Better Than Santa: Drop Shipping is the Easiest Way to Deliver This Holiday Season

If the chilly summer wasn't enough of a reminder, the holiday season will soon be upon us. There's no need to remind shipping companies, which have been prepping for Christmas since last year's delivery disaster, which resulted in missed delivery target dates and some not-so-merry customers. IBM Digital Analytics found that in 2013, the last holiday shopping weekend before Christmas saw 37 percent more sales than the year prior, which shattered UPS and FedEx estimates.

This year, anticipating an influx of last-minute, high-priority orders, UPS recently invested $175 million in a network upgrade that it believes will make delivery faster and more reliable.

With millions of Merry Christmases and Happy Hanukkahs on the line, it's important that omnichannel newcomers like Wal-Mart and Sears adjust for the effects of increased online shopping. One solution is for retailers to offer more products, while simultaneously ensuring faster delivery by transferring the shipping responsibilities to the manufacturer or supplier via drop shipping.

There are several benefits to drop shipping, providing the process is well managed with an integrated platform that efficiently connects retailers with their suppliers. Such platforms give retailers a single interface that allows them to manage their entire supplier network, including drop shippers, with a single, streamlined process. This eliminates fulfillment headaches and guarantees that drop shippers always follow a retailer's business process to guarantee a reliable and branded delivery experience.

By leveraging an integrated platform to manage suppliers and drop-shipping solutions more effectively, retailers can take advantage of the following benefits:

1. The ability to integrate any supplier: Retailers need their suppliers to effectively fulfill orders. Companies that use drop shipping can trust that an effective platform has the capability to integrate any supplier, regardless of their technical sophistication or system compatibilities. Effective drop-ship platforms should support the onboarding of suppliers through the entire process, including initial setup, testing and ongoing monitoring of the flow of transactions.