Finally, without proper management of their suppliers, retailers pursuing drop-shipping can find themselves facing operational challenges that are unique to this strategy. These challenges range from offering items that cannot be fulfilled because suppliers are out of stock, to losing money on expedited delivery while drop-shipping from supplier facilities located too far away from customers (Giesen, 2004). Such operational difficulties underscore the need to study whether differentiated services have a bearing on the feasibility of generating differential margins under a drop-shipping strategy.