The very best way for an ECA to drop ship is to find a manufacturer that will work with him, assuring him a steady line of products, and who will give him a certain amount of credit, letting him pay after he is paid.
When an ECA uses a drop shipper, what he is doing is waiting until he has an order for a specific, covered product, and then alerting the supplier to ship the item to the customer in a "plain brown wrapper." That is, the ECA has a contract with a supplier to sell him their items at a discounted price, and will ship them to his customer in a way that the customer does not learn who the supplier is.
The advantages are that the ECA neither has to buy by the case, nor pay for a case of items and then have to warehouse them until sold. He won't be stuck with any if they don't sell. Nor does the ECA have to do the actual shipping.Pretty easy sales there.
But the hard part is finding a good supplier of goods. They come in two groups: the manufacturers and the middlemen (wholesalers).
The wholesalers always take their profit and leave some room for the ECA to add his profit. But you can guess who gets the better profit. Also, a wholesaler may not have a reliable supplier himself and may run out of stock and not tell you that the item is no longer available.
The manufacturer who will drop ship is harder to find. Most large manufacturers won't have anything to do with drop shipping because it is labor intensive and the return is small. But the smaller, newer ones who are still looking to become known will make arrangements to drop ship.
Then there is the problem about when something is paid for. When someone buys a product from an ECA in TripleClicks, he pays for it right away. But the ECA gets the money from that sale only after there is proof of shipment. If the manufacturer or wholesaler wants cash up front before he ships the item, the ECA must have the means and ways to foot the bill until he gets his money. Unless when the contract is drawn up, there is a provision for a 30 days to pay.
There are other things that will be in the contract.
So, the very best way for an ECA to drop ship is to find a manufacturer that will work with him, assuring him a steady line of products, and who will give him a certain amount of credit, letting him pay after he is paid.
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The very best way for an ECA to drop ship is to find a manufacturer that will work with him, assuring him a steady line of products, and who will give him a certain amount of credit, letting him pay after he is paid.
When an ECA uses a drop shipper, what he is doing is waiting until he has an order for a specific, covered product, and then alerting the supplier to ship the item to the customer in a "plain brown wrapper." That is, the ECA has a contract with a supplier to sell
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