7 Must-Have to start a Successful drop shipping business
Knowing how to start a drop shipping business with the right knowledge will prove you to be an expert and also give you an edge over your competition.
The good part is, starting a drop shipping business is quite easy and it requires little or no capital to start.
But there’s no such thing as an easy business without a deep understanding and having the right equipment for such business.
Luckily for you, dropshipping doesn’t require much, even with these 7 check-lists you can be rest assured you’re unto a good start.
The 7 Must-have you need to start a Successful dropshipping business
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Strong-will
Just like every other business, if your desires are not strong enough it’s a high chance probability that you will likely quit in the nearest future. Trust me there’s no business without its own up and down.
However, starting your dropshipping business can be spur by different reasons. Probably because you need an additional source of income or you’re about to retire and you need a stress-free job you can do from home, or you’re just a work from home mum that needed to start a business.
Whatever the reason may be, so far it’s backed by your strong desire you’re a step closer to launching your dropshipping business.
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Knowing what dropshipping is all about
This is paramount to the success of your business because it’s not really possible to succeed in dropshipping without an idea of how it works.
Even if you don’t know much, you should know your role as the middleman between your suppliers and your customers. Your job as the middleman is to market your product, collect orders from your customers and pass it on to your supplier.
It is the duty of the supplier to handle the shipment and make sure your customer receives their product without even knowing it was dropshipped in the first place.
Additionally, it’s also important to know the role of AliExpress and how to handle their long shipping time with your business.
I believe over 80% of all dropshippers source their product directly from AliExpress. This is because of their extremely low price and access to millions of products that can be easily dropshipped.
You can download this guide for additional knowledge on dropshipping.
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Gadget & Internet connection
To successfully start your online business both are indispensable. You’ll need a gadget to run your online business be it your PC, laptop or mobile device. Any of them would do, it’s left to you to choose your preference.
The good thing about them is they are mobile, and this gives you the luxury to work from anywhere and most importantly at your convenient time.
However, you’ll need a device you can easily log on to, to keep you online most of the time.
Finally, Internet connection, obviously you need to keep your device connected. Although running a dropshipping store doesn’t require you being online 24/7. But yet, you still need to visit your store once in a while and also your social networks to drive traffic to your online store.
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Product Niche
Choosing the right niche for your business is a sure-fire way of generating sales and profits. It’s always a good idea to make your online store a niche store. In the sense that, the product you are selling is somehow related.
When your customers see your products are all related, they believe you have a deep understanding of what you’re selling. Thus, considering you an expert in that field and this will be good for your business.
A good example is selling phone accessories of various devices which are still all related to phones.
While choosing your product niche, it’s always important you do a thorough research. Make use of Google trend to see the trending products and also products on the fall.
It also makes sense to choose a niche you have a deep knowledge about. This will gives you the motivation to set up and manage your business in the best way possible.
Finally, make sure there are enough products to promote around your niche and make sure the competition for this niche is neither high nor low.
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Your Store Website
You need a website to successfully run your drop shipping business. But that shouldn’t be difficult. You can either create your dropshipping online store with WordPress or use the help of website builder like Shopify to create your online store.
Even better, if you can’t do any of the above, you can order a dropshipping store from alidropship. It’s up to you to decide.
My recommendation, while setting up your dropshipping website, your domain name has a lot to do with your business.
Since it’s going to be a niche store i.e. related products. Always go for catchy domain names and most likely URL that are related to the product you’re promoting.
This will help your store to look branded and also help in terms of SEO.
Finally, to completely set up your website you’ll need a web hosting. This allows your website to be visible to your internet users or better still keep your website running.
You can visit NameCheap or HostGator to get your catchy domain name and comfortably host your website.
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Drop shipping Plugins
Starting your drop shipping journey with the help of these plugins is a sure fire way to accelerate your business. It actually makes your business a more enjoyable and relaxed experience.
Without the use of the plugins, these are few of the things that have to be done manually on a daily basis.
- Manage order and payment inventory
- Track inventory
- Communicating with customers via emails
- Generate traffic to your store.
- Search and import new product for your online store
- Write product description
- Manage price fluctuation
The good news is, you don’t have to do all that manually. There is a much more convenient solution with the help of the plugins.
With the help of the plugins you can easily add products, generate traffics, promotes your products on social media, automatically change price and product descriptions, forward orders to AliExpress and easily manage all routine attached to dropshipping.
This will drastically reduce your working time and gives you time for your other business.
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Marketing Strategy
You need a detailed marketing plan for your online store even before you create one. A plugin like the social rabbit lets you easily promote your products on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.
The truth is without marketing nobody is going to visit your webstore. So it’s always a good idea to set aside a few bucks to promote your store. The social media plays a vital role when it comes to e-commerce.
Therefore, using them to your own advantage will significantly generate engagement and boost traffic to your website.
While creating your marketing plan you may want to consider looking into the following.
- Social media marketing
- Search engine optimization
- Pay-per-click marketing
- Content marketing
- Email marketing
- Produce original content around your products
Being current with the latest marketing trends and techniques is highly crucial to the success of your business. Engaging the right marketing techniques will definitely improve your conversion rate.
In Conclusion
Dropshipping is still one of the best ways to make a steady passive income online. The good part is it requires little investment in setting up. Even if you have no prior knowledge whatsoever, with few researches you can start your dropshipping business under few minutes.
Ready to start one?
With Shopify, you can make use of their 14days trial to get involve or create your own website with WordPress using WooCommerce plugin. Or order your own personal WebStore from Alidropship to begin your dropshipping journey.
Do you agree with the above check-list? Let me know you opinion on this by using the comments box.
Hi.
Thanks for the free article.
I really want to delve into dropshipping but I have very little knowledge about it and I’m not a techy person at all.
Will you be willing to have offline discussions with me maybe by WhatsApp? More like mentoring me.
Would really appreciate this.
Thanks
I think I sent you a mail already…
This is so fantastic, words can’t express how excited I am for knowing much better about droshipping.. I’m interested in Mentorship program by the author if given the chance
Hi I’m really grateful for this free article but I’m sure there’s more to it and I’ll like a mentorship program to go deeper into it maybe on whatsapp Thank you