Question for those who managed to automate the manufacturing and shipping process

[Primedirective]

I decided on a product, and feel comfortable with shopify.com as the location for the store front. I'm now looking into manufacturers. Here's a question. Whether you receive 1 purchase request or 100 purchase requests, are you able to have them automatically sent to the manufacturer, or do you have to order from them yourself? (i.e. this week 5 customers ordered widgets on my website. Next week 20 customers order widgets on my website. Do they all get forwarded to the widget maker on my behalf, and the widget maker mails each one out to my customers for me?.....or do I have to send the widget maker an order for 5 widgets this week, and 20 next week?). If I am to remove myself from the architecture and automate everything then I'd like to figure out a way to make all my product orders go directly to the manufacturer and let him worry about creating and shipping the product. Otherwise I suppose I could check my account online every single day from whichever country I'm mini-vacationing in to forward the orders to him. Anyone have experience/advice in this area?
Many thanks!

[Mr Miyagi]

Not sure I can help really.

I have got a product coming out in the next two - three weeks and my manufacturer is making an order of 1,000 items (which is the minimum order).

I am going to assess it and see how it goes and then decide how I progress about more orders. To start with I will reorder when needed, as I don't want stock I can't sell and I don't know how successful the product will be. Better being cautious and only make thing automated when sucessful, otheriwse you can make a loss on your muse.

[Primedirective]

That totally helps. Thank you. I also saw another thread that mentioned there usually being 2 parties, the manufacturer, and the distributor. The distributor handles orders for you, and orders bulk from the manufacturer as needed. This is how you, I, (we) are able to remove ourselves from the architecture. However I can see how large volume, and larger profit is needed to justify this extra expense. So for the time being I think I'll follow your plan of stocking small quanity in my house, ship as needed, then order more as needed. If sales are consistent and I'm earning enough to cover my bills, then I suppose I could hire one of my unemployed relatives to handle my orders for a month while I go travel. haha.
Thanks!

[Mr Miyagi]

I think that is best.

No need to waste money, when you don't know how succesful the product will be.

If it is selling well, then you can look to outsource all the distributions / manufacturing / admin etc giving you more time to focus on other things.

[bytor99999]

I don't use shopify, have tried it, but I am sure they are like others.

I use big commerce. and with it, I can set which email my orders go to. So right now I get the emails and I forward them onto my manufacturer who will drop ship them one by one.

So I ordered 50 from my manufacturer and as orders come in, I send an email to them with the information to send one at a time.

I am just starting, but when I get my traffic and sales really going, I will go into the configuration and change the email to go directly to my manufacturer.

You also have to ask your manufacturer if they are willing to do drop shipment one unit at a time. They might or might not, which means that part has nothing to do with which ecommerce site you choose.

Now, it sounds like you are going to have the issue that I had in that the ecommerce sites are built for shops selling more than one type of item. And if you have just one type, you will have to customize the site a lot.

I would recommend looking at putting it up on Wordpress to sell.

Good Luck

Mark