JIT is a business model where an eCommerce company carries as little inventory as possible but they do complete most of the shipping of the products they sell. This is not the same as having the manufacturer drop ship the item direct to the consumer, rather the eCommerce website will order the items upon receiving the customer order, put everything together at their own site and then ship the order.

In some instances, these companies must process partial orders but the business model limits the amount of space the business needs to take up and limits the amount of “pre-bought” items or inventory expenditure.

This works better in some industries than in others, but it operates on the principals espoused by Ford way back in the day who felt that, in an ideal world, ordering supplies for his assembly line (as long as delivery of those supplies was not an issue) as they were needed rather than trying to anticipate the market would be more cost effective and efficient.