3 Tips To Avoid The Stigma Of Being A Drop Shipper

By Author: Ann Hoskins
Total Articles: 30
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Many of us who try to either earn an extra living by selling wholesale on auction sights like ebay, or utilize a blog or small online store for this process, use a drop shipping company. This saves us time and money in a variety of ways, but what I like about it the most is that I don't have to pack up every individual item I sell, take it to the post office, and ship it. That can really eat away at your time, and if you're a family person with a bunch of things cropping up at any point in the day, shipping can get postponed leaving angry customers. Another thing I appreciate is that I don't even have to have the product I'm selling in my house or office, it's at one of my many wholesale sources.

Unfortunately, there has been a stigma built up against people who use the drop ship method, mostly by "hate big business" groups who really liked the old Mom-and-Pop atmosphere of online selling when it first got started. If you keep track of wholesale news, you'll hear about ...
... it. They don't want mass merchandise imported from a foreign nation, they want something from Auntie Mae's Curio Shop. Of course, if they really scrutinize the label, they would find that most of the merchandise Mom-and-Pop shops sell is the very same mass merchandise that they're trying to avoid, but to them that's not really the point. They want to feel as if they are supporting a family by their purchase, not buying from an unfeeling large company that employs tons of people at very low wages.

Even though I am supporting a family by my sales, having an item drop shipped can make it look to the buyer as if it came from one of those aforementioned companies. This is where my helpful tips come in, so you can retain your image of a small little online store, whose sales go for a good cause.

Tip 1: Look up a private label drop shipping company, where you can either customize your own products online, where they are purchased from a personalized page, then shipped right from that company to the consumer. Your products stay customized as you made them, and you don't lose face.

Tip 2: See if the drop shipping company you are currently using will allow you to "blind ship". This means no return address, but it's a cheap and quick way to keep your customers from figuring out where your merchandise really came from.

Tip 3: Most drop shipping companies will allow you to customize an invoice that will be including in the product they are shipping. They may have their company's return address on the outside of the shipping box, but inside will be your own invoice with your company name, logo, phone number, and anything else you care to add.

Following these tips will earn you positive feedback on ebay, as well as good word of mouth advertising if you sell from other sources, and will keep you in sales as a small business owner, without being branded as a mass merchandiser.


Ann Hoskins has been writing and publishing articles about wholesale and drop shipping. She is a business consultant and has been specializing in logistics management and shipping for more than 10 years.