Drop Ship Your Way to a Fortune

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Your customer sees a marvelous array of products on your website. After thoughtful consideration, she purchases the product she wants. Amazingly, you have never actually seen the product. That is because your supplier shipped the order directly to her.

After deciding what products you will sell, you are immediately faced with many challenges.

First: "To stock my products, will I need to rent store or warehouse space? I was hoping to sell by Internet, mail order, or export, but I don't have much storage space for inventory at home."

Second: "Will the supplier even deal with me if I don't have a retail location? I was counting on keeping my overhead down by operating from home."

Third: "I know that many manufacturers and distributors have a minimum order, sometimes in the thousands of dollars. I don't have that kind of money!"

Fourth: "Even if I did have the money, why should I tie it up in inventory? How do I know if the product will even sell?"

Fifth: "I guess I will have to add extra insurance coverage for my inventory. Maybe I better upgrade my security system while I'm at it."

Sixth: "The shipping charges are going to kill me. First, I have to pay to get the goods here (freight-in). Then, I have to pay to ship the goods out to my customers (freight-out)."

Seventh: "If I expand and hire employees, how will I control the inventory? How will I know if my employees are stealing from me?"

Eighth: "How much time and money am I going to spend packaging and fulfilling orders?"

These problems can be reduced or eliminated by drop shipping.

Drop shipping is a method of selling products without stocking inventory yourself. You don't need to stock inventory, because you only order an item when a customer requests it.

With drop shipping, when you make a sale you contact the manufacturer or authorized distributor and make arrangements to pay for the order at your wholesale cost. Your distributor then ships the product to the customer with your invoice and shipping label.

For example, let's assume that you have just sold a product to a customer for $100.00 plus shipping charges of $15.00. Having received the customer's payment, you now need to fax or otherwise send your order to your drop ship supplier. You will need to pay your supplier, by credit card or other means, your cost of $50.00 plus $15.00 shipping. This leaves you a $50.00 gross profit. Your supplier will now ship the product to your customer.

With this arrangement of not having to stock inventory yourself, there are many advantages.

You eliminate the high costs of holding inventory. There is no need for you to rent expensive storage space, finance high minimum orders, get stuck with goods that don't sell, or pay other expenses associated with maintaining inventory.

Indirectly, you do pay inventory costs. Your drop ship supplier must maintain his inventory and pay all associated costs, including freight-in, storage space, insurance, accounting, shrinkage, and so on. To make a profit, he must pass these costs on to you.

The real advantage to this drop shipping arrangement lies in keeping your costs variable. Instead of being stuck with these expenses up front, whether you sell or not, you pay only when you make a sale.

Many legitimate drop ship suppliers may not require you to have a retail location, but they will want to see evidence that you are in business. They may require you to produce a resale license or retail sales tax permit.

To be sure, there are pitfalls to watch out for in drop shipping. For example, some suppliers claim to sell at wholesale prices but are actually selling closer to retail. Also, margins are very slim in some competitive areas, such as electronics. However, with proper research and information, you should be able to avoid these problems.

Whether from your home, retail store, directly from your website or through an online auction, you can arrange to sell an item before you purchase it. That way you have nothing invested in inventory and won't get stuck with stock that won't sell.

Rather than financing and stocking inventory yourself, consider drop shipping your way to wealth.

J. Stephen Pope, President of Pope Consulting Inc., has been helping clients to earn maximum business profits for over twenty-five years.

For profitable Work at Home Small Business Ideas, visit
http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/.

For more information about drop shipping, visit The Drop Ship Source Directory.

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To understand Drop Shipping, we should first understand product distribution.

People have been distributing products since before the first mastodon skinner traded a fur coat for a flint axe.

Here's how it works.

Let's say ABC Manufacturers makes a product called Mom's Ankle Wax. We'll say that Mom's Ankle Wax has been around for years. It's a very well known brand name product. It will without a doubt give you the shiniest ankles on your block, and everybody wants some.

ABC Manufacturers makes Mom's Ankle Wax, but they don't sell it directly to the public. They're a manufacturing operation. They're far too busy melting paraffin and waxing test ankles to go around building stores all over the place. They need distributors; companies who will take their product and distribute it to the places that will sell it.

For years, ABC Manufacturers has sold Mom's Ankle Wax to a company called DEF Distributors. The founder of DEF Distributors knew Mom herself, back in the old days when she made her Ankle Wax by hand, out in the turkey barn.

Today, DEF Distributors buys Mom's Ankle Wax by the truckload. They pay $5.00 a case for it, which is a very good price. It's such a good price, it has it's own name: the Manufacturer's Wholesale Price.

However, DEF Distributors does not sell it to the general public either. They are a distributor. They distribute Mom's Ankle Wax.

DEF Distributors works with a chain of retail stores called Wax R Us. This place was founded by a retail business visionary who saw the incredible potential of Mom's Ankle Wax a long time ago. Today there are Wax R Us retail stores on every street corner in every major city in the country. Wax R Us buys truckloads of Mom's Ankle Wax from DEF Distributors for $10.00 a case.

So, DEF Distributors makes $5.00 on every case of Mom's Ankle Wax they sell to Wax R Us retail stores. This makes DEF Distributors very happy.

Cases and cases of Mom's Ankle Wax arrive in the stockrooms of Wax R Us stores everywhere. The Wax R Us employees open those cases, and pull 12 cans of Mom's Ankle Wax out of each case. With their pricing guns, they stick a price of $4.50 on each and every can.

Wax R Us stores make a total of $44.00 on each case of Mom's Ankle Wax. (12 cans x 4.50 per can = 54.00, minus the 10.00 they paid for the case = 44.00).

Wax R Us is even happier than DEF Distributors.

However, the happiest people of all are the people who can stroll into Wax R Us and purchase a can of Mom's Ankle Wax for only $4.50. They think this is a great price, and they're walking around with the shiniest ankles in town.

Well, that's it-basic product distribution. The manufacturer sells to the distributor, the distributor sells to the retailer, and the retailer sells to the end user (the customer). The manufacturer, the distributor and the retailer all make money because the customer is willing to spend money for the product.

Drop Shipping has been around for a long time, too. Probably as long as mail order catalogs; maybe longer. If you want to use a buzzword to impress a corporate type, call it "second party addressing".

Above, we talked about the manufacturer-distributor-retailer relationship. When you use drop shipping to sell products on the Internet, (or anywhere else), YOU become the RETAILER in that relationship.

For our purposes, there are two kinds of retailer. There is the retailer who stocks products, and there is the stockless retailer. Drop Shipping means that you become a stockless retailer.

Let's imagine that you want to open a retail store on the Internet. You have to have products to sell, right? Let's also imagine that you like to suffer. Mental anguish is your favorite pastime. You aspire to financial ruin. In that case, you will want to stock products for your Internet retail store.

To stock products for your store, you will have to rent warehouse space, or at least clean out your garage. You will have to have to pay for a shipping account with UPS or FedEx, unless you want to saddle up and trot down to the post office every day. Worst of all, you will have to pay for those products up front.

Yes, that's right. Money. Probably lots of it. For example, if you want to sell Mattel Toys, you can contact Mattel and they will be happy to set you up as a retailer. I know-I've talked to them. We had a nice conversation about setting up an account, placing orders, and all the other wonderful things business persons discuss with each other when beginning a relationship. Toward the end of our conversation, this nice woman said to me, in an offhand manner, "By the way, your minimum first order must be at least $100,000." That's One Hundred Thousand Dollars, folks.

I nearly choked on my bagel. Needless to say, I do not stock Mattel products. Or anyone else's, for that matter.

Stocking products costs money, that's the bottom line. No matter what you sell, if you carry stock, you pay first, and then hope you ell later. If you don't sell the products you buy, there are going to be some very happy people at your next garage sale, and your bank will be sending you an amazing amount of undesirable mail.

There's a much better way.

It should be noted here, if only to keep the Punctuation Police happy, that if you use the method of drop shipping in your business, YOU are not the "drop shipper". The company(s) who supply the products to your customers for you is the drop shipper. YOU become a "Stockless Retailer".

Here's how drop shipping works.

1.) You open an Internet Store, with a shopping cart and the ability to accept credit cards.

2.) You find a distributor who is willing to drop ship the products you want to sell. The best place on the Internet for this is www.DropShipSource.com. The Drop Ship Source Directory is recognized as the best source for legitimate wholesale drop shippers on the Internet.

3.) You establish an account as a retailer with the distributor you choose.

4.) You receive images and descriptions of the products you want to sell from the distributor, and post them on your Internet Store.

5.) A customer surfs into your Internet Store, and falls in love ith a product that you have priced at, say, $80. They purchase the item with their credit card. Your Store charges their credit card $80 plus your shipping fee.

6.) You turn around and email the order to your distributor, along with the customer's name and address.

7.) The distributor sends the product directly to your customer, with YOUR Store's name on the package.

8.) The distributor charges you the wholesale price of, say, $45.00, plus shipping.

9.) Your customer gets a cool product from your store shipped to their door, and they tell all their friends about you, and you make even more money.

There you have it. You just made a $35.00 profit on one item. You didn't have to buy a whole bunch of the product and keep it in your warehouse, hoping you would sell it. You didn't have to pay to have it shipped to you, and then pay to ship it to your customer. All you did was send an email to your distributor.

That's the drop shipping process in a nutshell, and we've placed information in the Drop Ship Source Directory about everything from setting up your store to accepting credit cards.

Chris Malta is a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer. He has worked with computer Systems for 18 years. He's been involved in eCommerce systems, networking and site design for more than 6 years. He's taught college-level computer courses in Western NY. He developed The Drop Ship Source Directory, and he and his partners at Worldwide Brands, Inc., publish the Directory and run eCommerce sites of their own using Drop Shipping as their only business method.

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Product Recommendation

"I am a satisfied member of The Drop Ship Source Directory and I highly recommend it."

--J. Stephen Pope, President, Yenom Marketing Inc.

First of all, many drop shippers will ship just about anywhere. For example, we are located in Canada but some of our drop ship suppliers are located in the United States. We have sold their products to customers located throughout the world, including Canada.

Secondly, even if a drop ship supplier only ships within the United States, this is still a huge market. The vast majority of our worldwide sales come from customers located within the United Staters.

Of course, we still appreciate all the business we receive from customers in other countries. That is why we prefer drop shippers who will ship worldwide.

Finally, if some drop ship suppliers won't deal with you because you are located outside the United States, move on. There are plenty of other drop shippers available.

We will not supply your personal information to anyone else and you may unsubscribe at any time. To ensure delivery, please use your primary e-mail address (not a junk e-mail address) and add us to your address book (or whitelist).