Dropshipping or direct delivery may be the most effective path to e-commerce success!
The world dropshipping market is predicted to reach $557.9 billion* by 2025! This appealing prospect is driving sellers to search for the perfect partner to help them embrace this new business model. Emmanuelle Le Scanff, Head of Dropshipping Development at Octopia, offers her advice on how to rapidly gain profitability from this activity.
While dropshipping is not something you can improvise, it is nevertheless one of the most accessible e-commerce techniques. “This is direct delivery. In theory, we’re talking about a system which allows you to sell goods by using the services of a third party to manage logistic operations.
In practice, the consumer orders a product online via the retailer’s site and the order is transmitted to a third party who will take over logistic operations right to delivery”, Emmanuelle explains. The seller can choose between dropshipping via their own site or dropshipping to a marketplace.
The 3 key benefits of dropshipping
This sales technique offers 3 key advantages: there is no need to purchase goods, no need to hold stock and capturing international sales becomes much easier.
“It’s the supplier who buys the goods, and therefore the dropshipper is not required to mobilize cash flow or create warehouses for this purpose. That means that the risk involved in storing goods is non-existent. This in turn eliminates the need for logistic operations, which is a significant advantage’, the expert says.
Dropshipping also makes it possible to target virtually everybody. Thanks to its dropshipping system, Octopia delivers to 25 countries with lead times as short as two to six days.
“Selling to another country obviously requires a certain degree of adaptation and consideration. You need to understand the market well, spot opportunities and offer a catalog adapted to local demand”, she adds.
The scope and quality of the catalog are key to ensuring customer satisfaction, and this applies to all types of dropshippers, whether you’re a sole trader looking for opportunities to boost an activity or start another one, an established e-retailer aiming to broaden your offer with dropshipping, or an agent in a niche market counting on a multi-specialist to complement your offer. If an e-retailer wants to specialize in organic products, for example, dropshipping represents a good solution.
“In all cases, dropshipping ensures high margins, thanks to attractive procurement prices, and reduced management costs”, she points out. Take the example of a Bordeaux-based sole trader’s success.
“From the outset, he opted to use practically all of Octopia’s catalog (except for food products) and entered the largest marketplaces”, she tells us.
His business took off right away in its first year and generated a turnover of several hundreds of thousands of euros.
Octopia Products, a market reference in dropshipping solutions
Order processing
To ensure maximum income, the best solution is to choose a well-established, reference service provider with a broad catalog, such as Octopia (60,000 products). This player must also have a sound understanding of withdrawal and CRM issues, because even if the seller is not charge of delivery, they remain fully responsible for the smooth execution of the consumer’s order.
If the customer is not satisfied, they will turn to the seller. The seller is obliged to reimburse the sale price within 14 days if the consumer exercises their right of withdrawal (when provided for in the terms & conditions of sale).
“The seller therefore needs to make sure they are working with a reliable supplier who can:
- Meet the promised lead times,
- Manage returns,
- Ensure availability
- and the quality of products relative to their description on the retail site”, Emmanuelle explains.
Another advantage of Octopia’s dropshipping solution is that it allows you to benefit from suppliers’ bulk rates. With Octopia Products, in addition to joining an enriched catalog, the seller also benefits from extremely competitive prices.
Managing your offer
Last, but definitely not least, when you choose a service provider, you need to make sure that the management of your dropshipping activity will be neither complicated nor time-consuming. This is why Octopia is the right choice. To ensure your services, all you have to do is register on the website. Once you send an email, you’ll receive a login user name and then all that’s left to do is to import your catalog.
“Integration is really easy, you just need to drag and drop files to the interface”, she says. “In this dedicated space, you then have access to your orders, your customer relations management and so on, and if you have the slightest problem, our account managers are here to help you.” Once the e-retailer has uploaded the catalog, it is updated on an hourly basis, stock levels included. This allows the seller to avoid stock shortages.
Everything is designed to enable sellers to focus on their core business, i.e., the marketing and sales aspects of distribution. Octopia is also aiming to rapidly move to the next level and expand its product offer from other channels by the end of 2022.
This broadened range will offer even more new business opportunities for e-retailers!
