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Dropshipping is it really that hard? 
By: Graham Waite
Dropshipping and Dropshipers what the heck are they anyway. Well unless you've been hiding under a rock and live in the United States you probably already know but for the rest of the world, now that's a whole different story.
This is a quick summary of Dropshipping for those who don't know. What happens is instead of you ordering a huge pile of stock and then after you sell it you ship it direct to your customers with dropshipping the supplier send out your orders for you. Once you make the sale you send the dropshipper your customers details and they send out the goods. They even use your shipping labels so your customer won't even know or care you aren't supplying them.
Drop shipping is a very popular option with sellers because it takes a lot of the grunt work out of selling on eBay.No need for shipping goods or buying stock. However, there are some pretty big negatives to drop shipping it's not all plain sailing especially true for new and inexperienced ebay sellers.
I will look at the positives of using a dropshipping service first:-
1. You'll find no need to hold vast stocks of goods or have to pay to store bulk goods. Whilst this might not be that significant if you sell small items it could be if you sell gym equipment or things that take a lot of room.
2. It will mean that you can save on the expense of having goods shipped by your supplier. But you must bear in mind instead either you or your customer will be charged on the item being shipped plus a fee to cover the labor costs of your supplier to do that for you.
3. Shipping and packing stock can be very time consuming so having this huge burden lifted from your shoulders can be a blessing and will allow you more time to concentrate on other aspects of your business.
4. There will be need to buy expensive packing materials, such as bubble wrap, boxes and the like which take up a lot of space and can be very inconvenient if you live in a small home with limited space.
It probably doesn't need me to tell you but like everything in life there are always some negatives to consider.
So here are the dropshipping negatives:-
1. You'll find that the dropshipping costs can add quite a bit to the overall cost of the product as you need to pay for the suppliers staff to send out the product on your behalf. On occasions these might be five dollars or even more and then you need to factor in these costs as well as shipping if you want your customer to swallow them. You need to be careful when working out your profits that you take these costs in to the equation.
2. It is inevitable sometimes things won't work out with deliveries or goods. It is important you understand that any problems will be yours to sort out as your customer will expect to deal with you and not the dropshipping company. So make sure you thoroughly research the company you are using both for their dropshipping service and products.
3. Some sellers find that they locate a perfect product to sell but are unable to get a dropshipper to provide it for them. Some companies would rather just deal with bulk sales and don't need the extra work involved with dropshipping the goods themselves.
4. When you find in your research a product in high demand try not to feel to downhearted when on occasions your supplier sells out. This can cause a lot of disruption to your business and leave you with digruntled customers so once again consider this when choosing products and suppliers to avoid negative feedback.
Whilst dropshipping can work for some people for others it can be a major headache make sure you do thorough research and you should avoid most of the major problems.
Article Source: http://www.uberarticles.com/articles
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