3 Tedious Dropshipping Tasks You Should Be Automating

A guest article by ecomdash team. Ecomdash was designed from the ground up to save time, improve profit margins and optimize inventory control. With ecomdash, you can run your business from anywhere, in a fraction of the time you’re spending today.

Posted 8 years ago by Jonathan Kennedy

The secret is out on dropshipping. Individual eCommerce sellers are taking advantage of the selling method large stores have been using for years. The dropshipping model seems almost too good to be true, but it’s really just a micro version of a very typical supply chain acted out online. A manufacturer creates an item, then sells it for wholesale prices to retailers, who then resell it for a markup and keep the profits. What makes dropshipping special is that the manufacturer handles storage and shipping rather than the seller. This makes for a smaller profit margin per transaction but a much more scalable operation.

Scalable is the key word here. The goal of dropshipping is to create an infrastructure that allows for maximum sales. Products need to percolate through the supply chain as quickly and as painlessly as possible.

Think about all the 1-4 cent iPhone chargers you can find for sale online.

The profits for a 1 cent charger are less than a penny. Think about how many chargers these sellers have to move in order to make it worth their time. Imagine having to receive each of those sales, forward them to the correct manufacturer, retrieve the shipping information, and forward it to each of your customers. It would be more time than it’s worth. How do they do it?

Successful dropshippers use automation software. It’s the only way to make dropshipping scalable enough to successfully manage and make significant profits. Dropshipping automation software enables individual eCommerce sellers to use the same methods that larger stores have been using to respond to customer demand for eCommerce.

What can dropshipping automation software do for you? Here are three dropshipping tasks you should use a software system to automate.

Forwarding Sales Orders

The main attraction of online selling through dropshipping is that the seller doesn’t have to handle shipping. They are responsible for forwarding sales orders to their supplier. When you’ve got to sell a few hundred items a day to make your profits, it becomes nearly impossible to do this by hand.

Dropshipping automation software will allow you to create templates that export sales orders. The templates will auto-populate when an order is received on whatever marketplaces or shopping carts you use. It’ll then be forwarded to your supplier. This can be done via SFTP/FTP or as an email with a CSV attachment. The supplier will let you know which format they accept. Once the order is fulfilled, the tracking information will be forwarded to the buyer. This process takes place entirely hands-off.

Managing Inventory

Accurate inventory management is important for any retailer, online or otherwise. It’s even more important for dropshippers, as every oversell or surprise sell out slows down a process that relies entirely on speed and efficiency.

Once you’ve got a software system to automate your dropshipping business, you can use it to manage your inventory. The system will connect directly to your suppliers and monitor their inventory levels. If they run out of a product, that product will automatically be listed as unavailable on any marketplaces you sell on as well as your own website if you have one. This prevents overselling, keeping your seller ratings high and saving you valuable time.

Prioritizing Suppliers

Many dropshippers work with multiple suppliers. The more suppliers you use, the more items you’re able to sell, and again, you’ve got to maximize sales to be successful in dropshipping. The problem is that the more products you sell and the more suppliers you work with, the more difficult it becomes to manage it all by hand.

Luckily, computers never get overwhelmed. Automating the process of prioritizing suppliers makes dropshipping with multiple suppliers scalable. The software will allow you to choose which supplier fulfills which product. If that supplier is sold out of an item, the order will be automatically re-routed to the next supplier you’ve prioritized. Not only have you avoided an oversell, but you didn’t even have to do anything. The software handles it all.

Closing Thoughts

Ecomdash’s software system does all this and more, but no matter what dropshipping automation software system you choose, your dropshipping business will run much more smoothly. Dropshipping is not as easy as some try to make it sound. But what’s important is that it can be easier than some realize. Create your business with the intent to scale and you’ll see more profits with less headaches.