Title: Drawbacks Of Dropshipping

Hello,

There are drawbacks to pretty much everything in life, and
dropshipping is no exception. While it can be a real 
blessing for anyone who needs inventory and can’t get it 
any other way, it does have its share of issues.

We’re going to talk about some of the biggest potential
problems you may encounter with dropshipping, and how to
avoid them as much as possible.

1. Low Profit Margins

Dropshippers are usually not true wholesalers. Instead, they
typically buy from wholesalers and resell at prices that
are slightly above wholesale. (Sometimes they sell at near
retail prices!)

Because of this, you won’t often see very good profit 
margins.

For this reason, it’s important to research prices
carefully to be sure you’re using the company with the 
lowest prices, but don’t worry so much about price that
you overlook other important features.

2. Inventory Problems

Unless your dropshipper is one of the few that offer true
integration with your shopping cart software, there will 
probably be times when a customer orders a product that the 
dropshipper no longer has in stock.

In this case, you’ll either have to order the product 
elsewhere and have it shipped to the customer, possibly at
a loss, or refund the cost of the item. This will probably
upset the customer, and they won’t be likely to order from 
you again.

If you choose a dropshipper that has inventory control that
will integrate with your shopping cart, you can avoid most
inventory issues.

3. Shipping Problems

Because you’ll be counting on the dropshipper to handle
shipping, there will probably be times when mistakes are 
made.

Perhaps an item won’t arrive by the time it was promised,
or it might be the wrong item, the wrong color, the wrong
size, or it might arrive damaged.

In any event, your customer will probably be upset, and
you’ll practically be at the dropshipper’s mercy with
regards to the return process.

The best way to combat this is to select a dropshipper
with a fair return policy, and make sure all customer
returns will be handled promptly.

Also, be sure to have your own policy in place to make
upset customers happy, such as a discount off their 
next order, or even a free product of some sort.

4. Shipping Cost Issues

If you’re using multiple dropshippers, you will probably
run into issues with shopping costs.

Look at it this way:

Let’s say you’re selling products from three different
companies, and a customer orders one item from each
company. You cannot combine shipping into one box to
lower the costs, because each item is being shipped
from a different company, and the customer isn’t 
going to want to pay triple the shipping. That wouldn’t
be fair to the customer.

For this reason, it’s a good idea to stick to a single
dropshipper if at all possible. This way, you can
combine shipping on multiple products.

Tomorrow we are going to take a look at some of the 
questions you should ask dropshippers before you decide
to work with them so you can make sure you’re choosing 
a quality company to work with.

Until then, 

{YOUR NAME HERE}

PS- Finding a good dropshipper isn’t all that difficult
if you know the questions to ask, so don’t miss tomorrow’s
email.


