Ever since customers have started realising the ease and comfort of buying online, the eCommerce business began to bloom and flourish across every part of the world. Today, anyone can buy their favourite products right from the comfort of home, office or while on the go. As we all know, it takes only a few seconds to order a product from an online store and get it delivered right at any location within a few hours after placing the order. Hence eCommerce is the in thing and, it can be at any level-small, medium or large or use different models- B2B, B2C, C2C and C2B to meet the diverse customer needs.
The most common among them are business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) businesses. As we all know, any selling of goods involves many components that have to work in tandem. Nowadays, anyone can open an online shop or marketplace without holding an inventory of goods added to the online store for sale. Such is the impact of a lucrative business model called dropshipping.
The dropshipping business model plays a significant role in helping online business owners to sell products without maintaining stock or manage an inventory. The online store business can partner with a dropshipping supplier who can be either a wholesaler or manufacturer. While the owner store owner works with the sale of products, the dropshipper fulfils orders by receiving the product details as and when online shop’s customers add products to their cart. The dropshipper performs a series of functions on behalf of the online store business, starting from receiving the order, procuring products, optimising the packing, labelling, pricing, shipping, tracking the goods transit and delivery at the doorstep of the customer. In essence, the responsibility of sending goods to consumers does not fall on the shoulders of eCommercebusinesses.
A trustworthy and reputable dropshipper who has years of experience in this field perform these arduous tasks performed flawlessly. The store owner does not need to incur any expenses as to rent for inventory or, he never needs to bother about the availability of products. With automation and technology adoption, every information regarding these would flow freely between the online shop or marketplace and dropshipping business in real-time through seamless platform integration.
Dropshipping is one of the best options for eCommerce business owners to minimise costs while earning benefits through high return on investments. Further, the business can devote more time to sell products rather than figuring out the most tiresome task in an eCommerce business.
An eCommerceplatform that accommodates offers dropshipping service must have some essential features to keep the burden out of buying and selling on the internet. If you are an eCommerce business and want to implement it in a hassle-free way to run your business steadily, make sure that you rely on a platform that offers you to connect with reputable dropshipping suppliers along with its beneficial features. Here we have briefly explained a few of the most significant ones below:
1. Provide Access to Reliable Dropshippers
An eCommerce platform offers integration with anonline shopor website or marketplace that helps import product listings to the store/website to make more sales by offering these products to customers. The respective suppliers receive their payment without any flaws once the customer pays for the purchases. Even though the owners may not deal directly with the most vital segment in the eCommerce business since they can hand it over to experts who do this for them, the onus lies with online shop owners.
2. Managing Inventory
The eCommerce business owners enjoy many advantages while adopting a dropshipping business model. But if not properly informed about what’s happening with the inventory, they may likely bear the brunt. Because they do not keep stock of products they sell, the supplier needs to provide access to the information on the inventory of products. Proper communication through traditional means helps, but not every time it is possible. For example, when a retailer handles hundreds of thousands of deliveries every day, it hardly works. Therefore, the eCommerce platform should have the necessary inventory management software to keep track of the stock so that retailers can stay on top of the information regarding inventory in real-time.
3. Packing Optimisation and Shipping Rates
As we all know, packing influences shipping rates, not just the quality of products. For dropshipping business models, it is vital to present real-time shipping rates. Many warehouses offer the same products from several suppliers, but they may be too far from the customer location. It further leads to increased shipping costs. Hence while selecting online stores with the dropshipping feature, ensure that it provides optimised packaging, real-time shipping rates by automatically calculating them based on the customer and warehouse location. Besides, it provides rewards in the form of customer’s trust and helps make repeat purchases in future.
4. Any Time Customer Support
Regardless of the type of products a dropshipper deals with, every customer appreciates business’ availability. Your customers have questions and grievances and, you need to be always at their disposal to address their concerns. Be sure to check if the platform provides proactive customer support to retain your loyal customers while earning new customers. Or else retailers may leave to the business’ competitors and the possibilities of making new customers also become very hard. More and more retailers show their willingness to start their online business through flexible eCommerce platforms if proper customer support is present.
If you are looking to take your online store to the next level, get it run smoothly on AICart, the most advanced platform for B2B and B2C on any market across the world. Get optimised packaging and shipping rates through OptimPack and Live Couriers module. The StockLess concept lets you sell products while holding zero inventory. If you want to know more, visit https://aicart.eu/ for scaling up your business by ensuring optimised services in all aspects regarding the conduct of your eCommerce business. Regardless of whether it is dropshipping or StockLess, there is no better way to prosper your online store other than aicart.eu as we take out the most dreadful part of it; and while keeping your customers satisfied like never before!