You do not have to store the items alone; take care of the packaging or shipping of the products. It’s a much simpler business structure than traditional selling, with far fewer overheads.
But how to start concretely? How to start a profitable and sustainable business based on such a model?
We analyze it in this step-by-step guide.
Table of Contents
1. Find a business idea
The business ideas that are most profitable in dropshipping are not trends. Instead, they have tendencies within them.
For example, probiotics for dogs are a trend in the pet supplement niche. Ka’chava is a trend in the organic meal replacement niche. Artificial lashes are a trend in the beauty niche.
Tools to use:
- Google Trends
- Exploding Topics
- Buzzsumo
2. Analyze competitors
Once you have decided what to sell, you need to inform yourself about who your competitors are, what they sell and how they advertise their products. There are many ways to do this.
Tools to use:
- Ahrefs
- Amazon
- Google search page
3. Choose a supplier
When you have a list of five or six potential suppliers to choose from, you can move on to the next step: contact them and ask important questions (such as minimum order quantities and shipping times).
By now, you have probably narrowed the possible suppliers from a list of 5 suppliers to 2-3. The best way to make the decision is to place a sample order with them for a product and evaluate the results.
Compare shipping times, product quality and packaging. To make the decision, keep in mind your customer and what they expect from your store when placing an order.
4. Build your dropshipping website
The heart of a dropshipping business is the product sales eCommerce site.
There are two ways to create a functional and efficient platform:
use a ‘turnkey’ product already integrated with a supplier (if it offers a package of this type, such as Bigby, the European leader in all-inclusive services for drop shippers);
use a CMS (content management system) that interfaces perfectly with the management tools of the products, configuring the site by yourself or relying on a web agency
Tools to use:
- WooCommerce
- Aliexpress
Create an account on Aliexpress, install WooCommerce on your website and learn how to start dropshipping with aliexpress on WooCommerce.
5. Design and implement marketing for your business
Social media advertising, search engine advertising, SEO, content marketing, video marketing: are you familiar with these marketing tools? You should.
Whether you take care of your marketing yourself or entrust it to professionals, this is a fundamental aspect of making your dropshipping business profitable and sustainable.
Tools to use:
- Social media
- YouTube
- Google ads
6. Optimize
Once you’ve spent some time building your website, brand and marketing, you can start analyzing the results of your hard work.
It may be found that certain marketing activities are hugely successful while others are not so successful. Or you can look at your prices relative to competitors and see if something needs to be changed to make them more competitive.
Tools to use:
- Google Analytics
- Semrush
Things to avoid when starting dropshipping
To succeed in dropshipping, you have to consider all the elements at stake: the steps to take and the mistakes to avoid.
Between these:
Saturated market
Since dropshipping is (apparently) very easy and requires little money to get started, many people are doing it. The problem with this is that there can be a lot of websites offering the same articles.
It is essential to find the market for their products. Choose unique articles or articles that aren’t on all websites, and do it carefully.
Low-quality products
Before you start using a supplier, you need to test their products. Grab some articles for yourself and try them out. The last thing you want is to start using a supplier and discover that they are sending your customers harmful products.
Your customer will come to you to solve the problem, not the supplier – your reputation is at stake. So, make sure you choose a supplier who has high-quality products.
Slow shipping
In today’s market, fast shipping is required. The disadvantage of many suppliers is that they are located abroad, even very far away: the shipping speed could be a problem.
Be sure to test the shipping speed as well, to make it comparable to that of other companies.
Taxes
The purpose of dropshipping is to make a profit. So, make sure you know all the shipping costs, duties, and possible contingencies. Include in the product’s price any taxes the suppliers charge on you.
If you don’t sell at the right price, you could not have acceptable margins (or worse, lose money).
Conclusion
Dropshipping – a prevalent sales model in the United States and a little less in Italy – can represent an alternative possibility to classic e-commerce.
It has immediate and tangible advantages, such as the absence of warehouse and logistics, but also disadvantages that are less clear at first glance and equally decisive.
Understanding how to start dropshipping without making (too many) mistakes, having a clear action plan, and creating a reliable business plan, are aspects that are underestimated by many yet decisive in the medium to long term.
