Direct Shipping, as the name suggests, is a method of delivering the goods directly from the supplier to the customer. As said, whenever a product is shipped directly, the seller only passes the delivery information to the supplier, and the rest is then managed by the supplier.
Practically, the cargo & shipment will go right from the factory directly to the customer without any stopping in the supply chain that could be a warehouse or any seller facility.
Comparing it with dropshipping, direct shipping is only a shipping method whereas dropshipping is a business model. There are pros and cons, involved in shipping direct:
There is a home-based cake boutique which is not financially strong enough to have its own online storefront. In such a case, the owner of the boutique collaborated with someone who can showcase the products on their website.
Now, as per the agreement, here if the order is received, the boutique owner is the one responsible to deliver the product to the customer and not the one who has listed. In this case, direct shipping is very clear. There is no involvement of the mediator except for alerting the boutique owner about the order.