What is Drop Surfing Ecommerce?
As the e-commerce market continues to expand and evolve, one of the major changes that have impacted the world of e-commerce is the emergence of independent businesses. Nowadays, it is far easier to own an online business than in the past. As a result, the market has a flood of individuals looking to start an online business. Furthermore, one easy way to start an online business is by drop surfing.
What is Drop Shipping?
One of the most popular models for an online business is “drop shipping”. To put it simply, dropshipping is the process where a person acts as a middleman or seller between a customer and a supplier. Therefore, once a customer needs a specific product, the seller contacts his/her supplier to deliver the product to the customer, after which the seller keeps a portion of the profits. As you can tell, dropshipping is a very popular business model for individuals looking to start an online business, since it requires little investment and it can turn a profit without the business owner having to hold inventory.
The Emergence of Drop Surfing
As more and more trends emerge in the e-commerce sphere, it is important to keep track of all the new terminologies thrown about related to the e-commerce industry. One of the new terms in use is “drop surfing”. At first glance drop surfing may sound similar to dropshipping, and indeed it is more or less the same thing. However, drop surfing does have one key difference from drop shipping, which we will discuss in this article.
Main Difference between Drop Shipping and Drop Surfing
As with drop shipping, drop surfing involves a person who creates an online store and acts as a middleman or a seller between customers and suppliers. The seller in question holds no inventory, does not manufacture products, and does not directly ship the product to the customer. However, once a customer places an order for a product, the seller then goes over a list of suppliers to see which of these suppliers can send the product over to the customer at a price that will give the seller the highest profit margin.
This is essentially the main difference in drop surfing. In dropshipping, the entire selling process is smooth and straightforward, there is only a single line of the supply chain: customer-seller-supplier. In dropshipping a seller has to deal with only one supplier to fulfill the customer’s orders.
While dropshipping may have certain pros such as:
- Less time consuming
- Straightforward process
- Stable profit margins
There are also some cons associated with drop shipping, such as:
- Low profits
- Limited to one supplier
- Difficult to grow your business
On the other hand, in the case of drop surfing the seller has a more active role. This is because he/she has a list of suppliers instead of just one. This means that the seller is constantly proactively looking for the best supplier to fulfill the customer’s order and achieve a greater profit. In the case of drop surfing, the seller is constantly trying to get the best deals in the market, and as a result, will make more profit due to the extra effort that is made to get the best price offer.
The pros of drop surfing include things such as:
- Greater profit margins
- Having the choice of more than one supplier
- Option to choose between more than one product
While some of the cons are:
- Requires more commitment than dropshipping
- Risks also increase with multiple suppliers
- Requires some knowledge of marketing
Conclusion
In conclusion, drop surfing is essentially a more advanced version of reselling products. Drop surfing does require a greater amount of dedication from the seller to manage multiple suppliers. However, it is without a doubt the way to move forward in the e-commerce industry. Finally, anyone who wishes to get some exposure to the intricacies of online businesses is encouraged to try drop surfing to get a feeling about how big businesses operate.