How to run a Successful Dropshipping Business
The last several decades witnessed a growing popularity in dropshipping business especially among Gen Z and Millennials. Dropshipping has gained its popularity since the early 2000 after the launch of popular ecommerce stores such as Amazon and AliExpress. People began to learn that dropshipping was the most convenient way to start their own business. Its simplicity in shipping products using third party had spread like wildfire, resulting in more people wanting to explore the dropshipping business. As easy as it may have seemed, many people experienced loss and encountered difficult challenges, while others managed to create a pathway to financial freedom.
Although there is a risk of loss, dropshipping can be a profitable business once you get started on it. Here are the five key steps that you need to keep in mind to ensure that your dropshipping business is a success.
- Product Sourcing
Selecting the right niche is the fundamental base to a successful dropshipping business. Before you decide to dive into the dropshipping business, it is best that you have a clearly defined niche for a specific audience. One of the most common mistakes merchants usually do is to try and generalize their products for everyone. While this may sound like a good idea, it can be a problem when it comes to creating content and marketing all your products that are of different niche. It would not be as effective as focusing on one niche. It is crucial that you research for the niche you are interested in, but more importantly, you need to make sure that the niche is built around customers’ demands and needs. You need to address problems faced by a group of audience and come up with a solution. For instance, if you are planning to retail health supplements, instead of listing and deliberating on all the ingredients, customers would rather know how it is going to benefit them. Hence, you can list the ingredients and highlight on its healing properties. By doing so, you are making sure that your products will be on demand for a long term.
2. Finding Supplier
Finding the ideal supplier is just as important as selecting the right niche for your business. Without a proper supplier, you can forget about your dropshipping business, let alone making profits out of it. If you are new to dropshipping, you may find yourself lost in your attempts to find and secure a good supplier. Not to worry, there are three different methods you can use to find your supplier. The first method is to Google search. Dropshippers typically use Google search or other search engines to look for their supplier. It may require you to do extensive research since most suppliers do not actively use websites to market their products. Second method is to subscribe to directories. With a little investment for access to premium directories, you can find a lot more suppliers. The last method is to establish connection with the manufacturers themselves. This may be a little harder in reality as opposed to the other two methods, but you can at least try to get the manufacturers to recommend you with some good suppliers.
But there is one thing more you need to do once you manage to find suppliers. You need to examine certain criteria before you decide to commit and build a business with them. They need to be accessible and easy to reach through phone or email. Take note of their response speed as well as their ability to communicate with you mainly if you are dealing with suppliers from overseas. Ask them a bunch of questions especially about shipping time, minimum order quantity (MOQ), return policy, etc. In fact, request for the sample of the product so you can inspect the quality, packaging and even the time taken for shipping.
3. Setup Online Store
Once you find the right niche and secure your supplier, the next thing you want to do is to set up an online store. If you are dropshipping, chances are you may have several other competitors selling the same product. The only way you can outshine is to launch an online store. Not only does it make your brand look more professional, it is an effective content marketing strategy where you can provide information regarding your product, inventory availability and pricing. You can also showcase your best-selling products to attract customers.
However, when it comes to setting up an online store from scratch, most people perceive it to be complex. But here is an exciting fact, setting up an online store can be really easy and hassle-free. For instance, if you are launching a Shopify store, you don’t need to have any technical or coding knowledge. You will get the full support to build your very own online store in no time. You will also receive all the resources and pre-made templates to create a professional looking website.
4. Analyze Analytics and Improve SEO
Once you launch your own online store, you need to know the number of people who visited your site, the demographic details of the visitors, how visitors found your site and whether or not the visitors are viewing your products. All of this information is vital for you to analyze the success of your store. Hence, you can use Google Analytic, a renowned and well-substantiated software that provides you with all the data and information needed. By using Google Analytics, you can come up with new strategies to increase conversion and sales. Above all, it provides you with a real-time report. You can monitor the activities on your site and assess your business performance.
In addition, you want customers to find you easily. So, you need to use keywords that sell and pay more attention to the SEOs. This can be accomplished by using the Google Keyword Planner. Not only is it free, it is also very effective as it allows you to analyze keywords and trends. It identifies the exact keywords your customers may use in their searches. By doing so, you can improve your store by optimizing those keywords in your page title, headings, subheadings, product descriptions, etc.
5. Provide Great Customer Service
Last but not least, you need to manage store inventory effectively and accurately. Managing inventory can be tricky but it is the backbone of running any business. All of your efforts could go to waste if you fail to keep track of your inventory count.
For that reason, you need to update your inventory availability according to the supplier. The supplier may update their product inventory via FTP, URL, Google Spreadsheet, Drive or Email attachment. If you are manually updating your product inventory, it can be very troublesome and inaccurate. There is room for errors as you might have to browse through thousands of products to find the products that you are dropshipping. This is followed by manual updating of quantity and price. It can be a nightmare when you have to perform it regularly. It is also time consuming and expensive. Therefore, it is best to upgrade and use automated systems or software such as Stock Sync to manage inventory. Stock Sync allows you to schedule updates on an hourly or daily basis so that you can obtain real-time information on your stock. It can also read diverse file formats such as CSV, XML, XLS, XLSX, EDI, TXT, HTML, JSON and compressed files such as .zip and .gz. Most importantly, it helps you to save countless hours so you could devote your energy on attending to your customers’ needs and devising strategies to increase your sales.
In conclusion, these are the five key steps that you need to remember especially if you are new to the world of business. Dropshipping, for the most part, can be testing. It requires you to do a lot of research, planning and decision making. If you are not sure where to begin, these tips will come in handy. From selecting the right niche to effective inventory management, this article has got you covered.
Stock Sync is changing the game for e-commerce inventory management. With a huge number of integrations, your e-commerce store can now sync stock from various suppliers and sources such as Etsy, Walmart, eBay and more. Your intelligent Stock Sync app gets all your stock nicely fitted into format and you can even set it to automatically download latest stock items from your suppliers via download links. There are plenty of other features and functions that you shouldn’t miss out on as well. Head on over to the Stock Sync website to get your online shop synced up with the future.
