Dropshipping is a business model where an entrepreneur sells goods from a supplier's warehouse. His income comes from a mark-up he adds to the purchase price. There is no need to buy goods and store them in a warehouse. In the early stages, while the business is not yet scaled up, it is possible to handle all the processes without hiring help.
Role of a dropshipper:
Create and promote an online marketplace to generate sales;
Design and update product cards;
Promoting the site and attracting customers.
Role of the supplier:
Manufacture or purchase goods;
Store, package and ship the goods;
Delivering orders.
Much has been written about dropshipping. We have given a brief characterisation of this business model. Today we want to focus on the useful advice provided by the experts at Step Link.
Choosing a product niche
Before you start your dropshipping journey, you need to choose a niche to work in. It is a well-known fact that women spend more money on purchases both in offline stores and on e-commerce sites. Segments related to the female audience can be profitable. For example, categories such as "beauty and health", "fitness", "jewellery", etc.
The most important thing is to choose a niche where the customer will come back and buy again. A one-off sale to a customer does not pay for the cost of attracting them. It is much more profitable if the same person makes several purchases from your shop. In this way, the cost of acquisition is reduced many times over.
Quality of goods
The quality of goods is an important factor in determining whether customers will return to your store. Obviously, if you sell low or medium-priced goods, their quality will not be the same as similar high-priced goods. However, your products should be reliable and not break down after a few days.
To get quality products, you need to work with reliable suppliers. Finding such a partner can be time consuming. But with the Step Link dropshipping platform you can do it much faster. We have hundreds of verified suppliers in our database.
Branded website
Your shop's website needs to stand out from the competition. With so many online shops, this is not easy, but it can be done. Creating a website is one of the biggest costs of starting a business. Do not believe those who say that starting a dropshipping business requires no investment. You will need to spend money just to create a unique website. However, it will set you apart from the thousands of sites that have been created using templates. It is important that the design of the site is of high quality, as this will have a significant impact on the conversion rate of the site.
However, simply creating a site is not enough. It is necessary to work on its SEO promotion. It is imperative that your site is presented in the search engine. For example, a person saw an advertisement for a product on social networks and wanted to check information about the product or the company that sells it. They type the name into Google, but find nothing. Your potential customer will decide that such an online shop is not trustworthy, because there are so many scammers on the internet nowadays.
Customer base
Gather information about your customers, create communities in social networks, create newsletters in email and messengers. All this is necessary to communicate with your customers and inform them about your promotions, new products, exclusive offers, etc.
Quality creative
The most important part of product promotion is grabbing the attention of potential customers. For example, if your video creative doesn't grab a social media user's attention in the first three seconds, they will scroll through their feed and watch other videos. It is therefore very important to work on the quality of your creative.
Feedback
Visitors to your site should be able to easily find ways to contact you and quickly get answers to questions. You can do this by using an online chat widget on your website. A person writes a message, you get a notification on your phone, and you respond immediately. For example, a customer might want information about delivery and payment terms. If you don't have a feedback loop with the customer, you will simply lose them. A person should be able to get support on your website before they buy, during the order process and after they receive the goods.