It’s not difficult to master how to start dropshipping provided you understand what is dropshipping and how dropshipping works. Dropshipping is a multi-billion dollar industry that’s highly profitable provided you’ve the best dropshipping supplier.
And with the dropshipping business expected to grow at a CAGR rate of 32% between 2021 and 2026, it’s worth investing in this industry.
If you’re considering starting a dropshipping business, here is what you’ll learn from this article:
- What is dropshipping
- How does dropshipping work
- How to make money dropshipping
- How to start dropshipping
- The best dropshipping suppliers
What is Dropshipping
Dropshipping is an order fulfillment method that allows entrepreneurs like you to start selling products online without ever having to source, warehouse, package products and ship customer orders.
Starting a dropshipping business is easy since you don’t have to pay for the products upfront, most dropshipping suppliers have no minimum order requirement and all order fulfillment processes are done for you.
In this business, you’ve no direct control of the order fulfillment processes. Since you’ve no control of this business, is dropshipping worth it? With a reliable, trustworthy and experienced dropshipping supplier, growing your only store to a six-figure business is simple and fast.
How Does Dropshipping Work
With dropshipping, storage costs, shipping costs, product sourcing challenges and time wastage are taken care of by the dropshipping supplier. After launching your dropshipping store, your job is only to search for the best-selling dropshipping products, publish them on the online store and enjoy your profits.
Image courtesy of Oberlo
For this business model to work, you first need to launch an online dropshipping store. Customers searching for products to buy online will buy from your dropshipping store and a third party(dropshipping supplier) will fulfill the order directly to the customer.
After the customer pays for the amount set in your store, you pay the dropshipping supplier’s wholesale price. Without having done anything except opening the online store and searching for dropshipping products, you pocket the difference between the wholesale price and your retail price.
How to Make Money Dropshipping
Dropshipping is a lucrative business. Do you know without order automation tools, some dropshipping stores would spend many hours sending orders to the supplier?
The more orders you receive, the more money you make dropshipping. Pricing, dropshipping supplier fees and shipping costs are important factors to consider if you want to make money dropshipping. There are many marginal costs that you can avoid to increase profit margins.
Third-party product research tools, automation plugins and reporting tools though important should eat a huge chunk of your profits.
This is how to make money dropshipping:
- Build an online dropshipping store that offers an easy user experience.
- Using ecommerce product research tools or manually, publish products you’re certain they’ll sell on your online store.
- Marketing is essential if you want to attract many customers and receive orders every day. Don’t forget to offer excellent customer care to attract repeat customers.
- Partner with the best dropshipping supplier.
- After customers buy from your dropshipping store, the supplier will deliver the order and you’ll receive the money. Pay the dropshipping supplier his amount. Keep the extra money and that’s your profit.
How to Start Dropshipping Business (5 Practical Steps)
There are a few critical steps you’ve to follow if you want to start a profitable dropshipping business. Many dropshipping dummies do ignore the market and competitive research and thus end up joining the most saturated markets.
That being said, you have to do thorough research on product niche and on the best dropshipping business ideas. As said before, is easy to learn how to start dropshipping but more difficult without the right knowledge.
Follow the steps below to start your dropshipping business.
Step 1: Figure out the logistics.
Step 2: Identify a market and choose a niche.
Step 3: Find the right supplier
Step 4: Design Your StoreFront/Build your ecommerce website. Automate your store,
Step 5: Optimize and market your site.
Step 1: Figure out all the dropshipping logistics
Dropshipping logistics refers to registering your business if necessary, the most easy-to-take action business structure, acquiring business licenses and any other permits imposed in your location. Just like any other business, you need a business plan to help you remain focused.
A simple and realistic business plan will help you grow your business steadily. And if you want to know how to start dropshipping business that makes you make money dropshipping for years, draft a simple business structure.
If you’re new to dropshipping, we recommend you invest heavily on time as opposed to money.
Step 2: Identify the right market and choose a profitable niche
Besides the dropshipping supplier, the market and niche you’ll venture into greatly determine how successful your business will be. Dropshipping is a business idea
When selecting the right market, go back to the basics and make sure you know who to sell to and where to sell, your competitors, and the current dropshipping trends. To avoid unnecessary expenses, invest in learning new skills like product research, market research and dropshipping business operations.
How to identify the right market
Which products most interests you and do other people buy the same products? We are more often confused by personal interests versus profitability. With tools like Google Trends, you find target markets for your most interesting products.
Another confusing factor is the profitability of the products. Different dropshipping products have different profits margins.
To find the right target market, use the products you are interested in as your seed keyword in Google Trends. And if you want to know whether people are searching for your niche product use Amazon or Keywords Everywhere.
Google Trends will show the states or regions the product is in great demand.
Step 3: Find the right dropshipping supplier
Besides fulfilling your customer orders, what other services does the dropshipping supplier offer? This question should be in your mind when selecting the right dropshipping supplier.
Now that you know the products to sell and the target market, choose a dropshipping supplier who will deliver high-quality products, can source the products and deliver within the scheduled time and can deliver bulk orders.
Among the qualities to factor when choosing the right dropshipping supplier include:
- Shipping period
- Order fulfillment fees
- Order automation tools
- A Dedicated customer support team, and
- Product quality
Step 4: Design and build your dropshipping store
At this stage, you’ve the option to build your online store from scratch on ecommerce platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce or open an online store on Amazon.
Since the ecommerce market places will be charging you a fee on every sale, and marketing the store will be limited, Shopify, WooCommerce or any other ecommerce platform will make a better choice.
Step 5: Optimize and market your dropshipping business
How well you optimize and market your store differentiates your store from those of your competitors. To market your business effectively and promote your brand, you need to combine several marketing strategies like email marketing, social media and advertising ads.
If you don’t practically know how to optimize your online store, it’s better your source the services of an SEO expert.
The Best Dropshipping Suppliers
There are hundreds of dropshipping suppliers available online. But how many can hire managers and customer care support to ensure your customer orders are fulfilled and shipped without unnecessary delays?
Fulfillbot is a renowned, reliable and trusted dropshipping supplier that’s not only dedicated to fulfilling your customer orders but also manages the orders.
This dropshipping supplier has its software cloud-based to ensure real-time inventory updates. Again, their software integrates with over 25 shopping carts thus giving you the option to choose that works best with your dropshipping store.
And if you plan to dropship products from China, Fulfillbot with save you that time-consuming task. Fulfillbot is at all times committed to your dropshipping services and they are available 24/7 to receive your quote- Request your quote now.
Would you imagine partnering with a dropshipping supplier whose warehouses are located near you? For faster delivery of your customer orders, Fulfillbot has its international warehouses located on different continents including the USA, Australia, and China.
Conclusion
If you’ve gone through the steps explained above, you now know how to start dropshipping from scratch. Even though there are many other dropshipping suppliers, choose one that has short delivery times and is committed to building your brand.
It’s not difficult to make money dropshipping provided you’ve the interest and you’re ready to commit to your business.
