Dropshipping, refers to an e-commerce business model in which the owner of an online store sells products over the Internet without having to store or ship them themselves. Instead, this task falls to a wholesaler or the product manufacturer, who is notified of the completed customer purchases and subsequently initiates shipment of the requested items. Thus, there is an interaction between three parties: Customer, online seller and wholesaler or manufacturer.
This indirect form of distribution has several advantages. By not having to invest your time in storage or product shipping, you can instead put it into running your business and communicating with customers. In addition, you avoid the extra costs of packaging materials and the risk of spending a lot of money on a large assortment of items that you end up stuck with if they don’t sell as expected.
However, there aren’t only advantages with dropshipping. Besides the fact that you as a dropshipper do not deal directly with your customers, the success of your online store lies in the hands of the wholesaler or manufacturer from whom you source your products. A reliable dropshipping provider is the be-all and end-all in this form of online commerce.
You can read more pros and cons in our article “What is dropshipping?”, which gives you a comprehensive introduction to the dropshipping business model. And if you already want to go one step further and focus on product selection, we recommend our article “The best dropshipping products”.