First, we’ll tell you what dropshipping is. Later, we will teach you how to do dropshipping.
If we define dropshipping as what it is, Dropshipping is briefly a business model where you can sell products without having physical products. In other words, when a product is purchased, the product supplier will send the product directly to the customer.
So how will you make a profit? Of course, by raising your prices. This means that you have to set a price higher than the supplier’s price.
In short, the working mechanism of dropshipping is like this:
- The customer buys the product from the retailer
- Retailer orders the product from the supplier
- The supplier sends the product to the customer
Despite its popularity, the dropshipping business has its advantages and disadvantages that you should consider. Here are some things you should know before entering the dropshipping world.
Advantages
In this list, we’ll show you some of the factors that make dropshipping attractive:
- It’s easy to get started – it’s easier to get started than other business models that force you to follow some complicated procedures and only have certain resources. The online dropshipping business requires only a laptop and a stable internet connection.
- Low risk – the only fee you need to think about is the price of the product you are going to offer to the customer.
- Low fixed costs – you don’t have to worry about warehouse expenses or the salaries of staff who will take care of your warehouse. Your fixed cost will be much less than you think.
- Assortment – as a dropshipping operator you can sell products from multiple suppliers. This means you can be creative with the products you want to present to your customers.
- Convenience – because you do your work on a laptop, you can work from anywhere.
Disadvantages
While this business model sounds promising, there are some things you should be prepared for before entering the dropshipping business:
- High competition – there are many people doing the dropshipping business, so you need to work hard to stand out.
- Low profit margin – since you’re competing with many sellers, there will most likely be price wars. This means that you need to set your prices as low as possible to make your bids more attractive. However, you can avoid this if you find a niche product that is low competition.
- Supplier issues – if you choose a bad supplier you may be doomed to fail right from the start. A bad supplier can reduce the credibility of your brand with product delivery errors, poor packaging, and long response times. However, there is not much you can do about it.
- Difficult to manage inventory – you need to constantly check your supplier’s stock status and constantly update stocks in your own store.
- Customer service – you are the only person directly connected to the customer. If there is any problem, you should listen to the complaints calmly.
HOW TO DROPSHIP?
You now know what dropshipping is. Now we’ll teach you how to do dropshipping.
We’ll teach you everything from product ideas to how to market your dropshipping store. Here are the steps for dropshipping:
1. Generate a Dropshipping Business Idea
Before entering the market, you need to know what you want to sell. Because it would be a bad idea to sell random products without researching yourself.
First, determine who you will serve. Find out what their problem is and choose a product that will fix them. Thus, your products will be seen as valuable by your customers.
First of all, your product must be valuable to both the buyer and the seller. So you need to find out if the product you want to sell is profitable and whether this industry is promising.
With Google Trends, you can see if the products you choose are in trend.
If you are unsure about choosing a particular niche, the next step is to find the right supplier.
Compare your supplier candidates in the categories of reliability, trade policies and the quality of the products they offer.
Make sure your supplier won’t be detrimental to your business in the long run. Moreover, you must convince the supplier that you will be a great partner. In other words, your partnership should be profitable for both parties.
Here are some questions to answer before choosing your product:
- How popular is your product niche?
- What types of suppliers do you want to work with?
- Which region will you sell products to?
Answering these questions will help you find the right product for your business.
2. Get a Domain Name
Finding your products is as important as knowing which product to sell.
That’s why you need to make sure your customers know where to go when you want to buy your products.
After all, every store needs an address. Similarly, an online business needs an address in the form of a domain name.
You should make your domain name as memorable and relevant to the customers you target. Because the address your customers will enter when they need your products is your domain name.
Perhaps you already have ideas for your domain name. What about these domain names available?
3.Set Up An Online Store
4. Decide on the Details
Adding products to your online store can be difficult. Because there are some things to consider:
Shipping Costs
You must determine the fixed-rate cargo that you will offer to your customers. Sometimes customers review shipping costs before purchasing a product. In the meantime, there are three fixed-rate cargo that you can choose:
- Product dependent rate – this rate will categorize the fee based on the size of the products. This means that small items will cost less shipping than large items.
- Real time rate – this option is more flexible. Because the fee will be based on the weight and destination of the product. Therefore, the shipping fee may vary between products.
- Fixed tariff shipping – fixed tariff is one of the easiest rates to apply. Because it applies a fixed price for all types of cargo.
Taxes
You should pay attention to the taxes. Buy your product you should check for is how much the tax rates in Turkey and you must set accordingly.
It would be best to consult a tax professional for this procedure.
Payment methods
The payment method will affect your customer’s shopping experience. The more comfortable it is, the happier your customers will be.
You can also take advantage of the popularity of a particular payment method to grab your customer’s attention. Moreover, you need to make sure that the payment method charges a low transaction fee.
5. Market Your Store
Basically, you have learned what is dropshipping and how to do dropshipping, but others won’t make much sense without implementing this stage. At this stage, you need to consider marketing your dropshipping business. You can use some digital marketing techniques so that everyone knows about your business.
Some of the digital marketing methods you can use for your online dropshipping store:
SEO
People are constantly searching the Internet. If you use search advertising, you will get a good advantage.
One of the most popular methods of search advertising is Search Engine Optimization – Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It is a good way to increase your website’s rankings on search engine results pages.
You need to do research to learn how search engines work to manage your website’s SEO performance.
If you use SEO well, you can increase the ranking of your website and become more popular.
Paid Ads (PPC)
Another method of positioning your website at the top of search engine results pages is Search Engine Marketing (SEM). This can be used as one of your digital marketing strategies.
You simply need to enter a keyword in your campaign after you get an ad slot in the search engine. The success of your bid depends on how relevant your keyword is to your ads and the value of your bid.
You can use Google Adwords to manage all of these.
Unlike SEO, this method is paid. As you can see from the name, you have to pay as much as the clicks on ads. The more clicks, the more you have to pay.
However, everyone can see your store in the advertising space you buy in your dropshipping online store.
Social media is another PPC option. You can get paid ads from Facebook or Instagram to target a specific region and direct them to your dropshipping business.
Email Marketing
With Email Marketing, you can prevent losing them by contacting your customers. At this point, you may be wondering how this method would work.
The first step in email marketing is an email list. You can do this by offering free products, discounts and other noteworthy offers.
Then you need to make an email marketing campaign. Newsletters, special offers, and triggered emails, etc. You can send things like. This strategy will help you build a close relationship with your customers.
Conclusion
Before entering the dropshipping business, you need to consider its advantages and disadvantages. However, if you work hard, we have no doubt that you will be successful.
In this article, we showed you how to do dropshipping and provided some necessary steps. What were these, let’s remember:
- Generate dropshipping business ideas
- Get a domain name
- Set up an online store
- Decide on the details
- Market your store
That’s it! Now that you know what dropshipping is and how to do it, you can get to work right away. Say what? Will you start right now? Don’t forget to share your thoughts and comments with us in the comments section below! Good luck with your dropshipping business!