Use Drop Shipping
to Add Gift Baskets
to
Your Business
by
Flora Morris Brown, Ph.D.
Copyright 2008
All rights reserved
Adding gift basket by drop shipping has become a successful addition to the services offered by many retailers and service providers. And for good reason. Drop shipping helps you earn profits from gift baskets while attending to your primary business. You also avoid the hassles of shopping, stocking, storing and tracking inventory, creating designs, packaging and shipping.
Drop shipping is a mutually agreeable arrangement between the manufacturer or distributor of a product or gift basket design, and you, the retailer or service provider.
Here's how drop shipping works.
You feature a gift basket design on your website from among the choices your drop shipper offers, let's say "Hooray for Hollywood," that sells for $100.00.
The drop shipper does all the work of designing the basket, stocking the inventory to make it, and ships to the recipient when you take an order. The drop shipper also provides you with the image for displaying on your website.
A visitor to your website orders "Hooray for Hollywood" plus a shipping charge of let's say $16.95 for a total of $116.95. (In this scenario I'm assuming you have a credit card acceptance program in place on your website.)
You send the manufacturer (your drop shipper) an email detailing the order with the recipient's name and shipping destination.
The drop shipper creates the design, prepares the label with your company name as the sender and ships to the recipient within 48 hours.
You receive an invoice for $65.00 plus shipping of $16.95, for a total of $81.95. You just made a cool 35% or $35 for passing an order on to your drop shipper.
Drop shipping has many advantages for gift basket designers:
1. You can offer a wider array of design choices.
2. You're spared the worry about outdated and stale inventory.
3. You can update the images on your website quickly to reflect holidays.
4. You serve clients with minimum effort.
5. You earn profits with minimum effort.
6. You get around any state or country laws that may prohibit you from selling foods, alcohol or other products.
7. You still have the option of creating custom designs as well.
Before you decide if drop shipping is right for you do some research.
1. Identify your niche and explore to see which drop shippers offer that product.
2. Contact and evaluate the drop shippers you've discovered.
3.
To help speed up your search, visit the first-ever gift basket drop ship online directory now.
Drop shipping is not for everyone, but it may be another source of revenue that is perfect for your growing retail or service business.
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