Learning how to start a dropshipping business in Australia could be your easiest route to making most of the e-commerce business. This is because dropshipping is regarded as one of the easiest and capital friendly ways to start a lucrative e-commerce business.
Usually, you’ll be required to have a huge capital before you can successfully set up an e-commerce business right here in Australia or from any part of the world. But with dropshipping, you won’t have to invest in product inventory or shipping logistic.
All you need to do is list products on your virtual store, market them, then forward orders to the supplier when a customer pays you. It’s your suppliers who now make it their responsibility to have the products shipped to your customer.
Is dropshipping legal in Australia? Questions like this have been asked as to whether dropshipping is legal or not in some certain countries. Well, hardly is there a country where dropshipping is considered as illegal.
However, in the case of Australia, dropshipping is absolutely legal; you can learn more about that here. Having said that, let’s take a look at what dropshipping is and how this business model works.
What is Dropshipping & How Does it Work?
Dropshipping is a business model, whereby you sell products you don’t have. This kind of business allows you to have an e-commerce website where you showcase the products you’re selling.
But whenever a purchase occurs on your website, you then from your customer money pay the supplier who is the actual owner of the product. This supplier will then have the product packaged and shipped to your customer.
Here is a detailed breakdown of how it works with the three major players of the dropshipping business. They include:
- The Supplier
- You
- The Customer
The Supplier: this is the owner of the products who bears the major risks of the business. The supplier makes sure every product get to the buyer in one piece. They’re responsible for keeping product inventory, ship products on behalf of the retailer (You) and also replace rejected products by unsatisfied customers.
You (Retailer): this is you selling other people products and at the same time responsible for customers complaints and inquires which you’ll have to forward to the supplier. Your profit is going to be the difference between the supplier price and how much you’re selling each product on your website.
The Customers: These are the final consumer of the products and the actual buyer you sell the products to. They don’t know you don’t have the inventory of the products you’re selling. All that matters to them is to see the products they paid for.
Reason Why Starting a Dropshipping Business in Australia is Such a Good Idea
Dropshipping is such an amazing business model that you can start with less than $200 and grow it over time into a six-figure business. Reading through these success stories will show you others making most of the business already.
The best part is, you don’t necessarily have to sell to the Australian market. You could target unlimited markets by selling abroad through the help of the ePacket shipping option.
When it comes to dropshipping one of the major websites that come to mind is AliExpress and this is because dropshipping via AliExpress is absolutely free and very lucrative.
There are products listed on AliExpress for less than a dollar that you can sell and make as much as possible. Plus they have over 200million products that you can browse through and choose the one that interest you.
Other reasons include:
- Low startup cost
- Additional source of income
- Low operating budget
- No overstock issues
- Beginner friendly
- No shipping and logistics issues
How to start a Dropshipping Business in Australia in 5 simple steps
Now that you’ve understood the basics of this business model, let’s take a look at the actionable steps to get started.
- Look For Product to Sell
- Find a Reliable Supplier
- Build Your eCommerce Website
- Market Your Products
- Fulfill Orders
Step 1: Look For Products to Sell
Choosing a product to sell is one of the major decisions you have to make because this will determine the success of your business. Having a beautiful website is not enough you have to take time and look for products that people actually want to buy.
At the same time, try and go for something that interests you. Something you’ll enjoy doing on the long run. While searching for products to sell, AliExpress as a huge catalog of products you can start with.
You can find over 200million products on AliExpress ready to be imported to your website. Go through the products categories and select closely related products you find interesting or go through this Wikipedia list of hobbies as an idea for what you might like to sell.
After finding your product niche, do your research to know if the products are going to be profitable. One of the best ways to do that is using this free niche tool.
You could also use the Google trend to your advantage by checking the trends for the product. A stable or rising trend for a product usually means the product is going to be profitable. For more idea on this here is an article on how to choose a product niche to dropship.
Step 2: Find A Reliable Supplier
After you must have determined your product niche, the next thing to do is to look for supplier around that product. This is very important because the supplier is actually the bedrock of your business. Your supplier product quality is the same thing as your product quality.
So, try as much as possible to be choosy when it comes to choosing your supplier. There are low qualities products on AliExpress as much as there are high-quality products.
For those that will be using AliExpress as their supplier base website always make sure you choose a reliable supplier by checking their feedback score rate.
This is one sure-fire way to distinguish a reliable supplier on AliExpress. Always go for 95% and above feedback score and at the same time check customers reviews of the product.
To make this easier there is a drop shipping plugin called “AliDropship” this plugin works with a WordPress site and makes it easy to add products from AliExpress to your website with a clear indicator of the seller score on AliExpress.
This way you’ll be able to spot a reliable supplier from the bad one and have your product import automatically.
Step 3: Build Your eCommerce Website
The next thing to do now is to build your e-commerce website so as to be able to showcase your products to your potential customers. In other to do this I’m going to talk about two options which is getting a custom dropshipping website or the AliDropship plugin for WordPress.
The custom dropshipping website is a done for you website that’s ready to start making money with at least 50 product added from AliExpress.
This website comes with a product niche research, domain name, marketing tools and every other thing needed to promote your dropshipping website. Here’s a full review and everything you need to know about the custom dropshipping store.
The second option is building your website on WordPress with the AliDropship plugin. This plugin allows you to have a semi-automated dropshipping store integrated with AliExpress.
With the help of the plug-in, you can easily add products from AliExpress to your website with just a single click. At the same time send orders to AliExpress automatically with just a single click.
Below are the features of the AliDropship plugin:
- Automatic order fulfilment
- Auto search and import product from AliExpress
- Price Automation
- Automatic tracking order
- ePacket shipping filter
- Make an additional 12% income from AliExpress affiliate program. Etc.
To learn more about the AliDropship plugin, you can read the full review here.
Step 4: Market Your Products
After setting up your website and adding products from AliExpress the next thing in line to do is promote your business. As new business nobody is going to know about what you’re selling else you push it out to them.
The major way to this is through the following platform. Which includes?
- Google Adwords
- Facebook Marketing
- Email Marketing
If you’re using the AliDropship plugin this is going to be easier for you because they have add-ons on most of what you need to promote your website already.
I’ll recommend running Google ads at first then use Facebook retargeting through your pixel then Instagram ads. An Instagram influencer is also effective and so also is email marketing.
Step 5: Fulfilling Orders
The final step which is fulfilling orders is the fun part. This is because you must have made your money before you fulfil orders.
The AliDropship plugin also makes this part interesting all you need to click the complete order button and everything about the order will be sent to the supplier on AliExpress who then ship the products to your customer in one piece.
Ready to get started? Check out the custom dropshipping store!
