Drop shipping is a fulfillment model where a seller takes a customer’s order but never handles the physical goods. Instead, the seller forwards the order details to a supplier or manufacturer, who ships the product directly to the end customer. The seller earns the margin between what they charge and what the supplier bills, without stocking or warehousing inventory.
How it works
A customer buys from your store at your retail (or quoted) price. You place a matching order with your supplier at cost. The supplier packs and ships to your customer, often under your branding. You keep the difference. The model shifts inventory risk and fulfillment logistics to the supplier, which is why resellers, catalog-heavy stores, and new merchants use it to launch with limited capital.
Why it matters for B2B quoting
Drop shipping and quoting overlap often in B2B. A buyer asks for a price on a large or non-stocked configuration, and you cannot commit to a firm number until you confirm cost and lead time with the supplier. The quote becomes the mechanism that locks in pricing before any order is placed. Because you are not holding stock, accurate supplier lead times and freight estimates are the parts most likely to go wrong on a quote, so build them in explicitly.
On Shopify, you can capture a request, confirm supplier pricing, then turn it into a real draft order the buyer accepts and pays for through native checkout. That keeps a paper trail against a fulfillment model where you never touch the product. See the B2B quoting glossary for related terms.
Example
A furniture reseller lists 400 SKUs but stocks none. A contractor requests a quote for 20 desks. The reseller confirms cost and a 3-week lead time with the manufacturer, quotes the buyer, and on acceptance the manufacturer ships the desks straight to the job site.