Types of dropshipping

• Product reselling.
• Business extensions.
• Product creation.
• Print on demand.

What Is Drop-shipping?

Drop shipping is a retail fulfillment method in which a business doesn’t keep the products it sells in stock. When a drop shipping retailer sells a product, it purchases the item directly from a third party (a manufacturer, wholesaler, or another retailer) that ships the product directly to a customer.

So if your business adopts drop shipping, you act as a storefront that customers visit and order products from. Once they place an order, you charge the consumer, and the drop shipper charges you. You never handle the actual products.

How Does Drop-shipping Work?

• A company signs an agreement with a wholesaler, manufacturer, or another retailer to provide the goods it advertises.
• Customer places order online.
• Company receives the order.
• Customer receives an order confirmation.
• Company forwards the order to the wholesaler, manufacturer, or other retailer.
• That company ships the order.
• Customer receives their product.

What Is a Dropshipping Business?

Dropshipping is a business model which you can use to  run your store without ever holding any inventory. Once you’ve made a sale your supplier will ship your products from their warehouse, straight to your customer’s doorstep. You’ll never need to worry about storing, packaging, or shipping your products.

The benefits of a drop shipping business.

Drop shipping is a  retail inventory management method  that can help your business decrease risk, but there are other benefits as well. This order fulfillment method is popular for ecommerce businesses or other companies looking to mitigate inventory risk and increase business flexibility.

• It lowers the costs of starting and maintaining a business: Drop shipping drastically reduces the initial costs of  starting an online Business since you don’t have to invest in building inventory upfront, which can be cost prohibitive for new and small businesses. And because you don’t have to deal with purchasing inventory (or managing storage for that inventory), your overhead remains relatively low. It also means you aren’t stuck with products that won’t sell, and you won’t have to mark down those items and take a loss.
• Your location can be flexible: Drop shipping businesses can also be more nimble than businesses with more traditional structures. Because you don’t have physical inventory, you can basically run your store from anywhere you find an internet connection.
• You can offer customers a wider selection of products: Since you don’t have to invest in building your own inventory, you can stay on top of trends and quickly add new products to your site. You can also quickly switch up your offerings without first having to order new items or clear out backstock.
• You don’t have to manage inventory: A lack of inventory also means that you won’t have to manage it. Managing inventory can be complicated and time consuming (although inventory management software can make the job much easier). Not having to watch stock, reorder it, and process it means that you and your employees have more bandwidth to work on other aspects of your business to help it grow.

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How to Start A Dropshipping Business In 2023-24?

Even though drop shipping isn’t a new business model, there are ways to profit from it in 2021. Here’s a guide to help you pave your way in this new online ecosystem.

Create A Website

Your website is how you’ll interact with your buyers. Yes, social media pages do help with the same. But a website will increase the buyers’ trust which eventually will lead to more sales. We suggest you create a website using Shopify as it’ll come with Oberlo which is a tool designed especially for drop shipping and will minimize the efforts required from your end.

Find A Profitable Niche & Products

This is one of the hardest parts of starting a dropshipping business but if planned right, this could result in unbelievable profits. Start by looking out what’s trending on –

• Google Trends
• Pinterest
• Amazon
• Etsy
• Aliexpress
• Reddit
• Instagram (check the ads)

Some niches you can look for are –

• Accessory-heavy niches like laptops, phones, drones, etc. so you can target the accessory micro-niche and pave your way through.
• Accessory-heavy hobbies like golf, biking, etc. where you can target their passion and or problem.
• Products that are innovative and hard to find locally.

Once you’ve found a trending niche, start searching for the products that are within the $100-$200 range. It’s the ecommerce “sweet spot” as it’s large enough for good profits and small enough that customers won’t require to personally speak with someone before making the purchase.

Find A Trustable Supplier

If you’ve created your dropshipping website with Shopify and Oberlo, you don’t need to do much but search Oberlo for the product you’ve just found and the tool will take care of the rest.

But if you’ve chosen WordPress or any other CMS to create your website or any other CMS, here’s a list of best dropshippers to choose from –

• Aliexpress
• SaleHoo
• Doba
• Wholesale2B
• Dropshipper.com
• Sunrise Wholesale

Add Your Products

Once you’ve selected your products and the supplier, list the products on your website at around a 30% profit margin. Write your own description and avoid copying from the seller’s website. Draft it in a way that it complements your marketing strategy.

Market Your Store

Dropshipping business requires aggressive marketing strategies. You need to target your audience on Google (choose the appropriate keywords for the advertisements), Facebook (use Facebook Pixel for remarketing too), and other social media networks properly and develop a personalised advertisement for better conversions.

We suggest creating a video showcasing the product benefits for your advertisements as video ads get better results. You can also use social validation strategies like comments, reviews, ratings, and testimonials to gain the trust of your prospective customers.

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