Are you looking to learn more about the world of dropshipping?
If so, you’ve come to the right place.
If you’re a custom decorator, I’m sure the term dropshipping has been thrown around a time or two. It’s a business model that has boomed recently and when it comes to making a living as a custom decorator, there are definitely ways dropshipping can help you.
We first must define what dropshipping is from the perspective of a custom decorator.
If you hopped over to YouTube and typed in dropshipping, odds are you’re going to find the exact opposite of what you’re looking for. Videos on how others can start their own online dropshipping business without ever seeing the Ali Express products they’re selling is probably not going to help you.
Dropshipping from the perspective of a custom decorator revolves around you serving as the production fulfillment center for a fashion apparel company. The fashion apparel company does all of the marketing and design while you produce the product and ship to their customers.
If print and embroidery fulfillment for others is something that would be a good business model for your business, dropshipping is a fantastic option and we’re going to dive into how you can go about doing that.
Offering Dropship Fulfillment Services
Adding fulfillment services to your business is a growing trend in the industry. It is a great way to continue what has already made your business successful while also adding in another stream of revenue.
But it’s not something that you should jump into if you’re not prepared. At the end of the day, you need to make sure that your business can handle the extra workload.
The cool part about adding a fulfillment service is that you will only have to put your time and energy into printing, packaging and shipping. The hassle of designing, selling and marketing is gone with this business model of dropshipping.
But who will handle that side of things if you’re not? In this agreement, your dropshipping partner would be responsible for the rest including designing and marketing. Once your partner has sold the products to their customer, you will now be in charge of printing their fashion apparel and shipping it to your dropshipping partner’s customer.
Yes, it’s really that simple, ladies and gentlemen!
We here at DecoNetwork work every day with custom decorators that offer dropship fulfillment services. Our software is designed to give you all of the tools that you need to manage and grow your apparel decoration business.
Offering Dropship Print on Demand (POD)
We mentioned earlier that if you do in fact want to take on the printing duties on top of shipping, offering Print on Demand (POD) would be a great option for your business.
The reason a dropshipper would come to you looking for Print on Demand is so that they don’t have to worry about handing the printing duties or buying the inventory upfront. These are the types of dropshippers that don’t want to ever see a physical product and only handle the website and marketing duties.
Instead, you would handle the printing and shipping while receiving a payment from the dropshipper. This is where a company like DecoNetwork would benefit you if you choose to embark on a POD business.
Who should you partner with
Choosing the right fashion apparel brands to partner with is very important. You want to make sure that you’re partnering with reputable businesses that have a proven track record.
You will likely be able to find dropshippers from all walks of life. Some might need 10,000 orders a week fulfilled. Some might need 1,000. It’s up to you to determine how much dropshipping you can handle. Does fulfilling thousands of orders a week sound like something you can manage? If so, great. If not, adjust your expectations in a dropshipping business partner accordingly.
Have a plan and let potential partners know what your plan to execute everything is. A great place to do that is on your business’s website. Create a fulfillment tab and explain what you’re looking for in a partner and what you can offer them.
One of the best parts about this is that you determine how much work you want to add on to your business.
You set the prices
Offering a fulfillment service allows you to set your own prices, printing method and average fulfillment time, of course, as well as giving your dropshipping partners a list of options including the following:
- Online Stores
- Product Catalogs
- Mockup Tool
- Production Alerts
- Branding
Using something like DecoNetwork’s affiliate stores, which are online stores integrated with the fulfillment center that has all orders and payments go to the fulfillment center directly, would be another beneficial option for you to consider.
The affiliate store keeps track of sales and commissions to be paid to the affiliate partner.
It’s time to get started
If you want to take your custom apparel decoration business to the next level, adding a dropshipping fulfillment service is the way to go.
As a custom apparel decorator, it’s obvious that you already enjoy producing fashion apparel, so why not make more money doing it. If you do your research and make sure you have a good plan in place, you too can succeed in the world of dropshipping.
We hope this article helped you learn more about how dropshipping works in the print fulfillment industry and how you can adopt a dropshipping model into your own business.
We also welcome you to watch the video version of this article on our YouTube page! A link can be found below!
