Can customer payments be used to purchase goods directly?

[shazamga]

is there a way to use the customers payments to purchase goods? if yes, hows the setup between the payment gateway and your bank and how long does it take for everything to clear or does one need some dough in the bank to purchase goods and ship and get paid by the customer in the gateway?

[Helen]

Hi, @shazamga. That’s a great question!

As far as I know, there isn’t a way to directly use your customer’s payments to purchase goods. Therefore, what most merchants do, is they have a credit card for business purposes including placing orders with your suppliers. This way, you’re able to place the order on your customers behalf as soon as it is received in your own store, avoiding any unnecessary delays in getting your products to your customers. Then, once the funds from your customers have been paid out to your bank account, you can apply the appropriate amount to your credit card payment. 

Which payment gateway are you using? There generally are a few days processing time to consider for receiving funds between when your customer makes a purchase, and the payment is deposited into your bank account. For example, take a look at the Help Doc Pay periods to learn how it works when using Shopify Payments as your payment gateway. 

That being said, if you are looking to streamline the payment process from customer to supplier, it’ll depend on what way your supplier requires payment.  For example, if your supplier accepts Paypal, then enabling the Paypal gateway on your Shopify store could help. This way, once your customer pays for their order through Paypal on your store, their funds will be deposited into your Paypal account. Then, you can use those exact funds to pay your supplier directly from the same Paypal account. Does that make sense?

[shazamga]

Hi

That's what I kind of figured. I don't have a business credit only possibility is a business debit then. I'm using Stripe for the gateway.

[Helen]

Gotcha, @shazamga! And are you dropshipping? If so, which app(s) are you using for it?

[shazamga]

Hi

Yes planning to. using shopify and stripe so far.

[Helen]

I see, @shazamga. So then does that mean you are using Oberlo to source your products? If so, Oberlo connects to Aliexpess which you’ll need to pay for your orders via credit card or Webmoney. Check out the Oberlo Help Center for more advice and answers from the Oberlo team.

In order to help you get your business up and running, I recommend utilizing the following resources. They’ll be helpful to gain a really solid understanding of dropshipping so that you can determine what works best for your business needs.

• Dropshipping Help Docs

• Shopify Blog 

• Shopify Learn (Free business courses)

Please let me know if I can help in any other way. Good luck!

[shazamga]

no not on oberlo. i'd place direct myself on ali

[Helen]

Ok, no problem, @shazamga. I want to let you know that using an app to connect your Shopify store to Aliexpress will help with reducing effort in your workflow for both importing products to your store and for fulfilling orders. So, while it is totally possible to do it all manually, it can be time saving to use an app. 

That being said, there are other third party apps besides Oberlo that connect to Aliexpress. Here are a few of them from the Shopify App Store, just in case you’re interested in considering it:

• DSers - Aliexpress Dropshipping

• Importify Easy Dropshipping

• Aliexpress Dropshipping & More

All the best!

[dropship_helps]

Hi @shazamga 

Only after the customer money received to your account, use that money to pay supplier.