Let’s say you’ve been thinking of opening up your own online business, but you don’t know where to start. You don’t know what you should sell, you don’t have the money to invest in products, and looking around, you don’t have any place to store inventory. That’s what dropshipping is all about. With dropshipping, you can sell stuff online without the products ever being in your hands. All you need is a computer, an online store, and a basic understanding on how to market and sell online.

Here’s how it works.

First, you find what you want to sell from a supplier then list that product on your own website at a price you set. Next, when someone places an order for that product, your customer pays you the retail price you’ve set, and you make a profit. Then you’ll place the order with your supplier at their wholesale price and have it shipped directly to the customer. So, let’s say you’ve found this watch on a supplier’s website for $10 You would then list it on your own website for $30 When the order comes in through your website, you then place your order with your supplier using your customer’s shipping information, keep the $20 profit, and have the product shipped directly to your customer. That’s it! Now,

We know what you’re thinking, why wouldn’t somebody just order the watch directly from the supplier’s website? Well, a couple of reasons. First, it’s a very big internet and customers may not know about the supplier to buy from them directly. Second, when people buy things, they’re not just buying products. They’re buying into the marketing, positioning, trust, brand and lifestyle those products represent.

With dropshipping, you can focus on marketing your products and saying the right things, at the right time, and on providing real value to the right people because you’re not warehousing any inventory, or dealing with most of the other challenges that come with running an ecommerce business, Now, a couple of big challenges that need to be considered with dropshipping are finding credible suppliers with good quality products, and making sure you have visibility into your customer’s fulfillment process. Honestly, you can find suppliers on your own. However, when you’re dropshipping completely on your own, you can end up spending a lot of time researching and negotiating with suppliers to guarantee your customers’ satisfaction.