I will now look at drop shipping which has been developed as a result of disintermediation. It is defined by (Shopify 2016) as “Drop shipping is a retail fulfillment method where a store doesn 't keep the products it sells in stock. Instead, when a store sells a product, it purchases the item from a third party and has it shipped directly to the customer. As a result, the merchant never sees or handles the product”. With the advancements in technology drop shipping has become a very valuable asset to businesses especially business start-ups because it allows “no money to start and e-commerce business” (Smart Insights 2016) this is due to business never having to hold up any money in inventory it’s also links back to disintermediation because it can allow a business to go through multiple channels as opposed to always having to go through the wholesaler and manufacturer, drop shipping allows a business to just skip the manufacturer part and just purchase products straight through the wholesaler and sell online and pay a small fee to the wholesaler this in turn becomes a faster and more efficient way of selling products online.
