What is Dropshipping?

It’s a retail fulfilment method that dates back to the early 1960s. When stores do not keep the products they sell in stock, they purchase them from a third party and ship them directly to the customer. 

In a standard retail model, it’s quite the opposite because they purchase products and items as needed from a third party wholesaler or manufacturer to fulfil the orders made by the buyer.

So with the dropshipping type of retail system, the seller doesn’t necessarily have to handle the product directly. Instead, you can think of dropshippers as online middlemen. 

Benefits of Dropshipping

Nowadays, when almost everyone is online, dropshipping is one of the best ways to start your business. There are so many benefits when it comes to dropshipping, especially for sellers, because of the following:

Less Capital and Low-cost

Dropshipping is now one of the most popular options for aspiring entrepreneurs because you can launch an online store without investing a large capital upfront. Traditionally, retailers had to invest massive amounts of capital for their inventory. 

You don’t have to purchase the product with dropshipping until you’ve already made the sale. Also, the customer has usually had to pay for it first before you process the order. Therefore, you are not committed to selling through any items bought in bulk purchased upfront. 

Accessible

Having an eCommerce store is very accessible because you don’t have to worry about space. You don’t necessarily need to get a warehouse. You also don’t need to think about packing and shipping your orders because the supplier will be taking care of that for you. Therefore, you also do not have to track inventory and handle returns. 

Simpler to Test and Scale

Dropshipping allows businesses to list and potentially sell products before committing to buying a large amount of inventory. In addition, companies that utilise dropshipping scale up well because most of the work will be borne by the supplier, enabling you to expand the business with less load and effort.

With e-commerce now becoming the norm, you may be thinking about taking advantage of dropshipping in one of the biggest online shopping sites, eBay. But you must’ve heard or read an issue before about dropshippers and eBay. 

Back in 2010, many dropshippers started to do something unfair. They found products and items on fellow retailers or marketplaces like Amazon and Walmart and advertised them on their eBay store at a higher price. 

So when a customer purchased an item for them, dropshippers would order the product from these stores and have the items delivered to the customer. The buyers received products in branded boxes with receipts showing the actual amount the dropshipper had paid.

Since then, eBay then changed its rules when it came to dropshipping. Dropshipping is not dead to eBay, but their guidelines have become stricter when it comes to this. So, of course, you can still dropship on eBay. 

Things To Consider

However, you have to consider a few crucial things, or your account may get suspended. So, if you still want to dropship and use eBay as your platform, you can check out the simple eBay dropshipping guide below.

Buy Direct 

As a dropshipper, you can only buy the products or items you sell from direct manufacturers, suppliers or wholesalers. This is emphasized explicitly in eBay’s policy when it comes to dropshipping.

So when looking for the right supplier, make sure to read their product reviews. In addition, understand all of their policies, such as the shipping and return conditions. Once you’ve found a supplier that has good reviews and guidelines, you can go ahead and order a batch of product samples to test things out.

If the samples they sent were to your liking, understand the costs that will be included, such as shipping rates, subscription and stocking fees and penalties, if there are any. In addition, before jumping into a partnership with them, ask the supplier if automation is possible to make the transactions easier on both ends. 

Guarantee the Delivery Time

As a seller, it’s standard to deliver a product or an item within 30 days or shorter. So, if you are using a dropshipping system, you need to find a supplier that will ship things on time because late deliveries could mean a fine from eBay or a loss of your seller status because of angry customers. 

Be Responsible

If something goes wrong, whether the product or the shipment, you are held responsible as the seller. Therefore, one of your tasks is to ensure that the customer’s order is delivered and received on time. This can be pretty challenging because you are not doing the delivery in dropshipping, so you have to communicate with the supplier to track the items’ movement constantly.

In addition, when making a listing, you have to ensure that all descriptions and images are accurate. So it’s crucial when you are looking for a supplier to order a sample batch to check the item’s quality. Prioritising quantity over quality will sooner or later put you in trouble with your buyers.

Suppose you cannot meet the requirements listed above for dropshipping on eBay. As a result, you can either have a lower seller rating, restrictions on buying, loss of buyer protection or worse, account suspension. So make sure that you understand eBay’s dropshipping policy entirely before getting started.