Hello:

We're going to start drop shipping products on our page and I'd like to ask if anyone could share some do's, don'ts, horror stories, etc.

My concern is selling a product that the wholesaler doesn't have instock. Seems like a let down for the customer and a pain in the neck refunding $ (if the customer doesn't want to wait for the back order).

What is the typical max time customers are willing to wait for a back ordered product before canceling the order? We're dealing with imported items (Germany mostly) and it can take 6-8 weeks to get items.

Thanks in advance.

Best,
Brian

We've been thinking of drop shipping as well. If anyone has experience with this I'm sure the whole community would appreciate it if you could share your story

ultimatekeychains,


80% of my stuff is done on dropship! Let me know what information you are looking for and I will see if I can answer it for you!

One issue in dealing with drop shippers is that each supplier has different shipping providers. For example, one ships via UPS only, another supplier ships via UPS and USPS. It would be great to specify different shipping options by products or by drop ship supplier.

The other problem is that each drop ship supplier is in different parts of the country which impacts the shipping rates. Currently you can only specify one Shipping Origin. It would be helpful to identify each drop shipper and their respective shipping origin. In turn this would allow for more accurate final shipping price when utilizing multiple suppliers on one order.

Or maybe somebody has figured this out?

We've been asked to be a drop shipper but my concern has been that someone might sell something that is out of stock. We can usually get more of the item, but since we import from Indonesia it could take as long as 3 months (one month for the artisan to make after we order, a month on a ship, customs delays, and waiting for our next container to leave port).

This has led us to say know.

If there would be a way for drop shippers to link to our inventory so that our "out of stock" items are known to them in real time, that would be great!

Anyone solved this problem yet?

Hi a few things to remember when drop shipping and if you cannot provide the following services to the "T" then I would not reccommend drop shipping:

1. Stock - If you cannot update your stock efficiently enough then dropshipping is not for you. Your drop shippers depend on you to be responsible so that they can offer the products to their customers.

If you do not have enough items to drop ship then do not drop ship. You cannot run a sucessful dropshipping site. I believe that to run a successful drop shipping site you have to have enough products for your clients to offer to their clients.

2. Provide a organized way for your customers to report their orders to you. Make sure you state cut off times for them to report their orders to you for shipping that day.

3. Make sure you list shipping fees and how billing will work is stated. For example if you require them to come to your site and pay first or if they are billed at the end of the month by a purchase order.

Make sure you ship items on time to their customer and provide them with tracking number and signature confirmation (for you protection)

I would also draw up a drop shipping agreement stating the policies, so there is no problems in the long run and if so you can pull out the agreement.

List return policies, etc..

If I have any other things I will list it.

krazykickz
I was think more along the lines of using a drop shipper rather than becoming one. But your info is great for those planning of venturing in that direction.


My dilemma is using a drop shipper that doesn't have real time access to their inventory and a customer might have to wait 6-8 weeks to receive an item.

Also, the wholesaler I'm thinking of doing business with ships orders 3-5 business days after receiving the order. I ship all my products same or next business day. What are peoples thoughts on that? How can I expect customers to react to waiting 3-5 days before the item even leaves the door? I’m torn because the items are high value and there is a good profit margin – plus they are the only wholesale that drops ships these items in the USA.

Hi,

well being a drop shipping client also becomes a hassle for the same reasons that you mentioned. Most site do not update their stock automatically.


Also, from my experience drop shippers either take so long to ship that your customers are emailing you non-stop asking when their stuff is going to come or when it is shipped, or it has not arrived. and/or it arrived damaged.

I've pretty much have had a good experience drop shipping. The company doing the drop shipping for you does make a big difference: you want one who is reliable and responsive. The company I deal with usually ships within a business day.

When it comes to backorders, I've found a lot of customers will wait. Our backorders can come in anywhere from a few days to a month later. Warn your customers (as well as you can) about the potential wait, and then let them decide what they want to do. I have had them follow up with me a few weeks later, but none of them have seemed angry about the whole thing.

About this...
"Also, the wholesaler I'm thinking of doing business with ships orders 3-5 business days after receiving the order. "

Maybe, for these items, add a note under the item that says something like 'usually ships within 3-5 business days' (or 4-5 days, depending on when you can get the orders to the wholesaler). That way the customer can decide before ordering whether this is right for them.

nice advice

Hedon:

Thanks for the rock solid advice. Just what the doctor ordered.

Much obliged.

Well if I may put my input here. I have been doing drop shipping for a little over 3-years now. Just recently this year we starting stocking items in our warehouse. The main thing is to run the manufactures full line as well as make sure the manufacture is able to provide tracking numbers within a timely manner. We typically get all drop ship tracking numbers within 24-hours which works out awesome because I am able to enter those tracking numbers and most customers never know the difference. One thing the software does really need is a way for you to change the shipping method, so say like if a drop ship went UPS and the customer selected FEDEX shipping online you could change that from the backside and when they went to track the order it would go to the right carriers site. If anyone is interested in checking out our site see the link below.

Matthew Petro
Vice President
Gauge Media Group Inc.
http://store.gaugemagazine.com
matt@gaugemagazine.com

Hey guys-
Check out DropShipSource.com.
If any of you use the list, let me know what you think. We are considering some form of partnership where you can buy stores preloaded with items. Let me know what you think of this idea!
-gup

The whole drop shipping issue is actually very easy to use with Commerce. We have 4 seperate companies now that do drop shipments for us. At the time that we receive an order we just fax them over the order details for them (as the drop ship e-mailing does not work properly yet in 4.0 but is in the bug fix stage).

Generally, our suppliers send out the packages the same day or the next day. When they receive our order and reply with confirmation then we adjust our order through the MC cart to "In Progress". Most drop shippers that we have dealt with will also send you back the tracking number so that you can inform your customers and then they can track the order right on your site.

The hardest part that we discovered was finding some decent drop shippers.

If you have any other questiones, just ask away. This is really a very profitable method of business as you are paid for your product(s) prior to your actually ordering them!

Here a suggestion that several of us did on e-bay a few months ago. There were 8 of us that went together and purchased some large quantites of a couple of differrent items. That gave us the buying power to get the items at super great prices. Within about 1 month after that, we had all pretty much sold out of our products. We then turned around and just simply re-invested it and did the same thing again on a different product.

With the Christmas season coming on, this could possibly be an excellent way to gain some great products at prices that you would not otherwise be able to get.

saxongifts - you're welcome.
krazykickz - thanks.

We've now just really had a bad experience with a backorder. Hopefully, one we'll learn from.

The customer asked when we would get the order in. We called our dropshipper, and then responded to the customer with the date the fulfillment house provided. Unfortunately, the item didn't come in. This upset the customer very deeply, and eventually led to a cancelled order. We did ask the customer what we should have done instead, but we must have asked it in the wrong way because the customer said our response was rude.

Any suggestions on how to handle this next time? We will re-read our emails before sending them out from now on. It's just now we're not sure how to respond to "when will it come in?"

Thanks.

I drop ship all my products. The directory that I use is @ www.dropshipsource.com. It costs to use the directory, but the companies in the directory are great to deal with. The only thing is, when I look for a drop shipper, I make sure they sell only a certain type of product with a lot of stock. Not 2 items here and 1 item there. It's too much of a headache to hope the stock will be there tomorrow when you get an order and that's when you are sure to get upset customers.

Jennifer
Packin' It

I found my dropshipper through www.dropshipsource.com. This is the first time they've let me down - they've been great so far.

Thanks though.

Just to put my 2 cents in....

My company is all about drop shipped. We stock nothing and have everything shipped for us. We get great prices from our suppliers because we move tons of product.

Drop shipping works if you find companies that are reliable and work with you.

I recommend it.

Edward Jenkins
JJI Electronics

I never thought of a whiteboard - that's a good idea. And fortunately my supplier is responsive to emails.

Thanks!

No problem, you just have to organize it all, this way when your up to hundreds of orders a day you can handle it all...lol