Development of a web-oriented system for the sale of goods using the dropshipping business model

Abstract

Introduction. Dropshipping is one of the most popular business models used by e-commerce companies. For the operation of the business, the dropshipper provides only an electronic storefront and online customer service. The relevance of the research topic is due to the fact that communication and information technologies create new opportunities for development and optimization of dropshipping business model, contribute to expanding the sales market, improving labor productivity, effective use of resources, and improving the quality of business management and service provision.

The purpose of the work is to investigate the theoretical and practical aspects of the dropshipping business model, to build a web-oriented system for the sale of goods based on the dropshipping business model.

Methodology. To achieve the goal we applied general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis, logical generalization and comparison, we applied graphical and tabular methods for presentation of research results, we applied functional model IDEF0 and its decomposition to describe business processes of the system for the sale of goods according to the dropshipping business model.

Results. The main advantages and disadvantages of the dropshipping business model are given in the article. We discuss options for online sales channels in the dropshipping business model, such as general markets, social media channels, and enterprise own website along with their advantages and disadvantages. The need to develop and implement a web-oriented system for the sale of goods to automate the activities of enterprises in the field of dropshipping is substantiated. At the stage of designing a web-based system for the sale of goods we built model of the business processes of the system for the sale of goods based on the business model of dropshipping in the form of a functional IDEF0 model and its decomposition. We built structural and structural-functional diagrams of a web-oriented system for the sale of goods, a block diagram of the work algorithm. The web-oriented system for selling goods is presented in the form of a catalog – a resource on which all the products offered by the dropshipper are placed in the form of a list with a detailed description of the products. The necessity of using the CRM system as part of the server-end of the web-oriented system for automating the management of relations with customers is substantiated.