Few entrepreneurs are contemplating on how to make money dropshipping.
At the end of it all, they are haunted by the uncertainty of their business models been profitable or helping them generate passive income.
With how the world is going digital and technology fast-rising, we all have a grim understanding and a ray of hope that the new digital business model has been short-lived.
Do most people keep asking if dropshipping is still very much alive like before?
Few people go as far as searching for it on the google search engine to get tips to know if the business model is still functional or out of trend.
If you want to earn a decent income by having or probably starting your own side business, I will advise you to go into dropshipping.
But it would help if you had it in mind that in other for your dropshipping business to succeed, you will need to invest lots of money, time, and effort.
Dropshipping business is very profitable, and this is due to the number of eCommerce activities that keep taking place daily around the globe.
This business is not just useful but still thriving, but you can always make money dropshipping.
Dropshipping and eCommerce business profit has reached over $4 billion over the years, which is practically a seven percent increase for the past 10years.
Like every other business, there are advantages and disadvantages; there are few things you need before venturing into dropshipping business.
All these things will give you a full insight into the Dos and Don’ts of dropshipping. All you need to do is to take a cushion, relax, and go through all the tips been shared.
Starting an eCommerce/Dropshipping Business
Evaluations vary, but industry spectators have found out that 20 – 30 percent of online retailers use usually use dropshipping.
Dropshipping has been proven to be a great business model, and you’ll be in excellent enterprise if you choose to go this route. Even top retailers such as eBay and Amazon use drop shipping.
Through the use of dropshipping, you can sell just any kind of product that you want irrespective of the niche involved.
Bearing in mind that just about any merchandise can be bought on Amazon.com platform – if it’s for sale on Amazon store, then you can maybe sell it by using your own dropshipping business as well.
The more significant benefit of dropshipping another person products means that you don’t even have to deal with the troubles of any outdated business model, such as:
- storing your products (it can be quite expensive to buy a lot of inventory and also rent a warehouse space)
- Shipping products and packaging of products, preparing orders, boxing them up multiple times a day, and taking a route to the post office
- Having to put downcast your money open to buy products in wholesale to resell, even when you aren’t sure you will sell
- When you run an online business dropshipping business model, you circumvent those issues and possibly lose any direct capital investment.
- In addition to all of the above benefits, you don’t even have to worry about building or leasing salable/commercial space, having a large payroll, having to be in a physical location fixed during standard business hours, or even hiring employees.
How to Make Money Dropshipping
There are many ways of making money dropshipping, but it’s essential to understand the tips and insight involved such as;
1- Easy to Get Started
dropshipping business is straightforward to get started, and It’s swift and easy, and you can dropship with shallow investment charges.
2- No Particular Business Unit Required to Start
Another perfect fact about dropshipping is that you also don’t need to have a well-known business entity when you begin even though it’s probably smart and advisable to have one once you start to grow in the field of dropshipping.
3- No Inventory Management
You also don’t have to worry about dealing with inventory, product packing, or tracking, which means you have a lot of time to focus almost exclusively on promotion, merchandising, and marketing.
4- Easy Access to Millions of Products
Easily Have Access to Millions of Products rapidly that other suppliers are frequently researching to regulate what’s trending and what will sell more.
5- You Set the Retail Price
You also get to control the margins of your business personally.
6- It is Very Much Easy to Scale
Dropshipping is very easy to scale because you can go the extra mile to hire a virtual assistant as the volume of your orders increases.
Additional Things to Keep in Mind
1- There Is a Curve for Learning
Dropshipping is very much easy to learn, but there tend to be a learning curve still, and you will experience lots of trails along the way.
However, mistakes can be made in acquiring learning opportunities. If you can advance flexibility along the way, there are plenty of people out there who are finding a lot of success in dropshipping products.
2- It is Not for Free
While there is a substantial advantage in funds investment over outdated e-commerce, dropshipping isn’t free. You’ll likely have to spend a lot of money to drive traffic, handle products, and marketing your products.
3- There is No Overnight Hope Guarantee Success
Dropshipping is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It still requires you to work extensively and consistently for your store.
The truth aspect is that you will need to devote less time compared to an outdated e-commerce business, but it’s not going to succeed without your efforts and hard work. You will continually need to invest time in taming your business.
4- Don’t Trade Copyright products
Shopify’s most important thing is that you shouldn’t source or trade copyright products; this is very illegal around the world and can go as far as causing you some serious trouble.
You should choose products from Oberlo and a network of very trusted suppliers who will go a long way to make it a priority to avoid copyright infringement.
That way, you can have guaranteed that you won’t infringe on copyright laws, and everybody remains in the legal aspect.
5- The Need to Diversify
Many drop shippers don’t rely on a single store for their complete income stream. Still, they operate a chain of stores that target various niches in other to enable you to build multiple sources of income for yourself.
If you’re a newbie in dropshipping, you should start small with a small handful of complimentary items or a single product from a single supplier.
You can always keep adding more inventory as you become more comfortable, but it’s very much better to start small and build than it is for you to start big and grow more overwhelmed.
What Products Can Be Dropshipped?
Just like any online business, you will want to be in a market that is “hot” and where there is a vast majority of people who are ready to buy the products you sell.
In the best circumstances, the niche you focus on should also match what you are very passionate about and have personal interests.
If you have an interest or passion for a specific market or type of product, that interest will improve and bring growths in your marketing efforts, and by extension, your business will grow much more durable.
You’ll genuinely enjoy whatever you’re doing, which will make your work easier and make you feel more enjoyable.
Opportunely, there are many dropshipping companies out there that can work with just every market, type of product, and niche.
This includes yoga, clothes, supplements, electronics, beauty supplies, clothing, books, art, baby items, home and garden items, and more.
The best and perfect place to check for trending and hot in-demand niche niches is big online e-commerce platforms like Amazon.
And eBay. Whatever items on the top seller’s lists could be an excellent fit for a dropshipping business, but also keep an eye on trends you see on Facebook and other social networks.
Also, look for products in the news, and listen to the products your friends and family are talking about. During the football season, holiday season, back-to-school, and other auspicious times of the year, related products can do very well.
The big mistake a lot of people usually make whenever they are starting any business, dropshipping included, is that if they see other people doing it, they will start thinking it’s too competitive.
They probably can’t make any money in it. There is nothing that could be further from the truth; in a situation where you happen to see a lot of competition, that’s the sure sign of a healthy, significant, and profitable market.
While you can sell seasonal products, you’ll also want to make individual decisions to be sure you are selling products that are “evergreen,” which means that there will always be sales, and the demand will be more consistent.
You can use product hunting tools to find hotselling nichers: check them out:
- EcomHunt Review: Find Winning Dropshipping Products
- Sell The Trend Review: #1 Product Research Tool
- E-sniper Review : The Best Tool For Dropshipping Winning Products
- Niche Scraper : Shopify Dropshipping Product Spy Bot
Picking a Supplier
Before you start having the thoughts of working with a supplier, you must go through the order process and have a test run of it yourself from a customer’s perspective.
You need to see how easy it is for you to order the product, how long it will take to ship them, and how the drop shipper deals with any problem in case of return.
You also need to ask potential dropshippers how best they will notify you of their supply and in-stock levels for each particular product.
If you sell any item to a customer, but the dropshipper has probably gone out of stock, this can cause a massive problem for you and create results to you have an angry customer in the end.
This will also allow you also to see the quality of the product. Ensure the products are of excellent quality in such a way you will be proud to offer them to your customers.
In some instances, dropshippers will be willing to send you a free of charge product for possible evaluation or at least sell it to you at a very cheap cost.
If you are into a specific niche and have used some other very similar product, you can go the extra mile to test the product yourself. Use it, study it, and see if it does the exact thing you promised.
You need to check if it’s made of quality material or ingredients? Check the reviews of another previous user online to see if your experience matches the same with theirs.
If you’re not into that niche, try your best to have a friend or family member try out the product.
Also, do thorough personal research checking online reviews and forums in that particular niche to see any comments, especially from users who have tried out the product.
Knowing the product and having in-depth knowledge about it will also help you sell it and make your marketing much more effective and authentic.
Challenges That Are Associated with Dropshipping
1- Superior Potential Competition
Because it’s effortless to get started, there’s a lot of superiority potential in terms of competition.
That’s why you’ll find a lot of advice and guidelines out there that recommend you start with finding a niche audience like game lovers and cat lovers. Since such a niche is not much saturated, you will flow in low competition.
2- Merchant Errors
There are always errors from merchants. Though uncommon, inevitably, a supplier will make the mistake of shipping the wrong product to your customer.
If this eventually happens, don’t take it personally; instead, handle the product’s return like a professional either by ordering a brand-new product from the same supplier or offering a complete refund entirely.
3- Shipping Times Normally takes Longer
the shipping time of the product usually takes longer, and since many dropshipping merchants are based in China, shipping times are commonly longer, thereby turning some customers off.
But on a general note, if you make your shipping terms and condition very clear throughout the entire buying process, many visitors will appreciate the clarity, most especially if you’re selling a product in a particular niche where delivery times are a little less critical.
Getting Started Making Money Dropshipping Business?
In starting drop shipping, you should do the following,
- Start a 14-day free trial on Shopify store
- Signup to Aliexpress application
- Find the type of product you will like to sell from the Oberlo Dropshipping app and then add them to your store.
- Integrate a payment gateway on your store so that you can start accepting payment. You can check The Best 15+ PayPal Alternatives You Can Use In 2020
Shopify payments are a great default option if you’re your country approves and makes use of it.
Though you may want to integrate a few other gateways such as Apple Pay, PayPal, Amazon Payments or any of the over 100+ payment gateways that have been integrated on Shopify store
Immediately you have all that in place, you’ll need to create an action plan for sending organic traffic to your store.
- Try to produce quality and original web content for your store. Starting From eye-catchy photography down to product photos and blogposts, your viewers would love to know more about the kind of products you sell, the story behind them, and how they can be used.
Listed below are some of the top-rated drop shipper directories operational today:
- Salehoo
- Dropship Direct
- Oberlo
- Sunshine Wholesale
- Worldwide Brands
You can also do an extensive Google search for drop shipper + “drop shipper” or “(niche)” to find out more about dropshipping companies.
HOW DO I PICK A NICHE FOR DROPSHIPPING?
The few best niches for dropshipping are those that are quite narrow. It doesn’t only make it simple for you to market your products, but you will also face limited competitors.
Read more about dropshipping niches
Things you should have in mind When choosing your niche:
- Be very specific
- Search for something that you have an interest and very passionate about
- Check to see if your idea will bring and drive in steady sales for you in the long-run.
- Conduct in-depth research (e.g., review what people on social media platforms are very much interested in)
- Choose a niche that isn’t expensive; this is based on the fact that high-value goods delay the sales funnel’s length.
Few facts about dropshipping that you need to know about
CAN I START DROPSHIPPING WITHOUT MONEY?
It is very much possible to start dropshipping without having money at hand, but it will be quite tricky. You could code your website and shopping cart and possibly find free hosting, but this will turn out to be time-rigorous.
Subscriptions and registration of domains for e-commerce podia aren’t that expensive, and they’re very fast to set up. To be successful in the world of dropshipping, you should also plan and be ready to spend money on advertising and marketing.
Is Dropshipping Allowed on Amazon and eBay?
One more steely area where a good number of dropshippers become perplexed is whether they can do dropshipping with Amazon or eBay.
To elucidate more on it, dropshipping is a kind of business model and not precise or peculiar to any brand.
Even if you are using smartphone calls to dropship a particular product, it will and can still be called dropshipping.
Whether it is eBay, Amazon, or any other online podium, you can still start dropshipping. All these have a few limitations.
eBay doesn’t permit any product from China, and users must reside in the United States of America.
But Amazon insists that products shouldn’t exceed more than a week to deliver. So, if you can tolerate all these policies, you can start your dropshipping business on eBay and Amazon.
In some circumstances, many people are doing their dropshipping business on both platforms.
They go the extra mile to sell products of eBay or Amazon and vice versa while keeping an excellent commission and making viable passive income. The only way they tend to succeed is by understanding how both system work.
Is Dropshipping Legal?
Dropshipping is a business model that permits you to market a specific product through the supplier to the purchaser without actually touching it. You just stand and act as an arbitrator.
There are no particular laws that bar anyone on the modus operandi of starting a dropshipping store, but in most cases, it varies from country to country. And, one of the most common things about these laws is that;
Product Must be Reliable
It is illegal and criminal to deceive someone by showing a product, and it the end, you sell something else to them.
This is a punishable crime; therefore, you must make sure that whatever product you are dropshipping is the exact item that is shipped to the customer, else they have every right to file a complaint against your online store.
Even if the merchant is at fault, you will still be the person that will be held responsible.
Take Note of the Laws of the Country Where You Market
All country has its laws and before you start dropshipping, make sure you know the laws of your state before you start marketing. Most states also have a policy that c some certain products cannot be imported into the country.
For instance, you can’t export or import products from Muslim countries that are doubtful about culture. In the same vein, India bans most products, especially the ones made of cow skin.
It is always advisable that you have sound knowledge about business the laws governing different countries before you start marketing it to them.
How To Make Money Dropshipping Summary
If you have been searching for any business ideas to make money, then a dropshipping eCommerce site is an obscure one.
Dropshipping doesn’t necessarily involve a large amount of money for a start.
You don’t need to get yourself bothered with logistics issues, which is the most challenging part of eCommerce.
As long as home business openings online go, dropshipping is the easiest, most notably for newbies and upstarts.
The only setback about dropshipping is that you have to teach yourself the various techniques and strategies for earning money online.
Dropshipping is rapidly increasing daily in terms of popularity. But the competition is very stiff because the business is saturated.
One more good thing is that you can stand out of the crowd by choosing a less competitive niche and working with quality suppliers who deal with quality products.
Dropshipping business is not dead or out of business yet. It is still a very lucrative business pattern, and any person with the right intuition can reap enormous proceeds by using it intelligently.
A countless number of people have attained great success as dropshippers. With consistency, partnership, and hard work with the right set of people, you can be successful.
Do you want to start dropshipping? Do you know which online platform is best for Dropshipping?
Do you know the best niche to begin with? Read our next post on how to start a Shopify store and making money from home today.
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