I also did drop-shipping, but I didn't use any of the companies that advertise this facility. I used warehouses that sold only to the trade and persuaded them to ship direct to my customers without an invoice. The customers paid me in advance. The warehouses invoiced me after 30 days.

I paid a guy to write the website shopping cart software specifically for my business. That way I was able to automate stuff. For example, if a customer ordered, say, product X, the shopping cart would email him/her a link to the web page where the user instructions could be downloaded and to a FAQ page for that or similar products.

And every order acknowledgement email contained offers for my books and other items. Viral marketing.

I also did drop-shipping, but I didn't use any of the companies that advertise this facility. I used warehouses that sold only to the trade and persuaded them to ship direct to my customers without an invoice. The customers paid me in advance. The warehouses invoiced me after 30 days.

I paid a guy to write the website shopping cart software specifically for my business. That way I was able to automate stuff. For example, if a customer ordered, say, product X, the shopping cart would email him/her a link to the web page where the user instructions could be downloaded and to a FAQ page for that or similar products.