Lulu Krause, Author at

Should I Dropship My Products?

A guest article from our lovely partner, Modalyst!

To Dropship or not to Dropship? That is the question.

There are many conflicting feelings about Dropshipping. Like all business models, there are advantages and disadvantages so it’s up to you to decide whether is right for your brand. To help you get started, we’ve outlined some pros and cons for you below.

First, what is Dropshipping?

Dropshipping is a retail fulfillment model where the store does not hold the inventory but rather sells products and has the supplier ship them directly to the customer.

Let’s talk Pros and Cons from a supplier’s perspective.

Pros of Dropshipping:

Marketing

So you spend a ton of time creating a beautiful e-commerce site but how do you get people to see it? We hear this all the time at Modalyst. Suppliers are finding it difficult to drive traffic to their own online stores. There is no secret sauce for this but we can offer a few ways that may help you increase your visitors. But one of the best strategies is to be open to Dropshipping.

By offering your products for Dropship, you can exponentially increase your exposure. For example, if you are online selling sunglasses through your own online store, you are only reaching the audience you have been able to connect with through your own marketing efforts.

If you choose to Dropship your products, you can sell the same pair of sunglasses across hundreds of online stores. Each of these hundreds of stores are aggressively marketing their own site to drive traffic (often by using your products!) so you are reaching new audiences by just allowing them to post your sunglasses to their site.

Selling through your Online Store VS. Dropshipping through several Online Stores

As the supplier, you are not restricted to the amount of stock you have on hand. As long as you are diligently updating your retailers on the inventory levels, you can “sell” 1 pair of sunglasses across as many sites as you choose!

Making $$$

Now that you are handling all the logistics (and often returns) you can negotiate better commissions. Modalyst offers a standard 60/40 split with the vendors so the suppliers receive 60% of the full MSRP of the product.

Additionally, you can manage hundreds of relationships and not have to worry about Inventory since Modalyst automatically syncs your stock levels. As soon as a product is out of stock, it will be marked that way across all stores selling that item. So now multiply that 60% by hundreds and you can significantly increase your cash flow.

Offloading Excess Inventory

Inventory is the devil. There is nothing worse than staring at left over units from previous collections that didn’t sell. While wholesale buyers are typically picky about selling stale goods, online retailers are much less season-sensitive. Let’s face it, consumers will buy what they want, when they want online, whether it is mittens in Summer or swimsuits in winter.

So if you are reluctant to put your past collections for sale on your own e-commerce site, why not off load it across other online retailers? Dropshipping can be an effective way to quickly get rid of the ghosts of seasons past.

Cons of Dropshipping:

Shipping and Logistics

If you are a one-man/ woman show, handling the shipping for all the items can be time consuming. First, you will need a good understanding of the costs so you can relay that to your retailers accurately. The vendors will need to know the rates before you sell anything so they can inform their customers. The retailer will pay the shipping costs on top of the 60% so make sure you are properly charging (that means not over charging as well!). Be aware that the online store can price their shipping however they choose.

Second, you will need to be fulfilling the orders promptly so the customers are receiving the items as soon as possible. Remember that the customer is interacting with the retailer (not you) so you are in fact shipping on behalf of the store. If you ship the items late, that will reflect poorly on the store and they will likely stop Dropshipping your items. So if you plan to go on vacation- let your retailers know!

Returns

Get ready to deal with returns and refunds. You are probably already familiar with them from your own e-commerce site, but multiply that times the amount of stores you are Dropshipping with and this can be a bit of a headache. To avoid confusion, be upfront about your return policy so the retailers are well informed and know what to expect.

Managing Cash Flow

In wholesale relationships, suppliers have control over minimums and delivery which allows for better predicting of cash flow. In other words, many times suppliers are only producing the amount of units ordered as to protect against excess inventory.

With Dropshipping, you have no idea when you will be paid and how much it will impact your cash flow. If you are new to Dropshipping, you might say yes to every store that requests your products but as you become more experienced, you may find it more effective to only deal with the stores that predictably sell your products. This will help you better organize and predict your cash flow. If you are interested in learning more about cash flow, take a look at our series on the subject here.

In conclusion, Dropshipping can be a great way to market your products but it comes with challenges that you will need to asses and be prepared to face!

Want help dropshipping your collection? Email lillian@modalyst.co and she would be happy to get you started!

Grace Miceli’s Disruptive Art Empire

As part of our ongoing partnership with Depop, we sat down with one of their freshest artists, and one of the newest members of the We Are Pop Up community, Grace Miceli (aka Art Baby Girl).

Grace Miceli considers her two titles of artist and curator to be inseparable. “Creating and collaborating go together,” she said, over coffee at Spreadhouse. Google her name and you’ll fall into a magic-marker-internet wonderland. Her Instagram. Her online gallery. Her coverage in Broadly, W Magazine, Nylon and The New York Times.

Miceli is building an art empire by cultivating a community of artists whose work spans from interactive digital to apparel prints. Her exhibitions combine art and retail, so that throughout a show, visitors can purchase featured artists’ more affordable art (hats and t-shirts, for instance). The daughter of an artist and musician, Miceli’s goal is to make art approachable, enabling virgin collectors to explore the art world sans “Chelsea pretension.”

By combining the power of contemporary art and accessible retail, Miceli repositions the sterile art gallery as a friendly shop, where visitors are greeted by a smile instead of flat neglect. This shift benefits curious collectors and artists alike. “An artist’s work on a baseball cap travels a lot further than a print hanging up in an apartment,” said Miceli. In the past year, Miceli’s art displayed at Outlaw Art Space, Bushwick Open Studios, Vox Populi, and Transfer Gallery.

Miceli’s creative retail approach fosters an inclusive community online and off. From LiveJournal to Tumblr and then to Instagram, Miceli has evolved alongside the internet; she uses her online and mobile presence to showcase her art and collaborations. Miceli’s iterative process generates a steady stream of feedback, finetuning and conversation. And now, she’s gearing up for a cross-country tour. She’s curating at Sunday, Los Angeles in February, and then launching a US-wide gallery tour with Brooklyn’s Alt Space. “I’m excited to have the chance to meet artists who don’t live in NYC, it will be interesting to learn about artists whose practices exist in different and smaller cities.”

On her migration from online to retail spaces, Miceli says, “this started online, and that’s how it needed to start.” We can’t wait to see what Miceli has in store – and in stores. Visit her on We Are Pop Up and Depop.

Interested in becoming a Depop seller? Drop us a line and we’ll connect you!

A Smashing Success: Snack To The Future at Artists & Fleas, Williamsburg

This past Sunday, February 28th, the NYC foodie community gathered at Artists & Fleas’ Williamsburg location where they snacked their way through the day at ‘Snack to the Future.’ During the day, customers were invited to try samples from all the attending food vendors, and vote on their favorite. And to make things even sweeter, the cult classic ‘Back to the Future’ was screened!

We were delighted to see some amazing We Are Pop Up brands during the day. Check this delicious crew out! Want to collaborate with them? Click through and send a message via We Are Pop Up!

Want to get involved with the Artists & Fleas community? You can pop up at Artists & Fleas’ amazing pop-out space!

That’s A Wrap: The Store(y)telling Gift Shop, NYC

Over the past two weeks, We Are Pop Up joined forces with Parasol Projects, Creative CNTRL and Retail Access to create and curate a flash gift shop in the Lower East Side. And the clincher? From ideation to populating the space, the crew behind this pop up executed it in a single week. Entitled “The Store(y)telling Giftshop” the activation featured 15 of New York’s freshest brands:

St. Ash Of Brooklyn, Proper Assembly, Martenero, Dirty Grl, March Caps, Thursday Finest, ETape, Hickies, Beltology, Lulu Krause, Gemela, Loop De Loup, Baron Nahmias, Little Treats Brigadeiros and MDSolarSciences.

The gift shop was an exploration in real-time visual merchandising; the entire experience featured a selection of curated stories that tied every brand into their narratives. On the pop up’s second day, we hosted a panel discussion at Projective Space at Freemans, where all the operational crew and all of the involved designers met to discuss the future of creative retail, and how traditional retail models have evolved into something more meaningful, bespoke and engaging.

Check out photos, and drop us a line if this inspires you! And check out We Are Pop Up’s list of NYC brands and spaces.

freeman's — The pop up’s designers and operational team during the roundtable at Projective Space at Freemans.

We Are Pop Up x Kiva Zip: Unite & Conquer!

In December, We Are Pop Up attended Kiva’s Zip’s New York City launch. We’d heard about Kiva’s international work, but when we saw what they were doing in New York, We Are Pop Up was blown away. Aside from the fact that Bill Clinton was the keynote speaker and the event was being held in the beautiful IAC building, we were excited to attend the launch because Kiva is an organization whose values mirror our own, creating a democratic marketplace that sparks entrepreneurs, neighborhoods and cities. Kiva Zip is a peer-to-peer microlending platform where entrepreneurs can raise money from friends and family as well as Kiva’s generous community of more than 1.1 million potential lenders. The lending model opens up capital to business owners regardless of established credit or how long they’ve been in business. And, there’s zero percent interest! Kiva NYC has already connected thousands of small-dollar lenders to 300 local entrepreneurs.

Today, we’re excited to announce a partnership between We Are Pop Up and Kiva Zip. Over the next year, we’ll be working with Kiva’s New York team to open up retail opportunities throughout the city. At the same time, we’ll help the We Are Pop Up community take advantage of Kiva’s zero-interest loans. By joining forces, We Are Pop Up and Kiva will fortify their entrepreneurial communities to build and scale businesses more quickly. Lenders will also be able to sponsor ShopShare opportunities for their Kiva borrowers. Two of our foodie entrepreneurs, TrySome and Especially Puglia, already took advantage of the P2P lending opportunity to raise $10,000 quickly, and with none of the nonsense interest. They then reinvested those loans into their innovative food startups. To learn more about Kiva Zip’s zero-interest loans, check out zip.kiva.org/borrow. Questions, comments, want to slow clap in celebration? Shoot We Are Pop Up Managing Director Greg Spielberg an email at gregs@wearepopup.com or give a ring at 207-522-6715.

We Are Pop Up x Depop New York: The Start Of A Beautiful Partnership

We met with the Depop New York team a few months ago, and spent most of the meeting reading about Kickstarter’s Potato Salad Guy. Definitely the start of a beautiful friendship … and as of today, an exciting partnership!

Depop is an app that enables you to sell straight from your phone. Much like We Are Pop Up, Depop is ideal for young and experienced brands alike; it’s distilled the complicated world of online retail into a simple and profitable process.

Over the next few months, we’ll be featuring some of our favorite Depop brands on our blog. And as the year progresses, keep your ears perked for additional collaborations with the lovely Depop New York team!