Is your business making the most of dropship? This year, not having an effective, results-driven dropship strategy in place could cause your business to fall behind competitors. But help is at hand from Virtualstock. Find out more about their new guide to dropshipping in 2019.
There’s been a monumental shift in retail over the last few years. As ecommerce has begun to take precedence over physical stores we’ve also seen consumers become more discerning and demanding. The key battle grounds for retailers looking to succeed in this environment are product range, customer convenience, and speed. And a fundamental and often overlooked way for retailers to satisfy consumers and compete with the giants of ecommerce is to pursue dropshipping in 2019.
Most retailers know they need to broaden choice and improve their ecommerce offering, moving to a true multichannel experience, but many struggle to deliver and they’re often held back by outdated systems and processes. While dropshipping is not new in retail it’s been misunderstood as simply a logistical function for bulky items and is often not implemented to drive the best value from it. The fact is that retailers who successfully leverage and scale dropshipping drive profits and keep customers satisfied, while those who don’t are slipping into obscurity.
Virtualstock has created a free guide to help retailers take better advantage of dropshipping in 2019. Having worked with three of the top five online retailers in the UK, Virtualstock has a unique insight into the benefits and potential pitfalls of setting up dropship.
Why It’s Time To Start Dropshipping Now
There has been a predicted boom in dropshipping and it looks like 2019 is the year where it will all begin. The reason for this swell in uptake is that more retailers understand that dropshipping can address many problems across the business beyond logistics. And in a retail environment where 4% of retail sales go through Amazon’s platforms (PwC Global Consumer Insights Survey 2018) and more than 23,000 shops are predicted to shut during 2019 (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/high-street-shop-closures-set-to-cost-175-000-jobs-this-year-mpsvnsfsg) any solution to help retailers must extend beyond one business function and be a tool to serve holistic business needs.
The wide ranging impact of dropshipping means that it can help retailers address the push from consumers demanding more product choice, faster delivery, and cheaper prices, while also meeting the internal business objectives which rely on enhancing the customer proposition at scale and pace.
Retailers looking to start dropshipping should know that when it’s done right it can impact efficiency and accuracy across a variety of functional areas across the business, including:
- Order processing
- Product data accuracy
- Product setup
- Product lifecycle
- Returns
- Visibility and access to inventory across all suppliers
Some businesses are trying to start dropshipping but are held back by systems that are outdated and fragmented, resulting in poor customer experience across the journey to purchase. The need for an effective dropship platform cannot be overstated.
Retailers that aren’t making the most of dropshipping in 2019 will find themselves losing ground to their competitors, and as the high street continues to struggle and ecommerce becomes ever stronger the time is ripe for retailers to make dropship really deliver for them and their customers.
You can get more help and guidance with Virtualstock’s new guide to dropshipping in 2019 Dropship: Retail’s Answer to Growth Today and Relevance Tomorrow. The guide draws on years of experience helping leading retailers develop, implement, and fine tune their dropshipping operation to gain maximum benefits and take the fight back to the e-tail giants.
