subject: You Can Be Too Successful, You Know [print this page] There is one major problem with every drop shipper, no matter how legitimate and professional they are. From time to time, they will forget to inform you of how many of a particular item they have in stock. And when this unfortunate event happens (often as a direct result of your excellent sales skills), you have what is called a back order. When a back order rears its ugly head, you have a couple of options. You can apologize profusely to your customer, and offer them a refund or discount in compensation for their extra long wait. You can ignore the problem, and pretty much write off that customer for life. Or, you can make sure that you always have a solid line of communication going on with your drop shipping wholesaler. The first and third options are the best, in case you were wondering.
Just like with a lot of other things in life, you can solve an awful lot of problems by simply not having them in the first place. If you keep up a good line of communication with your drop shipper, you will always know how many of any given product they have in stock. This information can either be automatically uploaded to your advertising vehicle of choice (generally a web site), or you can make sure your admin keeps this information accurate, at least to the day. Although, in this day and age, keeping inventory information accurate up to the minute is not the pipe dream that it would have been in years past.
Of course, the whole notion of being able to sell something from one location, and have it actually be shipped from another one (possibly on the other side of the world) is really pretty incredible, when you think about it. Isn't our species incompetent enough that we need ropes to guide us safely into a movie, or to make sure the lines at the bank don't degenerate into some kind of capitalistic kung fu riot? And yet, somehow, we have forged the ability to connect three different entities, potentially on three different continents, and exchange money for goods without any kind of regard for national borders, exchange rates, or physical transportation. It takes a lot of people to make this whole system work" but doesn't it work like gangbusters?
But sometimes you don't have the level of communication you want. Maybe your drop shipper is based in a country that speaks another language (or in the case of China, may feature one of several different regional dialects). Or maybe you only recently began working with them, and you aren't quite on the same page. In any of these cases, miscommunications happen. Congratulations on being the kind of marketer who sells too many! Of all the problems you can have, this is one of the better ones" kind of up there with owing taxes on huge capital gains. Just patch up the problem for now, and work to communicate with your drop shipper a bit better in the future.
