A retail supply chain model where the merchant acts as a front-end marketing brand and purchases inventory from a third-party supplier who ships directly to customers.
Dropshipping is an e-commerce fulfillment model that eliminates the need for merchants to hold physical inventory, rent warehouses, or manage manual packing and logistics. Under this framework, the merchant sets up an online store (typically on Shopify or WooCommerce) and markets custom products. When an end-consumer places an order on the merchant's website, the order details, shipping address, and print design are dynamically forwarded to a manufacturing and logistics partner. The partner prints the order on demand, packs it securely, and ships it directly to the customer. The merchant's revenue is the difference between the retail price charged to the consumer and the wholesale base production/shipping cost charged by the supplier. This model dramatically lowers barriers to entry, enabling entrepreneurs to build global clothing brands from a laptop by focusing entirely on apparel design, brand aesthetics, search engine optimization (SEO), and digital marketing campaigns.