The creation of a catalog for Drop Shipping suppliers

You have finally decided to change gear and expand your business thanks to dropshipping.
Great start, but now you're wondering:

• What should I do to prepare my business in dropshipping?
• what will I have to supply to the sellers to ensure that they can best offer my products?

Warehouse management software

It seems obvious but it is still good to clarify, first you will need to equip yourself with a management software to manage your product inventory, or your warehouse. 

All your products must be entered in the CMS in a certain way and must contain at least the following values:

• Title / Name
• Short description
• Extended description
• Variants / Attributes
• Purchase price
• List price of sale
• Discounted sale price
• Stock inventory
• Images
• Category / Sub-category of belonging
• Code / SKU
• EAN barcode
• Dimensions / Weight
• Tax rate
• Manufacturer

 Your CMS will be your base of operations. All the information contained in it, will be disclosed to all sellers equally in order to "synchronize" your company with all dropshipper.

But to do this you will need:

• provide sellers with a file that contains all of your products (with all the values listed above)
• provide sellers with a updated stock of your warehouse at least every 6 hours 
• have a eCommerce platform to allow sellers to order your products
• automatically download your orders from your eCommerce platform to your CMS
• have a contract with a shipper to anonymously deliver your products directly to your sellers' customers

Let's now look at the points just mentioned in detail.

Why is it important to provide sellers with a file that contains all of your products?

Sellers often look for a "facilitated" sales system in dropshipping; want for lack of knowledge of the specific sector, or lack of time, choose their dropshipper also based on their internal organization.
A dropshipper supplier with a well-structured catalog, full of images and various details will certainly be more successful compared to others, therefore the logic requires that you (supplier) to do the "dirty work" at the end of which you will provide your sellers with a file containing all the details of your products.

In this way the various sellers will be able to load all your warehouse in a short time in their web sales systems.

Why is it important to provide sellers with an up-to-date stock of your warehouse at least every 6 hours?

As I mentioned before, your company will have to synchronize with all your sellers who, not having a stock of their own products, will show their customers their stock.
Imagine what could happen if everyone sold your products and you would not be able to cover their orders?
your sales system would go haywire and soon your salesmen, perceiving your lack of professionalism, would abandon you.
It is therefore appropriate to make sure that everyone always know what your real stock is at all times.

Why is it important to have an eCommerce platform to allow sellers to order your products?

After receiving your file to incorporate all your products into his own website, the seller's work will focus on marketing and sales. In this case it will be essential to minimize the time between the sale of the product (which will happen thanks to your seller on their own channels) and the order fulfillment on your part.
To make this happen in short times, it is appropriate to give your sellers the opportunity to immediately buy your products, to pay them immediately and to provide the address of delivery of goods (which will inevitably be different every order being a sale in triangulation / dropshipping)

The eCommerce platform must be strictly synchronized with the stock of your warehouse, it must be fast, easy to consult and must allow immediate payments by credit card.

Why is it important to automatically download your orders from your eCommerce platform to your management system?

Now let's imagine you have 20 dropshipping sellers. Imagine that each of them generates at least 5 orders a day, the result will be that at the end of the day you will be able to complete 100 orders.
Suppose that at least one order of these may contain multiple purchases of products, it is easy to deduce that in the short term, in order to maintain a timing of order fulfillment in a short time, it may be necessary either an increase in personnel or a automated management of the unloading of orders.
And just by virtue of an optimization of resources it is important to have some simple but fundamental automatisms that guarantee fluidity and order in all processes.

Why is it important to have a contract with a forwarder to anonymously deliver your products directly to your sellers' customers?

To complete what has just been said and repeated several times, the primary objective of the supplier must be to offer an excellent supply service. It is therefore inevitable that the quality of the service is essentially measured also on the speed with which a supplier is able to fulfill an order after it has been created by the seller.

To accelerate these processes, some couriers provide tools to be integrated into their own management system to allow the instant creation of the shipping label and, at the same time, schedule the pick-up of the forwarder in their warehouses.

Conclusions

In conclusion we can say that we must organize ourselves well to avoid a waste of useless resources and above all avoid complaints and malfunctions.
Whether you own a CMS or not, it is important to keep in mind that an online synchronization system will have to be integrated between the management, your sales portal and the sellers themselves: these will simplify your life!