11 Mar Dropshipping as a Side Hussle or full-time business?
Dropshipping is a fulfillment procedure where a seller doesn’t store the products it sells in stock. The seller purchases a product from a third party which is usually a wholesaler and ships it directly to the customer. Thus, the seller never sees the product in person. This is a method where an individual doesn’t have to own inventory making it cheaper to start a business.
Significance
Dropshipping requires less capital and has made it possible to do ecommerce without the need to plough a lot of money into investing. Commonly, start-up ventures required huge capitals which would involve location to store the products unlike dropshipping. The seller in the dropshipping business has a wide selection of products to sell and does not have to concentrate on one product. This comes as a result that no products are bought upfront but until the customer requests for them. With the ongoing globalization products are easy to get from the internet for instance AliExpress and Alibaba are the most leading sites that sell products in wholesale and very cheap. If the suppliers stock a product the seller can list the products on their website with no additional cost.
Dropshipping business is easy to scale. All a seller needs to do in dropshipping business is order the product and the rest will be done by the supplier therefore making operations easy for the seller. With most of the work being done by the supplier it gives room for the business to grow and expand. Flexible location is another advantage of dropshipping, where a business can be run anywhere if the internet connection is present. The most important thing is communication with the customers and the suppliers, and the business will run smoothly. All in all, dropshipping is the easiest to start business because the hardest part of doing any business is dealing with physical products and in this case the seller doesn’t have to. Some of the operations the seller doesn’t have to worry about in dropshipping is warehouse expenses, handling shipments and returns, managing stock, shipping and accounting inventory.
Is it for anyone?
Dropshipping can be started by almost anyone. As mentioned above it doesn’t require much to establish. Most people who are employed on a day job prefer to do it to earn more. Otherwise, it is not a serious business and has very low margins. However, it can also be done full time and after expanding a traditional business can be started.