Establishing an online business should be approached in exactly the same way as any other business – carefully and with a great deal of prior planning and preparation! As a business owner looking to seize an opportunity, you must assess what that opportunity is, establish what resources you will need, including finance, and establish what the business risk is to you and your embryonic business.
Drop Shipping as a Means to Sell Online
Drop shipping is an excellent way to get started online – you need maintain no stock and the only time you need to interface with a customer is when they are looking for products and paying you money.
You keep no stock of inventory because your supplier (the drop shipper) will despatch the order direct to the customer when you process the customer order. The customer orders the products from your website, you collect the money from the customer and then advise the drop shipper to send the customer order direct to them. You settle the cost of the order direct with the supplier – the difference is your gross profit on the deal.