[thelist] Online Shop with 3rd party provisioning

[Luther, Ron]

Hi Simon,


As others have pointed out; this is a very common business model.

The basic concept is that as a 'demand aggregator' a middleman like your client can negotiate a lower price with the suppliers, pass some of that savings on to his customers and make his living off the remainder.

Yes - there are certainly ways to turn this into a scam.  But the basic business proposition appears to be on the up and up.


Good Luck,
RonL.

Who sees a fair amount of this kind of thing from several different sides.  ;-)

[Here is a tip for you and your client: Pay very close attention to how you handle expectations on product returns.  I suspect most of your client's customers will purchase with the expectation of being able to return goods directly to your client - rather than to the original manufacturer.  That's an especially important thing to consider in places like EMEA (or even the Tex/Mex border) where an international return may require export licensing paperwork that your average end-customer may not be equipped to deal with.]