What Drop Shipping Is and Isn't

No, drop shipping is not sipping a margarita drink on a remote beach while your sales stack up on your mobile device. However, for some who can put in the effort and time, drop shipping can be quitting your day job for a full-time gig owning your own business.

Is that really realistic you may ask? And soon, won't everyone be able to utilize drop shipping and crowd the market with boutiques?

One misconception in our industry is that there is only so much market space available for boutiques, which limits the amount of people that can enter the boutique business.  Although this is partly true (the market is only so big), as the boutique industry grows, it competes with and takes market space from big box stores like Walmart, Target, Ross and other online platforms like Amazon.

You see, the pendulum is swinging back the other way. Today, the boutique industry is reclaiming its real estate from the big box stores who decimated the boutique industry over the last 50 years with their large, efficient distribution networks and imported clothing that crushed prices and small store competition. 

The boutique industry is now changing, and it's changing fast due to the  competitive advantages of e-commerce, such as online wholesale buying, drop shipping services, social media platforms, shipping distribution such as FedX and USPS and availability of boutique fashion brands.

Boutique marketplaces can now connect with unlimited customers through social media platforms, conduct unique and personal live sales, such as CommentSold on Facebook, offer trends that are fresh off the designers table and ship straight to the customer's door. Today, boutique owners have unique advantages that can be harnessed to propel and grow their business.

Let's be honest, who doesn't want to shop at a boutique? No one desires to shop at Target when they can have a "Pretty Woman" experience by finding something special from a fashion boutique with a we cater-to-you motto. The fact is, price (mass production) is all that the big box stores have going for them today. Our job as boutique owners is to make things better, more vibrant and exciting to lure customers back to the small store.