How to Start a Dropshipping Business in 5 Easy Steps
- Lewis Cowham
- Apr 6, 2022
- 22 min read
Updated: May 12, 2022
By Simon SladeSunday March 27
Starting a dropshipping business is one of the easiest ways to make money online in 2022.
The growth of Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Shopify, and other online marketplaces and platforms means that anyone can start an online store for as little as $20.
But with the barrier to entry being so low, dropshipping has exploded in popularity over the past decade, meaning that many markets are highly competitive.
If you’re thinking of starting a dropshipping business - either as a side hustle or a means to leaving your full-time job - you can save yourself time and set yourself up for success by following the simple steps outlined below.
In this complete guide to drop shipping for beginners, we show you how to start a drop shipping business in 5 easy steps:
Choosing a profitable dropshipping niche in 2022
Finding reliable dropship suppliers
Getting a sales tax ID
Choosing the right selling platform for your business
Implementing a customer acquisition strategy
Scaling you Dropshipping Business
But first, what is a dropshipping business?
A dropshipping business is where you are able to sell merchandise to your customer without holding any inventory. A customer purchases an item from your store at retail price. You then forward the order to your supplier, which you pay the wholesale price. Once your supplier receives the order, they ship the item directly to the customer under your business name while you earn the profit margin. All you have to do is set up the retail website, find customers, and handle customer support.
There are thousands of people around the world who make five-, six-, and seven-figure incomes from drop shipping and there’s no reason why you can’t do the same.
What Is Dropshipping?
Understanding how the dropshipping business model works is important, as it’s quite different to traditional retail and eCommerce businesses.
Here’s the official definition:
Dropshipping is a supply chain management method in which the retailer does not keep goods in stock but instead transfers the customer orders and shipment details to either the manufacturer, another retailer, or a wholesaler, who then ships the goods directly to the customer.
How Dropshipping Works
In more simple terms, dropshipping works like this:
A customer purchases an item from your store at retail price
The order is forwarded to your supplier (you pay wholesale price)
The supplier ships the item directly to the customer under your business name
This means that you - the dropshipper - don’t have to buy and store bulk stock, which saves you having to invest a lot of money upfront.
It also eliminates the risk of buying in bulk and not being able to sell all of the products, leaving you out of pocket.
This is why dropshipping is so popular - it requires minimal investment, but reaps similar benefits to traditional retail models.
Dropshipping Statistics: Do the Numbers Add Up?
The hype around dropshipping means some people are skeptical of it as a viable business model and cautious about diving in.
There is limited information about dropshipping specifically, but these statistics should help to provide you with peace of mind (and, hopefully, a sense of excitement).
33% of online retailers have adopted dropshipping as their primary business model.
Dropshipping accounted for 34% of products sold on Amazon in 2011 and the number has only grown since then. That’s $14.2 billion of drop-shipped products from just one online marketplace.
The dropshipping market is forecast to grow to USD 557.9 billion by 2025.
Google Trends data also shows a massive increase of interest in dropshipping over the past few years.
How to Start a Dropshipping Business in 2022
Step 1: Choosing a Dropshipping Niche
To start a dropshipping business you will need to figure out your niche. A niche is a segment of a market. For example, bluetooth speakers are a popular niche in the home audio market. You could even say that outdoor, waterproof bluetooth speakers are a sub-niche of the bluetooth speaker niche. You get the idea. The more specific your niche is, the better.
Choosing a niche is the first step to starting a dropshipping business. The rising popularity of dropshipping means it’s becoming harder to find niches that aren’t already saturated. But new products and niches are emerging every week, so the opportunities are almost endless.
"Choosing a profitable niche comes down to two major things," Jonathan Molendijk, a successful dropshipper who had a slow start but now scales out dropshipping stores to over $100,000 each month and runs EcomCreed. "Is the niche something that interests you, and does the niche have evergreen products within it? If you have these two key factors, you will be able to identify profitable niches everytime."
A common misconception about dropshipping is that you can be successful and profitable in any niche, but that’s simply not true. If you choose a niche that’s already saturated with sellers or dominated by major brands, you’re going to face an uphill battle with your new business.
Here are a few guidelines to help you choose a dropshipping niche that will make you money online in 2022:
Start with your interests and passions: Tap into your hobbies and interests. If you enjoy travel or hiking in the outdoors, you’re going to have unique knowledge of the products and trends in those markets that can help you identify a viable niche.
Scratch your own itch: This is old school entrepreneurial advice. The theory is, if you have a problem in your life then it’s highly likely that others will have the same problem. If you can identify a product that solves that problem, you might have uncovered a great dropshipping niche.
Research the competition: Is the niche you’re interested in over-saturated? If so, is the competition easy to beat? Better yet, is it worth beating them? You’ll often find that the niche you’re most interested in joining is the one that nearly everyone is already a part of. This doesn’t mean you can’t hop on the bandwagon, just be ready for some competition.This will also give you an idea if the product is in demand. If you’re finding competition then that’s a good sign! Another great way to check the demand for your product is to use Google Trends. It will give you the interest in the product over time and should give you some idea of how successful your product is likely to be. If you’re struggling to think of a product that is in demand take a look at our article on 50 trending dropshipping products in 2022 as a starting guide.
Ensure the niche is profitable: The objective of business is to make money, right? Therefore, you need to check the profitability of every dropshipping niche and product idea that you come up with. Ideally, you want a profit margin of at least 40% after shipping costs, seller fees and taxes, but you should be aiming for margins of 100% or more.
PRO TIP: You can use this online calculator to determine the profitability of products you are thinking of selling. It deducts Amazon fees from the retail price and estimates how many items are being sold each month, which is an indicator of demand.
Dropshipping Products that Work Well on Amazon and eBay
While it’s possible to dropship everything from toothpicks to the kitchen sink, some products are more suitable for dropshipping than others. Finding trending products and testing them is also key. "It's very easy to find trending products, what’s not easy is seeing the potential in the product during the initial test," explains Molendijk. "Most people starting in the business have limited money, so they tend to get scared and drop a product before it has it's time to show what it's capable of."
The perfect dropshipping product is generally:
Not dominated by major brands: What’s the first company that comes to mind when you think of the word ‘smartphone’? Apple, probably. Or Samsung? These major brands have the smartphone market on lockdown and it’s going to be tough for any business to compete for a slice of that pie. A good dropshipping product isn’t dominated by a major brand so that you can have a greater chance of capturing a chunk of the market.
Small and lightweight: The general rule is that a good dropshipping product should be able to fit inside a shoebox and weigh less than 2kg (4.4lb), the weight limit for ePacket. This is to save you paying extra for shipping.
Non-seasonal: Ideally, when you’re starting out you want to avoid products that are only in demand for one season a year. For example, selling something you’d only use at the beach during summer, or Christmas decorations really limits your selling power during the off-season. Choose dropshipping products that are in demand all year round.
Retails for between $15 and $200: This price range is known as the eCommerce “sweet spot”. Anything cheaper than $15 and you’re not going to be making much of a profit margin and anything over $200 is going to be difficult to sell en masse. While there are plenty of exceptions to this rule, following it will make your dropshipping journey easier to begin with.
Brainstorm Business Ideas
Now that you know the criteria for a good dropshipping niche, you can start narrowing down product ideas for your eCommerce business.
You should aim to brainstorm at least 10-20 product ideas and then use the guidelines above to either qualify or eliminate them from your list.
Once you’re done with that process, you might only have a few product ideas that are considered viable. If you have none, then you’ll need to start the process again.
If you have at least one solid product idea at this stage, you’re ready to progress to the next level.
Use SaleHoo Labs for Market Research
SaleHoo Labs is a powerful market research tool for dropshippers and eCommerce store owners. It provides you with valuable information on tens of thousands of products across 25 categories, such as:
How much competition there is for each product, based on how many people are selling it on Amazon and eBay
The average retail price each product is selling for online
The sell-rate of each product
A list of trusted suppliers of the product that you can contact immediately
It can help to give you product ideas and save you hours of time that it takes to conduct market research manually.
How to Outsmart and Outsell the Competition
If you want to set yourself apart from the thousands of others who are thinking of starting a dropshipping business in 2022, you need to have a few tricks up your sleeve.
You need to find a way to be better and smarter than your competition so that you operate more efficiently and make more sales than they do.
How do you do this? The same way that champion sports teams, like the Philadelphia Eagles or the Golden State Warriors, prepare each week - by studying the competition.
Identify the competition: Start by finding the top sellers in your niche on Amazon and eBay. Also take note of how many sellers are in the niche.
Analyse their product listings: How do they set up their product listings? What are their photos like? What kind of sales copy do they use? Find ways to make yours better. You might identify unique selling points you can use or other improvements that will make your product listings more attractive for prospective customers.
Read customer reviews: Take some time to scroll through the customer reviews for a few of the top sellers in your niche. Take note of what customers liked and what they complained about so you can refine your approach to customer service.
When you’re starting a dropshipping business you should absorb as much information as possible from as many sources as possible. Product listings and reviews of top sellers in your niche are perfect places to look for ideas to improve on what your competition is doing.
Summary
The first step to starting a dropshipping business is about choosing a niche. To re-cap:
Choose a product/niche that’s easy to dropship
Make sure there’s sufficient demand for your product/s
Research your competition to give yourself an advantage
Bonus:
For more information on deciding what to sell online, check out this guide
Step 2: Finding a Dropship Supplier
For many aspiring eCommerce entrepreneurs, finding a reliable supplier is the hardest part of starting a dropshipping business.
You rely on suppliers to keep your product in stock, to uphold product quality, and to ensure orders are shipped to your customers in a timely manner. As a dropshipper, your supplier is your most important business partner.
What to Look for in a Dropship Supplier
A good dropship supplier should:
Actually be a dropshipper: Not all product suppliers offer dropshipping as a service. Some are simply wholesalers or manufacturers. Before you make contact, make sure the supplier is a dropshipper.
Have experience (+ helpful staff): You want a supplier that has years of experience with dropshipping. Suppliers take on a lot of responsibility with dropshipping so you want to be sure that you can count on them at all times. A good sign is if the sales rep you’re in contact with seems helpful and well-informed. If you suspect they’re not experienced, go elsewhere.
Not charge huge order fees: It’s quite normal for dropship suppliers to charge a small fee for their services. After all, they’re holding onto stock and organizing packaging and shipping for you. These fees should only a few dollars ($2 to $5 usually). If a supplier charges you more than that, you should let them go.
Provide fast shipping: Most dropship suppliers are located in China so you can’t expect overnight shipping. However, you do want to make sure your customers will get their items as fast as possible. Check their shipping times to the countries you service. One-two weeks is acceptable for dropshipping. Any longer than that could result in negative customer feedback.
Have quality products (+ product photos): You should always request product samples to test quality prior to committing to a supplier. The supplier should ideally have high quality images that you can use in your product listings.
Provide referrals on request: A good supplier should willingly connect you with businesses that can verify their service. Ideally, you want word-of-mouth referrals, but failing that you might be able to make your mind up based on customer reviews online (although be aware that online reviews can be manipulated).
Have a suitable return policy: Make sure they aren’t charging unnecessary fees and your timeframe for returns matches that of your supplier.
Where to Find Reliable Suppliers
There are essentially two ways to find good dropship suppliers. You can either search online manually or use a wholesale directory like SaleHoo.
Searching for suppliers online: You can simply type your product plus “supplier” into Google and see what comes up. Or you can search for your product on websites like Alibaba or AliExpress. A lot of China-based suppliers use these websites to sell their wares.
Using a wholesale directory: This can save you a lot of time and help you avoid eCommerce fraud. SaleHoo has more than 8000 suppliers that have been vetted and verified. You can contact them in just a couple of clicks and have confidence in their ability to provide good service.
Bonus:
Step 3: Get a Sales Tax ID
If you’re setting up your business in the United States or Canada then you most likely need a sales tax ID (also known as retail or reseller’s license, tax ID, resale number, resale certificate or vendor's license).
Sales tax is a tax levied on all sales of physical goods to consumers and is typically about 6-9% of the sale price. Most states require you to have a tax ID, but there are exceptions, including Alaska Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, and Oregon.
It’s standard for businesses to pass this expense on to consumers by adding it to the retail price.
Applying for a tax ID is easy and inexpensive. You can do it by visiting your local county clerk’s office or online – just Google “[your state] + sales tax ID”.
To get a sales tax ID, you may need to be a business entity, a company, or a sole proprietor (which applies to a lot of at-home online businesses), and have a Federal Tax ID number.
While it's important you collect the exact amount of sales tax (otherwise you’ll be held liable for the difference), not all eBay sellers need a tax ID.
That said, some wholesale suppliers require you to have one before they will do business with you.
Related: What is an EIN number?
Step 4: Choosing a selling platform
So you’ve decided on a product and you’ve lined up a supplier - now you need a place to start selling and making money.
Choosing the right selling platform or online marketplace is crucial to the success of your business - but which platform is best for you?
You need to decide between selling on an established platform, or starting your own independent online store.
Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of the different selling platforms and online marketplaces.
The Most Popular Online Marketplaces
Most dropshippers use a well-established online marketplace like Amazon or eBay, especially when starting out. Why?
It’s easy to set up an account and start selling
They already attract huge amounts of traffic (potential customers)
Consumers trust these platforms
You can make significant money through them
However, there are some cons to be are of:
You will be charged fees for every sale you make
You have limited control (branding, customer service, product photography etc)
You’re in direct competition with sellers on the same platform
Consumers have a huge amount of choice in one place
That said, here are a few of the most popular online marketplaces for dropshipping businesses.
Amazon: The most well-known of the online marketplaces, Amazon is said to have 300 million active users. In 2016, more than 100,000 sellers made more than $100,000 on Amazon. Amazon offers additional services such as fulfillment by Amazon and Amazon Prime. Fees vary a lot, but it’s estimated that most sellers will pay about 15% of their sale price to Amazon. It’s a popular option for dropshippers and there's a heap of benefits of Amazon free shipping for dropshippers.
eBay: eBay is said to have 171 million active users with about 1 billion products listed across 190 different markets. eBay charges listing fees (but offers a limited number of free listings) and sale fees, which are generally less than 10%. eBay has an auction option and also operates as a standard online retail platform. There are plenty of tips on how to find success on eBay out there.
Etsy: Etsy is said to have 54 million members, about 2 million active sellers, and about 32 million active buyers. It’s extremely popular with women (84% of sellers are female). Etsy has established itself as a more trendy online marketplace with a focus on arts, crafts, and handmade goods. As well as home decoration dropshipping stores. Plus, it’s easier than ever to dropship on Etsy.
Walmart: This superstore now has its own online marketplace, which could be a great option for dropshippers. Alongside offering the traditional dropshipping model for listing items to be dropshipped, it also supports different dropshipping business models, such as dropshipping Walmart items on other marketplaces. As a newer option, you may be able to beat some of the competition already present on Amazon and eBay by selling on this marketplace.
Shopify: This is a well-known online store platform which is experiencing huge growth. It was reported to have 1,749,000 merchants using it in 2020. On this platform it is easy to build your own custom store and integrate it with a whole bunch of useful third party apps to improve all kinds of operations from email marketing to subscription billing.
WooCommerce: WooCommerce is a free plugin made by widely used website builder, WordPress, which allows you to change a website into an online selling platform. It has been downloaded over 13 million times. This platform allows you to create a highly customized online storefront with lots of capability that is on par with Shopify.
Wix: Wix is another website builder with eCommerce capabilities. Even though it has a smaller market share than the giants Shopify and WooCommerce, its highly customizable site builder and multitude of third party app integrations makes it a great option for dropshippers to consider. It also tends to be the cheapest option, with regular discounts on premium subscriptions.
Facebook Marketplace: Facebook Marketplace is humungous; the CEO, Mark Zuckerburg, reports that more than 250 million people are interacting with Facebook storefronts each month. For this reason alone, it’s well worth building a Facebook business page and selling on this platform.
As you can see, each platform has its pros and cons. "There is no right or wrong answer for this, I can only give my personal recommendation and why," says Molendijk. "I personally recommend using Shopify, for one major reason. There are so many tutorials, blogs and information available in relation to Shopify. So it will make understanding the platform and utilizing it much easier, than with other platforms where it's hard to get answers to your questions." Dropshipping on Shopify is also a popular choice if you are looking to build your own brand and grow a strong brand presence.
Bonus:
Creating Your Own Online Store
A lot of dropshippers take the route of starting their own online store. While it requires more investment up front, this is really the ultimate long-term option for making money and building a business online. There are plenty of online tools that make it really easy to get started.
PROS
You have complete control over branding, design, layout etc.
You’re building a business independent of a third-party platform
No fees and higher profit margins
No direct competition from other sellers on the same platform
CONS
It costs money to set-up and design your own store (web hosting etc)
You miss out on the guaranteed traffic (customers) from established platforms
It takes time to rank on Google and you’ll have to invest in SEO and digital marketing
If you have the time and money to invest in your dropshipping business and you’re planning to be in it for the long haul, then starting your own store is a good option, especially with established platforms becoming more and more saturated every year.
Bonus: How to create your online store
Step 1: Choose an eCommerce platform - You’ll want to think about the cost of the platform, how many products you are selling, the design, features and payment options to name a few things. A couple of great options include Shopify, BigCommerce, Squarespace and WooCommerce.
Step 2: Set up your store- This includes the design, adding products to your store, setting up payment methods, adding policies, checkout, and shipping settings as well as buying a domain and opening your store for business!
Step 3: Get people to your store- There are many ways you can do this but a few of the most popular include using social media ads, Google Adwords, SEO and influencer marketing.
Types of Dropshipping
Print on Demand: You design graphics to be printed on products such as t-shirts and mugs and then find a supplier who will produce and print your designs to dropship them to customers on your behalf. This is a great option if you don’t want to carry stock or invest a lot of money on inventory upfront.
Private Labeling: You find suppliers who will brand their products with your own logo and then dropship them. The big upside here is that you can sell products that are unique to your own brand.
Reverse Dropshipping: This is an emerging form of dropshipping where dropshippers sell high quality products made in countries that usually import, to countries that usually export. An example of this could be to find a high quality niche product that a US supplier produces and then selling it to the Chinese market.
Product Reselling: This may be the most common type of dropshipping. This is where you find existing products to list and sell for a profit, but the supplier fulfills the order on your behalf so you never have to have the product on hand.
Step 5: Implementing a Customer Acquisition Strategy
Now that you have a selling platform for your dropshipping business, you need to attract customers to your store. This is where a customer acquisition strategy comes in.
Customer acquisition is the art of persuasion. You can think of it as advertising and marketing. Sounds expensive, right? But it doesn’t have to be. You can take the fast (paid) path or the slow (free) path to gaining new customers. Let’s take a look at both strategies in more depth.
Fast Results (paid)
Facebook Ads for Dropshipping
Facebook is the world’s largest social media platform. It’s a great place to advertise your products as you can tap into a huge audience. This is how Facebook makes its money, so every customer you acquire through this method comes at a cost. Facebook ads are a good option for the following reasons:
It’s easy to get started
You control how much you spend each day
You can target highly-specific demographics (location, interests, relationship status etc)
It can yield fast results
It helps to increase brand awareness
A good ad or boosted post can go viral
Google Ads for eCommerce
Google is the world’s most popular search engine by far. If you have an online store, you want it to rank on the first page of Google. You can achieve this organically, or you can buy ads for your store to appear at the top of the page for the keywords you want to rank for. Google ads are a good option for the following reasons:
You can achieve great exposure in search results
It’s the largest advertising platform in the world (Google search, Youtube, Gmail)
You can target highly-specific demographics (location, language, device etc)
Maximise exposure to your ads with high volume keywords related to your niche
Social Media Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing has become a huge part of customer acquisition for retail brands in recent years. It could play an important part of any customer acquisition strategy in 2022. It can be particularly effective if you are in a trendy niche. For instance, if you’re selling a new style of handbag, you could reach out to an Instagram model and ask if she will share a post of her with the bag, tagging your business. One post can result in a bunch of new fans and customers. The cost of influencer marketing depends on how famous the influencer is. A post from Kim Kardashian might cost $250,000, while a post from a model with 10,000 followers might only cost a few hundred dollars.
Slow Results (free)
Blog or Forum Marketing
This involves finding blogs or forums that are related to your product/niche and actively participating in discussions. By positioning yourself as an authority in your niche and including a link to your website, you can increase traffic and acquire new customers.
Content Marketing
This most commonly takes the form of a blog on your store website, a Youtube channel, trendy Instagram posts, or witty posts on Twitter. Content marketing is meant to involve the creation of valuable content that helps to build an audience that you can then convert into customers. It’s not as explicit as advertising and should always be more about serving your audience than your brand.
Lots of successful eCommerce stores have a blog section on their website. If you’re looking for an example take a peek at Good As Gold. They are an online clothing store from New Zealand. Their simple and effective blog section highlights specific products, updates and announcements.
Social Media Marketing
It’s getting harder and harder to achieve organic reach on social media, but it is still possible. Some channels to think about are Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. It’s almost a given these days that businesses and organizations are on at least one of these platforms. Pick one and be consistent and eventually, you’ll build a following, which you can then convert into customers.
Email Marketing
Building an email list is still one of the most effective ways of acquiring customers. You need a way of capturing email addresses, such as a request to sign-up at checkout, or an offer or competition that requires an email address. Once you have a decent list of email addresses you have a way of reaching a large group of people regularly, for free.
Step 6: Scaling you Dropshipping Business
Once you’ve got your dropshipping store up and running and have implemented some of the strategies covered in Step 5, you’ll hopefully be starting to see some sales come in. As you begin to grow, you might want to think about some of the future-proof processes you can set-up in order to make your job as owner less stressful and prepare for an increasing order load and more customers to satisfy.
Technology has come leaps and bounds in recent decades, and it has hugely improved the way businesses operate, by reducing manual work and heavy filing folders, to mention just a few. For many business owners who are dropshipping as a side hustle, and even for those for whom it’s their full time gig, time can be your most precious resource.
You may wish to consider the following to help you save time and grow your business beyond the bounds of what you are capable of doing by yourself in finite time each week.
Dropshipping Automation
It can be daunting to be in charge of marketing, customer service, accounting and more in your business. Luckily there are some ways to make many of their related processes easier, and that is through dropshipping automation.
Automation can help you with processes such as product importing, pricing, order fulfillment, order tracking, promotions, email campaigns, gathering customer feedback, posting on social media and generating reports on customer activity. Its biggest benefit may be that it gives you more time flexibility. Instead of being a slave to time sensitive tasks that need continual monitoring, such as posting on social media each day, or responding to customer enquires as they come in, automation can help take some of the load off you and allow you to set up the automatic execution of these kinds of tasks ahead of time.
You can be pretty sure that successful dropshippers are using some form of automation to give them more time to focus on ‘high value’ activities, such as strategy, new product releases and building brand awareness.
Dropshipping Tools
After you’ve got your store up and running, you may see the value in using a tool designed to help dropshippers like yourself, which enables you to easily find quality products and suppliers, import products into your store and fulfil them without huge effort on your part.
Having a tool that streamlines these kinds of processes is a surefire way to cut down on the time, and likely, any stress you may face when trying to source new products to grow your store, or to manage higher order counts.
One such tool is SaleHoo Dropship, which supports the processes mentioned above with the key aim of making your job as a dropshipper easier. They list over a million products from vetted suppliers, up to 500 of which can be imported into your own online store. They also have a dedicated team who is here to help you on your dropshipping journey. They can provide advice, source products that may not yet be listed on the platform, and suggest useful resources to help you scale your store.
Outsourcing Work
Another welcomed child of the internet is the possibility for many new forms of working. You may be after an extra helping hand for a number of tasks but not necessarily an employed team member who you are contractually obligated to pay for set hours each week. You need more flexibility.
That’s where freelancing platforms such as Upwork and Fivver come in. Just a few clicks away are a plethora of skilled workers who can complete a whole range of eCommerce tasks to meet your budget and requirements.
You can hire these freelancers on an ad hoc basis to perform specific tasks as you need them done. For example, writing may not be your strongest point as a business owner, but you know how important creating written content can be for bringing traffic to your store and gaining conversions. You may want an SEO-friendly post writer to write an article for your blog, or a copywriter to edit your product descriptions for ultimate impact.
Having freelancers readily available can really help you scale your business beyond what your individual capabilities and limited time may allow.
Facebook Ads Automation
There are several services out there that offer Facebook Ads automation tools to help you eliminate manual tasks and harness data to make better advertising decisions.
Facebook: Has its own automated ads capabilities which can make recommendations based on your business goals and how your previous ads have performed in the past. With a huge amount of ad data available to it, Facebook can make insightful suggestions and take the guesswork out of Facebook marketing.
Smartly: This is software which allows you to highly customize your ad sets for specific audiences. It can generate thousands of different ad sets and monitor how well each performs comparatively so that you can understand what type of visuals and information on your ads are leading to the most conversions.
Bidalgo: Bidalgo is similar to Smartly and provides data driven insights to help you make better marketing decisions. It streamlines your ads analytics in a user-friendly way so that it is easy to compare the performance of ads and which ones might need to be snipped or edited.
Hootsuite: Is an integrated platform which automates and monitors a range of marketing processes across multiple social media accounts.
There are many other similar services available, so it’s best to do some research and find out which one might be the most useful for your needs.
FAQs: Dropshipping for Beginners
How much does it cost to start a dropshipping business? How much can you make dropshipping? What are the benefits of starting a dropshipping business? Is dropshipping profitable? What skills do you need to get started in dropshipping? Where can I find dropship suppliers? Do I need to register as a business entity in order to start a dropshipping business?
Conclusion
Huzzah! We’ve reached the end and, by now, you should be well on your way to starting an eCommerce dropshipping business from scratch.
The work is far from over, though. Now you have to successfully run your business.
But don’t worry! As long as you follow these next few tips, you’ll have a successful eCommerce drop shipping business for years to come.
Continue to update your website. Work on your SEO and create high-quality content to bring in traffic.
Maintain your relationship with your supplier. Keep tabs on the products you’re offering and, when you’re ready, look into adding more (Hint: You can use SaleHoo’s market research lab to find hot new products- make sure to watch the tutorial to see how handy and easy it is to use!)
Keep up with your customer service. Answer emails and questions, and update your FAQ page (if you have one)
Stay on top of your social media. Refine your ads, run contests, and promote like crazy.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this article on how to start a dropshipping business. Did this inspire you to create one? Leave a comment down below. And don’t forget to share this article with your entrepreneurial friends.
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