Everything You Need ToKnow About Drop Shipping

Elisa Stella

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Everything You Need to Know About Drop Shipping

WHAT EXACTLY IS DROPSHIPPING?Dropshipping is a retail fulfillment method where a store doesn’t keep the products it sells in stock. Instead,when a store sells a product, it purchases the item from a manufacturer/drop shipper and has it shippeddirectly to the customer. As a result, the merchant never sees or handles the product.”  In other words, if you open a drop shipping store, you never have to stock and distribute the products you areselling. You simply buy it from a drop shipper and let them handle the logistics. You are the middle man.

BENEFITS OF DROP SHIPPING- You don’t need much start capital to launch your business because you don’t need to stock up on inventoryor store it.   - Since the entire business model runs online, you can manage it from anywhere in the world. Working fromyour laptop will do!   - It is easier to start than a normal retail business because you don’t have to worry about things like warehouse,stock level, packing, shipping, or handling returns.   - You can be very flexible in terms of your products. If one product doesn’t sell at all, you can easily switch toanother one because you haven’t purchased large amounts of it. It’s the cheapest way to sell products online.

DISADVANTAGES OF DROP SHIPPING- Since it is so easy to start a drop shipping business, you will have many competitors which can lower yourmargins. You need to have either a great product or outstanding customer service or a great marketingstrategy to stand out and be successful. Picking a solid narrow niche will help decrease this as a problem.   - If your supplier has any type of internal issues, e.g. temporary shipping delays, your customers will blameyou. So you need to go for reliable partners only.

WHY YOU NEED TO START A DROP SHIPPING BUSINESSTODAYA drop shipping business comes with low risk as you only pay for the products that are sold to customers whopay. You don’t cater to product creation or incur costs of maintaining unsold products, paying employees andeven shipping. It’s an opportunity to break into the entrepreneurship world. Take a look at some of the benefitsof drop shipping business.

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Everything You Need to Know About Drop Shipping

- Easy to Kickstart – Although starting up an e-commerce business is not a stroll in the park, kickstarting yourdrop shipping business can be relatively easy. Unlike the conventional online store or business, drops hippinglets you start without any need for space or huge capital. It's as simple as finding a niche, a supplier, andcreating a marketing strategy, to get started.   - Flexibility – If you run a drop shipping business, you can operate from anywhere as long as there is an internetconnection. Communicate with suppliers, customers and manage your business directly from your laptop.   - Scalability – You can grow your drop shipping business without having to hire extra staff or pump in moremoney. The job falls on your supplier as you get more orders.   - Minimum Investment – You only buy once you get an order, so there is no reason for investment in products.

PICK YOUR NICHEOf course, you could try and sell all kinds of random products from different niches. But I can assure you it isgoing to be very hard to be successful doing that. When you focus on one niche only, you can become anexpert in that area. You will find the best products and the best suppliers.  Potential customers will soon realize that you know what you are talking about and are more likely to trust youand buy your products. Also, creating a narrow niche gives you a target audience that wants to buy what yousell. The narrower the better!   TIP! When looking for a niche go to ebay and search “Most Wanted” and “Most Sold” items. Then go to Amazonand search “Top Selling Items”, this will help you see what people are wanting to buy online.

CHOOSE GOODS THAT ARE NOT AVAILABLE LOCALLYSomething your customers can’t find in stores is more valuable and worth ordering. Try to find things that areunique and can't be found easily anywhere. You will have a higher success rate going this route.

BUILD YOUR SHOP BRANDYour business gets more value if you pay attention to your branding. Add your logo on any product photo, yoursite, emails, on the package and materials, that your wholesaler may put in the box.

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Everything You Need to Know About Drop Shipping

FIND SUPPLIERS Once you have identified a profitable niche, you need to go and find your future suppliers. That sounds easierthan it often is. Suppliers are great in manufacturing and distributing, however, they are not particularly good inonline marketing. So be prepared to dig a little deeper to find the best suppliers for you.   Write down all the potential suppliers you can find and add their contact details on a list. After that, make sureto contact them and ask anything that is still uncertain to you. That could be product or shipping relatedquestions.  Make sure they are able to produce and ship enough quantities of your product to satisfy your customersdemand. A second way of finding suppliers are marketplaces such as AliExpress or Alibaba. Here you caneasily find countless manufacturers (mainly located in China and over seas) to buy products from. Please bearin mind that these are the places where most people start their drop shipping business. That means that thereis a lot of competition for these products which can decrease your margin. This is why sticking to your niche isimportant.

HERE IS A LIST OF PLACES YOU CAN SEARCH FOR DROPSHIPPERSAlibaba   Wholesale Central   TheWholeSaler.co.uk   eSources   TopTenWholesale   Dropship Direct   Sunrise Wholesale   SaleHOO

In a drop shipping business, the manufacturer makes the products and ships the products for you the retailer.The retailer is the next in line; you market the products created by the manufacturer under your brandedwebsite. You choose the products to market and also cater to customers’ complaints and inquiries. Thecustomer is at the end, as they buy the products created by the manufacturer and marketed by the retailer.They are entitled to ask their questions and make complaints directly to the retailer.

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Everything You Need to Know About Drop Shipping

THINGS YOU SHOULD DO ONCE YOU CHOOSE A SUPPLIERPurchase Test Orders – Perform test purchases for every new supplier, consider the speed of their response, ifit is easy for you both to understand each other, and do you get what you wanted and product quality in theend.   Ask Questions – Make sure you ask all the questions at the very beginning of your partnership. Is there optionto brand the boxes and add branded material to the products. Will they send you tracking numbers? Do theyinform their partners when some goods are out of stock?   Compare Prices – While there are numerous suppliers, some sell more than others. However, note that lowerprices don’t mean poor quality. Sometimes, high prices can even mean low quality. Study prices and quality.

BUILD A STORENow it’s time to build an e-commerce website where you can distribute your products. In case you have a largebudget, you could hire an experienced web developer and get a custom design for your store. This could helpyou get going sooner, but I think it's better to build it yourself for a few reasons. If you build it yourself, it will definitely cost a lot less, you will know the ins and outs of your website which isreally important since this will be your job. It may feel intimidating to build your own, but you can learn how tocreate an online store here with my Course: How to Create an Online Store. It may seem daunting, but Ipromise, you can create your website without any coding and you can follow the steps one at a time till you aredone. In the end you will be an expert at your own website which will help tremendously when you need tomake updates or changes in the future.

PROMOTE YOUR ONLINE BUSINESSHaving a beautiful WordPress store is just one part of becoming a successful drop ship business owner. Youalso need to promote your store so people will actually find you. There are several ways to do so, for example:   Social Media. Create social media accounts and promote your products and niche there. Make sure it doesn’tcome across to salesy but provides actual value to the community. Don’t try to be all over the place.   Paid Ads. If you have the budget you could also consider paid ads. Very popular ones that drive much traffic ifdone correctly are Facebook ads and Google Adwords.   Learn about SEO strategies and apply them to your store. For instance, use keywords that potential customersare looking for on Google, so your chances increase that you will show up on the search results.

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Everything You Need to Know About Drop Shipping

Content Marketing. Provide additional information that goes beyond selling your products. For example, if yousell emergency kits, you could write articles about what’s important in a good emergency kit or any innovationson the market.  When you create product reviews, make sure to not only include benefits but also the negative parts of it. Thisbuilds trust and credibility.   Email Marketing. Build an email list with either existing customers or people who visit your store. Send outregular emails, for instance with ConvertKit, providing useful information to your subscribers, such as helpfularticles or new product releases in your shop.   Influencer Marketing.  As a beginner, you may find it difficult to pay influencers the rate they charge. When youoffer influencers commission for sales, you cut down your drop shipping risk while the influencers ensureconversion. With this advertising option, you’ll get some photos that will take your social proof up a notch.Depending on the influencers, they can generate better amounts than they would have made if you gave thema flat rate and this makes them strive to get better conversions for you.

MONITOR AND ADJUSTNow that your drop shipping business is up and running and you are busy bringing traffic to your store, you arestill not done. You always need to monitor the performance of your business.  Become friends with Google Analytics and monitor your numbers closely. Analyze what works well and whatdoesn’t. Maybe you are lucky enough and your shop will go through the roof straight away. But chances areyou will have to experiment a lot with products, suppliers and marketing strategies before you make your firstreal revenue. This is completely normal. You need to hang in there and don’t stop trying.

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