Didn't I just put the Christmas decorations away?

I have, sitting before me right now, two boxes filled with holiday samples. The boxes are packed, letters enclosed, and taped up ready to go to FedEx with the hope that they show up next week at their respective catalogue companies and the buyers there are so in awe of the samples they sign me up right away.

I find it funny that I'm shipping out holiday samples before Valentine's Day has even truly begun to show itself but catalogues work 8-10 months in advance so I need to get in there now and show my wares. I realize sending blind samples is not ideal, but I do have the buyers names and since I'm willing to dropship for them I'm hoping they'll realize that not only are my products one-of-a-kind and something they just have to include in their holiday catalogues, but that since I'm willing to dropship their inventory commitment is zero, zippo, a big fat 0.

Last year I signed up with one company to do dropship for them and didn't really expect it to come to anything. The downside of dropshipping is pretty obvious - I have to carry the product inventory but also have to buy in shipping boxes and packing material for sales that may or may not materialize. Turns out they did materialize (I was seriously shocked) and materialized in a big enough way to make me sit up and take notice. It dawned on me that dropshipping probably works really well for my product as it enables me to control temperature and freshness which is something that I can't control if it's shipped to some catalogue's warehouse. Plus, legally, I only have to have the products registered in my state and not each state I sell it in to like my wholesale business. For a small company those multiple permits can get very very expensive. And lastly, it gives me a birdseye view into what people products people are buying and that helps give me direction on where new products should go.

As such, despite the negatives, I was pleasently surprised by the dropship relationship last year and I'm hoping to build on it this year. The packages I put together this morning did end up looking really really good. Better then I had originally hoped. So now I'm just crossing my fingers and toes that they're well received next week!