khuct

I was reading up on drop-shipping yesterday and from what I've gathered so far...it is a way of doing business with very little/no startup cost. You essentially only pay for the merchandise when the customer orders it from you..meaning you won't have to worry about not selling your products and losing money because you won't pay for something that is not going to sell? Am I right about drop-shipping so far? But of course the drawback to that is that you can't control your inventory, because well, you have none. But this still seems like a fairly good deal to me...especially when for someone like me who does not have much money invested in for a start-up cost. Am I missing anything here? Is there anything else I need to know about drop-shipping and are can someone point me towards some drop-shipping resources on the web?

Cynthetiq

I used to drop ship all the time when I was a kid. Sometimes when I order computer parts for clients I do the same thing.

Customers called in orders, I called up my wholesaler, and they shipped directly to my customer.

Most wholesalers will drop ship.

What it sounds like to me that you are looking for it's a drop ship solution but an actual Fulfillment house type relationship. There are lots of Ebay business that do such things.

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khuct

So would the customer need to buy in bulk amounts for the wholesaler to dropship? And what is Fulfillment house relationship?

hrdwareguy

The customer does not buy from the wholesaler, you do. Lets say you have 5 customers that all want something at the same time. You call your distributor and place 5 seperate orders and have them drop shipped to the different locations. You pay the wholesaler, the customer pays you.

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Cynthetiq

fullfillment house relationship is when there are a bunch of different items you want to sell, but you don't have a warehouse, nor do you have shippers.

So you contract for them to take in your inventory (even sometimes consignment inventory) and then they get the orders either via phone, mail, website, and then they pack and ship for you.

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khuct

so now then if a customer wants to return or a refund, then it would be me who handles it correct? So I take back the merchandise from the customer and then return it to the dropshipper for MY refund if it is within their return policy (ex 30 days). Now if the return period is 30 days, then should I have a 2 week return policy to ensure that I get the merchandise back to the warehouse within 30 days?


Thanks a lot...I know this is a lot of questions but this is something I might potentially be really interested in and I appreciate all the answers

hrdwareguy

Or you could have a no refunds policy and exchanges only on defective parts within 30 days. Lets say something breaks at day 28, if you call the place you got it from, they will let you exchange it because you let them know about the problem within the 30 day limit.

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Cynthetiq

some companies just eat it as a loss since in order to be competitive they have to have the same 30 day returns, but that's also why some mom and pops have a 14 day return policy.

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