DropShip, DropShipping and Dropshippers-Business Opportunity

Drop Ship,  Drop Shipping,  Drop Shippers, Drop shipping Business, Drop Shipping Companies and Product Suppliers.

It is without doubt that there are several ways of making money . The major problem often faced by potential business start-ups is the choice of business and the available resources to start with since different businesses require ideas, capital, labour , land (office) and entrepreneurial  skills and approaches. Even  when all  these are available, another choice is whether the business should be online or offline.  Although most businesses started offline but due to advancement in technology and especially the advent of the internet
most are now having online / internet presence for showcasing their products and services. Big businesses ( e.g  ebay and amazon) that have attained global recognition today started small and expanded as time went on. You too can start somewhere. In terms of capital, there are businesses that require large,  little or no capital.

With regards to choice of business and amount of capital I will by this article introduce you to the business called Drop shipping. Sometimes people mistake drop shipping for affiliate marketing or affiliate programs.

What is Dropshipping?

Dropshipping is a service offered by (some, not all) Wholesalers. When you use a Wholesaler who offers Drop Shipping you don't have to worry about stocking or shipping products. Instead, when you get an order from a customer, you contact your wholesaler and they ship it to your customer for you. This means you, as a retailer, can sell a variety of products without ever having to stock any inventory whatsoever. This makes drop shipping very appealing for new, small, home-based online businesses. How Drop Shipping Works: No matter where you plan to sell products online ( ebay or amazon or even open your own online store) if you are starting a business selling products from home then you probably don't want to carry much, if any, inventory. Most people who are starting their first online business via auctions or online stores don't have a lot of money to buy a bunch of products or the space to warehouse and store the products they want to sell online. This is where working with a real Dropshipper will save you a ton of money. As stated earlier, a real Dropshipper is simply a Certified Wholesaler who offers dropshipping. Not all wholesalers offer dropshipping. In fact it's quite difficult to find genuine certified Wholesalers who will dropship and work with online sellers. For online sellers, working with a Dropshipper is pretty easy. You find the Dropshipper you want to work with (the one who has the products you want to sell.) They will then give you access to their product images so that you can post them on your website, auction, blog or however you plan to sell online. When a customer orders the product, you then order the product from the Wholesaler and they ship it to your customer. Pro's & Con's of Drop Shipping Using a certified Wholesaler that drop ships is a low-cost solution for people who work from home, don't have money to spend on inventory and want to sell products online. Drop shipping does work and it works very well but you do have to be careful with a few things. First, you can't just sell any product you want and expect to be able to compete with drop shipping. When you have a product drop shipped, you are buying and selling 1 product at a time. That means your wholesale price is for 1 product when you have it drop shipped. Wholesalers always give discounts to retailers when they purchase in bulk. That means your wholesale price for 1 product (drop shipped) can be higher than a competitor who is buying in volume from the wholesaler...which means they can sell that product much cheaper than you can, and in some cases, even cheaper than your wholesale cost!   Difference Between  Dropshipping and Affiliate Program? With drop shipping, you are the one that is offering the products for sale on your website or chosen selling platform. You have a merchant account and will charge the customers the retail price + shipping/handling costs. Once you collect the funds from the customer, you then place the order with the wholesaler that dropships and pay the wholesaler the wholesale cost + shipping/handling. The Drop shipping Supplier will then ship the product to your customers location for you. So with drop shipping, the wholesaler is your fulfillment center.  However, in affiliate marketing you would sign up for that affiliate program, and put your special link on the words in your blog posts to send people to that place to buy or you place “ads” on the page for people to check out what you like and maybe buy it to try it out. When a person clicks that ad or link, they will go to the brand or retailers website, and you will earn a set commission amount for every sale that is made. Commission amounts vary across the board for every company, so you can either shop around for the best commission or only promote your favorite places to buy from. So with an affiliate program, you aren’t the one processing the orders and charging customers. The company you are referring people to will.  With an affiliate program, the retailer handles everything and will pay you every month for sales that you generated. A good resource for some affiliate programs to join is this . Which is better? It depends. If you only want to blog about your favorite things, then an affiliate program is better. If you want to control the retail prices, directly communicate with the customers, and actually have a store online, then you need to setup accounts with wholesalers that drop ship to fulfill orders for you. Which earns more? Again, it depends. If you get fantastic wholesale prices, you can actually earn more by having an online store than referring people to other websites. So shop around and figure out what’s best for you and what level of involvement you want. So how can drop shipping work? Easy. You have to pick the "right" products to sell; the right kinds of products to drop ship. You can't assume that just because you might think a product is a 'good idea to sell' that you should jump in and start selling that product. Especially with drop shipping. Doing a little bit of market research before you start selling is critically important. You have to find the products you can have drop shipped that you can compete with in the current online market. But by doing a little bit of research first, you can be very successful with drop shipping! The Pro's of Drop Shipping: - You don't have to buy or store inventory - Very Low Startup Cost - Easily Add or Change Up your product offerings The Con's of Drop Shipping: - Not all Wholesalers offer dropshipping - Wholesale Cost is based on 1 product only - Must spend time researching to pick the right product(s) to sell Finding Good Drop Shippers It's actually quite difficult to find genuine certified Drop Shippers. You can't do an internet search for "dropshipper" without running into hundreds of scammers and middlemen. Most of the results you'll find online are companies claiming to be dropshippers but they are nowhere near the quality and pricing you get from working with genuine Certifed Dropshippers. So be careful if you decide to search on your own. Remember, true Certified Dropshippers do not charge setup fees or monthly fees. So if you search on your own and find a company claiming to be a "dropshipper" or offer "dropshipping" but then they turn around and tell you you need to pay a setup fee, monthly fee or annual fee then they are NOT a real Drop Shipper. Always Remember: It's FREE to work with Certified Dropshippers! Now that you have known or expanded your knowledge about what drop shipping is you can start your drop shipping business here now .