The Effect Of Corona Virus On Dropshipping

Early on when the virus starts  pick up pace in China you saw a few suppliers shutting down in a few  locations or having issues with  deliveries but for the most part the  general supply chain for dropshipping  products was working fine, once the  products have left China it was business  as usual for the rest of the countries  around the world and most items were  landing within a reasonable timeframe. However when it started to really grow  across Europe and I crossed the US, that’s when issues start to occur within  the supply chain. When countries started  to put down restrictions on people’s movements when it started to put  restrictions on Airlines commercial  airliners everything like that  that’s when we really started to see issues.

When countries started shutting down the airports and stopping inbound flights  from other countries, that’s where the  issues really started to occur for dropshippers. Some of you may not know  this but many parcels from China get put on commercial airliners, not just cargo  planes. So, when those commercial  airliners aren’t allowed to land in  those countries your parcels aren’t  going to be delivered to your customers. So, if countries are shutting down airports to control the spread of the virus, this is going to have a knock-on effect with your business because that means that parcels aren’t going to be  delivered in the same time frame they used to.

his isn’t just affecting  dropshippers, this is affecting just industries worldwide. You can see and all  the financial markets stocks are plummeting because people are really scared about what this is actually doing . Supply chains at every single stage of  being affected by these restrictions,  it’s not just dropshippers it’s just the  industry as a whole ecommerce, business anything that’s been affected by this this virus.

This is just really an unprecedented time, something that nobody  has ever had to deal with in our lifetime before and with that comes some big decisions that you have to make as a business owner. Some of those decision may be that you  think that it’s the best option to move to US-based our EU suppliers, rather than shipping from China into the US or to  Europe. You might think that I took in a  warehouse supply in those countries  directly it’s going to be the best course  of action for you to take. In theory that  would mitigate the airline issues you  know obviously you’re not gonna have the  ship products over into a country  they’re already going to be there to ship  out locally.

What you have to remember is  with all these social distances that are  going on a lot of warehouses are  actually running at a reduced level or  they’ve stopped completely. So if you are  planning on drop shipping outside of  China and actually using the US or an EU  based supplier to ship your products to  people around the world, then please get  in touch with them and find out what  kind of stock levels they’ve got and  also if they are running to full  capacity at this current time, because if  they’re going to be relying on China to  ship your products into their warehouse  to fulfill for you, then you’re still  going to have the same problems, so  please get in contact with whoever you  are supplying from and ask them what  kind of position they’re in to fill your  products for your customers.

At this current time you are going to see delays with shipping, so from a purely business  and customer service standpoint it would  be a very good idea to send the emails  out to your customers to let them know  that are going to be delays with those deliveries because get in ahead of this  and getting in front of it and actually  speaking to your customers before they  start contacting you it’s going to look  really good in your business it’s going  to help you in the long term when it  comes to customer trust and actually  charge backs on your account, because  that’s something you’re going to start  seeing as well as an increased number of  charge backs because deliveries are  arriving in time.

So if you can get ahead  of it and actually let your customers  know about there are issues with a  supply chain because of everything  that’s going on most people will be  understanding and that’s going to look  really good on you and your business.