Working From Home: Dropshipping & Girls who do Lunch
By: Peter Birch | Posted: 15th August 2008
I had the pleasure to visit Chicago recently and was wined and dined like a true lord. The restaurants and brasseries were out of this world, I mean they were absolutely fantastic. However my main reason was to meet an old friend and catch up on new technologies and innovations.
I would as a result of several meetings and subsequent research find out the answers to several questions. What is dropshipping?, how to dropship, how to find dropshippers and how to use dropshipping to trade online.
It was whilst waiting for my friend at a table in one of these establishments that, quite by chance I overheard a conversation between four very excited ladies. They were well dressed and very articulate and were discussing how their new home working businesses were going and how well they were all doing. I was curious and listened harder than I should have decently done. They were talking about Dropshipping and how it had transformed their lives. They were talking about a website one of them had put together to help other women start an online business. It had apparently been put together virtually from scratch with very little outlay. The site was called HowToDropShip.biz I hoped I had the name right. I was in the dark, what had I missed and what on earth was Dropshipping. However before I could listen any further my friend arrived and my attention was diverted away from their intriguing conversation.
On returning to my hotel I did some quick research and was very surprised that I had not heard of the methodology before. I wrote down a quick guide with the intention of doing some proper research on returning to the UK. Here are some of my original findings.
What is dropshipping? Drop shipping is and can be a very simple and effective way to become an entrepreneur and start trading online. There are many indications within the online market place that long time established bricks and mortar merchants are now turning to dropshipping strategies and methodologies to minimize stock levels and reduce overall shipping costs and cut down on delivery times to customers.
Drop shipping is a methodology that allows web site owners to send single/ low quantity unit orders gathered on their web sites to manufacturers and/ or wholesale warehouses. They in turn ship the item(s) directly to the customer(s) of the web site owner; i.e. the website owner does the marketing and collects payment and the dropshipper(s) completes the customer delivery through a fulfilment process.
Here are some more advantages of dropshipping. The website owner or marketer can focus on listening to the market and discover the products that the visitor(s) want - and then add them rapidly to their site.
Dropshippers can buy in huge volumes, so they will also be able to offer the best prices on products and shipping, usually wholesale, which will return a greater profit to the entrepreneur (i.e. the home worker).
There's no capital investment and no risk of suddenly having a pile of outdated items in the inventory.
Drop shipping allows a greater flexibility in terms of product range and the marketer can promote one item, promote a dozen items or promote a thousand! The choice really is up to the home worker.
So what happened next? As you can see this is quite a simple process. I kept asking myself why had I not come across it before through my business associates. Further research indicated that this was a really good way to start an online business with very little experience or technical knowledge. I had a busy schedule and would by chance be able to listen to those ladies again at another location. Check out the next article Girls who Network.
About the Author
Occupation: Small Business Adviser
Peter Birch is a small business analyst who specialises in dropshipping methodology. He is particularly interested in making home working available to the masses and enabling small business trade online.
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Tags: intention, methodologies, long time, bricks and mortar, entrepreneur, scratch, methodology, merchants, innovations, pleasure, outlay, drop shipping, what on earth, restaurants, establishments, old friend, stock levels