Drop Shipping: The Popularity Problem And How To Avoid It
Some drop shippers are deservedly popular. They make life easy and a lot of people want to sell their products. They supply useful descriptions as well as pictures of the product, they supply in your name, not theirs and they keep their stock up to date.
The problem occurs when shoppers can do easy comparisons between items. You may find that yours are too expensive when compared with the same product bought in bulk by the giant purchasing power of major stores.
So, what can you do? Is the drop shipper shooting himself, and you, in the foot, by being altogether too good and selling to too many retailers?
The situation can work to your advantage if you take the trouble to make your products look unique and give the customer less opportunity to compare.
There are several steps you can take.
If the supplier provides more than one set of pictures, use the less popular set on your site. If you can, photograph the most popular items yourself and use those pictures (as long as they are good) so your site doesn't look the same as all the others.
If your supplier has a unique SKU don't publish this on your site or include it in any of your product descriptions. This will make it more difficult for customers to find the product elsewhere on the web and compare prices.
Revise all the product descriptions. This is good advice no matter how popular the product is as most drop shippers supply descriptions filled with features. Descriptions filled with benefits have more customer appeal.
Keep your stock information up to date. Most drop shippers will supply regular updates, often in the form of a file or spreadsheet you have to download. Get into the habit of doing this regularly and be totally familiar with the process for updating your e-commerce store.
There is nothing that puts customers off more than buying something they later find out is not in stock and is not available. If, for example, the majority of your sales come at weekends, be sure to update your stock availability on Friday. As you sell more and more products, update your stock information more and more regularly.
In some cases there will be nothing you can do. Huge purchasing power means that some stores will be able to sell the product for less than it costs you to buy. You can still get the sale, but you need to add some sort of perceived value to the product.
This doesn't mean you have to cheat the customer. It does mean you have to offer something Walmart, Sears, or whoever, doesn't provide. .
An example might be
free shipping
fast shipping
courier same day delivery
international delivery
high quality gift wrapping
a free, down-loadable guide on how to use the product
a free 'recipe' book as appropriate
instructional videos to download from YouTube or on DVD
Any possibility for personalization
Just a little research into the product, why most people buy, how they use it, who do they buy for, will give you the best idea on what you can use to add value. The apparent value added will usually be much greater than the cost of the add-on item.
If you've settled on an item for which there is demand, don't let the fact that others sell it for less put you off. There are people who will always look for the cheapest option. There are also people who always look for the best.
If your offering is the latter, you can still be a great success on the web through your use of drop shipping.
by: Kirsty Hale
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