Starting A Dropshipping Businesses
Heard of the term ‘drop shipping’ but unsure what it is or how to dropship to create a successful, profitable UK retail business?
What is a drop shipping business?
Drop shipping is the process of purchasing goods from a third party – usually a wholesaler or manufacturer – and then having these goods shipped directly to the customer. Drop shopping is a popular fulfilment model used by retail businesses.
Essentially, starting a dropshipping business enables you to create your own retail brand without having to hold any stock or inventory.
It also means you avoid having to navigate the usual retail distribution channels as you will never see or handle products or goods to fulfil orders.
Why drop shipping is a good business to start
Here are a few of the main reasons while starting a dropshipping business is an attractive business model for both start-ups and established businesses:
Low start-up costs
Starting a dropshipping business, you can quickly start a business without having to invest money in inventory or stock – costs that often act as a bottleneck for retail start-ups looking to achieve fast-growth.
In fact, the start-up costs for starting a dropshipping business are minimal as you only have to purchase a product to be drop shipped once the sale has been made, and the customer has paid for the item.
Easy to start (limited resources necessary)
Starting a dropshipping business means that you avoid managing a retail warehouse, managing stock and inventory levels, packing orders and so on, therefore you won’t encounter the overheads and expenses that a traditional retail business must deal with.
Make money from home
Wondering how to make money from home? You could quite easily start a dropshipping business idea from home as a one-man, or one-woman, band with a laptop, internet connection and a phone.
All you need to know how to start a drop shipping business is:
- Choose the products you want to sell
- Find a supplier that sells them
- Negotiate terms
- List the products on a store/marketplace
For more advice on starting a home-based business, https://obiankesbusinesses.co.uk/contact/
Provided you can readily communicate with suppliers and customers, then you are ready to start your drop shipping model.
You can sell many types of products
With drop shipping, the world of retail is, quite literally, your oyster.
You don’t have to pre-purchase items so all you need to think about when deciding what to sell online – once you have researched whether you think you can sell that product well – is whether your suppliers stock an item: if they do, you can promote this item to your customers.
Fast growth is easy to achieve
If you have a good relationship with your drop shipping suppliers, if you want to scale and make more money from your business, you can get your suppliers to manage most of the work required in processing those extra orders.
Obviously, more orders mean more customer sales which therefore requires you to deal with, and communicate with, more customers so there will still be more work required from you.
However, the business responsibilities are far less, and require you to operate on a much smaller scale, than a traditional retailer is required to.