How are you fellow steemians ! In a modern rising economy many ways of purchasing are starting to appear, as well as many sites that give you the choice to promote, sell and resell different kind of products, currencies like Bitcoin, Bitcoin cash, Litecoin, Ethereum etc. that replace the normal currencies and much more.
So today we are going to talk about a really interesting and creative opportunity for everyone who wants to invest in and have a chance to be paid back for his or her hard work.
What’s Drop-shipping!
Drop-shipping is a quite simple system. It’s a retail system in which the store instead of keeping the products (that it
purchased from another party) in stock, it sells it and ships it directly to the customer.
What that basically means is that if I own a store (online store specifically) I can purchase a product from another store – supplier (like EBay, AliExpress and more) and me being the merchant, I never come in touch with the product. Instead the supplier will send it to the customer who I’m selling it and of course all the profits go to my store. One thing that everybody should know is that there are 2 different types of sales, wholesale and retail. Wholesale is when you the owner of the store buy the product from the third party while retail is exactly what we described earlier as what the store sells to the customer. It seems like an elaborate method but it’s not.
Take for example this picture that we personally made to explain you how it works.
No.1 is the supplier or as we call it “the third party” which sells to you the product which you will resell.
No.2 (which is the last step) is when the customer pays you for the purchase of the product.
No.3 is your store selling the product without putting it in stock and sending it back to the supplier and
No.4 is where the supplier takes care of the product and ships the product to the customer.
As I already explained this is a great method as the merchant doesn’t ever comes In touch with any of the products
(inventory) and has a decent profit most of the times.
What are the advantages of Drop-shipping for an online store!
• The capital needed isn’t much.
Usually in the traditional sales, the retailer will need to spend a quite big amount of capital for inventory which makes the profit less and harder to be made. In this case drop-shipping is revolutionizing the market by making it easier for retailers to buy more inventory with less amount of capital.
• If the products are not being sold then the store doesn’t lose any money
That’s due to the fact that the owner is only advertising the product that he sells online in his store. Once there is an interest from a customer then the owner can proceed to the next step and buy from the supplier what the customer wants. It’s an efficient and productive way of selling.
• There isn’t any cost of packaging and sending it to the customer
The store only sells the product to the customer and it never comes in touch with the inventory. That makes obvious the fact that the supplier is the only one to send it directly which makes the store’s life easier.
• The store doesn’t deal with returns or customer service
Obviously since the supplier deals with shipping the products whatever complains might exist the supplier will have to deal with it.
• You can choose your inventory from many suppliers
This is really helpful instead of the traditional way of sales in which the options of products are limited. The store can have also the attention of the customers that will become instantly more interested in buying the products.
• You can anytime have access and have sales
This is the biggest benefit of drop-shipping in my opinion. Cause it doesn’t just give you the chance of a more comfortable and faster work but it also lets you have the control of your store even when you are away of home, in a trip, in vacation and more. You can work anywhere with drop-shipping.
I think so far a lot of you must be interested in this efficient system right. That’s exactly me also. The choices that the system provides everyone that has an online store with are endless and the quality and experience even better. But of course everything in life has something minus. Let’s discuss it.
What are the disadvantages of Drop-shipping for an online store!
• Low capital investment in money
It may seem as a great idea that someone can have fast growth in sales by putting a significant low amount of capital but this can actually lead to the fail of the store. That’s because the marketing world is really competitive and many people compare products in a daily basis. And unfortunately most low priced products are not that of quality most of the time. That means that even if there isn’t needed a greatly big amount of capital to start you still need to invest in the right products and in most cases a capital which is still much less than what you would need in the traditional way of business
• Tracking of stock and issues with the suppliers
Since suppliers are the ones in control of the stock, the owner of the store can’t know what products are exactly in and out of stock. That leads to issues like for example a store trying to buy products from a supplier in a period with high percentage of orders but the supplier is out of stock. That will trouble any stores operation and it may lead in loss of customers.
• Many suppliers errors occur
Unfortunately since the store’s owners can’t have track of what’s happening in the shipping of the products and no products pass through their hands, it’s unavoidable that the suppliers will make mistakes like sending the wrong product, sending a destroyed or not well maintained product and much more. In this case the only thing you can do as the owner is to apologize to the customer and offer him either a refund or offer him the product again without hi paying anything extra.
Two more things I would love to talk about is what you should be warned about using that system and my personal opinion on how bitcoin would be a perfect fit for this.
The thing that you should be careful of is scammers. Yes unfortunately many found the idea of creating fake supplying businesses or fake online stores attractive, attracting that way different customers in buying their products that never even existed. So be careful because you could be their next victim and you won’t know it till it happens to you.
Lastly I would love to offer my opinion on how bitcoin and in general crypto currency can fit perfectly with drop-shipping. Crypto these last years has seen a huge growth on its value and it’s not a coincidence that many say that this type of electronic currency will replace sooner or later the types of currencies that we use nowadays. It’s a much faster procedure using bitcoin for example than real cash cause you can do your job faster and plus it’s a safer way. Since all our sales will slowly (as I also predict) become online in the near future, we will only be able to pay just a few stuff with “real” money. That leads us to bitcoin or in general crypto. This type of currency will be a perfect fit cause in the near future since everything will become an online selling it will automatically move more and more people to use crypto currency till it will become the global currency. It may sound crazy how this type of currency can become the global one and be used by everyone but since technology is taking over nobody can stop it. So basically it’s a perfect fit since suppliers and electronic stores will do transactions in crypto and the same will be possible for many customers.
So In general Drop-shipping seems to work with most people that put effort and they know what they buy and sell. It doesn’t need anyone to be an expert in order to start and it can actually lead you to becoming one in sales. The profits are pretty good and it can give you some good prospects in new future jobs and deals. It doesn’t necessarily mean that anyone will have the chance to grow fast and easy. Yes some do but of course that can’t be possible for everyone so it will take some time and much patience till you start seeing the results of your effort.
I hope through this blog we made it easier for everyone that didn’t know what exactly drop-shipping is and we inspire all of you to think and be encouraged to try out this new opportunity that is given to everyone. Give your best self and let’s succeed.
Leave your comments, thoughts and opinions down in the comment section
Have a nice day steemians !
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