I had lunch today with a friend of mine that uses a dropship company to sell fashion handbags.  Over lunch she was complaining about an irate woman who had called because it had been nearly 2 weeks since the day she placed her order and still no hand bag.  I asked her if the client had paid with a check, or was her dropshipping company running behind or had the bag been lost???  Even I was taken aback at the thought of waiting 2 weeks for a bag.

My friend answered no, ” I just wait until I have 10 orders before I place my order with my dropshipping company”

What???  Why would you do that when one of the big perks of dropshipping is that you can place an order 1 item at a time??

I told her I usually wait until the end of the day to send in my orders, but I NEVER EVER leave my desk with an unfulfilled order.

I don’t know if I got thru to her, but I know one thing for sure, she lost what could have been a good customer.

When should you hold on to an order before placing it with your dropshipper?  The only acceptable time I think is if the client purchases your merchandise with a check.  If I get an order and they are sending in a check I will call them and see if I can get them to switch to credit card.  9 times out of 10 they do once I explain to them I can’t fulfill their order until I receive their check and then it can be another 5 business days before I know that the check has cleared.  Most people don’t want to wait that long.

The reason I call is that its more personal.  When I used to send them an email, many people would say that’s ok, they still preferred to send a check.

Even though most of us run our businesses online, don’t forget about the power of a  personal touch and good customer service!