Moreover, if you are an E-commerce enthusiast and want to learn all about online business, you must have come across dropshipping several times. You must have even wondered about its exact meaning and read a lot of literature on it to develop an understanding. If yes, this blog is tailor-made for you because here, you will get A-Z of a dropshipping platform. We offer you a complete guide so that you do not just understand what it is but also its benefits, its future in India, and essential information on developing such a platform.

For anyone new to the field of E-commerce or online business, dropshipping can seem difficult to understand and can even be intimidating at times. Therefore, it is essential to understand it completely before jumping into it. The following section offers a step-by-step understanding of dropshipping so that there is no confusion regarding any of its aspects.

Here are all the details about dropshipping!

What is dropshipping?

To explain dropshipping in simple words, it is a business model that does not require you to maintain any inventory, have a storage place, or even arrange the shipping of your products to the customers directly. Instead of doing all that, you just need to collaborate directly with a drop-ship supplier. The drop-ship supplier, then, either manufactures the product for you or puts the products in a warehouse for you. Then, directly package the product and ship it to your customers on your behalf. Dropshipping does not require you to invest in external aspects like storing, packaging, or even manufacturing in many cases. It depends on what kind of collaboration you have with your dropshipping partner. It is a perfect model for anyone who does not want to invest in traditional brick-and-mortar shops or warehouses. All you need is a good internet connection and a laptop or a tablet to make it work.

Hence, dropshipping is revolutionary for all those interested in having the flexibility to work from anywhere and everywhere. It helps you not get tied up in a single place. You can be flexible and travel while also being connected to your work. In today’s digital age, this is what most people are looking for when they think of starting their own business

How Does Dropshipping Work?

As already mentioned, dropshipping works through collaboration between the retailers and the dropshipping service providers where the retailers just manage their website and orders while the dropshipping services take care of all the rest. It is really a lifesaver for online business owners and takes away the huge hassle of storing and shipping. In short, all the logistics-related issues are handled by them. This may sound a little complicated but to understand it in simple terms, it involves three basic steps:

Step 1: Customer Orders the Product: In this process, the customer places an order through the E-commerce website of the primary seller. So, if you have built an E-commerce website, the customer will go to your website and place the order for you.

Step 2: Retailer Informs the Dropship Supplier: In the next step, you will receive the order and forward the request to your drop-ship supplier partner. You can either automate this process or do it manually.

Step 3: The Dropship Supplier Packages and sends the Product: As the last and final step, your drop-ship supplier partner will accept the order, package it nicely, and send it to your customer on your behalf with your name on the package.

Hence, with these simple steps, you can see how dropshipping works. It is not that complicated once everything is streamlined and all the steps are organized well.

DropShipping Platform

Although dropshipping sounds like a piece of cake, it is really not as simple as the internet sells it to be. You can expect a multitude of technical hurdles that come free with starting a dropshipping business and even more than that, creating a dropshipping platform. It is pertinent to note here that any e-commerce platform’s worth can easily be determined simply by understanding the number of prominent stores that they are using to run their dropshipping store, in addition to that, it can become quite challenging to decide which e-commerce platform to go for in order to develop your very own dropshipping platform. Another crucial debate that is also likely to pop up is regarding hosted platforms and self-hosting.

Moreover, with the plethora of ecommerce platforms in the market such as Magento, Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, OpenCart, and much more, you can often find yourself in a pickle over which one to go for. This is largely due to the fact that most of these services offer the same facilities and therefore, finding that unique selling point can be a bit of a hurdle. If you find yourself in a similar problem, it is a good idea first to take a good look at your own business and the products and services that you intend to sell in order to understand the kind of dropshipping platform you would want.

The Benefits of DropShipping Services

There is not just one but several advantages of using dropshipping services. Some of them are listed below:

• You Can Start It in No Time The best thing about dropshipping is it takes away all your worries related to paying for a warehouse and storage of your products. It also does the tracking of your inventory, packaging the products, and sending them to your customer with your name. It also takes care of the stocks as well as handling returns. Overall, it is much easier to run an E-commerce business with dropshipping taking care of most of the aspects.
• Doesn’t Need A Lot of Monetary Investment You almost don’t have any expenditure while running a successful e-commerce dropshipping business. You don’t have to deal with managing a warehouse buying inventory or even paying rent. Hence, your overhead expense can be very low. All you need is a good internet connection and a laptop to start your e-commerce venture. The initial investment can be as low as 10,000 INR or even less in many cases.
• Flexibility of Location Since you don’t have an office or a warehouse, you can be flexible about the location from where you work. As long as you are able to communicate with your customers as well as suppliers, you are in a good place. You can even run your business from the Alps or a beach! All you need to do is ensure good communication.
• Can Be Scaled Up Easily The scaling up of such businesses is straightforward because you don’t really have to maintain the stocks in your own warehouse. If you get double the current order in the coming months, you don’t have to work extra hard to get everything organized. Everything will have to be done by the dropshipping supplier. Hence, it is easy for you to handle rapid growth in sales if you have this kind of business model.
• Can Include A Wide Range of Products You can easily add more items to your e-commerce website design because you don’t need to physically keep the items with you or create an inventory in advance. You can simply add more products if your suppliers have it and you are good to go. Once you see a demand, you can get it delivered to your customers.

Dropshipping Future in India

Dropshipping has immense scope in India especially for all the new entrepreneurs because it is the most cost-effective way of starting an online business. It is a business model that does not entail a lot of risks because you make the actual purchase of the product only after a customer places an order on your website. When it comes to the future of dropshipping in India, it has a massive scope. Since more and more Indians are moving towards online shopping, the scope for dropshipping is increasing immensely.

With the easy availability of the internet and smartphones, more people are inclined towards using e-commerce platforms so that they can buy products from the ease of their homes. This is only going to increase as high-speed internet is likely to become more popular in the future. Moreover, it is super easy to start a dropshipping business in India. All you need to do is find vendors who are selling the products of your interest and ask them directly about the logistics to start dropshipping.

There are so many vendors offering these services that you won’t have a problem finding one for yourself. However, if you plan to sell your products in India, it is better to find your vendor in India so that it is easier to communicate and take care of the logistics. There is a lot of scope for success if you choose a dropshipping business model in India.

How Do We Develop A Dropshipping Platform?

We develop dropshipping platforms for our clients with the help of Magento which is easily the second most powerful, although complex e-commerce platform throughout the globe. We used this developer-friendly platform to design the ultimate dropshipping platform for all our customers. It guarantees advanced support, user-friendliness, affordable prices, and customization. Therefore, all we need from you is a list of your requirements and exactly what you expect for your very own dropshipping e-commerce platform. The rest is a piece of cake. We develop and design a dropshipping platform specifically to suit your needs and the vision of your e-commerce business. We follow a step-by-step procedure in order to develop a dropshipping platform for you:

• We start with identifying the precise needs of the customers as well as their products and services. This helps us carve a niche and prepare an outline to deliver the best possible platform according to a client’s requirements.
• Next, we establish the demographics such as age group, gender, education, income level, etc., and tap into various social media platforms in order to identify what kind of people are showing an interest in your brand.
• The next step is to select the right e-commerce website for the development of your dropshipping platform. This will decide the basis of the platform that we will create for you, keeping in mind the nature of your business and your target audience.
• We will also make sure that there is enough scope for customization on your e-commerce website as well as payment gateway integration in addition to a robust backend.
• We will then choose the perfect e-commerce website hosting platform for you in addition to the correct development partner.
• Finally, we will start the testing phases as there can never be enough testing to ensure that the ecommerce platform runs exactly as you need it to.
• And that is it! Your website will now be live, and we can also help you out with effective marketing to sell your products or services. We devise the most effective and strategic plans to market your business and attract visitors to help you reach the right target audience.

It really is as simple as that when you join us!

Final Words

Have you understood all the intricate details about dropshipping? Are you ready to start your e-commerce website that can get you loads of profit without investing too much in the storage or shipping of your products? If yes, you must get in touch with us soon. We can help you develop a perfect e-commerce multivendor software that will help you automate the entire process of coordinating with your dropshipping service provider so that your work becomes even more streamlined with little or no scope for errors. We are a company that specializes in developing e-commerce platforms for other companies. We use Magneto, and OpenCart with Multi-vendor features to develop E-commerce platforms for you.