Getting Started in Online Dropshipping

This page may contain links from our sponsors. Here’s how we make money.

Dropshipping
Photo via Envato Elements

By now, you have most likely heard the term drop shipping many times, though you may not know exactly what it means. It simply describes a business model where you sell products that are sourced from another company entirely. When an order or sale is made, you collect the money from your customer and then order the item directly from the supplier, who will ship it to the customer. This way, you do not need to have a supply of products on hand, nor do you even need to worry about shipping issues. In many cases, the supplier might even be willing to use your own custom label.

Finding a Hungry Market:

Most people who are interested in drop shipping assume that their first step should be to find product. However, most of the more successful drop shippers start out by finding a hungry market, according to the WikiHow website. Basically, you want to begin by doing your research and ensuring that there is a group of people looking for and spending money on certain types of products.

Most of the research is easy and can be done online. You can look up specific keywords in order to determine what types of items are selling and for how much individual products are going for. This is the basic formula for finding success online: first finding where the demand actually is and then getting out in front of it.

Finding a Reputable Supplier:

The truly critical step in discovering how does dropshipping work is to find a reputable supplier. You need to really do your research in this area carefully. There are a number of ways to find dropshipping suppliers, including doing a simple Google search for the item in question along with the words “wholesale” or “dropshipper” (or some variation along those lines). You could look at lists of wholesale and dropship suppliers, as well. Once you have a number of possibilities, you need to make sure the companies have a lot of experience and seem to have earned good overall feedback from other customers.

Contact each company in turn and ask them a lot of questions. You want to know how long it takes them to ship an order once you place it with them, what types of shipping methods they offer, what types of quality control methods they have in place, and even if they offer warranties. If you intend to sell the items on eBay and Amazon (or other online marketplaces), you should also ask if they have digital photos of the items for you to use.

Start Choosing Products:

Once you have decided on a supplier, the next step is to begin choosing products that they offer. Of course, you should already have a good idea about the demand from your target market, according to Salehoo. Focus on things like the average selling price, shipping costs, and your wholesale cost from the dropshipping company in order to determine the profitability of the product(s) in question.

Also focus on the platform in which you will be selling these items, whether that is eBay, Amazon< or> your own website. There will be different rules and costs for each of these platforms. No doubt, you can save yourself a lot of money in selling fees and commissions by establishing your own website. The platform itself should influence what you sell, especially since each one has particular items that work very well and others that just don't.

Setting up Products:

The next step is to get your product or products listed and uploaded. A good content management system (CMS) will make this a simple and fast process. Make sure you have some great photos and get the products listed and live so that people can start to buy them. Try and make sure you have some good sales-oriented descriptions that focus on exposing the benefits of what people will receive by ordering your items.

Marketing Your Products:

The final step in terms of getting started with online dropshipping is marketing. There are tons of ways to do this, as well. You could write articles and post them on various sites, hoping that people will see them and then click through to your site or product listings. You might want to consider posting helpful comments in blogs and forums with links pointing back toward your site or listings. Another interesting idea is to make videos and post them to YouTube, promoting a specific type of product or listing. Just try a bunch of different things and then after a while do more of what is working and drop those methods that don't work.