Dropshipping

New to ecommerce

[Rumpelstiltskin Yarn]

I am a retail storefront. I have contacted some of my current vendors. Some have said they will drop
ship. Just so I understand who pays for the shipping?
Me or the shipper or do I pass that on to the customer?

[edited by: lorax at 9:11 pm (utc) on Mar 4, 2010]
[edit reason] removed specifics [/edit]

[ytswy]

Your supplier will bill you for shipping - in most cases at somewhat over actual cost, unless they are aggressively seeking more dropship business. You would expect it to be a separate line item on your invoices.

You then have to decide how much you want to charge your customers for shipping.

[Rugles]

Many dropshippers will use your courier account, if you have one. That way you can get your rates and not theirs.

[Ghsot9]

I believe dropshippers is a bad idea because what do you do when they run out of the item that they are selling? Just my 2 cents.

[olimits7]

Rugles: Many dropshippers will use your courier account, if you have one. That way you can get your rates and not theirs.

I didn't know about this; so you're saying if I had a USPS permit#, DHL Acct#, FedEx Acct#, etc...most dropshippers will be able to bill to my account/permit numbers?

I'll have to ask my wholesalers to verify this, but this would be great if I could do this. This is one of my main issues of doing dropshipping. I don't want to get hit with their shipping costs because my shipping rates are so much lower than retail.

Thank you,

olimits7