If you are anything like me, you probably read the title to this and said, “What on earth is drop ship?” If you are like me even more you probably thought that it is a really terrible nickname for any kind of business. The word “drop” just doesn’t have many pleasant connotations. The only one I can think of is “mic drop”, and that makes me laugh because this past weekend we were having a bonfire with some friends and one of them goes, “I just dropped the microphone on the ground!” Priceless.
Apparently a drop ship business is one that sells a product but is then not responsible for shipping them off. Instead, they defer the order to the manufacturer, or a wholesaler. I have yet to understand how this is possible, but apparently there is money to be saved slash made somewhere in there. At the very least, you don’t have to worry about ordering shipping supplies. Also, you would be saving ample space by not having to store said shipping supplies. Also, you are not only saving space you are also saving money by not having to purchase these said shipping supplies. But enough about that.
It appears that the US is the frontrunner for drop ship businesses, which isn’t very surprising, in my opinion. But it’s not like I am super business savvy, so don’t take my word for it…
How this whole system works, according to my understanding, is that you decide you want to sell something. Let’s say you want to sell flip flops. Then you find yourself a manufacturer or a wholesaler that has flip flops. After you have your business EIN number, that is. If you are going with an American provider they aren’t going to do business with you if you don’t have an EIN.
Obviously, drop shipping has it downsides, but some of the really positive ones are what I mentioned above, but also not having to worry about inventory, which frees you up to worry about more important things, like customer service! Customer service is key, right? You can offer a great product, but if no one answers the phone you aren’t going to have repeat customers, and customers aren’t going to recommend their friends, either.
Online business seems to be the way to go these days, and drop shipping is just one of those options. There are still plenty more out there.
