Making a Success of Dropshipping in South Africa
It is true of local dropshippers, and it is true for anyone dropshipping anywhere, that you are only as successful as your supply chain. Dropshipping is a simplified model of business, where traditional roles have blurred, relationships between wholesalers or manufacturers and online retail stores have cut out the fluff, and all the needed tasks and services of a modern business have found a logical place as the responsibility of either one party or the other. It might seem a little unfair to wholesale suppliers at first glance, because unto them fall the responsibilities of market research, establishing supplier relationships and importing goods, and often the shipping of goods to retail clients. It would appear at a glance that the wholesaler does all the work, in fact!
This is a false perception, however, as the most successful dropshipping relationships are symbiotic – do not begrudge the retailer spending all their time and effort on marketing and facilitating sales. In a very direct feedback loop, as much as the retail dropshipper depends on the abilities and stockholding of their supplier, so too does the supplier’s success hinge on their clients’ retail sales. Simplifying the relationship between wholesaler and retailer, as dropshipping does, makes for potentially greater returns for both in the long run. A retail dropshipper selling to consumers fills the role of the marketing department for the wholesaler too. For a wholesale supplier, having a retailer out there punting their goods is akin to having a marketing team hard at work.
Dropshipping in South Africa Made Easy
For the retail dropshipper, having the wholesaler source and stock goods is like having a factory production and market research department all sewn up. Dropshipping in South Africa is also learning from years of mistakes duly noted elsewhere in the world, and it is fair to say that here, we can do it better. We can learn from the mistakes others have made, and we can distill information from the voluminous amount of chatter found online about dropshipping. Better for South Africa to be a rising presence in global dropshipping, rather than having been tarnished by the same issues fledgling dropshippers had to iron out elsewhere before the promise became real.
In a sense, South Africa is an ideal venue, because the global e-commerce arena is still growing in leaps and bounds, and we are, for a number of reasons, operating in a window of opportunity, the chance to be the first or the only retailer selling a certain product or products into the local market. No doubt this will change, but early dropshippers are still growing steadily. The South African market is still hugely under-supplied with online retail stores focused on the local consumer, and for anyone just starting out, a far more professional local supply chain dealing in only quality goods and focused on great service and prompt delivery is now possible.
For the seasoned dropshipper, this is common knowledge – dropshipping, like any other business model, had to hit the water to see what weighed it down and what helped it swim. Without the initial roll-out, many of the early struggles of the business model would still be present today. With much of the teething pain now eliminated from dropshipping, expectations are better informed, and the industry as a whole is becoming far more professional in demeanour.
Ecomstock is Dropshipping in South Africa
As a wholesale online supplier to South African dropshipping enterprises, Ecomstock has developed a savvy stocking and warehousing solution for its retail store clients. At Ecomstock, we have specifically taken all of the problems of modern dropshipping and built a wholesale supply business that resolves them all. We source, stock, and supply only quality goods, and we also provide them on a genuinely wholesale basis, allowing you to glean the maximum profit from your sales.
We have various categories of goods, but we source and select according to the same demand for well made, quality goods. Call on us first when quality and delivery count – we are here to serve you!