Okuzeka
E-commerce vocabulary · Shipping and Fulfillment

Dropshipping

Meaning in e-commerce, with examples

/ˈdrɑːpˌʃɪpɪŋ/nounCommon term

In e-commerce, dropshipping means: A way of selling online without holding stock: when a customer orders, the store passes the order to a supplier, who ships the product directly to the customer.

In Turkish: stoksuz satış, dropshipping

How it is used

Popular with new sellers because it needs little starting money, but margins are often thin and the seller has little control over quality and delivery times. You start, run or switch away from dropshipping; the supplier is a dropshipper or dropship supplier.

Example sentences

  1. We started with dropshipping and moved to our own stock once sales were steady.

  2. Long delivery times are the most common complaint in dropshipping.

Common collocations

  • dropshipping business
  • dropshipping supplier
  • start dropshipping
  • dropship model
  • fulfillmentAll the work needed to get an order to the customer after it is placed: storing stock, picking and packing the items and handing the parcel to a carrier.
  • inventoryAll the products a business has available to sell, and the records that show how many of each item are in stock and where.
  • shippingSending orders to customers by a delivery company, and also the fee or service option for doing so, such as standard or express shipping.
  • 3PLShort for third-party logistics: an outside company that stores a seller's stock and picks, packs and ships its orders for a fee.

More terms: Shipping and Fulfillment

Practise with graded reading

Reading at the right level is the fastest way to make new words stick. Pick free English books by level: