Drop Shipping
Most sellers order inventory from a supplier and ship the inventory to their customers. However, there is another type of selling known as "drop shipping", which eliminates the need for sellers to touch inventory. When using a drop shipper, a seller simply advertises the item and when they receive orders, they pass those orders along to the supplier (the drop shipper) who ships the items to the buyer.
This hands-free approach can be a great way to sell, however, it requires some changes to the traditional order fulfillment process. The Drop Shipper Addon Module for SixBit is an additional set of features that sellers can add to their existing Small Business subscription or higher and has the additional functionality required by drop shippers. Refer to the Add_or_remove_addons topic for more information on how to add a module onto your existing subscription.
Working with drop shippers requires several steps that are not required for normal physical inventory processing. When adding inventory, you must identify that it is for a drop shipper. Also, when a sale occurs, you do not have to process the order yourself, but instead must pass the order information on to your drop shippers. Finally, once the drop shipper has notified you that it has been shipped, you must record information such as the tracking number in the order and update your customers on the status.
Adding Drop Shipper Inventory
Adding drop shipper inventory is very similar to adding regular inventory. The only difference is that instead of creating purchase records each time new inventory is received, a special type of purchase record must be recorded that identifies that inventory is received from a drop shipper instead. The process for recording drop shipper inventory is documented in Recording Drop Shipment Inventory.
Passing Order Information to Your Drop Shippers
When a drop shipped item is sold, the drop shipper must be notified. Some drop shippers accept emails, while others prefer you fill in a web form. Refer to Notifying Drop Shippers for information on the best way to let your drop shipper know about new orders.
If email is used to notify your drop shippers, the order will be placed into a substatus of In Process called Waiting for Drop Shipper. This means that you are now waiting for the drop shipper to ship the item and return the tracking information to you. If the information was entered into a web form manually, then the order should be manually moved into the Waiting for Drop Shipper substatus. By placing the order in the Waiting for Drop Shipper status, this will remove the order from the normal shipping process and prevent you from shipping the item yourself.
Updating Orders After They Have Been Shipped
Once the drop shipper has shipped the item, record the tracking number in the SixBit shipment and mark the order as shipped. This process is described in Recording Tracking Numbers from Drop Shippers.