What's easier? Packing your basement or garage with hundreds, or even thousands, of products for your e-commerce site and shipping them all yourself? Or having someone else handle the stocking and shipping for you? Well, of course, it's easier to have someone else handle the grunt work while you attend to more important things like growing your business and tending to your site.

Many established e-commerce retailers employ drop-shipping strategies as a means of minimizing stock on hand, decreasing overall shipping costs and cutting down on delivery times to customers. This strategy is even more important to small and medium-sized businesses who are trying to find success on the Web. On Wednesday, March 2, Paid, Inc. has added a drop shipping feature to its AuctionInc aiSeller and ShopCart eCommerce solutions to further ease the process of calculating accurate shipping costs for online sales.

Drop shipping allows online retailers and auction sellers to send orders placed through their online stores to manufacturers, distributors or major warehouses, who in turn "drop ship" the items directly to the retailer's customers - essentially handling the order fulfillment for the retailer.

Instead of worrying about inventory and delivery, drop shipping frees the retailer to focus on listening to the market, discovering the products its customers want -- and then rapidly add them to its online offering.

aiSeller and ShopCart, Paid's shopping cart and shipping calculation software for online auctions and online retailers respectively, now supports multiple origin locations, commonly called "drop shipping."

Paid's shipping calculation software can now quote the correct shipping rate for each item in an order as it is added to the shopping cart, even if the various items originate from separate locations. Shoppers will be unaware of the multiple origination points as the shopping cart will display one total shipping charge for all the items selected.

Sellers will have the advantage of being able to employ a single shopping cart for all their orders and will be assured that the shipping calculations will be accurate based on the origination point and final destination of each piece of merchandise.

"Drop shipping is a major cost saving strategy for online retailers of all sizes and it is the easiest way to get started selling online. A large part of eCommerce growth is from start-up Internet retailers and our product is ideally suited for them as well as established retailers seeking to minimize shipping times and inventory," said Tom McGovern, Paid, Inc. director of Software Sales & Marketing.

"The addition of drop shipping capabilities to our aiSeller and ShopCart solutions is the perfect complement to what we believe are two of the most comprehensive, cost-effective and accurate shipping calculation products available," he added.

In addition to the new drop ship feature, Paid's AuctionInc and ShipCalc/ShopCart solutions continue to offer automatic shipping rate calculations based on destination zip code and product size and weight and any special packaging or handling at any time during the shopping process, rather than surprising buyers at checkout. Additionally, for valuable items requiring insurance, AuctionInc is capable of recalculating the shipping costs as the auction bids for the item change, enabling the buyer to know the true cost of their purchase at any time.