Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Wondering if anyone has expertise in the all-important areas of packaging and shipping. As i recently blogged, a fellow StartupNation community member wants to connect to people who can help her learn more about packaging and shipping strategies/execution.

Please help!

Hey Rich--

I`m clueless when it comes to drop shipping, but I thought this might help as a resource.

http://www.strategic-adv.com/Strategic/Resources/ECommerce/4 .html

At GoTruckStop.com http://www.gotruckstop.com, we use a very unique data base / shopping cart that allows us to utilize the positive aspects of "drop shipping".

When the order is placed ... even for multiple items (seperate individual SKU`s) the shopping cart will automatically split the order and send only the specific item(s) ordered to each of our "drop-shippers". In turn, they simply "pick, pack & ship" to each of our customers. It allows GoTruckStop.com to stay on the cutting edge of pricing trends for each of our products ... by cutting down on inventory costs.

The second, and I feel the most exciting, aspect at GoTruckStop.com, is our unique data base catalog. Our catalog is "off-line" allowing us to make multiple changes to our "store" ... including pricing, product positioning and featuring, cross-promotion of our products through multiple categories, as well as many of functions. If we find that an item is "out of stock" or unavailable, with a few simple clicks the product is "taken" out of the store. When it is available again ... it takes just a few clicks to "put it right back in". The same is true for price changes, new features, new rebates or more.

In regards to strategies in working with drop-shippers, we, at GoTruckStop.com, focus on the positive aspects of opening a new and exciting distribution channel and touch point for each of our new vendors through GoTruckStop.com. Some of our "distribution partners" are small manufactures ... while others are major distributors in and out of the trucking industry. We emphasize that GoTruckStop.com is exciting, fresh, cutting edge and very customer satisfaction based. It simply becomes a "win-win-win" relationship. And as I stated, they are NOT drop-shippers to us ... they are `Distribution Partners".

Our market penetration has been growing every month ... flying just below the "radar" of our competition ... major truckstop players. When we are ready to do our full roll-out of GoTruckStop.com ... I believe the competition won`t know what hit them.

As for the "true costs" of setting up an on-line store ... $10,000 - $15,000 (if you want the best) or you can be mediocre (IMHO) and most of all PASSION !!

BTW, if anyone is interested in the resources we use at GoTruckStop.com, please feel free to email me at goservice@gotruckstop.com

Wow... great information! Thank you all for your specific detailed efforts and information.

Now I`m more confident that my small company can do this with the big retailers!

I appreciate the comments and guidance more than I can say!

I would like to also offer ebay.com as a resource. When I was doing ebay sales I found many things there that helped. There is a company that just sells small scales for weighing your product. Local costs are much haigher. There are also small companies that offer shipping supplies too (boxs, bubblepack, etc) at real good prices.

GOOD LUCK

We have used the service of a company called solution seeker for dropshipping for our clients and  ship direct to them using our company labels. Here is their email:  solutionseeker1@aol.com

We have used the service of a company called solution seeker for dropshipping for our clients and  ship direct to them using our company labels. Here is their email:  solutionseeker1@aol.com