Everything Is Marketing: Dropship And Big Business Edition
A couple of days ago, someone asked about dropshipping, and how you justify the high shipping times.
This is a major point of contention for someone who wants to enter into ecommerce. Amazon offer you one-day shipping and most stores offer you a three-day shipping window without any extra cost.
Your dropshipping store will take three weeks to deliver potentially.
People won’t be happy.
So what do you do?
Here’s the basic answer:
“We’re running low on stock so we’re currently shipping straight from the manufacturer.”
This is an easy justification and if you make this clear, then you’ll do OK.
But obviously, you can go many steps better… and you should take a page out of the big business guy’s book here.
Where You Have Weaknesses, Make Them A Selling Point
Do you think that a big business like Apple is perfect and never gets anything wrong?
They literally just created a laptop which only works in pristine laboratory conditions.
Do you think that those big businesses ever apologise for these mistakes?
Absolutely not.
They turn them into marketing tools. The fact is, for a major company CEO to admit fault, the company has to do something mega-stupid before they’ll take the blame.
Like releasing a phone that literally explodes.
Or releasing a new car where the breaks don’t work.
Even then, you’ll see a quick apology followed by why they’re so awesome for replacing your faulty item or giving you a deal.
They care about you, ok!
How does this relate to your business?
This Is The Approach You Should Take
Let’s say you’re starting your dropshipping store. You’re getting stuff from Alibaba and selling it at a mark up to your customers.
That sounds pretty predatory, doesn’t it? (It’s not, but we’re conditioned to think we live in a fluffy-unicorn world.)
How about instead starting a company that works with a global set of makers who use naturally cultivated materials and a company that works tirelessly to reduce income inequality in the third world while delivering the widest range of products to customers at the best price they can get?
…That sounds expensive, but if it isn’t the same thing, then I don’t know what is.
That’s what Mr. Snake, CEO would say though, isn’t it?
The fact that certain big companies use incredibly cheap labour in the third world isn’t ever talked about, yet Fair Trade farm sourcing is.
Dropshipping is something that solo entrepreneurs use, “just in time logistics” is what big companies use to keep overheads lower.
They’re the same thing.
Everything Is AWESOME! Everything Is Marketing
Copywriting is the most important skill you can learn, because you take any piece of information and turn it into a benefit of your product, pitch or budding cult of personality.
Most people extend this solely to products and solely to the benefits of their products, but this isn’t’ anywhere near to the full scope of copywriting.
You can justify pretty much anything if you spin it and twist it around, but when you think about it, it’s not so much about “justification” as it is finding the need within your customer that your weakness is actually a benefit for.