What is Dropshipping?
Dropshipping has been around a while. Zappos was dropshipping in 99. Amazon is, Sears is, as well as hundreds of thousands of other retail stores and solo sellers.
Dropshipping or drop shipping allows you advertise and sell other people’s products without needing to buy or stock them yourself, that is zero investment in stock and inventory. Yes, zero risk!
Interesting, right? Yeah.
Google Trends Report on Dropshipping
Within the last 12 months we’ve seen an increase of nearly 50% in interest in dropshipping within the US alone.
Why is this so?
Check out
Some Benefits of Dropshipping
Dropshipping no doubt has some challenges like high competition occasioned by low entry barrier as well as from more established brands like Amazon, Asos, etc.
Notwithstanding, the following still make it very attractive.
- Easy Entry/Exit
It’s so easy to get in or out of dropshipping that every Tom, Dick and Harry can try it. Zero investment in stock and inventory plus little upfront investment make this possible.
- Room to Boom
Drop shipping gives entrepreneurs ample room to experiment with niches and millions of products at little to no personal costs, until they find success. Most successful dropshippers did this.
- Pricing Power
What’s more, you set your margins however high or low you wish. The good thing, there are always customers willing to pay whatever you say if you know how to play.
- Laptop Lifestyle
Living the vida loca may not be your goal, but if the laptop lifestyle appeals to you then dropshipping can put it in your laps. You can market and monitor your business from your mobile or PC monitor.
- Work Wherever, Whenever
That means you can work whenever and from wherever you choose, no more location limitations. Fancy a working trip to Paris, France? Bon voyage.
- Become Boss
How does it feel like to be your own boss, to set your own waking and working hours? To choose what to or what not to work on? To decide how much you earn? To…
- Zero Commute
Zero traffic, parking tickets, exhaust smoke, swearing drivers, etc; all sound like Beethoven to most of us. If this resounds with you, sounds like you should be a dropshipper.
There are many other benefits of dropshipping I can’t here list for want of space and time.
Perhaps at this point you’re asking
So How Does Dropshipping Work?
Here is how dropshipping works.
- First identify your niche or the products you want to sell
- Next select trusted suppliers. The Wholesale Dropshipping Suppliers directory is a great resource
- Sign up with an ecommerce platform e.g. Shopify,
- Create/choose a good name for your store, and a domain name,
- Import products into your (Shopify) store, apps like Oberlo automate and simplify this process plus manage pricing and virtual inventory, etc
- Edit product descriptions especially if importing products from AliExpress as most Chinese product descriptions are bogus and verbose
- Set pricing rules,
- Add markup,
- Drive traffic to your store
When customers view your adverts, click through and place orders they pay you directly.
You take out your profits and place your customers orders with your dropshipping supplier (at a lower price) who now fulfills or delivers the products to your customers.
Disclaimer
Sounds pretty easy and straightforward, but the truth is it will require some work on your part, maybe some hard work for the most part, especially when starting out.
However, in comparison to other online, work from home business opportunities, dropshipping is hands down a highly recommended option.
So, if you’re ready to stop worrying about money and start dropshipping in no time, here are
4 Key Things You Need to Start Dropshipping Today
- Good Platform
There are several ecommerce platforms to build your dropship store on. Shopify is one of the most popular, trusted and used by over 500,000 users.
Others include, BigCommerce, SquareSpace, Magento etc. Some of these are hosted (e.g. BigCommerce) or self hosted (e.g. WordPress using WooCommerce theme).
- Good Niche
Some niches are nearly or already saturated, starting there may affect your business competitiveness index, and make you chicken out of dropshipping early.
You can either pick a good niche or make the niche you pick good. If you have expert niche knowledge you can start a resourceful blog around it and use it to drive organic traffic to your store.
- Good Products
A niche may be great but bad products? Nah. Ordinarily, customers pay more for dropshipped items, a good product is your own little way of saying thanks.
From it you can get repeat purchases, referrals, but from bad or defective items you lose credibility and market share in the long run. That’s why you need good, reliable dropship suppliers.
- Solid Marketing Strategy
Dropshipping success isn’t accidental, it is intentional, and much of it depends on your marketing strategy. To succeed you need a solid marketing strategy.
So, what marketing mix works? The one(s) that work(s) for you! Facebook Ads, Groups, Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram ads, IGTV, shout outs, influencers, display ads, word of mouth, etc, used rightly will do the trick including excellent customer service.
Conclusion
Dropshipping will drop your jaws when you get a full grasp of it, all of which this article cannot comprehensively cover. I hope you’ve been encouraged to learn more about this amazing business idea. Share your thoughts in the comments section.