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Dropshipping is arguably one of the most popular business ideas today due to how easy it is to get started. Within just 24 hours, you can go from having absolutely nothing to a fully-functional online store that is almost completely automated. Your customer places an order, your system receives it, places an order with the seller, then it’s shipped and your customer receives their confirmation email. It’s incredibly easy to establish a dropshipping business, but it’s also very easy to fail.
After all, if it’s easy to create a dropshipping business, then there are probably hundreds of failed ideas for every successful one. So if you want to improve your chances of success, we’ve compiled a list of helpful tips and advice from industry veterans. We’ll be showing you some of the secrets of dropshipping success and general advice that will take you far.
Drop-shipping businesses can be run by a single person, but that doesn’t mean you should.
Drop-shipping businesses can easily be started and operated by a single person in their bedroom. However, this doesn’t mean that you should be doing this. In fact, there are a couple of positions that you should outsource in order to increase your chances of success. For starters, we highly recommend an accountant.
They will take care of your financial responsibilities such as calculating taxes, and they’ll also help you track your income and how much you’re spending on things such as your website host. Speaking of your website, it’s also a good idea to outsource the design of your website and brand to create a professional appeal.
However there are lots of different people you can hire to help improve your dropshipping business. As long as you keep an eye out for areas that you need help in, you can drastically improve the success rate of your dropshipping business.
Don’t be reckless and focus on a huge range of products at the start.
You’re not going to become the next Amazon, so stop trying to sell dozens of different items on your first day. I
You’re not going to become the next Amazon, so stop trying to sell dozens of different items on your first day. Instead, you should be focusing on products that fit your niche, are relevant to your business, or that you know will sell due to their popularity. We highly suggest that you shorten your product list as much as possible to focus on a smaller audience first.
If, for example, you were looking to sell private label CBD skincare, you might be best off starting with a small number of products that cover the basics of skincare, such as body butter, a daily lotion, or a targeted anti-aging product. As your audience grows and you grow more accustomed to running a dropshipping business, you can choose to start branching out into different categories of products.
Regardless of what products you offer, it’s important to keep an eye on the types of customers you get and the types of hobbies and interests they have. When you start with a small list of products, it’s quite easy to adapt your services and product listings to your customers.
Look less like a drop-shipping business and more like a retailer.
One of the secrets to becoming an excellent drop-shipping business is masking the fact that you are one. Of course, this doesn’t mean being deceitful and saying that your products come from somewhere they don’t. In fact, it’s all about making your brand as professional as possible to draw in a wider audience and gain their trust. So here are a couple of things that you should be focusing on to maintain a professional appearance that is more than just a dropshipping business:
- Set up email – Set up a business email so that you don’t look like an amateur. You want to maintain an air of professionalism at all costs.
- Photography – Take your own stock photographs of the products by sending them to your home or studio. This will save you from having to use the default stock photos which can often look awful.
- Social Media – Engage with your audience on social media platforms to help your brand get noticed. You want to encourage shoppers to come to your online store, so it’s important to get out there and represent your business as well.
- Customise – Customise as much as you can to avoid looking like a generic dropshipping business. This could involve having your own custom-branded products or avoiding the use of a template in your website design.
- Support – Offer customer support whenever possible and ensure that your responders know your brand and business. There are occasionally times where your audience might not understand how to use a product or they might have received a damaged or incorrect item. Dealing with these disputes as quickly as possible is usually a sign of a trustworthy business.
These are just a couple of ideas on how you can make your dropshipping business look more like an authentic online retailer. Separating yourself from the pack does wonders for your reputation and disguises the fact that you’re a dropshipping business. All of these factors combine to greatly increase your chances of leading a successful dropshipping store.
“Get to know your manufacturing contacts to open up a world of possibilities.”
Dropshipping needs to have a long-term goal and for many businesses, it’s taking production into their own hands. Since many dropshipping manufacturers are located in China, it’s essential to have a contact in the country that can help you communicate with the plants there.
By finding the best dropshipping agent In China and working closely with them, you can open up many unique opportunities to help pivot your dropshipping business in the future. For example, perhaps you could have a unique deal to produce a specific product with your branding, or maybe you request a custom color scheme for a product they make.
Getting to know your contacts and networking overseas can open up many unique opportunities for the future of your dropshipping business. In order to prevent it from going stagnant, it’s vital that you look for ways to expand your range of products or increase their quality. While it can be challenging to communicate in another language, you can always rely on professional translators and contacts to help you get a message across.
Dropshipping businesses can be easy to run, but don’t neglect the obvious things.
When people first hear about dropshipping businesses and how easy they are to run, they often neglect some of the simpler and more obvious things about running a business. A lot of things fall into this category, so here are some of the things that you should be looking out for:
- Create your brand – You need to put some effort into creating your brand so that you can stand out from the competition and have an image that you can grow. This includes designing a great website, having a distinct logo and designing promotional content.
- Know your audience – It can be surprisingly difficult to know your audience if you offer a wide range of products. That’s why we suggest focusing on a smaller selection of products to help you establish your niche and your audience before investing more into your business idea.
- Research your competition – A classic mistake in dropshipping is neglecting to research your competition. Dropshipping businesses are everywhere so it’s important to look for others that are in the same field and analyze them. Look at the products they offer, what they do that helps them succeed, and also the type of customers they get and if they could become a part of your customer base too.
- Using search engine optimization – Your website needs to be easy to find on websites like Google. As such, you should focus on optimizing it for search engines, such as using important keywords in product descriptions and having excellent content that is relevant to your customer’s interests.
- Establish a social media presence – Lastly don’t forget to establish yourself on a variety of different social media platforms. This could be Instagram if you’re focused more on images than text, or it could be something general and versatile like Facebook. Having a social media presence will help your brand grow, and you’ll also be able to find influencers to work with.
While these might seem like very basic fundamentals of running a successful business, they’re often neglected when starting a dropshipping business. This might be because the ease of running a dropshipping business makes us forget the basics of what it means to be a successful small startup. Once you start investing more time and money into your business ideas, you’ll want to keep these points in mind.
Dropshipping businesses are easy to set up and there’s no question about it. However, given how easy it is, you’re going to run into a lot of competition in this industry. With that said, you can easily find your niche and carve yourself a spot in the industry if you’re vigilant and have the tenacity.
Even if you’re not a hundred percent confident, we hope that this article has at least given you some advice on how you should approach your dropshipping business. With the right knowledge and strategies, your dropshipping business could easily become a form of passive income with limitless potential for growth in the future.
