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5 Easy Steps – Dropshipping How to Start
When looking for some efficient ways to make money online, dropshipping business is no exception. In fact, it is one of the easiest ways to earn money online in 2020. Before we get started with this step-by-step guide start dropshipping business in 2020, let’s get done with a brief introduction.
What is Dropshipping Business?
Generally, dropshipping is a type of e-commerce business where marketers promote products of different manufacturers on their website but the product is shipped by the manufacturer. In easy words, potential buyers’ checkout from the dropshipper’s website, but the product is manufactured and shipped by the manufacture.
To help you have a better idea of how dropshipping works, we’ve explained the process in 3 simple steps:
- Buyers check out from the merchant’s website or e-commerce store.
- The merchant sends the buyer information to the manufacturer or supplier of the product.
- The supplier picks packs, and ship the product to the buyer’s address at the merchant’s price.
Afterward, the commission on each sale is granted to merchant or marketer. Sounds good?
Is Dropshipping Legal ?
Yes it is legal. That’s why there are so many websites on the Internet related to dropshipping and nobody is stopping people from talking about it. If this type of business is illegal, it can be difficult to find valuable information on dropshipping, website design, or develop custom dropshipping software. Therefore, it is completely legal to build your own website to run a dropshipping business. This is definitely an opportunity for you to make money from the internet
How to Start a Dropshipping Business?
If you’re reading this article, chances are you’ve already made a rock-solid decision to start a dropshipping business. Though dropshipping business doesn’t require much investment, it does require a lot of hard work.
1. Determine Your Niche
The very first step of starting a dropshipping is defining your niche. What do you want to sell? Are you into sports, health, home improvement, or fashion clothing trends? Well, there are literally thousands of niches you can choose from.
Though you’d want to sell things you love, make sure they’re trending in the market and people are ready to buy them. The best way to find best-selling products is to go through AliExpress Weekly Best Selling Products. You can find any to every kind of products here and can have a better idea of what to sell and what not.
Tips to Select the Right Niche
Some other tactics to select a niche that sell include:
- High-Priced Products: Note that selling a $10 product would take the same amount of effort it’d take to sell a $500 product. Thereby, it is recommended to select products with a high price so you can make a considerate profit out of each sale.
- Appealing Products: Make sure the products you select are trending and people are ready to engage in them. The best way to find trending product ideas is by going through Google Trends.
- Low Shipping Cost: No one would buy a product with high-priced shipping. Though the supplier will be handling the shipping, your customers are still going to pay for it. Thus, try to select products with little to no shipping cost.
Now that you’re ready to find a profitable niche. Let’s get to the next part.
2. Select a Dropship Supplier
Selecting the right dropship supplier is by far the most important part of starting a dropshipping business. Because the wrong ones can ruin your business. Most of your dropship supplier will be located overseas. So, it’s important that you must have smooth communication. And if you’re not certain about your supplier’s communication, find a better fit for your store. Make sure the dropship supplier you select has the following characteristics:
- Reputable dropshipper
- Experience in dropshipping
- Have little to no order fees
- Process payments quickly
- Ship products immediately
- Offer referrals
Moreover, it is important that the dropship seller you select actually have quality products. Though you’re not manufacturing products yourself, it is important to build trust with your customers – leading to more sales.
3. Choose Selling Platform
Where do you want to sell these products? After selecting a niche and your dropship seller, now is the right time to find a place to sell these products. Note that selecting the right platform to sell products is the key step to generating more sales. In this regard, eBay and Amazon are one of the best yet well-established marketplaces to sell dropshipping products. Because
- It is easy to create a dropshipping account and start selling right away
- These marketplaces get a lot of traffic automatically
- Most people trust this marketplace
- You can easily make some money
However, there are some downsides of selling products on online marketplaces like Etsy, Amazon, and eBay. Some cons if selling on Amazon, eBay, or Etsy are:
- High competition
- High fees on every sale
- Limited control
What to do in such a situation? Well, the right solution is to create your own online store.
4. Create Your Own Store
Creating your own store is a lot beneficial, profitable, and reliable than selling on other marketplaces. In fact, dropshipping experts creating their own store than relying on these large marketplaces with high competition and limited control. Well, those days are long gone when you needed to hire a professional web developer to set up a simple store for you.
Though creating an online store require some investment, you’ll compensate the spent amount within a few weeks. There are many tools and platforms available to make engaging online stores – Shopify is one of them. Shopify is one of the most popular platforms to create an online store to start dropshipping business.
Also, you don’t need to be tech savvy to get started with Shopify. Some pros of creating your own store for dropshipping business are:
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- Complete control on the layout, branding, and products
- No fees leading to higher commissions and profits
- Less competition as compared to online e-commerce marketplaces
5. Promote Your Products
Now that you’ve successfully made an online store to start dropshipping products. The next step is to analyze, optimize, and promote your products. You can either employ SEO or paid promotion to derive traffic to your store. Though it is recommended to employ SEO strategies to stay in the long run, using paid promotion is also a good idea to generate sales in the start.
Making no sales while working hard on SEO for the first few months will just drain you of your confidence. Sounds fair enough?
In case of further questions, suggestions, or confusion, feel free to leave a reply or contact us.