Reliable inventory is paramount in eCommerce. In the end, there is almost nothing else.

I don't mean feeds or EDI 846 or APIs. I mean, actually knowing what's on the shelf matches your inventory system. Literally, what's in your WMS for this item.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

• Do you even know your cancellation rate for each item you are selling to your online retail partners?

• Do you have root cause analysis practices in place when you have those "oops" moments of "we thought we had 5 and it's actually zero?"

• What is your employee training process? When was the last time you updated it?

As a dropshipper, the reputation of your retailer is dependent on these practices. Particularly if this is the first season you're dropshipping, these may be new!

Otherwise, anyone still remember the old computer term GIGO? "Garbage in, garbage out" with all these fancy APIs and connectivity we have today.