Leamington-based internet specialist Sincordia has developed an innovative online drop-shipping facility for Spa Health, a mail order company selling vitamins and minerals.

The facility has now turned Spa Health into one of the UK's leading drop-shipping companies with sales rocketing 70 per cent since the facility went live.

Drop-shipping is a form of selling where the retailer passes the customer's order and shipment details to the wholesaler.

The wholesaler then despatches the goods directly to the retailer's customer.

This has many advantages for the retailer, they do not have to carry any inventory, stock or make any deliveries and means a business can be started with very little outlay or capital.

The retailer makes their profit on the difference between the wholesale and retail price.

Drop-shipping is a highly successful form of selling in the USA.

Although relatively new to the UK, it is now on the increase and set to become one of the largest revenues of sales in this country.

For many, drop-shipping is becoming a popular way of setting up your own home-based business or simply supplementing your income.

For example, eBay is the most popular site for drop-shipping where thousands run their own auction businesses.

Sincordia has made the drop-shipping facility extremely easy to use for those that wish to sell the Spa Health range.

Sincordia sets the dropshipper up with a copy of the Spa Health website, which can be customised with the drop-shippers own name.

Spa Health will take payment for all orders placed and send the drop-shipper their commission at the end of the month.

There are no administrative set-up costs and no minimum order values.

Each drop-shipper is given their own account on the Spa Health website which is password protected.

Here there are a number of different functionalities they can access.

For instance, they can download product information and images for their own websites, review what they have purchased as well as seeing what their customers have purchased.

They can also receive and send e-mails or SMS messages to the users of their website, configure delivery prices, track activity, view reports, manage drop-shipper discount groups for their products and manage promotional vouchers for their website.

Baden Powell, operations director of Spa Health, said: "We required an easy to use facility to ensure our drop-shippers can easily navigate our website and have access to vital information in which to help them run their business.

"Sincordia has exceeded our expectations, the facility has been so successful that the number of drop-shippers using Spa Health has quadrupled to over 400 which outstanding."