As an entrepreneur looking to venture into the business of selling online but having little or no capital, dropshipping might be your best option.
Dropshipping is relatively easy. All you need to do is list some items on your preferred social media platform, then wait for an interested customer to place an order. Once the buyer makes the payment, you place the order on a supplier’s website and send it to your customer.
As easy as this may sound, it would require some effort to make it work. Thankfully, Shopify makes running a dropshipping business seamlessly.
What is Shopify Dropshipping?
Shopify is one of the leading e-commerce platforms that make dropshipping easy for dropshippers. With Shopify, you get access to tons of vendors that sell almost anything you can imagine. The good part is that these vendors take care of packaging and shipping the products to specific locations without any upfront payment. Thus, you do not need to keep an inventory.
You will find lots of dropshipping apps on the Shopify app store. These apps make it easy to connect with vendors and suppliers you can source products from.
The best part is that setting up a store on Shopify is easy. On top of that, Shopify comes with many tools such as templates, images, free domain names, and so on. All these benefits for just a token of $29/month. What more could you ask for!
Some useful Shopify Dropshipping Apps
There are several dropshipping apps at your disposal. Some of them are niche-specific, whereas others are not.
Here are some of the apps that you should look out for.
- Modalyst: This Shopify dropshipping app makes it easy to source products from popular brands such as Calvin Klein, Dolce & Gabanna, Puma, Diesel, e.t.c. for a competitive price. A large proportion of the suppliers on Modalyst are in Europe and US.
- Printful: The printful dropshipping app is a go-to app for entrepreneurs who wish to design their products. It is a print-on-demand app. All you need to do is create your designs for your products, then send them over to your vendor to fulfill.
- Beardsy: Beardsy is a Shopify dropshipping app that focuses on hair care and beard products. So if your business is all about beard and hair care, you’ve got yourself the right apps.
- Spocket: Spocket connects entrepreneurs to vendors from different continents including Africa. This means you have more options to choose from. With Spocket, you get the opportunity to buy items at discounted rates and sell with higher profits.
- Syncee: Syncee is a global B2B dropshipping platform designed to help retailers find the best products to sell in their online store from reliable US/CA/EU/UK/AU suppliers and more.
10 Tips and Strategy for Successful Shopify Dropshipping
Now that you have an idea of what Shopify dropshipping is about and some useful apps, it is time to find out how to get a better result. Before you scroll further, remember that the real success comes when you start the process and stay on it.
1. Choose a Profitable Niche
Choosing a profitable niche is one of the most vital parts of dropshipping. You need to be known for something and not everything. Emphasis on profitability. Every business owner aims to make a profit.
So while you’re trying to decide what niches to go for, you should consider how profitable it is.
You may be wondering how to tell if your niche is profitable.
It is simple. Ask yourself the following questions. The answer will help you make a clear-cut decision.
- Retail price of the product
- The wholesale price of the product
- Vendors price
- Estimated profit
- Is the product in high demand
- Who is my target audience?
- Their average income
- Where does my target audience live?
- Cost of delivery
It is better to choose your niche based on things that interest you. For instance, if you are all about skincare, hair care, fitness, food, or fashion. Find out the profitable niches within any of these sectors and choose one.
2. Have a Long-Term Goal
Setting up a successful dropshipping business does not come easy. You need to have a clear vision and be willing to put in your all. It may require you to sacrifice your time, energy, and money to break even.
No successful business became what it is overnight. Give your business a reasonable amount of time before expecting real income. It can take a year or more to grow substantially. Just give it time but do not give in to doubt and challenges that may arise.
3. Add Valuable Products to Your Store
The quality of the product you sell will determine how far your business will go.
These products should be in high demand by your target audience, made of high standard materials, and affordable. Quality is of the essence and must not be compromised.
If you are not sure about the preferences of your target audience, there are different online tools to help you figure it out. Google Trends, Keyword Research tools, and even social media can help.
4. Use High-Quality Videos and Images
Images and videos can influence your customers’ decisions either in your favor or otherwise. You need to convince your store visitors to make that purchase at first glance. Or at least consider it.
The quality and the message it portrays can set you up for a win.
The image above depicts a high-quality shot. The text on the mug can sway a potential customer to whip out their card and swipe it right away.
You can design your image. But if you can’t, Shopify experts have got you covered. Great pictures play a vital role in the success of your online business.
When images can’t convey all that needs to be said, videos can do the trick. Create and share videos where you talk about the product, how to use it, and its benefits. Studies have shown that video content is an irreplaceable marketing strategy.
A great deal of people has admitted to buying products after watching videos about the products.
Businesses that incorporate video content as a part of their marketing have recorded higher sales than others. Thus, it is safe to say that thousands of online businesses have adopted this tool.
5. Add Several Payment Options
Diversity is the beauty of business. Having multiple payment options places you ahead of your competitors. Your customers or potential buyers can pay for your products with any suitable method.
Different countries and regions have varying methods of payment. The last thing you want to hear from a customer is that they can’t pay for your product due to limited payment options.
The more payment option you have, the higher your chances of getting buyers from anywhere in the world. It can influence the success of your Shopify dropshipping business by a high margin.
6. Use the Scarcity and Urgency Strategy
These are strategies that can help you to record more sales. Within a limited period. How do they work?
For scarcity, while promoting your product, you inform your audience that the products are in limited quantity. So if they like the items, they need to pay for them as fast as possible before they are sold out.
It goes something like this: Beautiful velvet dress available at $45, only 5 pieces left.
While urgency means your customers can buy an item at a certain price within a time frame. For instance, “Buy this Men Chelsea Boot for $126 instead of $180. Offer ends in 48 hours.” That is a 30% discount for 2 days.
These two marketing strategies have proven themselves time and again. Even people who had no intentions to buy anything find themselves dipping their hands into their pockets.
7. Offer discounts to buyers
We just talked about the scarcity and urgency marketing strategy and how they boost sales. People love to get more value for their money. As a dropshipper, you should devise ways to poach your customers from other vendors.
Giving them discounts can do the trick. Connect with Shopify vendors that sell products at a lower rate. This way you could give your customers discounts while making some profit.
8. Offer free delivery
People who are on a tight budget would rather shop at the store nearby than pay extra for delivery. Even folks with loads of money to spare won’t mind free shipping either. By offering free delivery, your dropshipping business can stand a chance to get more customers.
Although this tip can be a little tricky, your aim as a dropshipper is to make a profit while satisfying your customers. The best way to achieve this is to divide the shipping cost between yourself and the buyer.
You increase the product price to a reasonable amount and then use the markup to settle shipping. You don’t have to do this forever. Just long enough to grow your Shopify dropshipping business.
Dealing with vendors that sell quality items at a lower rate makes it even better.
9. Promote Your Store
You need to make sales to make a profit. Therefore people need to know about your store before they can buy from you. How do you inform the public about the existence of your Shopify online store? By marketing it aggressively!.
When you launch a new website, it would take a while to pop up on search engines, Google being the largest. You need to market your website in every possible way to get it running.
Below are different ways to go about marketing your Shopify online store.
- Share Blog and video content. Create and share blog posts about your dropshipping business and store. Shopify has a built-in blog feature at your disposal.
- Social media marketing. Take advantage of your social media platforms to promote your dropshipping business. Social media marketing is one strategy you can’t afford to sideline. Advertise your business on your Instagram, Whatsapp, telegram, or TikTok account. Don’t worry about the number of followers you have at the start. More followers and customers will come around as you keep promoting your business.
- Email marketing. Email marketing is not the most common way to market a dropshipping business. But it also yields results. Compile an email list of potential customers and write to them often.
- Facebook and Google ads. We saved the best for the last. Facebook and Google are the biggest platforms for all kinds of marketing. They have a handful of useful tools that makes marketing easy. However, they would cost you something.
10. Add Reviews
Reviews give relevance to every online business. I would argue that a high percentage of online buyers take reviews seriously. More often than not, I patronize online stores with more positive reviews.
source: Slack
New visitors would like to know that you have existing customers and you are reliable. Add positive reviews to your Shopify dropshipping store and watch your business grow.
Conclusion
Dropshipping is an excellent business idea with a lot of opportunities. To succeed at it, you need the right strategy and the right set of tools. And one of such tools is Adoric.
Adoric makes it easy to convert your website visitors into paying customers and subscribers. The more customers you get, the more sales you’d make.
Why not sign up for an Adoric account right away?
