Dropship item sold, but supplier is only selling in-store


ndatkins
Full Member
  • Posts: 2
  • Joined: 03 Feb 21
  • Karma:
16 Feb 21 09:52:58 am
Hi, all my first post on the forum.

A customer has purchased a dropshipped item from me on ebay, however now when I check the item on my supplier page they are only selling it in store and not offering postage. How should I handle this?

Options I am considering:
1: Contact the buyer advise the product has sold out on another channel and no longer in stock (I'm a fairly new seller on ebay so want to avoid this)
2: Buy the item from another supplier who overseas, will break even on the sale but buyer will have to wait for international shipping
3: Post on airtasker for someone in the same city as the store to go buy it for me and post it (likely break even/small loss)

And finally, any forum members located in sydney want to help me out and buy/post the item for me? I will transfer you cost of item+postage+extra for your time


rhea_salehoo
Site Admin
  • Posts: 345
  • Joined: 23 Mar 15
  • Karma:
13 Jan 23 07:02:41 pm
The one thing you should be careful when drop shipping is how to handle stock shortages, or unavailable stocks. These are scenarios that you should discuss with your supplier prior to selling their items online, so everything is clear from the start.

In your case, if the item was available for selling online previously, you can contact the supplier first to see if they can offer alternative solutions to your problem. Call, if you must, so your concerns are addressed realtime.

Another solution is to find another supplier to purchase the item from (with fastest delivery time) and request the supplier to blind ship it to your buyer's address. You may have to sacrifice breaking even with this sale as a you don't want to lose potential repeat customers, and potential negative rating should the customer experience bad service.


 

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