A great new online opportunity called Drop-shipping.

Over the years ecommerce, that is selling products and services over the net, has given the selling business a new direction. The net users have increased in numbers and so have online merchants, giving a new direction to the world trade. If you are still thinking and have not taken the leap, you are missing out on a great online business opportunity. The ecommerce industry has grown and is still growing at a tremendous rate with a few hundred billion dollars as the annually revenue turnover from this industry in United States alone. It seems that this form of business has broken all bounds, and will in some time be the top most revenue earner across the world.

If you have been thinking about entering this trade its not yet late, in fact it is the right time to go ahead and establish yourself in this field of business. Building and maintaining a website, has never been as simple and as easy as it is today. Especially, with the vast amount of tools available either for free or for a reasonable price on the internet itself. The software programs you need to design a website such as HTML, dreamweaver, frontpage and flash are easy to learn and use. You could spend a few weeks on these subjects and you would be able to design your own website. And if you dont want to do any of this learning, there is still hope with the vast number of websites on which you can design your website using their simple online tools; the service could be free or nominally priced. Not willing to make even that much of an effort, then you could settle for an online store with e-bay, and start selling through it. But if you have the money available you may hire the services of a professional web designer. So with all these facilities and possibilities you can have a website in place within a small time. But before that the most crucial thing is what do you intend to sell on this website. This will lead to questions like how much money do you need to invest, where do you find the products to sell and so on.

The options about the kind of things to sell could be many; you may want to sell services, electronic products or physical products. If you decide on the last choice in this list, that is physical products, there is a great new opportunity on offer for you called Drop Shipping. By using the word great I am not exaggerating, it truly is great for you need not invest in stocks, no need for any inventory, no shipment issues and yet a large variety of products to offer to your customers. That is why drop-shipping is a sensation in the ecommerce world.

Let us understand the concept a little better. Under this setup you work as a mediator and set up an online store displaying products which you dont actually possess, but are the products which the manufacturer or distributors backing up your business possess. You receive an order and pass the order to you supplier and they will ship the item to your customers. So all you do in the business is open an online store, list items in it, when the buyer makes a purchase pass on the order to the supplier and the rest is all about handling money, which you surely wouldnt mind.

When you have decided in favor of drop- shipping as you new online business, you must first start thinking about what product line/lines do you want to enter. The most happening product lines in ecommerce today are apparel, music, software CDs, games, dvds, electronics and small home utilities. Though, by far the most popular one has been electronic products. But you can choose from a vide range of product categories based on your interest and convictions. You could also monitor the sale of some of the products of your interest on other websites, like on ebay there is facility to see what all has been sold in a particular category in the past few weeks. This kind of a self survey could get you a list of some fast selling products or product categories.

Having decided the products you wish to trade in, its time to begin a search for a reliable and reputed drop-shipper. Some of the factors which can help you to decide, which drop shipper is good for you, are his reputation and experience, his ability to deliver single quantity orders. Also he should not be asking you for any substantial membership fee, and should not mention his name on the invoice or packaging. All products must be delivered preferably with an invoice from you or a blank invoice.

When you search for the drop shippers you may want to use the lists available for sale on the internet, but dont do that as they are usually outdated and most contain misleading and incorrect information. Instead you may start with an online search on the search engines. For the search try different combinations of keywords, which may include the product name, and words like drop shipper, dealer, distributor, manufacturer etc. If other online retailers are also selling similar products, you may be able to trace out the clue to identify the suppliers.

The other offline sources to locate drop-shippers are trade exhibitions where suppliers display their products, trade magazines and journals may contain suppliers advertisements.

Once you have located the Drop-Shippers, make a professional approach to contact them, put your proposal forward and have the terms and conditions sorted out before you decide to do business with them.

So with all this information presented here you would be in a better spot to take on and reap the benefits of this wonderful new online business opportunity.