With online shopping made easy, consumerism has gone through the roof, but dropshipping has worsened it, or so says YouTube influencer Gabi Belle.
What is Dropshipping?
Dropshipping is a retail fulfillment method where a store doesn’t keep the products it sells in stock. Instead, when a store sells a product, it purchases the item from a third party (usually a wholesaler or manufacturer) and has it shipped directly to the customer. This means that the seller never physically handles the product.
This retail and marketing method has become popular due to its low barrier to entry and minimal upfront costs. Retailers don’t need to invest in inventory or warehouse space, making it an attractive option for entrepreneurs and small businesses. Additionally, dropshipping allows retailers to offer various products without the risk of holding excess inventory.
While dropshipping is beneficial in its own ways, it has ruined online shopping for everyone.
How does dropshipping ruin online shopping?
Since dropshipping allows “sellers” (actually middlemen between the actual manufacturers and buyers) to post as many products on various platforms as they can, it can be difficult for buyers to discern which product holds the best quality, especially now that many of these sellers use the same photo and description for every product they sell.
Gabi Belle gives a great example where Etsy, a platform meant for handmade products, is now saturated with drop shippers, filling the search results’ first page claiming to produce hand-crafted products (made with love) but are actually just poorly-made items from manufacturers relying on these drop shippers to generate millions in sales. So, even Etsy is difficult to trust.
Dropshipping has made it difficult for small, handmade sellers, making them compete with hundreds of cheap drop shippers who exert so much of their effort optimizing their listings to stay on top of SERPs. This entails extra effort for small-time sellers, compelling them to work triple to compete with drop shippers.
Amazon, the online shopping mogul in the US, is one of the biggest companies to love and support drop shipping. That is precisely why sellers can sell their products at a meager price, regardless of the platform’s many seller fees. Amazon gives its consumers fewer shopping options due to its dropshipping practice.
Furthermore, Gabi Belle claims that TEMU is another dropshipping platform that has infiltrated the US despite the platform claiming otherwise.
Gabi Belle’s Conclusion
Hundreds of different successful “business owners” claiming to earn thousands of dollars effortlessly and providing free dropshipping courses are a farce. Dropshipping also proves the hyper-consumerism culture of today. The influx of these cheap or affordable products caters to the deep desires of people to consume more than they actually need.
Gabi Belle concludes her video by encouraging viewers to do what’s best for their morals, ethics, and budget. We ought to make educated and well-informed decisions, even when purchasing products online, because not every product is what it claims to be.
Dropshipping isn’t entirely bad, but it truly has ruined online shopping for many sellers and buyers. What about you? Do you agree with Gabi Belle’s sentiments?
