Quote:
Originally Posted by space oddity
Holding stock of goods is expensive, both in storage and having to pay for the stock which may not sell. This then makes drop shipping the way to go. This is how it works. The goods are made in the factory, packaged on site and posted directly to the consumer, bypassing wholesalers. Often a batch is made/ injection moulded when sufficient orders are there.The retailer/online seller merely gets the customers through advertising/ catalogues and gets a cut of the sale for finding the customer. I call it the spotter's fee.
2 lots of shipping is inefficient as are multiple middlemen. If you need the service of sales staff who know the product and can show it to you, then of course you must expect to pay significantly more because of the value added. If you already have done your research online and know exactly what you want, then you can save money buying online this way.Service is by definition going to be compromised, but look at the savings.The online seller usually gets discounts for volume of sales, so typically the average consumer cannot get access to the savings of direct purchase straight from the factory.
Moral of the story, manufacturers, be in an industry where your product is amenable to drop shipping where the main middleman is the postman.
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Think you missed the point of the thread. No ones debating the mechanics of this ... simply that its a bugger when one of these online stores says that they HAVE an item in stock ... when infact they dont and as your reply suggests .. someone else does. There are plenty of online sellers that list stock levels as EG. at supplier, ship within 2 days .. a true and accurate stock assessment, rather than list say 16 in stock when infact they dont have that at all.