A Practical Guide: How to Make Money with Dropshipping

You've been thinking about starting your e-commerce business, but you don't know where to start or what to sell. You have no money to invest in products and there is no inventory space. Well, this is what dropshipping is all about.

With dropshipping, you can sell things online, and the product will never be in your hands. All that matters is how to make money with dropshipping?

Practical Approaches

When starting a dropshipping business, people may ask "What is dropshipping?" or they want to know how dropshipping works. But here is a more important question you need to ask: "Is dropshipping profitable?" and “How do I make money with dropshipping?”

There is one thing that can be sure: it’s no doubt that the dropshipping business if working well and can help generate huge returns. The key is to know clearly things to do and things to avoid when dropshipping.

How to Find Right Items

Once you have identified award-winning products suitable enough, you will be ahead of the competition and ready to start selling.

▪ Niche Products

Targeting niche markets through outlet stores can be a good way to generate revenue.

Take a look at Google Trends and do some research on top niches with high potential -- niches that could be good niches to gain a competitive advantage in the dropshipping market. Another idea is to target a seasonal niche like touchscreen gloves or Christmas decorations, which might sell well in the winter.

If you start selling around niche product trends, you will have less competition because you will reach a smaller audience. This means your marketing job will be much cheaper. Starting with a dropshipping niche idea doesn't mean you won't be able to branch out into different areas later.

▪ Competitor Products

Check out potential competitors and research their products and how they source and sell them. Can you read their pricing strategy or possibly predict the potential new products they will sell? Be one step ahead of them, you can stay competitive.

Research on a competitor's product should not last all day. A quick Google search for a product can highlight a list of competitors in seconds. From there, a quick scan of the site will give you enough information to decide what to sell.

How to Find Suppliers

Choosing the suppliers for your dropshipping business is one of the most important decisions you will make. Just as a bad supplier can destroy all the hard work and credibility you've earned, a good one can multiply the value of your store. You have to make sure that the suppliers you choose will support you.

If you search on Shopify App Store, there will be about 400 dropshipping apps waiting for you.

Many apps can be used to find suppliers, select products, and then synchronize product details with your store. You still want to get your own product photos and rewrite descriptions, but this is a good place to start and eliminate some of the work. In addition, the dropshipping tools can notify the supplier when you make a sale, allowing them to ship the goods to the customer directly.

Here are some of the most popular dropshipping apps:

1) DSers - the official dropshipping partner of AliExpress, placing 100s orders to AliExpress in seconds – available on Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix

2) Spocket - dropshipping suppliers for US & EU products - Shopify, WooCommerce

3) Printful - on demand product fulfillment & warehousing - Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix, Etsy...

4) EPROLO - dropshipping & sourcing agent in China - Shopify, eBay, WooCommerce

5) Trendsi - US fashion dropshipping solution - Shopify

If you want your American and British customers to receive their packages in a very short time, you may want to find suppliers with warehouses in the USA or UK rather than in Asia or what so you can satisfy your customers and make them repeat ones.

Here are some key questions to help you determine if the suppliers you choose are right for your business.

• How long does it take to process orders and ship products out of their facility?
• What are the methods of shipping for the products?
• Do they have a tracking system so that you and/or your customer can easily check the status of each order?
• How do they deal with problems such as lost goods?
• Will the missing goods cost you money?
• Does the product they offer come with a warranty/guarantee?
• What is the return policy?

Ensure the shipper policies match your customer service philosophy. If the customer feels they've been taken advantage of, you can't point the finger at your supplier and blame them, because you're the one selling the product to the customer.

How to Increase Sales

Here are helpful tips and strategies for managing your dropshipping business successfully and achieving your sales goals in the process.

1. Bundle Products: Bundling your products is also one way to increase sales. Doing so allows you to get a higher price. This helps you increase the average order value, especially when you add and compare the original price of the product.

So you might need a dropshipping tool that has a bundle products feature, for example, DSers. It can help you create a pack of products from different AliExpress suppliers.

2. Product Description: Many people say product information is crucial in making a purchase decision. Another benefit of an effective product description is that it also affects your SEO.

When you use the right keywords, you can gain a higher position in search engines, which can help you drive more traffic to your site.

3. Automatic Website: Automating your dropshipping website is one of the fastest ways to generate passive income.

Automation provides smooth operations for almost any type of business. With the right automation tools, you don't need to be around your store 24/7.

4. Customer Service: Although the competition is fierce, impeccable customer service will difference you from the competition. Customers will feel more valued when they see that you can address their concerns.

Therefore, they will come back more and recommend your services and stores to others.

5. Social Media: Social media like Facebook and Instagram provide a wealth of customer data to help marketing. This ensures that your ads are shown on the news feeds of people who are more likely to buy with you.

In addition, social media is an excellent tool that allows you to connect with your target customers on a more personal level.

6. Up-selling & Cross-Selling: All you want when starting a dropshipping business is to increase the transactions and sales as much as possible. To achieve that, you may choose to cross-sell and up-sell your product.

Note that there are subtle differences between the two and they work best in a single marketing strategy. This will encourage impulse buying and help increase your income.

How to Market Your Products

Having a successful dropshipping business is more than just opening a store. Having great products and suppliers isn't even enough. In order for your business to be effective, it is necessary to apply appropriate marketing strategies to generate more sales, because just like brick-and-mortar stores, online stores need attention.

1. Customer Acquisition Channels: Although your investment in logistics will be minimal under a dropshipping marketing plan, your business will be useless if you do not attract potential customers. As with digital marketing strategies, it all starts with attracting customers.

Aesthetics and content should invite Internet users to learn more about the products you offer, conveying security and trust by integrating plaintext and contact information.

In addition, you should ensure that your website design is responsive, as most queries about products and online sales are currently made through mobile devices. Make sure your digital marketing channels are planned.

2. Search Engine Optimization: Sometimes better known by the acronym SEO, this type of promotion allows natural reference experts to influence the search results of search engines such as Google so that your e-store is on the first page relative to the keywords used.

Therefore, if you want to double your sales, it is important to develop an SEO strategy for your dropshipping store. But you have to be patient and careful because it takes six to 12 months to notice results.

Whether you adopt a short-term or long-term marketing development policy, SEO is still a core element that cannot be ignored or your sales will stagnate.

3. Advertising: As you may have read above, SEO is a solution for increasing sales, but in the long run. Therefore, content is the foundation work, while paid advertising is more conducive to generating traffic quickly.

Google Ad campaigns or ads on social networks (Instagram, Facebook) can quickly become very expensive. The problem is that you have to create impactful ads to differentiate yourself from your competitors.

4. Blog: Use the blog as a content marketing strategy so that potential customers can also access your store through indexed content. You can create formative content, such as guides, tutorials, data, manuals, advice, recommendations, and all the ways you can educate your audience on aspects relevant to your business.

You can also generate content that appeals to your audience's emotions because it helps build a good connection between your audience and your brand.

5. Email Marketing: When you're trying to attract potential customers to your site, you don't want to lose touch with them immediately after they leave. Using email marketing is a great way for e-commerce stores to direct visitors to their purchase channels.

For example, a good newsletter can offer your customers discounts for the first order and include your SEO writing and some suggested products.

Eventually, you'll convert more customers and have a way to contact them. If your store is created with WooCommerce, then you can send newsletters to customers for free by using DSers, while other plugins may charge a monthly fee to accomplish it.

Leverage the Best Dropshipping Tool: DSers

As mentioned above, there are many useful dropshipping apps on the Shopify app store. You can see from the screenshot that DSers is the top-ranked dropshipping tool among the 400 apps.

With the Suppliers Optimizer feature, you can easily find qualified suppliers and can quickly turn to another better substitution when the first supplier is out of stock. With over 4,100 positive users reviews, DSers has been tested and approved by real dropshippers, so don’t hesitate to use it to make money with dropshipping.

Final Word

If you approach overnight success and expect easy money with dropshipping, you're setting yourself up for failure. To make each customer's experience as smooth and seamless as possible, a successful dropshipping business requires careful preparation and planning and a constant commitment

Dropshipping remains an exciting area of e-commerce. Most dropshipping processes have been improved, and weaknesses have been identified and avoided. It’s cheap to start, easy to operate, and profitable.

Now that you know how to make money through dropshipping and follow the tips outlined above, you can maximize those profits and build a lasting, successful business.