Instead of filling your precious storeroom space with large items, suppliers are offering you the option to deliver the products when you make a sale either directly to you or to your customer.
Drop shipping isn’t a new idea but more suppliers are now offering the service. It’s great if you are short of space, as you only need to keep one item on the shelf and then you can get one shipped to your customer. It also allows you to expand your online offering, without you having to buy-in huge amounts of stock.
Connect Distribution offers ‘Direct Delivery’ giving you access to a large and diverse product range. They say: “Limited space and storage costs mean it can be tricky to keep everything your customers could possibly want in stock. With Direct Delivery, you’ve got access to over two million appliance products so your customer can benefit from both our brilliant service and our huge product range. Let us be your extended warehouse!”
With Connect, if you arrange delivery directly to your customer then it arrives with an unbranded delivery note, so they won’t even need to know that it hasn’t come directly from you.
Jeff Moody, MD of Bira Direct says: “Drop shipping allows our members to sell products without tying all their money up in stock. We are always on the lookout for ways to make the lives of retailers easier and we believe this is a great option to widen your product range without adding any extra burdens.”
JVL, another Bira Direct supplier, offers a drop shipping service. JVL suggests listing a wider range of their products on your website, this provides more choice for your customers, without the need for you to purchase or hold stock up front. You can ask for a full list of products, as well as imagery from your account manager or from their head office. And when a sale is made, you can just let JVL know and they’ll send it straight out.
Finding a reliable delivery company can be a long drawn out process but with drop shipping this chore is taken away from you. Its risk free, simply sit back, watch the orders come in and the supplier arranges everything for you.
Burg Wachter, the largest manufacturer in Europe of safes and post boxes uses drop shipping for these products, due to the size and weight and the number of models they offer.
David Todd, Head of Sales at Burg Wachter says: “We introduced drop shipping four years ago and it has grown since then. We offer it on a specific range of products that it makes sense to. Safes can be big and heavy so it’s easier for the end user if they are delivered to their home address. We also have a large number of post box models, so it means a retailer can stock ten but they have the option to offer 30 through our catalogue.”
Benefits of drop shipping
- There’s no need to order and pay for stock upfront
- You don’t need to store stock whilst waiting for the orders to come in. Let your suppliers be your warehouse
- There is no risk in holding stock that may not sell/slow selling
- And you don’t need to think about carriers to deliver the goods
Other Bira Direct suppliers offering drop shipping include Abracs, Beam, Supreme Imports, CPC, Chain Products, Drabest UK, Horwood, Newsome Tools, Luceco, Oracstar, Parlane, Paroh, Pik-a-pak, Primaflow, Qualtex, RK Wholesale, Sixtrees, Sterling Locks and William Armes.