Drop Shipping Simplified
Table of Contents
Avoiding Potential
Pitfalls.......
Introduction
If
you’re looking for a way to make money without a huge upfront investment, and
without a lot of hassles or work, drop shipping
with an e-commerce platform is exactly
what you’ve been looking for.
It’s simple, inexpensive to get started,
and your business
can be run in your spare time
or turned into a full-time business, if you wish to branch out.
With drop shipping, you don’t have to worry about
having money to invest in inventory, or about dealing with finding warehouse
space or shipping out packages.
Simply add products to your online
store, place orders with the drop shipper, and have them sent directly to your
customers. For the most part, it’s
incredibly straightforward, and hassle-free!
Obviously, like any business, you’ll have to be ready to deal with
issues occasionally, but we’re going to cover some easy ways
you
can minimize any such issues and keep your business running like a well-oiled
machine.
This
special report is all about helping you get started with drop- shipping quickly
and easily. Not only will I show you how to find the best drop shipping sources, but I’ll
even show you to jumpstart your business by generating premium traffic to your store.
So, let’s get started!
How Drop
Shipping Works
Let’s take a quick look at how the drop shipping
process works, starting with how to sell using just a single product as an
example.
Let’s say you decide to drop ship fidget
spinners. You choose a model you believe will be popular, and you create a
simple web page for the product with a photo, description, basic information,
and a link to buy.
When someone makes a purchase
from your page, they pay you
at the time of purchase. You then order the product from the supplier’s
website, paying for it with the money the customer already paid you, and enter
your customer’s shipping address instead of your own.
It’s a bit like making a gift purchase from a site
like Amazon. You pay for the product, but you have it shipped directly to
the buyer.
Okay, you probably have a whole bunch of questions
running through your mind right now. We’ll get to most of them shortly.
But yes, it really is that simple.
The first thing you’re probably
asking is, “Why not just order
the products from Amazon if it’s that
simple?”
Well, there are two BIG problems
with that.
First,
you’d never make much of a profit doing that. Products on Amazon are being sold
around retail price, so making a profit
would be pretty difficult unless you somehow manage to get into a niche
market with a lot of demand where you can charge a premium price and still have buyers.
Second, Amazon puts their own promotional material
all over everything they send out. While you might get one order from a customer, once they realize the products
came from Amazon, they’ll go there, discover the product was much cheaper
there, and never order from you again.
It’s just not a
smart way to build your own brand.
With drop shipping, most companies won’t put their
materials or branding on or in the
boxes, and some may even put your
promotional material into the packages for you, if you ask!
Example: I’ve
purchased coder stickers from a popular programmer online and while he’s transparent about the fact that
he purchases the stickers from a drop-shipper in China, when the package
arrived every sticker package had his branding and logo on the box! I would
have never known it was a drop shipped
package from China.
And that’s the point. You are selling
products as though they come directly from you, even though you never have to
bother shipping anything out or tracking packages. You simply receive payment,
order the item, and let the company handle delivery.
Are you starting to understand why so many people
love drop- shipping? J
Drop
Shipping Benefits
You don’t have to use drop shipping to be
successful in e- commerce. You can find success with just one simple,
inexpensive product with a relatively small upfront investment.
You can also find success
investing a great deal upfront in stock and offering a wide variety
of items. It’s totally up to you and your circumstances.
However, if you want to have a full e-commerce
site, and you don’t have a lot of money to invest in the beginning, drop shipping is the
perfect business model to help you get started. You can always invest in
inventory later, once your business is profitable enough.
Keep in mind that drop shipping is not a perfect business model.
There are a few issues
you need to keep an eye out for, which we
will address in the next chapter. But there are some big benefits, too.
Let’s take a look at some of the biggest benefits of drop shipping.
1.
For one thing, you don’t have to invest
a huge amount of money in the beginning
to get started. All you need to get
started is a domain, website,
and the software
to run your shop. In most cases, you can get started for less than a
hundred bucks.
2.
Also, you don’t have to spend as
long sourcing products. One of the most
time-consuming elements of e-commerce is finding the right products for your
shop, and when you use drop shipping, you’ll often be able to source
multiple products from the same supplier.
3.
It’s also very easy to add
inventory to your shop, because most major drop shipping suppliers either have
a plugin you can use to automatically add inventory to your shop, or they have
CSV files you can import into your software to control your stock. This is a
huge time saver.
4.
Another great
thing about drop shipping is that there is much less risk involved. Since you aren’t
investing in product upfront, you don’t have to worry
about getting stuck with
unsold inventory if you buy something
that turns out to not be as popular as you anticipated.
5.
It’s also very
nice to not have to worry about having warehouse space, managing inventory, and
sending out packages. These are all things
that are expensive and time- consuming,
and they are completely avoided by using drop shipping.
These are just a few of the biggest benefits, and
you can probably already see how great it can be for someone who’s just getting
started!
Avoiding
Potential Pitfalls
Let’s
take a look at a few of the most common problems that might come along, and how
you can minimize the potential of experiencing them.
Products Out Of Stock
One of the most common complaints you’ll get is
when certain products are out of stock, especially if they are particularly
popular and hard to find. This can happen to any store, even monolithic stores
like Amazon. And it definitely upsets customers
when it happens.
However, it’s important to keep track of stock to
minimize the potential of upsetting customers, because they will be a lot
unhappier if they think you have the product in stock and place an order only
to find out the product was out of stock than they would be just being notified
before they purchase that the product isn’t available.
For
this reason, it’s a very good idea to use some sort of plugin that will automatically update your site
whenever products are out of stock.
We’ll take a look later at a nifty extension you can use to keep track of stock, and it will help make
your job of finding and adding stock much easier, too!
Product Returns
Every single company
on the planet must deal with returns.
Even if you have a strict no-returns policy, you will still have to deal
with unhappy customers that attempt to get a refund. And telling them no will
just result in very angry customers.
I know someone who purchased a lot of items from
one very popular discount shopping app, found that the quality was terrible and
the sizing was way off, and could not return them because the company had a
no-returns policy. The customer was very upset, and left bad reviews
for the company all over the
place. And this person was far from the only person complaining about not being
able to return items.
For this reason, it’s not a good idea to have a no-refunds policy on physical
products. This will just lead to chargebacks, which could get your account with
PayPal or any other billing company
canceled. It’s not worth the chance.
Plus, people who are unhappy with their purchase and
cannot return it will spread bad reviews, which can have a negative impact on
sales over the long run.
Always make sure your product descriptions are as
accurate as possible, and make sure to have sizing charts and pictures to
minimize returns.
If a product is under $20, you might just ship
another item to the customer without requiring them to return the original. If
the product is over that price, have the customer ship the return to you, and
when it arrives, send them a new one as quickly as possible. If it is returned
because it’s damaged or defective, return it to the supplier.
Otherwise, you might just send it out to the next
customer that orders it, assuming it’s still in new condition.
Slow Shipping
Depending on the supplier, you may have unhappy
customers because the shipping is a lot slower than they are used to. With the
prevalence of free 2-day shipping with Amazon Prime and sites like Walmart,
customers are used to getting their purchases very quickly.
Since
drop shippers don’t have deals with shipping companies, and because some even
ship directly from China, shipping can often take days, weeks, or even a month
or two. Many customers won’t be happy waiting that long.
If you use drop shippers based in your home
country, you will probably get
faster shipping, however the prices you get will probably be higher, resulting
in lower profit margins.
Ecommerce
Platforms
There are many different e-commerce platforms that
have become popular in recent years. Shopify is perhaps the most well-known
these days, but there are also platforms like Big Commerce and WooCommerce.
So which one is best?
Choosing
a platform is purely subjective, of
course. It doesn’t really matter too much which one you choose, because any of
them can help you achieve your goals, but there’s always one that will meet
your specific needs better than the others.
They
all have their strengths and weaknesses, so let’s take a look at some of the
most popular e-commerce platforms, and why you might choose one over another.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce is a very popular choice. They have
more features out of the box than other platforms, but at a price. The basic
plan
starts at $29.95 per month and scales based on the
features you want and how much you make in sales per year.
They have fewer apps available than other
platforms, but they offer a lot more functionality built in, so you may not
need many extensions since a lot of what you want may already be included.
There
are some free themes available, but if you want a paid theme they can be quite pricey,
ranging from $145 to $235 each.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is a great option, because
it’s free. However, it may
not always be the best option since
it doesn’t have a lot of
functionality built into the base program.
There
are lots of free themes available, as well as some free extensions, but a lot of the free
options are buggy.
There are plugins and themes you may want to extend
its functionality that do require
payment, but most of these are a one-time payment, not an ongoing monthly fee like some other
platforms. However, they can be prohibitively
expensive if you’re just getting started.
WooCommerce is run on WordPress on your own
hosting, so you will have to pay for a hosting account, whereas other options like BigCommerce and Shopify are
run on their servers, so your hosting is included in your monthly price.
Shopify
Shopify is, in many ways, the most ideal platform
for drop shipping. It’s affordable, and scales with your store’s
size. It has a
wide variety of plugins and themes available. And it’s also ideal for one main
reason – Oberlo.
>> https://www.shopify.com/oberlo
Oberlo is a plugin that will let you import
products from AliExpress (one of the best sites for drop shipping) quickly and
easily, keep track of inventory, and much more.
It takes a LOT of the hassles associated with drop
shipping out of the equation, allowing you to focus more of your time and
attention on getting traffic and sales, rather than dealing with all these
other things.
Best of all, you can get started with Oberlo for free on Shopify!
Themes
All of the major e-commerce platforms have a
variety of free themes, with varying degrees of quality and features.
Not only that, but the paid themes for Shopify are
more affordable than those of BigCommerce. (Shopify’s paid themes range from
about $100 to about $180, while BigCommerce’s range from about $145
to $235.) WooCommerce themes have a wider
range of prices,
because many of them are available from external developers.
You can definitely get away with a free theme in
the beginning, and there are lots of them to choose from, however a paid theme
will usually have extra features that allow you to
customize your site to your liking, which can significantly boost sales.
Extensions
All of the platforms have a large number of apps
that can extend the functionality of the software, and they can all be pricey.
You can probably get away without using extensions in the beginning, and just add additional
functionality later.
Choosing a
Niche
Now
that you’ve chosen a platform for your shop, it’s time to choose a niche. You may already have a niche
in mind, and that’s great. But before you get started, it’s critical to make
sure that niche is likely to be
profitable before you get started.
While starting an e-commerce shop with drop
shipping requires minimal financial investment upfront, it still does require
some investment, as well as plenty of time.
We’ve
all heard the saying “time is money”, and that’s very true. The last thing you
want to do is invest your hard-earned money and lots of time only to discover
the niche isn’t as profitable as you hoped!
In order for a niche to be profitable, it must:
· Have a large number of interested people.
·
Have a large number
of people who are either
passionate or desperate.
·
Have a large number of people
who can afford the product.
·
Have products
available at a price where
you can make a
profit.
What about competition?
Don’t worry too
much about competition. Having competition is a
good thing. It means the niche is more likely to be profitable.
Having
too much competition isn’t necessarily
a deal breaker. You can overcome
the competition in a number of different ways. But if there’s an extreme amount
of competition, you may find it difficult to gain traction.
If you really think a niche will be profitable, and
you’ve done research that supports it, I wouldn’t worry about the competition.
Given how inexpensive it is to get started with
drop shipping, it’s not a huge risk if you later discover the niche isn’t as profitable as you thought, and you can always sell the site later if you don’t see
the kind of success you hope for.
Getting
Traffic
Now that you have chosen your niche and set up your
shop platform, you can set up your shop and get it ready for traffic. Consult
with your chosen platform’s documentation for advice on setting up your store.
Once it’s up and running,
it’s time to concentrate on getting traffic. There are many ways to do that,
both paid and unpaid. We are going to take a look at both, but you can pick and
choose the methods you believe will work best for your situation.
We’re
going to concentrate on social media, because that is the easiest way to
generate traffic, and it won’t cost much, if anything, in the beginning.
Facebook
Facebook has both paid and free methods of
promotion. I highly recommend using paid promotions if you have the capital
available, because you can reach a lot more people.
But you can also reach
people without spending money if you’re short
on capital. Join some groups
related to your niche and start
posting regularly. Then, with permission from the group’s
owner, ask if you can drop a link to your shop.
You might even run contests for group members
and give away store credit to get more attention.
Pinterest
Pinterest is one of the best ways to generate
traffic to a shop, because it’s been proven to be the single best platform for selling.
While other platforms might bring in more volume, Pinterest will usually
convert better.
It’s a good idea to start a separate Pinterest
account for each niche or store you create, because people often won’t follow
accounts that are random and unorganized. If you want people to follow you, then you need to have a
tight niche, with several boards that have interesting pins.
To grow your following on Pinterest, start out by
following a number of accounts
in your niche, but make sure you’ve
already set up your profile thoroughly and created a few boards.
This will get more people to
follow you back.
Here are a few more tips for Pinterest:
·
Use keywords in your name (Example:
Recipe Girl | Cooking & Food)
·
Use keywords in the description
of your pins
· Set your best images to the cover of each board
· Use keywords as your board names, don’t get cute
· Make all your own pins taller than they are wide to stand out
·
Pin often and
consistently throughout the day, but not too many at once
·
Only pin the very best content
to keep your quality high
Instagram
Instagram can also be great for sales, especially if you can get
good engagement. To get people to interact with your posts,
make sure all your images
are interesting enough
to get people to like and comment.
Tips for Instagram marketing:
· Follow big accounts in your niche
· Always use several hash tags in every post, at least 5
· Like posts from your followers so they will return the favor
· Post regularly, but only a few times per
day
You can use other social media platforms, too, but
these are the best to concentrate on in the beginning.
Finding A
Drop Shipper
The most important
element of the entire process
is choosing the right drop shipper, and it can be
incredibly difficult. You may have to contact dozens of companies to find just
the right one.
Worldwide Brands is one of the largest
directories of drop shippers and wholesalers, but it’s a bit pricey. They do
some preliminary quality checks before including sources, though, so they can
be worth it.
>> http://www.worldwidebrands.com
Here is a good list of
potential drop shipping sources if you’re looking for specific types of products
and don’t want to pay for
access to Worldwide Brands.
>> https://www.channelape.com/drop-shipping/ultimate-list- 150-drop-shipping-companies/
However,
if you’re using Shopify and Oberlo, you’ll
be using a very inexpensive drop shipper called
AliExpress. AliExpress came
from
the Alibaba site, which has been the largest site for finding drop shippers and
wholesalers for a long time.
AliExpress is great for drop shippers, because
there are no minimum orders, products are usually priced at or near wholesale
prices, and you don’t have to provide a bunch of documents like tax IDs or
business licenses as you do with many traditional drop shippers and wholesale
companies.
One thing to keep in mind is that most products
from AliExpress will be shipped from China, so it may take several weeks for
customers to receive their orders. If you use them, be sure you let customers
know how long shipping is likely to take before they order. Make it very, very
clear.
But there is one big benefit
to using AliExpress, and that is that you can choose products that have free
shipping, which means you won’t have to charge shipping
to your buyers.
This will help soften the blow.
Conclusion
Running an online shop the traditional way can be
frustrating and expensive, but drop shipping can make the process a lot easier
and a lot cheaper. You can make the process even easier by using Shopify and
Oberlo, which will help you import products, manage stock, handle shipping, and
more.
You’ve
learned some ways to deal with some of the most
common problems you might encounter with drop shipping, such as products
being out of stock, or customers who need to make returns.
You may still have the occasional issue, but most
people find they have a lot fewer hassles when using drop shipping, because they don’t have to deal with inventory and shipping themselves.
You’ve
also learned how to get traffic, which is one of the most important elements of
any online business.
I hope you decide to give drop shipping a try, and
I hope you find that it works well for you and makes you a lot of money. I wish
you the best of luck!
Resources
Here is a list of some of the resources we’ve mentioned in this
guide, as well as any other links that could help you.
Oberlo
>>
https://www.shopify.com/oberlo
AliExpress
Shopify
Big Commerce
WooCommerce
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