Nearly all of Dutch online stores that sell products through dropshipping don’t comply with legal regulations for online selling. Their web sites lack contact details or details about returning orders, for instance.
Researchers from the Dutch Consumer’s Association investigated 100 online stores that sell products by dropshipping. This entails selling products without buying any inventory beforehand. When a customer orders a product, the order is shipped to the manufacturer, who then sends the product on to the patron.
For plenty of entrepreneurs, dropshipping is an important approach to test the waters of ecommerce. They’ll check out which products sell best, without the prices of shopping for and storing a list. Nonetheless, there are plenty of examples of online sellers who treat dropshipping as a simple approach to become profitable online, without meeting laws and regulations.
No contact details or return information
This can also be apparent on this latest research. Not less than 66 percent of the reviewed online stores don’t list a phone number on their website, despite the fact that they’re obligated to achieve this. In addition they often don’t list a return address (65 percent) or a (registered) Chamber of Commerce number (66 percent).
82% of dropshippers don’t mention the prices of returning a product on their website
Moreover, 82 percent of the web sites don’t mention the prices of returning a product. As is the case in all of Europe, online stores are obligated to say this. Most dropshippers on this research sample only mentioned that the patron will likely be charged for return costs.
Some online stores even said that they don’t accept returns, for reasons that aren’t legally sound. For instance, when a product was on sale. That is against regulations, as these products ought to be allowed to be returned. To make matters worse, many dropshipping online stores have their whole product range listed as on sale by default.
88% regret ordering at a dropshipping online store
Greater than 2,500 panelists were surveyed about their experiences with dropshipping. Not less than 88 percent of the consumers which have ordered a product through a dropshipping online store, said they regretted it. Long delivery times were the principal reason for his or her regret (81 percent).
73% of consumers regretted their order because they’d to send products abroad to return them
Having to send products abroad when attempting to return them was also a standard criticism (73 percent). The high costs of returning were also mentioned often (64 percent). Customers also complained about disappoint quality (59 percent) and poorly accessible customer support (58 percent). Moreover, online stores commonly didn’t (completely) pay customers back for his or her returned goods (45 percent) or transferred that a reimbursement too late (32 percent).
Dropshipping business hard to acknowledge
“The issues with dropshipping are legion and chronic. Most dropshippers don’t follow the foundations”, said Sandra Molenaar director of the Consumer’s Association. “They don’t seem to comprehend that doing business also involves obligations. And the proven fact that consumers infrequently recognize online stores as dropshippers only compounds that problem. Consumers really should be higher protected and informed. That’s the reason we shared our findings with the Consumer & Market Authority”.
