Drop Shipping Beginner Intermediate Advanced
By Gary Granai
Drop shipping is neither a sport nor a game. It is a business. And in business,
customers neither want to deal with beginners nor intermediates. Customers want
advanced service, advanced communications and advanced reliability. Simply
stated they want to deal with someone in the advanced class.
When you start your drop shipping business it is like jumping into the middle of
the ocean. If you are a beginner, you will simply drown. If you are intermediate
enough to stay on the surface, your competitors will try to put you under. And
you will be torn apart from below by the sharks out there that prey on the
newcomer. It is not the time to start learning how to survive. You must be
advanced before you jump into drop shipping.
More than 95 percent of the drop shipping businesses fail within the first year.
There are many reasons. But generally it can be said that they did not have
enough experience to understand how tough business really is.
Business is a constant war. You will be fighting competition for your market
share. You will be fight competition for search engine position. You will be
fighting to survive every day and it will never stop.
You will have to be set up to survive the fight. You have to start your drop
shipping business in the advanced mode. How do you jump from business level
beginner to business level advanced? You do a business plan!
A properly written business plan is more than a writing exercise that you put in
a soon forgotten book. First it is a beginners training manual. In writing your
business plan, you are forced to think through the details of what you must do
to compete in the market.
For example, it will make you think about what is your unique selling proposition.
Remember that tens of thousands of other drop shippers like you may be advertising
the same products as you. You have to create yourself some unique position in
the market to outsell them.
Second it is a test procedure that takes you from beginner's status to intermediate
status. If you work up a proper financial analysis, you will actually confirm what
your costs will be and what you will get for the money that you pay.
Also test to see if the drop shipper really delivers. Order something and check
what happens. Just consider the disaster if set up your entire business around a
drop shipper and find that the supplier is unreliable.
Third it is a procedure manual that you will follow when you run your business.
It should contain your tutorials, source materials and the miscellany you found
important when doing your research. It is your reference book. It is your planning
and work procedure manual.
As soon as you start to work your plan, you are in the intermediate mode. That means
as soon as you start spending money. Every spend should be in accordance with your plan.
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