Throughout the years, different styles of marketing and selling have evolved and secured their spot at the forefront of the minds of both sellers and buyers.

From door to door sales, to visiting retail stores and spending hours at the mall — the growth of selling products has shifted once again and is now making a change towards eCommerce.

Online businesses have boomed over the past several years. However, the stress of holding an inventory, packaging, and shipping are no longer a key consideration for savvy sellers who opt for online exchanges. This is all thanks to dropshipping.

Dropshipping Explained

In the past, if a retailer wanted to sell their products online, they would have to handle everything themselves. This included: investing in a mass amount of inventory, stocking their warehouse full of it, packaging the equipment when it was ordered, and shipping it when ready.

Dropshipping has eradicated this cumbersome and inefficient method of eCommerce, and has instead replaced it with a more streamlined system that benefits the seller (and the customer, too).

The dropship model works like this: a customer places an order from the retailers store online. The retailer then sends this order onto the supplier, and pays the wholesale price for the item. The supplier handles the packaging and shipment of the item, and the customer receives it in a timely manner.

Retailers don’t have to invest and tie up money in inventory. They instead purchase products from the manufacturer or wholesaler when customers place the order.

5 Reasons to Dropship

While of course saving time and money is all the motivation needed for many to switch to drop shipping, there are other important benefits as well:

1. It allows expansion in product offerings. Which means…
2. Bigger inventory and varied options for customers.
3. Frees up time to focus on marketing and other important aspects of an eCommerce business.
4. Closes the gap between suppliers and eCommerce store owners.
5. Time and money isn’t invested and wasted on inventory that is sitting in the warehouse.

With the old method of shipping ,business owners might be stuck investing $15,000 in inventory they aren’t sure if they will sell.

With dropshipping, the profit margin might be lower, but you don’t have to invest until a customer purchases a product. Not having to worry about purchasing a varied inventory, storing, shipping a package is the advantage that dropshipping is adding to eCommerce and online businesses around the world.