your supplier does not work with you in the future, or raises their prices or even goes out of business, this can be very harmful to your business.
it’s also beneficial if you tie up with the supplier of different fields for your dropshipping business.
- DEALING WITH RETURNS
For establishing a successful business, it is very important that you assure your customers of your return policies. Before writing your return policies you should consult and make sure that you understand how your suppliers tackle returns. Check if they have a lax window of 45 days, then you should provide a 25-30 days return option to your customers and should keep 15-10 spare for you to ship the product to the supplier. Your return policies should not be overly strict as it will restrict your company from customers’ trust and comfort. If you can plan a proper format and process of returning products on your site.
- MANAGING YOUR SHIPPING: –
It is beneficial for you to calculate and plan your shipping expenses if you want to avoid the situation getting messy. you can use different types of methods for calculating your shipping funds. These methods include real-time rates, per-time rates, and flat shipping rates. You might want to keep in mind that you do no overprice shipping on your products as there is huge competition in the market and overpricing might draw your customers away.
DROPSHIPPING is very beneficial for your business service but the only thing that you require is to understand its concept!!