The benefits of using a dropshipping wholesaler are plentiful:
1. You don’t have to invest in inventory; this saves you a ton of money and additional headache in case the goods are not selling well.
2. You don’t need to worry about a proper storage of your goods and/or investing in a warehouse, simply because you have no goods! In fact, you may never even touch the product you are selling!
3. You are not restricted to one type of a product only and are free to switch to other types as often as you want to. This gives you an opportunity to find your niche without much of a hassle.
4. You can offer unlimited number of products, without the need to open separate specialty shops for each product type, unless you want to.
5. You have no leftover items, which you would need to store and find ways to get rid of, compromising on the price.
6. The flow of cash starts with the very first item you sell. In a simplified way, the process looks like this: the buyer pays you, you pay to the dropshipping wholesaler, and the difference between the two prices makes your profit.
7. You are spared of the trouble to pack, handle and ship the items. You save money as well, even though your dropshipping wholesaler charges you for the delivery. But in case you handled the delivery of the product yourself, you would have spent much more, leaving little room for profit.
8. With most dropship suppliers you qualify for the wholesale price without the need to place a minimum order.
However, like in any business there are certain risks involved as well:
1. You have little control over the entire process, and can’t help if mistakes and delays happen.
2. You are held responsible for the item’s lousy quality, shipping damages, poor packaging, slow delivery and other problems that may occur thanks to a poorly chosen dropshipping wholesaler. All this affects your market reputation and can kill your business in no time, especially if you operate on such platforms as eBay, where the customer’s feedback is vital.
3. You are normally not informed when a certain product is sold out, so you may continue to offer it in your shop until you get angry inquiries from your customer on the reasons why the purchase hasn’t arrived yet.
Choosing a dropshipping wholesaler you may need to make a couple of test purchases to evaluate the quality and overall service, find out what policies the company has, and get a feedback from its former or current partners.
