Dropshipping For Beginners - The Ultimate Guide

Drop shipping is an exciting e-commerce model that allows you to keep your expenses low while maintaining complete control over your inventory. While the model may seem daunting at first, it’s actually pretty simple and straightforward once you break it down into its component parts. By the end of this guide, you’ll be ready to set out on your own as an entrepreneur and build your own dropshipping empire!

What is dropshipping?

Dropshipping is a business model where you can sell products for a profit without ever having to ship anything yourself. You’re basically acting as a middleman—when someone orders something from your online store, you forward them to one of your suppliers and they ship it directly to your customer.

Dropship suppliers

Before you can start your online store, you need to find some items to sell. You will be unable to ship most of these products directly from your website because they aren’t in your possession. This is where dropshipping suppliers come in. Dropship suppliers are companies that already have physical stock of products and make a portion of that stock available for people like us to buy and sell. Usually these companies will take care of shipping for us as well.

Picking a niche

When you’re building a dropshipping business, you’ll need to start by picking a niche. Once you have that down, it’s time to think about your target audience—the shoppers who are most likely to buy what you sell. What kind of jewelry do they like? Where do they shop? What will make them trust you enough to buy from your store instead of going straight to Amazon or eBay?

Narrowing in on niche marketplaces is a great place to start. It can also be helpful to figure out why people aren’t buying what you’re selling. Are these products overpriced for their value? Do customers need more information before deciding whether or not to purchase something? Maybe your photos aren’t good enough and don’t showcase the product well enough; maybe there isn’t sufficient social proof that would encourage buyers.

Starting your store

Opening a dropshipping store is no different than opening any other type of business—there are legal hoops to jump through, financial considerations, and plenty of other details to consider. However, there are also advantages that make it easier for beginners: for example, you don’t need a ton of startup capital, because you won’t be buying any inventory upfront; instead, your suppliers will ship orders directly to customers once they’re placed. You’ll still have overhead costs associated with setting up shop, but these costs tend to be smaller compared to starting a traditional e-commerce store. This can help ensure your new venture is more successful from day one—which means less time and money spent trying to get off the ground.

Choosing an eCommerce platform

There are several different e-commerce platforms, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Which platform you choose depends on your needs as a business owner, but if you’re looking for something that’s easy to use, integrates seamlessly with a wide range of third-party services, and won’t cost you an arm and a leg to maintain, Shopify is one of your best bets.

So long as you do your research, go into things with realistic expectations, and take advantage of helpful resources like our guide on getting started with dropshipping, then getting started in e-commerce should feel less daunting than ever before.