Getting Customers' Questions Answered when Drop Shipping

Customers are obviously going to call with questions that you are not equipped to answer but must answer. In the beginning, you are not going to have the answers to a large number of these questions.

Question for the Forum: So, if it's best practice to neither reveal to your customer that you are drop shipping nor to reveal that you are new and don't yet know much about the products you sell, then how do you handle on-the-spot-questions when you don't have the answer? Whether by e-mail or phone, I can see how an uninformed retailer would need help, especially in the beginning. So, is their a common way that retailers get the customer in contact or on the phone with someone from their drop shipping company, or is there another way to smoothly get customers the answer by neither revealing that you are drop shipping nor seeming like you don't know much about what you are selling?

Also, for my understanding, can someone explain the reason so many say it is not good practice to reveal that you are drop shipping? Why would a customer care?

I think the answers to these questions will help many new drop shipping retailers.

Thanks in advance!

Hi Brandon,

I wouldn't suggest lying to your customers at all, but if I were dropshipping, I would not go out of my way to divulge that information openly.

Why do some customers have a problem with it?

Well when you purchase something from a business and have an issue with it, you can go straight back to the business and lodge a complaint to have the issue resolved. Most consumers want that direct access to get a resolution to the issue asap, however with a drop shipped product, they know they aren't buying from the actual retailer themselves.

Now they are in a position where they are relying on you to then get the issue resolved for them and that is uncomforatble because they aren't able to control the situation and they have no idea if you will be able to or not, so there is a massive unknown factor with purchasing through dropshipping with a lot of customers and the one thing that most consumers look for in a purchase is CONFIDENCE!

Remove that confidence and you remove the sale.

Regarding answering questions. Product knowledge is one of the most important things in sales and while you may not be selling face to face, make no mistake about it, you're still working in sales. So it's important to gain as much knowledge as possible about the products you are marketing. That said, I wouldn't suggest putting a number, email is fine.

Ultimately, your listing really should be informative enough for a potential buyer for them to not even need to ask you any questions. So you really need to focus your attention on providing a quality listing that answers everything for the customer. Remember, if you're selling on a platform like an eBay, then it's quite easy for a customer to go to the next seller who is selling the same or very similar to you to find the information that you haven't provided them in your listing and once they do that, they won't come back, they'll just buy from your competition.

So it's important to consider all of these factors and leave nothing to chance, because boats don't float for long with holes in them :)

Two great answers from Down Under, as usual. Your answers always seem to open the eyes a little wider and make it all seem more feasible.

Thanks, Mark!

Cheers Brandon, anytime :)