5 Important Considerations For Your Home Business With Drop Shipping
by Scott L.Bamboo on 2008-07-24
It is the easiest and the fastest way to start a home-based business using drop shipping as your backend to supply and deliver your customers' order and eBay as your storefront interface. Although drop shipping brings a lot of benefits and make easy for your home-based business, it may jeopardy your business if you are not carefully select reliable and responsible drop shippers. Here are 5 important considerations that you must take when comes to selecting your drop shippers for your home-based business.
Consideration #1: Are Your Selected Drop Shippers Really Offers Wholesale Prices?
There are many drop shipping companies on the internet claim that they offer best wholesale price, unfortunately, only a few products offer at good prices just to attract you and most of their products' prices are just a bit lower than the normal retail price, you won't be able to make sufficient profits out of these products.
Hence, before searching for drop shippers for you home-based business, you need to know the normal retail prices of the products you intend to sell. Then, compare those prices with the wholesale prices offered by drop shippers.
Consideration #2: What Availability Guarantees Are They Claiming & Are They Proven
You do not want to waste your time and effort promoting drop shipping products and later when you have received orders but found out that the products are out of stock and you have to turn down your customers' order. Hence, the product availability guarantees are among the important consideration when selecting your drop-shippers for you home-based business.
Most drop shippers allow you to access online on their stock lists and you can see what they have in stock. There are drop shippers' online systems that can allow you to set an alert warning level on their stock level for your selected products and you will receive an alert message if their stock level is lower that the pre-set value. This feature will keep you alert on the stock level and help you to avoid promoting products which are out of stock.
Consideration #3: What Is The Committed Delivery Lead Time
You definitely want to keep your customers happy with their order being delivered fast. If your drop shippers are going to take 2 to 3 weeks to ship then you may not going to have many happy customers who will repeat purchase from you in the future. Hence, you must consider the delivery lead time as one of your consideration factors when selecting your preferred drop shippers. Many drop shippers are able to ship with in 3 days and some of them even can ship in next day once receive order from you.
Consideration #4: Do They Ship Internationally?
Unless you just want to do business within your own country, then this is not an important consideration for you. But, selecting drop shippers who can ship internationally can open many market opportunities for your business expansion in the future.
Consideration #5: Is The Return & Refund Policy Meeting Your Requirement?
You cannot success in online business that sell physical goods without a return and refund policy. Customers may want to get refund if they found their purchased products are not meeting their expectation. What are your warranties to your customers if products they received are not in good shape? Hence, it is important you mentioned your return and refund policy at your online store. It is important that your return and refund policy must in line with the return and refund policy of your drop shippers because they are the one who going to ship your orders to your customers and process the return of goods from your customers. Carefully review the drop shippers' return and refund policy to ensure the stated policies meet your commitment that you offer to your customers.
Summary
Reliable and responsible drop shippers will ease your online business without the need to worry about product stock and delivery. You need to carefully select the drop shippers that you can trust in order to make your online business a success and keeping your customers happy.
Consideration #1: Are Your Selected Drop Shippers Really Offers Wholesale Prices?
There are many drop shipping companies on the internet claim that they offer best wholesale price, unfortunately, only a few products offer at good prices just to attract you and most of their products' prices are just a bit lower than the normal retail price, you won't be able to make sufficient profits out of these products.
Hence, before searching for drop shippers for you home-based business, you need to know the normal retail prices of the products you intend to sell. Then, compare those prices with the wholesale prices offered by drop shippers.
Consideration #2: What Availability Guarantees Are They Claiming & Are They Proven
You do not want to waste your time and effort promoting drop shipping products and later when you have received orders but found out that the products are out of stock and you have to turn down your customers' order. Hence, the product availability guarantees are among the important consideration when selecting your drop-shippers for you home-based business.
Most drop shippers allow you to access online on their stock lists and you can see what they have in stock. There are drop shippers' online systems that can allow you to set an alert warning level on their stock level for your selected products and you will receive an alert message if their stock level is lower that the pre-set value. This feature will keep you alert on the stock level and help you to avoid promoting products which are out of stock.
Consideration #3: What Is The Committed Delivery Lead Time
You definitely want to keep your customers happy with their order being delivered fast. If your drop shippers are going to take 2 to 3 weeks to ship then you may not going to have many happy customers who will repeat purchase from you in the future. Hence, you must consider the delivery lead time as one of your consideration factors when selecting your preferred drop shippers. Many drop shippers are able to ship with in 3 days and some of them even can ship in next day once receive order from you.
Consideration #4: Do They Ship Internationally?
Unless you just want to do business within your own country, then this is not an important consideration for you. But, selecting drop shippers who can ship internationally can open many market opportunities for your business expansion in the future.
Consideration #5: Is The Return & Refund Policy Meeting Your Requirement?
You cannot success in online business that sell physical goods without a return and refund policy. Customers may want to get refund if they found their purchased products are not meeting their expectation. What are your warranties to your customers if products they received are not in good shape? Hence, it is important you mentioned your return and refund policy at your online store. It is important that your return and refund policy must in line with the return and refund policy of your drop shippers because they are the one who going to ship your orders to your customers and process the return of goods from your customers. Carefully review the drop shippers' return and refund policy to ensure the stated policies meet your commitment that you offer to your customers.
Summary
Reliable and responsible drop shippers will ease your online business without the need to worry about product stock and delivery. You need to carefully select the drop shippers that you can trust in order to make your online business a success and keeping your customers happy.
About The Author: Scott Bamboo is the author for www.onlinebusinessrevenue.info. You need the right tools and useful resources to help you to become Affiliate RockStar. Find the required information & resources on drop shipping, home-based business and etc