In the dropshipping world, you may have or have not heard of the term, but for sure, it is emerging as a wave between online business, which is called Drop Surfing.
Is this a new and better way than dropshipping? Can you make a profit out of this? What are the requirements to be a “surfer”? We are going to go through all of those in this article.
So without further ado, put your swimming suit on, and let’s find out about Drop Surfing Ecommerce and why it is so popular at making money for Ecommerce.
What is Drop Surfing?
Although there are many similarities, drop surfing comes a bit late after dropshipping. What’s more, with people utilizing the method, there are two definitions for drop surfing.
So we are going to look at both of the practices to see what they are:
Drop surfing suppliers
With this version, you being the reseller looking to maximize your profit with many suppliers as possible.
Let’s say you are selling shoes in your online store. While a customer orders a pair of shoes, you will use your system or software to scan the pair on websites like eBay, AliExpress, Amazon to see which supplier has the best price.
Once you find it, you place the customer order of the pair of shoes with that vendor, which allows you to make the maximum money from the sale.
The better you can do this, the more money you can make from the increased margins on each order.
Simple math: If you can find an online supplier that provides the shoes with $20 cheaper than everyone else. If you sell 100 pairs in one month, you would have $2,000 more that month.
Now, let’s see what the second definition is:
Drop surfing product trends
This version is actually closer to surfing since you will ride the wave of online products that are trending to make a profit from their popularity.
So again, you need a system or software to spot trends early to make this work. You also need to operate many stores to adapt to many niche products, and the ability to find new trends when the old ones are fading.
Simply put, the first version is like finding the biggest wave to ride, while the second is like finding the small but really fast waves of online product trends.
Before we go ahead, let find out more about the old uncle of drop surfing: Dropshipping.
What is Dropshipping?
We called it an old uncle, cause dropshipping has been around for a long time, maybe since ecommerce became a little more popular.
It is a fantastic business model that allows people to start selling online with literally zero budget. The process is like this: You open a store, and when someone places an order, you purchase the item from another supplier and ship it to the buyer.
The beauty of this is that you can remove the backend inventory management, which really saves a lot of money compared to the traditional online stores with physical products.
Also, you can focus more on using your budget for marketing, which brings even more orders.
Many have made millions of dollars from doing this, and on many platforms like Amazon FBA, eBay, etc.
Drop Surfing vs. Dropshipping
It’s easy: Checking multiple suppliers for the lowest price + Drop Shipping = Drop Surfing
Now you’ve seen the difference, let’s see which method is more superior or suitable for what you need. Seeing the science behind it, we can say that drop surfing has a huge potential in maximizing your profit margin – which is what many businesses are chasing after.
However, there is a drawback to it as well. Which is the time you are putting into the system to make it work?
If you constantly have to check supplier pricing and price changes personally to make sure you are getting the best deal, it is basically another job.
Even if you hire someone to do it for you, money and time are still wasted if you cannot find the software to do the hard work for you. And how many sales can you get from wasting time like that are based on your system.
In a list form for the conclusion, all of the advantages and disadvantages of using the drop surfing ecommerce method (the flexible version of dropshipping) can be concluded as:
1) It has a low start-up cost: The biggest advantage of using a surfing ecommerce method is that you can start an online business on a tight budget. You don’t have to spend a lot of money on all inventory, just contact the third-party seller and include the link in your online retail store, which will allow you to sell. Direct products from third-party inventory are the most competitive prices and don’t face the pain of maintaining stock (and paying a huge amount as well). You just need to pay the cost of developing an e-commerce website or developing an e-commerce application depending on your plan.
2) Open your retail shop faster: The reason is that you don’t have to buy different kinds of products that they wish to sell in their online store. Plus, you can keep their operating costs very low by avoiding expenditure on storehouses, packaging those goods, shipping the goods, keeping track of the inventory. Since in the drop surfing ecommerce tactic, you don’t need to follow any of these steps, you can start your business quickly.
3) Saving on overheads: The overhead costs are also significantly reduced because you don’t have to pay large sums of money to stock your goods, pay workers in your warehouse and package parts.
4) Get a flexible location for shipping of goods: This method allows you the option of using flexible locations to sell your goods. Since you do not store any goods in your warehouse, you only need to connect with any third party anywhere in the world to sell their goods through your store. Therefore, location is not a big deal for you.
The certain disadvantages associated by following this drop surfing to do ecommerce are:
1) Fall in share margin: Because you must share your profits with the third party whose products you are selling through your online store, your margin is still very low (even if you buy from a vendor who is selling the product). Products at the most competitive prices on the market can significantly affect your business’s survival.
2) No control over inventories: If you have your own inventory, then you can easily keep a record of them and know that one of them is being well supplied and not available. For example, you display a product available on your website or application, and a customer contacted for it. Then you call the third party provider only to know that a particular product is limited or unavailable; it could have a serious impact on your online business reputation.
How can you start with Drop Surfing?
Have you discovered all the issues you can tackle doing Drop Surfing? There are basically two main problems you would have to look out for:
- How do you find the right supplier?
- How much does it cost to start to drop surfing?
Don’t worry. We will go through all of these sections to give you an excellent start to catch the wave and start Drop Surfing:
Market sites
It doesn’t matter which sites you use to find the lowest price, nor the regions will affect. You can drop surf from China, the USA, or any other country.
Below is the list of the easiest sites to start drop surfing:
- AliExpress
- eBay
- Etsy
- Walmart
- Alibaba
- Amazon
Cost
As you can see above, the cost to drop surfing ecommerce will differ based on which plan you choose for your store. But one thing for sure, the starting fee can be very low.
All it takes is a little effort to set up a store and start marketing your business smartly, and the wave is ready for you to take a ride!
Conclusion
Compared to Dropshipping, Drop Surfing certainly has its strengths, but it is far from perfect to be the future. With that said, it is still an excellent system to maximize your profit and focus on building your brand.
So how do you think? Do you want to grow long blond hair and pick up a surfboard? Let us know by simply dropping us an email, and we hope you catch the most significant waves for your Ecommerce!
