To Dropship, or Not To Dropship
... because time is money
When I was running my pop-up bookshop and the orders started coming in online, I was absolutely thrilled but faced my first dilemma. There I was, staring at the stock in my shop, and inside my computer there was a customer who wanted to buy it. It made sense to take it off the shelf and post it to them, right?
I decided not.
Why though? Particularly when I have something sitting on my shelf which might have a profit margin of 55%, compared with dropshipping direct from my wholesaler which only has a profit margin of 35% – that is a huge difference. Let’s break it down further:
Say I am selling a book that has a RRP of £20. I will buy it from the wholesaler for £13, and I will buy it from the publisher for £9.
BUT, time is money. And to go to the post office and send it off, would mean I’d have to close the shop because our opening hours coincided. Not only that but I would need to buy decent packaging to send my book in so that it wasn’t damaged, that also eats into any profit. Or rather, I press a button, I fulfil the customer’s order, and their book arrives often the next day.
Yes, it was less profit for me, but it was also less hassle.
However, now I don’t have the pop-up, and I have twelve boxes full of stock stacked against my own bookcases at home that I need to sell, it’s a different story, right? Well, that’s what I thought.
The other day an order came in for Leonard Cohen’s brilliant novella (and 16 short stories) A Ballet of Lepers. Perfect! I thought, checking my stocklist and knowing that it was in box 12 because I did a stocktake the other day and organised myself – which is most unlike me. Even better I was more excited that I could send it to this Hertfordshire customer in one of my cotton tote bags, what a bonus, he wouldn’t be expecting that!
And so I set off down to the high street with my dog to get a walk for her and post my wares. This would be the way of getting through that stock before my next pop-up.
But when I arrived at my local Mail Boxes Etc, they didn’t sell those waterproof plastic mailing bags that I knew the book would be safe in because it was already wrapped in the tote bag, so I nipped next door to McColls and queued to buy the mailing bags, except because I had my dog with me when I was one away from the front of the queue I got kicked out. I went outside and found a stranger to look after my dog (she’s a puppy, I don’t want her to get pinched), then I went back inside and bought the bags. Then, I headed back to Mail Boxes Etc, sealed the book and the bag inside the envelope and asked them to send it 48-hour tracked delivery.
‘That will be £11.25 please,’ the lady said.
What?
Apparently they only do signed for now, and to get a regular 48-hour tracked I needed to go back to the post office inside McColls. Luckily the stranger was still outside and so I asked them to look after my dog again and went off to post the book.
‘That will be £8(something or other),’ the man said.
‘What? I thought it was £2.95 tracked.’
‘No, it’s £8(something or other),’ he said.
I already didn’t like him because he’d kicked me and my dog out.
‘You can send it first class not tracked and it’ll be £5(something or other), or second class for £4(something or other).’
I could see my small profit dwindling in front of my eyes, and McColls/Post Office/Royal Mail all getting richer. So I left, with the book, got my dog and walked home again. I then spent the best part of an hour downloading the Royal Mail app at home where I confirmed that yes, it is £2.95 to send something 48-hour tracked if you print off your own labels, which I was prepared to do, but they have this weird collection service for anything bigger than a letter and they couldn’t collect until the next day with a five-hour window and I had a physio appointment in the morning and didn’t want to leave the parcel out in case it was raining and so I gave up the whole thing and just dropshipped it direct from the wholesaler which meant that my customer didn’t get his cotton tote bag and I did all that just to put the book back into box number 12! GAH!
So that was how I spent my afternoon. A whole afternoon. And, as I said at the beginning, time is money.
The reason I am sharing this very boring story with you? If you are indeed still with me and have not fallen asleep? Because this is all part of my learning process, I am desperate for these online orders, but I need to figure out the best way of fulfilling them from my own stock rather than buying more.
We forget as self-employed people that our time is money, and a whole afternoon for a £7 profit is not cost effective.
However, there is a happy end to this tale. On Saturday a local customer ordered three books from my website at 16.42, and as I had two of them in stock, I was able to deliver them on my dog walk less than two hours later – quicker than a well-known internet site that makes profit at writers and publishers’ expense, eh?
Here is my co-worker, Tilki, enjoying a well-deserved rest after her delivery, and if you live in Tunbridge Wells and you order from my website, you will probably meet her.
More soon…
• Don’t forget I would absolutely love you to continue supporting THE BOOK ROOM while I wait for another physical premises. You can do that by ordering from the website which you will find here, and just a reminder that I can order you ANY BOOK and usually get it to you within 48 hours. It has never been more important to support writers and independent bookshops and if you buy from me you can do both and contribute to that ecosystem that keeps everyone going.