11 things you have to know to build a profitable scalable Dropshipping business.
Most dangerous and common dropshipper’s problem and features of dropshipping automation apps that can solve them.
When you are not a newest at such a specific e-commerce business as a dropship to Amazon you facing with completely another questions than when you’d just become a dropshipper. Those are How to find a reliable wholesale supplier with a wide range of items, How to expand marketplace range, How to organize and operate a few shops at the same time and all of it without losing your service quality and rating.
The right answer lies in the top — automation. But how to automate Amazon dropshipping correctly and choose the right and useful automated dropshipping tools?
Here is our top list of the most dangerous and common dropshippers problem and features of dropshipping automation apps that can solve them.
1. You don’t know what you are selling
When you sell a wide range of items it’s impossible to know and control all of them manually. Automation helps you to get deep product analysis to filter products and be sure in each of your goods. Such advanced search tools and automatized filtration can have a lot of criteria you even didn’t worry about the early stages of business. Automatized analysis let you forget the questions “How to find products to dropship?” or “How to select a product to sell on Amazon?”.
How many pitfalls did you find while selling on Amazon? Freight items and additional shipping charges, items variated by size, color, packing option, fixed minimal level of items you have to order, out of stock items and many many more. Opportunity to pre-filter such criteria let you avoid future hands-filtering or losing your seller rating because of purchase cancelation or return. Filtration and risk analysis allows you to exclude products that can cause a problem.
Even more, you have to add to the shop new products daily. The competition on Amazon is very high. Today one product selling good but tomorrow someone of your competitors can undercut your price and take a Buy Box. That’s why important to balance and manipulate thousands of items not to depend on each one. Automated bulk listings are necessary in that case.
2. Everything can change overnight
As Amazon support center says: “Amazon Best Sellers Rank calculation is based on Amazon.com sales and is updated hourly.” Also, each product has a category ranking which updated hourly too. Such a fast-changing of rankings doesn’t leave you a chance to track products by yourself. Only automated Amazon listing software with continuously checking for all item’s parameters can find and control changes fast. Ideally — as soon as they appear. And not only changes at Amazon but also at the supplier’s inventory.
A sales rank attracts an estimated sale of a product which is making sense to know before deciding to sell an item or not. Sales planning is a good base for successful dropship business.
3. ASIN may change at any moment
As of November 1st, 2017, Amazon has completely discontinued the notifications for both ASIN changes and merges and there is not currently a plan to reinstate them. There is absolutely no way sellers are checking every product detail page every couple of days. Particularly, when the number of listings is estimated in hundreds or thousands. Too many moving pieces you can’t control manually.
Supplier’s UPC and Amazon’s ASIN mismatch is a huge problem you can face with not depending on your experience. This is definitely the field where the better way is to measure cloth seven times before you cut. Programmed methods of managing UPC and ASIN and matching items by UPC, by picture, by keywords and by title can seriously reduce the need for subsequent careful and slow human validation.
4. Continuously price changing
Price is the main criteria for entering a Buy Box, that is why very important to track your supplier and competitors price changing and react fast. And control your profit at the same time. In-build price tracker and repricing tool or integrated third-party services is an advantage of a dropshipping tool.
Amazon does not charge fees for a listing, but there are transaction fees once you sell an item, and these fees can variate depends on the product’s type. Make sure dropshipping automation software has a margin and profit set and let you review Amazon’s fees to set a final price based on all your costs. So, you’ll definitely get the profit from every sale.
5. Customers want to get the order fast
Flexible tune based on each item’s fulfillment by supplier statistic and your own order processing time lets you not only get one more step closer to winning the Buy Box but also set the correct delivery information to avoid customer’s misunderstanding. Competition with FBA sellers is not necessary, Amazon delivery always will be faster, but correct fulfillment tune helps you overtake other dropshipping sellers.
6. Suppliers can betray
Choose time-tested suppliers. Best supplier for you is a one you worked with for a while. Don’t be manipulated by wishes of hundreds of suppliers integrated into the app — you don’t need most of them and will never use them (furthermore, they can even be unavailable or disable). We know sellers who satisfied working with only one supplier and recommend you don’t chase quantity because of the trusted relations here is very important. It also can give you some privileges like free shipping, special discounts or cashback.
Important to be careful with Amazon strict rules concerning the time you have to confirm the order and give to the customer his tracking information. An unreliable supplier may cost you losing Amazon metrics and position.
7. Suppliers websites are changing continuously
Prefer automation services that already have products database on the own server. This will minimize the time you will spend on searching for products by your criteria. Because of many dropshipping suppliers and wholesale-retail shops can change suddenly (integrate new site layout, catalog structure, bot-protection) or simply not intended for online searching at high speed.
Own database gives you quick access to offers of different suppliers. It’s also made easier to compare prices and delivery time between wholesale suppliers to choose a preferable one.
8. Amazon makes the rules
Are you agree that online drop shipping on Amazon is not the same as to have your own online store or eBay dropshipping? Specification of automation software as important as lower or doctor specialization. An Amazon-oriented app can guarantee a better understanding of dropship platform nuances like restricted products or special requirements at some products niches.
Full Amazon dropship policies and agreements you can find at Amazon Seller Central Help center
9. Business growth means team and expenses growth
So pleasantly and predictably to rely on yourself only. But at the same time, this means the limitation of growing — no man is an island. Once you hit a ceiling in self-made dropshipping business you face with the needs of employees. And because the business is online your team is likely to be remote. That’s why very important to automatize a managing process, correctly tune a flow process and, of course, control KPI of every team member.
Not every dropshipping automation app worries about your business processes. Most of them turn team-managing over to third-party tools. An integrated team-flows tool is a huge bonus.
10. Amazon brands policies and restrictions
Amazon respects a manufacturer’s right to enter into exclusive distribution agreements for its products. Items and ASINs sold by Amazon or by authorized vendors can be restricted for you to sell. Cases of locking counterfeit sellers are known. To avoid such problems, you have to remember about Amazon’s policies and restrictions for some products. Dropshipping automation software can help you to avoid listing such products by pre-filtering them.
11. Analyze this, analyze that
Nothing can change without analyzing and consequent introduction. Difficult to analyze something scattered, not systematized. Much more difficult to analyze big data. Products and sales statistic collected in one place let you analyze your profitability faster so you can better direct your business strategy and focus on what’s working.
Let’s summarize. Every business has its own pitfalls. Growth and scaling business will open you much more pitfalls. That’s why very important to be careful on the stage of choosing your scaling tools. The first question you need to ask yourself is: what exactly problem I want to solve by automatizing? Then choose your way and stay the course. There are a lot of different tools which can help dropshipping sellers. Best automated solutions to manage and grow your business find at Amazon Marketplace Appstore.
