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Drop-shipping is not rent-seeking, any more than any retailer or wholesaler is rent-seeking. Is anyone you buy from other than the direct manufacturer a rent-se
by ryanwaggoner 6y ago
Drop-shipping is not rent-seeking, any more than any retailer or wholesaler is rent-seeking. Is anyone you buy from other than the direct manufacturer a rent-seeker?
From WP:
Rent-seeking is an attempt to obtain economic rent (i.e., the portion of income paid to a factor of production in excess of what is needed to keep it employed in its current use) by manipulating the social or political environment in which economic activities occur, rather than by creating new wealth. Rent-seeking implies extraction of uncompensated value from others without making any contribution to productivity.
Drop-shippers don't manipulate the social or political environment, and the value they provide is the same as any retailer. They just don't take on as much risk or physically handle the goods. It's a sales and marketing business only, and margins are both more volatile and slimmer on average as a result.
- lidHanteyk 6y agoI think that you're overestimating what dropshippers actually provide to the economy. Like Instagram-style influencers, dropshippers are ultimately advertisers; they create consumerist desires where none previously existed. To quote from "Office Space": > Bob: So, what would you say you do here? > Tom: Well look, I already told you! I deal with the goddamn customers so the engineers don't have to! I have people skills! I am good at dealing with people! Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people? Just like Tom, dropshippers are redundant at best and harmfully interfering at worst.
- heliheliheli 6y agoThere's value in advertisement. No more behaviorist mumbo-jumbo for you, the mind creates desires, external circumstances do not.