With the world becoming digital, many new businesses have started, mostly online businesses. Earlier people used to go to the market for shopping and used to buy goods themselves but now they do online shopping. If you also want to do any business related to online shopping, then you must know about drop shipping. What is drop shipping? How to start drop shipping business? What are the benefits of drop shipping? You will find answers to all these questions in this article.
What is Drop Shipping?
You might have heard the term drop shipping for the first time. Or it seems that it is related to the ship of water. But it is nothing like that. Actually drop shipping is related to online business. What is Drop Shipping? is a systematic way of doing online retail business . In this you get customer orders and you send them to the customers. But in this process, you neither store any product nor make any godown for it. Basically drop shipping is to get the product delivered only on the arrival of the order. Which companies like Flipkart and Amazon are doing these days.
How does Drop Shipping work?
How Drop Shipping Works? is a little different from other business.
In many businesses, you have to make a product and then bring it to the market. After this your dealers take it to the small and big shops of the market and then it reaches the people.
In many businesses, you buy a product to sell. Then keep it in your godown or your shop. Then people come, like and buy it.
The case of drop shipping is a bit different. In this, you create a website , display the product on it, tell about its price and quality. People see it and then order it. But you do not actually have that product, nor have you stored it somewhere.
Actually the product is with a shopkeeper or with a dealer. Whenever a person places an order on the website, the supplier takes that order from the dealer or shopkeeper and then delivers it to the customer.
Your role in this whole process is that you get the shopkeeper and dealer listed and after that they keep updating the product and product information on your site. You neither own the product nor do you own the product nor do you deliver it to any customer. Your job is simply to bring the dealer and the customer to the website.
Your advantage in all this is that you keep getting commission on whatever products are sold from your site. Or you give money to the shopkeeper or dealer for his product after deducting your commission yourself.
How to start a Drop Shipping Business?
Doing drop shipping business (How to start drop shipping business?) is not a very difficult task. Particularly in India. Because there are few companies doing drop shipping business here and many drop shipping companies have been closed. In such a situation, it can prove to be a good business for you. Let’s talk about how you can start a drop shipping business.
What will you sell?
To do drop shipping business, first of all ask yourself what kind of product you will sell on your website. Meaning which category of products you want to sell on your site. Such as health related products, gym related products, automobile related products, electronic products etc.
Buy domain
If your business is online then you will need a good domain for it. First of all, think of a good, easy and memorable domain name and then buy the domain . After this buy a good hosting service and make your website live and make it live.
Product listing
After launching the website, the next step is product listing. For this you will have to do some hard work in the beginning or you will have to spend money. To see the product on your site, you have to tell the dealer or shopkeeper of the product about your business and ask them to list their product on your website. Like if you want to sell gym products, then you have to first contact the shopkeeper and dealer selling gym products in your own city. They will have to ask them to list their products and they will also have to tell the benefits of it. You can do this work yourself and you can also get it done by hiring a team.
Marketing
The next and last stop is marketing. Through marketing, you can reach your site to the people. To do marketing, it is not necessary that you run your ads in TV, radio or newspaper. If your business runs on the Internet, then you can advertise through Facebook, Google Ad, YouTube etc. Because people who buy rights online do online shopping by going through these mediums only. You advertise by giving good offers. Marketing will happen automatically.
Benefits of drop shipping business
You have understood the drop shipping business and now the question must be coming in your mind that what will be the benefit of doing this business and how will you be able to earn money.
To make money in drop shipping business, you have to create a model in which you have to decide how much commission you want to charge for selling a product.
For example, the MRP of a product is Rs 2000. Now the shopkeeper or dealer has it at a lower price. For example, let’s assume that this product is worth 1500 rupees with the shopkeeper. Now you will also have to spend money to reach it to the customer. So for that also let’s assume that Rs 100-150 will be spent on shipping a product. Now the price of the product has gone up to Rs 1650. Now suppose that by adding all this, the shopkeeper lists the price of the product as Rs 2200. And if you tell him your commission in advance, then you will deduct the commission that will be left of you from the price of this 2200 rupees and give the money to the shopkeeper or dealer because the money will come to you only. Not with the shopkeeper. In this way you earn money in this business.
The second advantage of this business is that you do not need to have a godown or buy and sell any product for this business. As the shopkeepers or dealers usually do.
In the business of drop shipping, you do not even have to do packing and shipping because you get it done by the supplier. In such a situation, you do not have to spend money on packing and transport, nor do you have to take tension. You remain tension free by giving all this work to a good supplier.
You do not even need a good office to run a drop shipping business. You can operate it sitting from anywhere. But for technical work you need a good team. On the other hand, you have to hire a good team for customer response.
In drop shipping, there is no limit on how many types of products you can list on your website because there is no godown or shop where you can keep as many products as you can in your shop. This is the digital world where you can get unlimited products listed on your website.
With the help of drop shipping, you not only earn yourself but also increase the business of the shopkeepers. Apart from this, you also deliver goods to the customer sitting at home. In such a situation, everyone is happy with your business.
Disadvantages of Drop Shipping
While there are many advantages of drop shipping, there are also some disadvantages due to which either your business can slow down or your business can be completely closed.
In drop shipping neither the customer can actually see the product nor do you actually see the product and send it to the customer. All this work is done by the supplier. In such a situation, if the supplier sends something else to a customer at the place of the product, then your name will be bad and not that of the supplier.
Many times in the drop shipping business, the quality of the products that the shopkeepers list is not the same. This thing can be harmful for your business.
Always implement the return policy in this business and persuade the supplier to do the same.
