Multiple vendors dropshipping success – How to Dropship Products from Multiple Vendors
The dynamic digital scene brought a lot of advantages for businesses. As online shopping eased its way into people’s lives, many starting and small-time entrepreneurs found opportunities to easily put up their e-commerce businesses.
As expected, a business classic like dropshipping made its way to digital commerce. After all, it’s one of the easiest business models to adapt. In dropshipping, sellers need no inventory, and it offers low startup and overhead costs.
All you need to do is set up your store and find suppliers who have their own inventory. In doing this, you may find yourself sourcing products you want to list on your store from different suppliers and thus, selling a variety of products.
This is called the Product Mix. Selling various products help your business reach more customers, and therefore, reach your sales goal quicker. Psychologically, it also instantly earns the trust of your customers.
But because you source products from different suppliers, there’s always a chance that a single customer orders multiple products that come from different suppliers. Concerns with shipping times would be one of your dilemmas.
You have to be extra-organized with your product and order management and consolidate with your suppliers to overcome this problem.
What is Drop Shipping?
Drop Shipping is a classic business model that started earlier than the Internet era. It began in the 1960s and 70s, from mail-order catalogues distributed by mail-order companies.
Mail-order companies earn their profit through mark-ups applied to JC Penny and Sears products that they also include in their mail-order catalogue.
People would order products from mail-order catalogues over the telephone, and mail-order companies would fulfill them by sending individual orders to JCPenny and Sear’s warehouses containing the inventory.
The warehouse would then deliver the orders directly to customers. The drop shipping’s process didn’t change much from its launch, except for the medium by which it operates. Now, as e-commerce becomes a continuing driving force in the global market, many sellers and retailers adapt the dropshipping model for their online businesses.
Forrester Research reported that 23% of e-commerce sales in 2017 can be accounted to dropshipping segment alone.
Dropshipping is a business model wherein a seller processes a customer’s order only until checkout but leaves the order fulfillment to vendors or manufacturers, where he or she sources the products. The seller does not hold an actual inventory and only lists products produced or sold by other retailers, wholesalers, or manufacturers.
When a customer buys an item online, the seller passes the order to the retailer or manufacturer, who has the inventory for them to fulfill. Thus, dropshipping has three important elements, which are the seller, buyer, and manufacturer, wholesaler, or vendor.
Benefits of Drop Shipping Various Products from Multiple Vendors
When you launch your dropshipping store, it’s highly recommended to publish or list a variety of products. Selling different kinds of products helps you increase your profit potential. It increases your sales and helps you scale your dropshipping business.
Product variety gets you more customers because variety allows for choices and preferences. A marketing paper published by researchers of the University of Pennsylvania shows the influence of product variety on the customer’s perception of your brand.
It states that a brand with more product options appears more committed and expert in the eyes of customers than competing brands that sell very few options. Selling various products instantly positions your brand in authority over other brands and makes you look credible.
Finally, it keeps you from depending on one kind of product. In general, depending on one product is not good because when it loses its demand, you’d be in for business closure. Or you’d waste time in starting over instead of supposedly growing your brand.
What Does Dropshipping With Products from Multiple Vendors Mean?
When you dropship products from multiple vendors, it means you source the products you sell from multiple suppliers.
It could come off a little complex, at times, because in most cases, a single customer may order several products from your store, which you source from multiple manufactures or wholesalers.
You don’t want customers to find out that you’re a dropshipping store because it can lessen your credibility.
So, your first thought would be, “How can the products arrive simultaneously to the customer so that it won’t look like it comes from different sellers?”The good thing is, there are ways to handle this kind of situation.
How to Dropship Products from Multiple Vendors
Problems like different shipping times and customer support may often arise from dealing with multiple vendors. That’s why here are steps you can take to handle the responsibilities that come with multiple-supplier dropshipping effectively.
- Be transparent in your products’ logistics differences.
Your suppliers are expected to have different logistics partners and different warehouse locations. That’s why shipping times for every supplier will also differ from each other.
Since it’s sometimes hard to find suppliers where you can source all products you want to sell, try consolidating with suppliers and see if they can adjust shipping times. It will be really hard to find suppliers selling your products that match shipping times.
It will also be a challenge to negotiate adjustments with them. So, rather than going through so much difficulty, your alternative is to be transparent with your customers. Indicate in your product pages that multiple products checked out in a single order will not arrive at the same time for the reason that they will come from your separate store warehouses or fulfillment centers.
Most customers understand this as long as they are notified and the products arrive on their specific ETAs. You can send email and SMS notifications or consider adding in-store pop-ups that provide information about the variation in shipping times.
- Consider warehousing options. (Shipwire order fulfillment, Amazon FBA)
There are fulfillment services that can help manage your order data and supplier network. For a fee, you’ll be able to provide a consistent order fulfillment experience to your customers even when your products come from different suppliers.
An example of this tool is Shipwire Order Fulfillment. It allows you to manage your supply chain and optimize your order routing.
This tool lets you monitor suppliers based on your service agreement, track orders, add and virtually packed products, and many more.
- Use and integrate inventory, order management, and dropshipping tools into your dropshipping store.
To enhance customer experience and manage your supplier network better, you need dropshipping tools that will automate and ease the processes in your dropshipping business.You need tools that will centralize every aspect and process of your store.
Here are some tools that can help you sync your store’s inventory with marketplaces and fulfillment centers, manage orders, track and monitor shipping, source products, and find suppliers.
- Oberlo
- Dropified
- Spocket
- DSers
- Inventory Source
- uDroppy
- AliDropship
Once you have gone through dropshipping, you can check out this blog 6 Most Profitable Niches for eCommerce Dropshipping.
FAQs
What things should be considered to find legitimate suppliers?
To find legitimate and reliable suppliers, you need to look into the rating and feedbacks the supplier receives from customers. You also need to learn about their communication and customer support, return and exchange policy, quality and stocks of products sold, and shipping times and logistics partners.
Should I sell different kinds of products from different suppliers or stick to a single vendor?
want to showcase a wide product offering. Being dependent on a single supplier can put your business at risk when the vendor suddenly encounters problems with its operations. Every single product you have will be affected.
What are the challenges faced by drop shippers sourcing products from multiple suppliers?
The common challenges faced by drop-shippers who source from multiple vendors include providing a consistent customer experience when it comes to fulfillment. They may encounter issues with SKU or stock keeping unit that uniquely identifies a product. Customer support issues and the drop shipper’s reliance on suppliers may also be a challenge.
Conclusion
While it’s easier to drop ship various products from a single supplier, dropshipping with multi-vendors also has its perks.
Additionally, applying the concept of product mix gives you higher profit and quicker business scaling.
At the end of the day, it will all boil down to the strategies you use in handling a supplier chain.
You can be open about the inconsistent shipping times to your customers or use paid dropshipping tools and apps that will help you not only with fulfillment but also in most aspects of your business.
