The Beginners Guide: How To Start A Dropshipping Business

Oluseye Kushimo
9 min readJul 23, 2022

--

Surprisingly, the term “dropshipper” can apply to two distinct sorts of business activity. A dropshipper is a provider who stocks and ships products, and the same term is sometimes used to describe someone who merely runs a dropshipping company and never deals with product difficulties. In this essay, we will focus on the second meaning of this phrase and discuss newbies who want to sell someone else’s items through their own online dropshipping company.

Dropshipping

- Why Start a Dropshipping business

- Finding your niche

- Finding Suppliers

- Defining your market

- Setting up your store

- Setting up the store’s management

Why Start a Dropshipping Business

Let’s learn more about dropshipping before we go into how to establish a dropshipping business.

Instead of commencing dropshipping, one might open a standard eCommerce store to generate money online. So, what’s the big deal about it? And how exactly does dropshipping work?

Before providing items to customers, a traditional brick-and-mortar or internet business must purchase them in quantity. Dropship items, on the other hand, are purchased only when a consumer puts an order with you. Following that, your supplier transfers the items straight to the buyer.

This fundamental distinction defines a few significant advantages of the dropshipping business strategy.

- There is no need to monitor product inventory.

First and foremost, you will not be responsible for inventory management, packing, or shipping. Dropshippers, on the other hand, may concentrate on promoting their products and delivering exceptional customer support.

- Dropshipping necessitates a lower initial investment.

Because you don’t need to acquire things in advance or rent a warehouse, your costs are significantly lower than in a typical industry. As a result, the entrance level for dropshipping is also lower! So, even if you don’t have significant start-up money, you may still establish this type of business.

- Dropshipping is less dangerous.

It is difficult to estimate the degree of demand and the number of items that can be sold. As a result, every time you order a consignment of products from a wholesaler, you risk losing some of your investment.

However, with dropshipping, a product is purchased only once someone requests it. Although dropshipping has dangers (as does every company), one may feel comfortable in this case.

If you’ve looked into numerous eCommerce possibilities and determined that dropshipping is the best fit for you, you’re undoubtedly asking how to become a dropshipper. We’ve put up this comprehensive guide for individuals who don’t know where to begin.

Dropshipping is not as tough as it may appear, but eCommerce beginners frequently make mistakes such as selecting a dangerous niche, completing no market research, focusing on the wrong things, and so on. Do you want to get off to a good start? Here’s a step-by-step guide to getting started.

Finding Your Niche

The first step before opening your shop is to choose a suitable niche.

Your ideal niche should be:

- Promising

- You find it interesting.

- Neither too large nor too small

- Not too popular, but not too competitive

Where do you get ideas for an internet store? Brainstorming, web and social media browsing, and visiting major online shopping platforms will all be quite beneficial. Your hobbies and interests might also motivate you. Use internet tools like Google Trends and different keyword selection tools to gain tons of useful suggestions.

Check the following factors to assess the chosen niche:

- There are enough items on AliExpress.

If you decide to take our advice and dropship items from AliExpress, you must first ensure that there are enough products in the niche you wish to attempt. It will suffice to have roughly 50 goods in your inventory for various areas. However, if you want to sell clothing, you’ll need a lot more.

- The suppliers provide low-cost shipping.

If the items in your niche have prohibitively expensive delivery, your final prices may be uncompetitive. Thankfully, many AliExpress vendors provide free delivery.

- These items are not available in your area.

An excellent eCommerce product is one that cannot be purchased offline. That is why people must acquire it online. So, while choosing a niche, make sure there are product varieties or models that cannot be easily purchased at a physical store.

- The items are not seasonal.

It is OK to sell seasonal items in your dropshipping business. However, basing a firm primarily on seasonal commodities is a huge error! In this instance, you will most likely not make any sales.

- According to Google Trends, there is significant demand.

Google Trends is another tool for determining whether a specialty is worth your time. This free tool will show you how demand for a specific product or product category changes, whether it rises or falls.

- Search results ranging from 5,000 to 50,000

Entrepreneurs frequently use search engine optimization to advertise their company. Even if you aren’t intending to do it, you should still utilize a keyword planner to determine the search volume. 5,000 to 50,000 searches get the best results.

- The niche is well-liked on social media.

Also, check for social media organizations and communities connected to your chosen topic. If there are at least ten groups with 30,000 followers on Facebook and Instagram, it indicates that the niche has good marketing potential.

Finding Suppliers

After you chose a niche, there is one more thing you need to do before importing dropshipping items into your store. I’m referring to selecting dependable vendors.

Because AliExpress is such a large eCommerce platform, many vendors offer the same or comparable items. So, how do you decide which one is worth your time?

- Choose popular products to find suppliers.

You will be able to identify dependable suppliers by looking for things to sell. Tick ‘Free shipping’ and ‘4* & up’ whenever you put something into the AliExpress search field. The results should then be sorted by the number of orders.

The system will display the goods with the most orders. The argument here is that a merchant would not be able to attract so many clients if he or she was untrustworthy.

Nonetheless, it is worthwhile to double-check the vendor. And here’s how to do it.

- Examine the seller’s statistics.

Look at the upper left corner of a popular product you’ve discovered. There, you’ll find useful information about the seller, such as the percentage of good comments, how long he’s been in business, how many followers he has, and so on.

- Examine consumer feedback

You should also read the feedback made by previous purchasers. Read attentively to see what type of issues this vendor could have — the quality of the items, communication, etc.

Take note of any images of the goods taken by consumers. This is how you’ll know if the quality is as good as the merchant says.

If everything appears to be in order, you may be quite certain that the source is trustworthy.

Defining Your Market

Now that you know what you’re going to sell, your job is to figure out who will buy it. It is not enough to merely sell products to become a dropshipper! Advertising and promotion are critical components of this industry.

- Why do you need to imagine your typical customer?

It’s now time to figure out who all of these folks are that are most likely to buy your stuff. In other words, it’s time to narrow down your target demographic. When you target folks that are interested in your offer, you have a lot greater chance of converting them into actual purchasers. So, please respond to the following questions:

- Who are your clients?

Create a consumer avatar — an average client profile — using Google Trends. You may get a wealth of useful information on your potential clients here, including their area, language, age, gender, marital status, and other social and cultural variables. Try to figure out what is important to them and where you may meet them (what social networks and online platforms they prefer, etc.). You may utilize this information in future promotional initiatives to address the “typical client.”

- What do they require?

Any product should be able to solve a customer’s problem. So your job is to figure out what the consumer wants and then meet it. What do your consumers require, and what do they seek? And how would your offer benefit them?

- How much money do they have?

Your profit is the amount of money spent by your consumers in your store. Consider your consumers’ financial dependability. Will they be able to buy on the spur of the moment at your store? Also, avoid targeting a youthful audience because they aren’t usually able to spend much.

When you know the answers to these questions, you can more effectively grab your audience’s attention and establish the appropriate tone of communication. Speaking to your consumers in their language is the foundation of good promotion, which allows you to increase customer loyalty in the future.

Setting Up Your Store

You may sell things on numerous internet platforms such as a social media account, a blog, an online auction, and so on. However, if you want to dropship like an expert, you must have your own dropshipping internet business. Why?

To begin with, it allows you a lot of freedom. You will not be required to follow someone else’s rules and policies. If your account is banned, you will not lose your shop. Nobody has the authority to suspend you (unless your store sells something illegal, of course).

In second place, a specialist site appears more trustworthy and inspires higher trust.

Last but not least, your own website is a valuable asset that may be sold at any moment and for a decent price.

4 Ways to Setup Your Dropshipping Store

How can you then acquire a website that is customized for your company and complies with eCommerce standards?

- Make your own store

You don’t necessarily need to be an IT expert or have experience with website development to set up a dropshipping business on your own. Any straightforward WordPress website, even a straightforward blog, may be transformed into a fully effective dropshipping website thanks to clever automated methods. Please review the information here to find out how to set up a store that takes orders, handles payments, and sends order information back to the original supplier.

- Order a Custom Store from Alidropship

Keep in mind that you don’t have to worry about the technical details if you don’t want to. It is entirely feasible to request the building of a well-optimized shop that satisfies your specific needs. In this scenario, you would still own the entire business outright, be unconstrained by any limitations, and be free to develop it any way you see fit. Please review the information here!

- Get a copy of a highly profitable store

How would you like the chance to profit from a business venture that has already been shown to be effective? In this situation, you may simply imitate the components of an effective firm rather than experiment with shop designs, market niches, or product offerings. You may start your company with no difficulty at all by using premium dropshipping stores, which provide you with an exact replica of a dropshipping store with reliable, trackable performance. Get more details here!

- Buy an already operating Dropshipping business

That’s right, you have the opportunity to take over a well-established company that a knowledgeable group of digital marketing professionals built, looked after, and pushed. These companies are only offered for sale once they have maintained a profitable performance. They also come with comprehensive statistics that will help you make an informed choice. Visit this page for additional information if you’d like to invest in a dropshipping company that is already profitable.

Setting Up The Store’s Management

You cannot possibly comprehend how much time may be saved by automating your repetitive tasks. Product import, reviews, email marketing, SEO, and customer support — among many other things — can all be handled with a few clicks rather than taking a lot of time.

Another benefit of using WordPress for your e-commerce venture is how simple it is to interface with other services and programs. Your dropshipping site’s functionality may be expanded, and its performance can be improved, by a variety of practical plugins and add-ons.

Your finest resources for generating steady traffic from social networks, encouraging impulsive purchases, streamlining email marketing, and completing a variety of other duties are marketing add-ons.

Additionally, if you utilize WooCommerce, you may update your store with this collection of useful plugins.

Of course, you will also have to deal with things like search engine optimization, advertising, and customer service. The following phases in your dropshipping adventure are these, nevertheless. And halfway there already!

Last Words

So, if you’re wondering how to start dropshipping, just pick one of these approaches. Additionally, pay close attention to the ready-made options as these shops are ideal for beginners to dropshipping.

If you liked this post, you can read more here. You can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram

--

--

Oluseye Kushimo
Oluseye Kushimo

Written by Oluseye Kushimo

I am a website designer, and I write a blog where I give handy tips on how to make money online.

No responses yet