eBay Dropship - Should you use Dropshipping?
December 10th, 2009 ama
eBay Dropship - Is it for your eBay business?
If you have an eBay business you likely have looked into drop shipping products. There are many benefits to drop shipping and if you are involved in an auction-based site like eBay, then an eBay dropship business might be for you.
You may be unfamiliar with what exactly dropshipping is and whether or not it’s right for you.
Here are a few things to consider if you’re thinking of joining the thousands of people on eBay who use drop shipping as a means to supply their customers with well-known and in-demand products.
First off, let’s talk about what drop shipping actually is.
Drop shipping is when you have a wholesale company that will ship out the products your customers have ordered from their location; not yours. Meaning you don’t have to keep an inventory of that product.
This means that you don’t have to keep an inventory of products, you don’t have to keep shipping materials on hand, or deal with any of those repetitive and time-consuming tasks of shipping the product yourself.
Instead, when you have a wholesaler do the drop shipping for you, all of the product inventory stays with the wholesaler until you notify them that you’ve made a sale of a product they have available. At which time, the wholesaler will then pack and ship the product off for you and even with your business name on the box that the product gets shipped in.
As you might imagine, drop shipping is extremely popular with eBay sellers especially because you don’t have to worry about finding a spot in your home or business to house the inventory, ship the inventory or in any way, shape or form, handle the inventory at all.All you have to do is sell the product and the wholesaler you use will handle those tasks for you.
If you’ve been on eBay for some time, you may have considered moving to an eBay dropship business. If you think you might be ready, here’s a few things to keep in mind.
- You don’t need to keep inventory. Saving time and space in your home or office is a big plus when it comes to choosing whether or not to use a wholesaler. It also means that you also don’t have to keep shipping products on hand which can save you money and storage space as well.
- Having a wholesaler dropship for you can be costly. Remember that even though wholesalers provide lots of valuable services to you, it does come with fees attached.Every time a wholesaler ships a product for you, there will be a fee attached which varies by wholesaler.
- It can give you more free time. Having someone like a wholesaler handle your eBay dropship business for you (at least on the product side) means that you don’t need to use your own time packing up the items and getting them to the place to actually ship them off.This can free up more time for you which will allow you to work on marketing your business and making more sales.
- Products not available. Running an eBay dropship business and working with wholesalers also means that you run the risk of having an item that was sold not being in stock. In which case, you’ll need to deal directly with the customer on that issue.This also means that you’ll have to deal personally with the customer.
- Shipping problems. Any multitude of issues can arise when you use a wholesaler to dropship your products for you. Issues such as damaged goods, late delivery or any other kinds of issues. As the seller of the product, it is up to you to deal directly with the customer, not the wholesaler.
The bottom line is, if you’re considering getting into the eBay dropship business, it can be a very lucrative business for you but there are downsides to drop shipping as well as we’ve just pointed out.
If you are ready to move into the next level of your eBay dropship business, it can be a very smart move; you just need to understand all of the ins and outs of running a business that depends on a dropship wholesaler.