Category: Dropshipping

Stuck at what to choose between Spocket & Oberlo for your next dropshipping campaign? This article has got you covered.

While strating a dropshipping store is easy, making it profitable isn’t as there are many aspects that must be take care of:

• Brand Identity
• The product quality
• Store building & products creation
• Shipping timings
• Suppliers terms & conditions
• Marketing strategies
• Budgeting & Sourcing

& much more..

With this much amount of work to do, technology & tools have always helped us out to save our time & keep ahead.

Two such tools are Spocket & Oberlo, that help dropshipping entrepreneurs source & import quality products from the marketplaces to their store, whilst also managing other tasks like inventory management, order fulfillment, analytics, reporting etc.

Using these super cool marketplaces-cum-tool definitely helps you save time & become smart with your dropshipping campaigns.

But, amongst Spocket & Oberlo, which one to choose?

If you are unsure, continue reading this blog & choose for yourself as both of these tools have their own pros & cons.

Spocket vs Oberlo: A Quick Comparasion

Spocket & Oberlo: About the Tools, Features Overview & Pricing

About Spocket

Launched in 2017, Spocket is a platform that offers high-quality dropshipping products, whilst also enabling various dropshipping business operations such as products importing, orders fulfillment, sales management & much more.

Spocket can be integrated with popular store builders like Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Wix, Felex, Ecwid, Squarespace, Square, AliBaba, AliScraper & KMO Shops.

Spocket Features:

• Product Marketplace: Spocket is primarily a product marketplace that quality dropshipping product suppliers registered from all across the Globe – primarily from the US & EU.
• Wide Range of Product Catalog: Spocket has wide range of caterogies & huge number of products to choose from & the numbers are increasing by each passing day
• Store Integration: Spocket can be intergrated with Shopify, Wix, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Felex, Ecwid, Squarespace, Square, Alibaba, AliScraper & KMO Shopes
• Products Importing: You can easily import product from the Spocket marketplace to your store directly in a matter of few clicks
• Product Inventory is synced automatically
• Sales Analytics & Tracking
• Order Fulfilment
• Order Sampling: You can order samples from supplier for testing product & product photography.
• Global Shipping: Spocket deliver items globally.
• Branded Invoicing option available

Spocket Pricing

Spocket has 7 days of free trial but you can only view the catalog of products in this.

About Oberlo

Launched in 2017, Oberlo is one of the most popular yet free tool for dropshipping businesses to import products directly from AliExpress to their Shopify store.

Oberlo Features:

• Product Marketpalce: Unlike Spocket which has it’s own marketplace, Oberlo is connected with AliExpress.
• Store Integration: Oberlo only works with Shopify.
• Products Importing & Customization: You can import products from AliExpress to your Shopify store – and customize them.
• Product Inventory is synced automatically
• Orders Fulfillment & Tracking
• Sales Analytics & Tracking

Oberlo Pricing

Store Integration: Oberlo is only for Shopify while Spocket works with Major Platforms

Integrating/connecting your dropshipping store with a product sourcing marketplace is crucial because this allows you to streamline various tasks & save you time, such as:

• Product Importing
• Real-Time inventory tracking
• Orders Fulfillment

& more…

Not all stores are built with Shopify, and Oberlo integrates only with Shopify – therefore, Oberlo is not a solution for everyone.

On the other hand, Spocket integrates with several popular store building platforms like:

• Shopify
• AliScraper
• Wix
• Squarespace
• WooCommerce
• Ecwid
• BigCommerce
• Felex
• Alibaba
• Square
• KMO Shops

Spocket vs Oberlo: Which is Better in terms of Products Quality?

Products quality is vital for your dropshipping business. To be more scalable in your dropshipping business – you must sell quality products.

Nowadays, it is pointless to compromise with products quality as there are major downsides to it, just to mention a few:

• Selling poor quality products impacts consumer trust – which decreases customer retention rate & brand value
• You attract negative reviews to your online presence – that hurts your conversion rate
• People often return bad quality products – the impacts your revenue & you face some loss on each return order

With that being said, let’s understand how Spocket & Oberlo differs in terms of product quality:

Products Quality on Spocket

When using Spocket, one doesn’t need to worry about the products quality as the Spocket suppliers are vetted – Spocket carefully produce suppliers for their platform; And hence, the products quality on this platform is almost always better and not a concern for dropshippers.

Products Quality on Oberlo

Since Oberlo is connected with AliExpress – products quality might be an issue sometimes – or manytimes. When using Oberlo, you need to carefully pick a product based on products rating/reviews, supplier profile & other factors.

In short, product quality is not guaranteed when using Oberlo.

Shipping, Processing & Delivery Times: Does Spocket has Fast Delivery Times than Oberlo?

Delivery timings are crucial for your dropshipping business – very crucial. It’s worth noting that the shorter the delivery times – the better are the sales.

A poor delivery experience makes a consumer abandon your brand/services.

84% of customers will not return to a retailer after one poor delivery experience.

Convey

On the top of that, you should know that offering faster delivery times not only improve the conversion rate, but can also be a profitable option if you charge consumers for fast delivery – if they want – but you need to do it very strategically.

To stay in the long run with your dropshipping business, it is very important to focus on delivery good delivery experience to consumers.

Oberlo Delivery Timings

Since Oberlo is connected with AliExpress – the delivery timings are usually on a higher side & this really sucks. With Oberlo, you can expect a delivery in 7-10 business days or more.

There are chances that your consumers might experience a poor delivery service – when using Oberlo.

Spocket Delivery Timings

Spocket suppliers are very clear about the delivery timings & they often deliver the product within 2 to 5 days if your target audience is based in the US (or a country where the product supplier/manufacturer belongs to).

Spocket also has various delivery options to choose from – pay extra & get fast delivery.

Using Spocket also ensures that you’re providing consumers with an accurate estimation for product delivery – that too is very important –

Receiving an accurate ETA is important or very important to 83% of consumers

Localz

With that being said, Spocket is a better option to go for when considering the product delivery experience.

Categories & Product Catalog: Oberlo Wins Here

Oberlo wins the lead here because it is connected with one of the Worlds largest marketplace – AliExpress.

AliExpress is a hub for sourcing products at cheaper prices & it has tons of product categories to choose from.

Hence, you get more fliexibility with Oberlo when considering product catalog/categories.

On the other hand, Spocket is an independent marketplace – which is definitely not small – but doesn’t stand a chance when compared with Oberlo.

Hence, choosing Spocket may be a concern for dropshippers who are more focused on testing various different products across different categories.

Which is Better Spocket or Oberlo?

With both Spocket & Oberlo having their own pros & cons – you should be choosing a solution that better suit your needs.

Keep in mind that Oberlo works only with Shopify.

So if you are or want to use WooCommerce for Dropshipping, then Spocket will work for you.

If you ask me, I’d prefer Spocket over Oberlo because Spocket is focused on improving critical aspects of the dropshipping business, including:

• Improved quality of products
• Lowered Shipping times
• Hassle-free & clear return/refund policies
• Higher profit margins
• Easy store integration with major store building platforms, including Shopify
• Order sampling options
• Branded invoicing options

Some Frequently Asked Questions

Unlike other businesses, dropshipping is a fantastic way to build a business & generate $$$.

Why?

Because of many reasons, including the low barrier to get started & fewer capital requirements.

But exactly how much money is needed to start a dropshipping business?

The answer is subjective and it is recommended to have at least $500 – $1000 with you before jumping into it. Expect to burn & lose at least $500 before you see money pouring in.

After all, Money makes Money right.

Of course dropshipping can be done merely below $500 but in order to craft an effective strategy & sustainable business, you need at least $500 or more than that.

There are people or Gurus (to sell their course) who might say you don’t need much money to start a dropshipping business, you just need a little money and you are good to go. I am completely against this statement.

Starting with a low budget not only makes your strategy ineffective but also makes you more demotivated in the end – if your campaign doesn’t work out as expected.

This is because a stringent budget does not allow you to utilize dropshipping to the fullest & you end up thinking dropshipping is dead.

For example, with a low budget, you cannot test a product to the fullest, you cannot outsource the work to an FB ad expert to make the campaigns work out, you cannot order product samples to create advertisements & marketing assets (product photography, videography, etc)

Coming to the point, let us look at various aspects of dropshipping and how much money you’d need to get started with it:

Domain Name

To run a website, this is an obvious & upfront investment.

A domain name gonna cost you somewhere around $14. You can purchase it from any trusted domain name provider like Hostgator, Hostinger, or BlueHost.

eCommerce Platform for Store Building

This is another upfront investment like the domain name.

You need to decide on what eCommerce store building software you’d like to use to build your store.

Two of the popular options are 1) Shopify & 2) WooCommerce by WordPress.

I recommend starting with WooCommerce by WordPress & not Shopify as a beginner because WordPress not only teaches you a lot but also going to cost you less in the short as well as long run.

Let’s understand the costs associated with each of these eCommerce website builders:

1) Shopify

Shopify is an easy-to-use eCommerce store-building tool that allows you to create your store as well as host it – you don’t need to purchase hosting when using Shopify.

All you need to do is sign up with Shopify, connect your domain name & start building your store.

Shopify is extremely easy to use & it comes with everything that you need for eCommerce – extra features might cost you more with Shopify.

What’s good with using Shopify is that you don’t need to worry about the technical aspects of managing an online store – such as website hosting, security & more.

Costs Associated with Shopify

1) Shopify Subscription

To get started with Shopify, you can sign up for a 14-day Free trial wherein you can only set up your store.

In order to make your store public & start accepting orders, you need to subscribe to the Shopify premium.

As shown below, there are three main subscription plans to choose from on Shopify:

• Shopify Lite: $9 a month (You won’t get a hosting space with this plan & cannot use shop builder | In short, with this plan you need a website as well before selling)
• Basic Shopify: $29 a month
• Shopify: $79 a month
• Advanced Shopify: $299 a month

For drop shipping beginners, the Basic Shopify plan costing $29 a month would definitely suffice your needs.

2) Third-Party Apps

Some things cannot be achieved without adding extra features to your Shopify eCommerce stores.

Just like Plugins on WordPress adds extra features to the website/store, there are tons of Shopify apps you can use to add the extra features.

However, the cost of third-party apps on Shopify is something you should be concerned about – because they are costly as compared to plugins on WordPress.

You should be concerned about these costs because as you start building your store & learn more about eCommerce, you would come across several additional features that you might need to boost your dropshipping business sales.

These are features like:

• Countdown timer on the sales page to boost scarcity & create FOMO
• Cart Abandonment feature to get back potential customers
• Product review apps to display visually appealing reviews & ratings
• Upselling & Cross selling feature
• Adding Guest checkout feature

These features are going to cost you much more in Shopify when compared with WordPress.

Frankly speaking, the amount that you pay monthly on Shopify apps can alternatively be used on WordPress to hire a WordPress developer & get the features for a lifetime for free -because WordPress is open source 🙂

The same can be done with Shopify too, but Shopify developers are expensive and Shopify is closed-source – which means, you cannot customize Shopify to the fullest even if you hire developers.

3) Transaction Fees & Credit Card Processing Fees

When you use Shopify, they charge you some fees on credit cards & other transactions – if you don’t use Shopify Payments – which is Shopify owned payment gateway.

Below is the pricing table for transaction fees on Shopify:

4) Themes

With Shopify, you get 10 free themes only – if they are not fitting well with your design & UX expectations, you would need to spend somewhere between $150 – $300 for premium ones.

2) WooCommerce by WordPress

You might know WordPress is one of the most popular Content Management Systems / Website building tools to build websites of any kind. When it comes to building an eCommerce website using WordPress, you’d need to use the WooCommerce plugin – that adds eCommerce features & functionalities to your website.

If you ask me what path to choose, I’d recommend using WooCommerce since the costs are comparatively low & possibilities with WordPress are limitless – even if you’re not much technical.

Also, when you wish to do some customizations or when something goes wrong, Shopify developers are going to cost you much higher than WordPress developers.

Also, WordPress is a skill that you should have because it helps you understand how actually a Content Management System / Website building tool works.

On the other hand, Shopify is easy to use – with less learning curve.

Another reason to choose WordPress over Shopify is that features extensions on your eCommerce store can be done with Free plugins with WordPress – and Shopify apps are pretty much costly as compared.

The decision is up to you on what store-building software you wish to choose.

Costs Associated with WooCommerce by WordPress

1) WooCommrece is Free; You Need to Invest in Hosting

Using WooCommrece by WordPress requires a hosting space to run your eCommerce store, whereas, with Shopify, you do not need hosting because Shopify itself hosts your eCommerce store.

However, this investment shouldn’t be of concern because by purchasing a website hosting space, you can host more than one website; with Shopify, you can only host one.

A typical shared hosting would cost you around $12, while costs for dedicated hosting are on the higher side.

A few of the good hosting companies are Hostgator, Hostinger & BlueHost.

2) Plugins

Just like we have “apps” on Shopify for extended features – which are a must for any website to boost sales & conversions – WordPress has “plugins”

What’s good with WordPress is that most of the time, Free plugins are adequate for basic needs, however, sometimes, you might need to pay for plugins for advanced features extension to the store.

3) Themes

As compared to Shopify, there are tons of themes to choose from.

However again, if free themes do not meet your expectations – you might need to invest in a premium theme. One thing to note is that you can get a premium WordPress theme between $30 – $60, whereas, with Shopify, this scale amounts between $150 – $300.

Order Sampling

Dropshipping is an easy (but not so easy) business to start with. That’s because you won’t have to involve with product manufacturing.

You can literally start without having to touch the product – as you already know.

However, that should not mean you don’t need to engage with the product physically. When you’re serious about your dropshipping campaign, it is recommended to order a product for sample & test it – if it is worth selling & risking your money/efforts.

By ordering a product sample, you not only test the product quality but can also use the sample to generate awesome creatives/assets (images for ad creatives, product photographs, mockups, model shooting, videography, etc) for marketing, branding & advertising.

Product Photography / Mockups / Videography

Spending money at this part is completely optional – as this can also be done by yourself for free – better if you have product samples already.

To make your product page appealing & convertible, you need appealing product assets (product images, mockups, video) to display to users & use in ad creatives.

Creating those assets like product mockups requires designing skills & preferably, you should outsource & get it done by professionals – only If you have some money to invest in your dropshipping business.

However, If you’re low on budget, you can avoid spending on product mockups or videography & do it all on your own.

When choosing the free path – you might get some product images from the vendor, but those images are generally not so much appealing.

If you don’t have the product sample, & only have images provided by vendors, it would be hard to edit & enhance those images.

Ad Creatives & Copies

This is another investment you should keep in mind if you are not well versed in creating assets for advertisements. If you’re a complete beginner with running adverts, it is recommended to outsource the work to experienced professionals.

Don’t try to make it work when you don’t have the necessary experience.

Why?

Because creating assets (images, videos, title, short description) for advertisements differs a lot from creating assets for social media posting.

Of course, you can create advert assets on your own as you might have some designing skills, but, getting it done by a pro will bring you a much higher return on investment.

When creating assets for adverts, you should keep in mind what image, heading, video will perform better in terms of Click Thru Rates.

Whichever be the case, you should be aware that adverts with improved CTR perform better.

One recommendation is to test video ads in dropshipping because video ads are performing better

Advertising & Marketing – FB Ads, Video Ads, A/B Testing, Remarketing

This is another upfront dropshipping startup cost that you cannot avoid.

In order to bring in some sales, you need to pay to get traffic. Of course, you can get organic traffic as well – but the journey will be long, hard & probably you won’t sustain as a beginner.

There are several popular advertising channels like Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, YouTube Video Ads where you would have to burn money to get traffic.

Not only you’ll have to run a few campaigns, but to yield results – you need to work on ads optimization, A/B Testing, Remarketing & more – that definitely takes money to make it work.

As a beginner to start with, consider spending somewhere around $5 – $10 a day on a single ad campaign that you run – which accounts for $300 a month or more.

Product Sourcing & Fulfilment Software

Gone are the days when people used to manually search the marketplaces & source them to their dropshipping store one by one.

Now is the time of tools & automation.

There are now tools, services & software – that help you browse through popular & quality products (fetched from marketplaces) whilst enabling various dropshipping business operations such as product importing, orders syncing/fulfillment & much more.

Such software directly integrates with your eCommerce store so you could one-click import the products to your store – and you don’t have to do it manually.

One such software/service is the Spocket – which is a dropshipping tool cum marketplace that offers high-quality products from the US and EU suppliers. Once your store is integrated with Spocket, you can browse through quality products & one-click import them to the store. Spocket also comes with features to automate many dropshipping tasks like inventory syncing, orders management, orders fulfillment & more.

Read More: Spocket Review: Is it a good alternative to AliExpress & Oberlo for Dropshipping?

Quick Note: Spocket premium also offers a “branded invoicing” feature to help you boost your business branding efforts – by including your business logo/name in the invoice.

When you’re dropshipping, it is recommended to use these tools/software so you focus your energy & time on the important things – and not on unnecessary tasks like – manually uploading products, inventory management/tracking, manual orders fulfillment, etc.

Product Research, Competition Analysis or Other Similar Tools

There are many dropshipping product research methods & tools you’d come across over time.

While some of the methods & tools are free, you might want to invest in some tools like Sell The Trend, Ecom Hunt, Niche Scraper – to help you with competition analysis, product research & more.

Investing in these tools is completely optional, but having these premium tools will definitely boost your dropshipping efforts & profitability.

Some Freuquenty Asked Questions About Dropshipping Startup Costs

We all make mistakes, and drop shipping beginners make a lot of mistakes. Even those who are making money with dropshipping still make mistakes at times.

But, some mistakes must be avoided & that’s where you make yourself stand out from the crowd.

Standing out from the crowd nowadays is very important – especially when it comes to dropshipping – because the digitization opportunities in eCommerce are bringing high competition to the market.

Consumers are now modern & smart – they expect to buy products from a business that seems authentic & has some credibility in the market.

But how would you achieve this authenticity & credibility? That’s another topic of concern but of course,

One way to do this is by focusing on the long-term strategy & brand building

Dropshipping is a business & when you’re running a business – mistakes must be avoided.

Let’s look at some common dropshipping mistakes that beginners make when starting out:

Mistake #1: You Don’t Take Dropshipping as a Serious Business Model

Dropshipping is a part of eCommerce – it’s a type of fulfillment method in eCommerce.

Everything else works similar to a typical eCommerce business –

• Researching & finalising niche
• Building a brand name / store name
• Building store
• Building brand assets
  • About the brand (vision, mission, about, description, etc)
  • Brand Theme / Color Scheme
• Products & Supplier Research

& there is a lot more in the play.

Therefore, you should take your dropshipping business very seriously to make it work out.

Right from keeping your store well designed to implementing your own selling angle on products, each & everything contributes to the success of your store.

When you’re running or about to run a dropshipping business, you should be paying close attention to the user/customer experience and work on improvising your business operations.

This includes strategizing various aspects of the business including:

• Offering easy return policies
• Delivering quality customer service
• Focusing on brand building
• Marketing
• Store & Product pages Optimization

& more.

On top of that, the challenge will be to crack advertisements.

To build a successful dropshipping campaign, you need to take care of everything from email marketing to collecting audience insights – & much more..

Similarly, there are a lot of other things to be taken care of if you want your dropshipping business to succeed.

The problem with most of the drop shippers is that they get into dropshipping just because it’s easy to get started – but they aren’t serious or prepared for running a business.

You should be avoiding this mistake at any cost.

Your drop shipping business will work out only if you dedicate enough time, resources, energy & money to the business.

In simpler terms, you have to be hell serious about the business.

Mistake #2: You Get Overwhelmed with tons of ideas; It’s a Bad Sign

Right from trying out different dropshipping product research methods to creating an Ad campaign, there is a lot in the play.

When you are starting out as a beginner, you are motivated & learning as much as you can.

Oftentimes, you might jump from one blog to another & watch various different videos to understand dropshipping in depth.

This is good! Being resourceful is good.

But you should not overdo your research to the level that you reach a point where you get confused on where to start, what products to choose, which ad strategy to try out, which type of dropshipping method to start with, etc, etc.

When you come across a lot of ideas & strategies, you get overwhelmed with information available on the internet – which diverts your mind from being focusing on each thing at once.

At first, you might think you can do better with three niches, starting with Facebook ads.

The next few moments, you come across another profitable niche & boom.. the previous idea is gone. You would now focus on the next things that seems profitable to you.

This way your mind gets diverted & you reach a confusing state that stops you from starting or taking actionable steps.

• Learning is a good skill & there are tons of things to learn & implement.
• There are tons of niches & products that seems profitable
• There are tons of advertisement strategies & ideas that seems to be working

& there are tons of other things too.

But don’t overdo ideas brainstorming. Instead of moving from one idea to other, pick one thing, test it & see if it works. If it’s working, then master it & move on to other.

Mistake #3: You’re Searching for a Proven Strategy

This is a mistake that most of the dropshipping beginners do.

When you are completely unexperienced & want to start out, you start learning about dropshipping in deep & in the midst of that, you are at a stage point where you get an idea on how to start.

But you could not start. What’s stopping you?

It’s because you’re searching for a proven strategy that works.

But the fact is, there’s nothing like one-size-fits-all.

This ends up in spending a lot of time in finding products, campaigns, niche, etc, that are proven to work.

To build a successful campaign, you can’t just blindly implement what experts are saying & what blueprint they’ve provided.

You need to test products on your own & make the ad campaign work out for you on your own.

You need to add your own marketing angle to the campaign & see where you can improve.

Take inspiration from others but don’t do the same as they are doing – and so, don’t search for a proven strategy.

There are tons of unexplored products & hidden profitable niches/sub-niches that no one is talking about in their resources.

That is where opportunities are. Get better with research, analyze competition and test on your own.

Mistake #4: You’re Not Aware of User Experience & SEO

SEO & eCommerce are completely different topics – but you must understand SEO as well when starting with eCommerce.

By learning SEO, you not only understand how search rankings work, but also the logic behind why & how search engine treat different type of websites.

When you learn SEO, you get an idea on what should a marketer do on the website to deliver a good user experience – which ultimately helps in improving conversions.

Remember, SEO is not optimizing the website for Search Engines – it’s optimizing the website for Users & deliver them better user experience – so that search engines can recognize your efforts & provide you more discoverability on search engines.

Dropshippers who are aware of SEO & User Experience tends to play close attention to important elements of your eCommerce website such as Product Title & URL, Website Speed, Website navigation / structure, & much more.

BY having some SEO knowledge in mind ensures that you’re building presence on the World Wide Web the right way – that actually works.

Mistake #5: You’re not Researching; and if you’re researching, you’re not implementing

There are a variety of people.

Some research a lot that they get overwhelmed – as discussed above.

And some are too lazy to do research.

And then there are those who are researching & learning, but not implementing – this makes it hard to crack the code.

In order to make things work out, you need a balance; Just like you need a balance in life. It’s important that what you learn must be implemented by yourself to see if you can yield results.

If you fail – try to improvise. If you win, you win.

Without implementing, you get nothing & always live in a delusion – thinking this or that might work.

At the end of day, what’s important is how much you implement out of your learning – so you’re sure of what works & what doesn’t.

Mistake #6: You Start With A Low Budget Which Makes Your Strategy Ineffective

Are you also the one who wish to start dropshipping because you’re broke?

If that’s the case, think back again.

Imagine what would happen when you’re broke & you manage to invest some money in dropshipping – hoping that things will work out.

What would happen if your first product or store fails?

Would you end up broke again?

or

Would you try again?

Most of the people at this stage don’t try again & end up thinking that dropshipping doesn’t work because you’ll feel hopeless.

But the fact is, dropshipping actually works – and there’s no denying it.

For the same above scenario, imagine if you are able to make some decent sales – how would you then scale aggressively without having some decent budget in place?

Of course, you can reinvest the money, but that’s gonna take more time & effort to yield results. In order to scale, you again need money man.

Therefore, it is not recommended to start with a low budget.

Use your common sense – Drop shipping is a business & to run a business, you need money – so that you can be very efficient with what you plan & strategize.

Marketing requires money, designing requires money. In simpler terms, you need money to test & scale.

Having a decent budget of ~ $700 – $1000 USD for dropshipping ensures you have enough opportunities to make things work out.

Read Also: How Much Money Do You Need For Dropshipping?

Mistake #7: You Expectations from Dropshipping are Wrong

Thinking you can make good money from your first few dropshipping campaigns?

Fewer chances!

what about in the long term with dropshipping?

Of course, you can.

How much money you can make from dropshipping?

No Guru can claim this. Its completely dependent on you.

I believe there are tons of similar questions in your head when you’re starting with dropshipping. But finding answers to these won’t get you anything.

Yes, you can research around these questions to boost up your motivation. But this should not make you expect a lot from dropshipping.

You cannot make good money in just a matter of weeks or months. Exceptions are always there, but I am speaking for the majority beginners.

You should be realistic with the expectations so that once your few campaign fails, you won’t quit & again test instead.

I am not demotivating you – I am helping you get out of the delusion & think practically – so you can create a realistic plan for your campaigns, instead of daydreaming.

Don’t forget that in order to make things work out – you would also need to reinvest every bit of profits so that you can aggresively run ads when you find a successful product.

On the other hand, those who expect higher than usual, they just end up demotivated & thinking “Dropshipping is Dead”

If you follow some successful dropshippers, they’d mention how long it took to find their first winning product.

Instead of daydreaming about money, your profit expectations from your first few dropshipping campaigns should be $0 – and instead, you should expect to learn from the experience so you can do better in the upcoming campaigns.

Expect that from the first few campaigns, you’d get deeper & practical insights about how things work in dropshipping.

Mistake #8: You Can’t or Don’t Want to Outsource work & Invest Money

It’s very hard to run a business alone. When it comes to dropshipping, there are a lot of tasks that needs to be outsources so you don’t feel burned out – or you don’t compromise on quality.

There are many tasks that need not to be done by yourself, instead it would be a smart move to hire a team or outsource the work.

Use platforms like Fiverr wherein you can outsource various tasks like: logo design work, ad copies creation, & more.

Mistakle #9: Not Having A Marketing & Scaling Plan in Place

It’s great that you’re motivated enough for dropshipping, but what about the marketing plan? How would you scale when you witness a successful product?

The fact is that most of the dropshipping beginners doesn’t know this.

They just know how to setup a dropshipping store, how facebook ads work, how to do product research & similar things.

But a very few understand that you need a solid marketing plan in place to make your campaign work out.

Having a solid marketing plan in place means you also have a scaling strategy in place, which includes various things like:

• ensuring that your supplier is prepared to scale with you
• ensuring you have defined ad strategies in place when it comes to aggresively advertising the product
• ensuring you can handle increased customer queries: answeing calls & replying to tickets etc

In short, the work out there is greater than you might expect, so you have to be prepared for your next moves.

Conclusion:

Dropshipping is a fantastic way to learn about eCommerce & when it is done right – it can bring fortunes for you.

Mistakes are inevitable & if you really have the passion & persistence to work – you can learn from your mistakes.

But prevention is better than cure – this is so true. That is why when you start out with dropshipping, it becomes important to be aware of the common dropshipping mistakes that people often do.

To succeed in dropshipping is not easy – however, by avoiding the mistakes I’ve mentioned above, you’ll be able to make the hard way easier.

Happy Dropshipping!

If you’ve stumbled upon this article, you might be interested in dropshipping, and before you invest your time & money into this exciting & big business model – you are wondering if dropshipping is something that still works or is dead.

Worry not, dropshipping is going nowhere for the next 5-10 years & is still profitable – the dropshipping industry is expected to touch $557.9 B by 2025.

However, the pace at which things are changing & technology is evolving, brings uncertainty for many business models – including dropshipping.

But it is very true that people are still making good figures from dropshipping & in this blog – I would share my views around why I feel dropshipping is worth it & why every digital marketing newbie or experienced one – who is a bit interested in eCommerce – should try it.

Dropshipping: Saturated, Dead or Still Works?

Dropshipping is not dead & there are online marketers who are generating good business from it. Successful dropshipping entrepreneurs move out of dropshipping to grab more profits by either turning their e-commerce venture from dropshipping model to a typical eCommerce business model – manufacturing, white labeling, etc.

Dropshipping, being a business model, would evolve over time – new tools & dropshipping models may arise.

New products will always get added to the marketplaces & there are tons of profitable micro niches that you might not be aware of.

Only things are changing like a double-edged sword – comes with both up & downsides:

• Strategies that worked 5 years ago does not work now
• More competition is making it harder to crack the successful ad campaign strategy
• New tools are being introduced & quality drop shipping suppliers are now found at premium platforms – like BrandsGateway – that charges at least $29 or more to view products catalog & supplier list. Earlier, AliExpress was the only go-to platform – which is free to use.

There are many other changes happening now & then – dropshipping was fairly easy to work out a few years ago.

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second-best time is now.

Things Are Changing: More Competition is driving Advertisment Costs Up

Technology evolution is a double-edged sword: on one hand, it benefits us but on the other hand, new inventions & methods eliminate the old ones.

TO make dropshipping work out successfully, it is important to keep an eye on current market trends & implement the right strategies that are working well.

Competition is increasing & Clicks Are Getting Expensive: Omni Channel Marketing Might Be the Solution

The rise in advertisement costs brings a concern for most marketers – and especially drop shippers. One study reported that the average CPC in Facebook has increased from $0.31 in 2018 to $0.45 in 2019.

Other popular advertisement channels like Search Engine PPC advertising are also witnessing an increase in cost for advertisement.

The rising costs of advertisements can be because of many factors, including

• Changes in consumer behaviour
• Ad networks are consolidating
• Increase in irrelevant traffic & spamming
• Improved advertisement positions
• Improved targeting

However, competition is the main aspect contributing to this increase.

According to Facebook, there were 7 million active advertisers in 2019 on their platform & this number has increased to 10 million in 2020.

These 10 Million advertisers are fighting for the available ad inventory – which is driving the FB ads cost up.

Similarly, most of the advertisement platforms work like an auction environment – the cost is primarily determined by the supply & demand – which means, an increase in competition will drive the rates up

Does this mean dropshipping marketers will be priced out of advertising?

Never!

There will always be a way to get more of your budget. What’s important to keep in mind is to not rely only on one platform for your dropshipping business.

This is also known as Omni Channel Marketing – If you focus on more than one advertisement channel for making sales – you’re much better set off for the future.

Below are some marketing types & channels that work well for dropshipping:

• Google (Search Engine Optimization)
• Search Engine Marketing – PPC on Bing, Yahoo, Google
• Email Marketing
• Pinterest
• YouTube
• Display Advertismenet
• Native Advertisment
• Facebook & Instagram Ads
• Influencer Marketing

In the end, what matters is the ROI (Return on Investment) – A campaign that made $2000 out of $700 is good.

There Are Many Types of Dropshipping Opportunities

There are a few types of dropshipping that you should be aware of – and each type of dropshipping would require different eCommerce skills to get you started.

Below is an overview of the types of dropshipping:

1. Print on Demand: Print on Demand is one of the most popular forms of dropshipping. Print on Demand is basically selling merchandise with a print on it – such as printed Tees, mugs, cushions, etc. In print on demand, you create a design first & based on that design, the product images are created – which then you can market & the real product is printed when any sales occurs – that is, on demand basis
2. Niche-Store Dropshipping: Niche store dropshipping is selling products around a certain niche. For example – a store selling products for pets is a niche store, similarly, a store selling products for dogs only is also a niche store.
3. General-Store Dropshipping: General store dropshipping is selling any type of products on your store. A general store is basically non-niche focused & is like a typical store that sells products around many categories. Example: A store selling products around categories like Fashion, Home Decor, Kitchen Essentials, Electronics, Pets etc
4. High-Ticket Dropshipping: High-Ticket dropshipping is selling highly priced products so that the profit margins & earning potentials can be huge. Example: A store selling massage chairs starting from $500.
5. Private Labelling or White Labelling: Private Labelling or white labelling is when you source products from a supplier/manufacturer & sell it with your branding on the product – to appear as if you are the owner of that product.

Dropshipping Model Can Be Tweaked

Dropshipping, being a big business model, does not come with some set of rules or regulations.

Dropshipping is also as working with suppliers who drop ship products.

You could also partner up with a local store that offers delivery & ask them if they are willing to work on a drop-ship model – where you just sell their product & forward the order details to them.

Or you could tweak the business model with the help of suppliers collaboration & come up with offers like “Buy one get one free”

The only concern is that you need to be perfect with marketing mathematics in order to create a win-win situation for all the three parties – supplier, you & the consumer

Or simply, you tweak the pricing & offer a discount when someone do three purchases.

Like Buy 1 for $29 & three for only $79

Another thing you could do is to offer a website membership plan, similar to Amazon Prime wherein consumers will get an extra discount if they are a pro member

All I need to say is that you can tweak your eCommerce strategy.

Buyers Are Increasing & so are the Opportunities

Shopping online has become common worldwide & the numbers are increasing day-by-day. With this shift, more and more opportunities lie in the online market.

According to Statista,

In 2021, over 2.14 billion people worldwide are expected to buy goods and services online, up from 1.66 billion global digital buyers in 2016.

– Global number of digital buyers 2021 Report

These 2.14 billion digital buyers can be influenced by a number of sources- Facebook ads, pay-per-click advertising, email marketing, or SEO.

These people shop online for a wide range of reasons:

• Convenience
• Solution to a problem
• Offerings & competitive pricing
• Quality

Dropshipping is a business model inside of eCommerce, you can tweak the strategy, plan & offering

What About Saturated Niches or Products?

Whenever I do product research for my dropshipping campaigns, I come across a lot of good products but further research brings up tons of other stores selling them.

Does that mean the product is saturated? or should you test out that product with your own angle of selling?

The solution is to strengthen your product research skills to find potential & products that are in high demand.

Don’t worry about product saturation too much & spend time digging down the marketplaces finding potential products.

Below are some tips to identify saturated products:

• Product has been around for years and a lot of stores are selling them
• Check order to reviews on AliExpress
• Search for product on Facebook, if you get more than 10-20 product videos posted recently – all with less engagement, that means people are no longer liking the product

Below are some tips to combat saturated niches or products:

• Sell products that have a recurring demand
• Products that wears down over time needs replacement & are always in demand, these products are sometimes designed to combat market saturation
• Trying a saturated product is okay if the market size is huge, such as health related products.
• A product that went on trend 5 years ago, may still have the potential to make money, try digging deep into popular products that went viral years ago – and see if there is any opportunity to remake money with this saturated product

Every individual has his own angle of selling things – and many times, you can easily make profits out of the saturated products.

It seems like a tough job to crack the saturated product or niche – but opportunities are always there for smaller businesses with niche products to tap into the saturated areas.

Market saturation can be troubling if happened due to outdated technology or trend – it results in no longer new demand for the product & new product innovations can’t be done.

Recommended Read: Saturated Dropshipping Products: Myth? or Do They Exist? by Patryk

Successful Dropshippers Moves Out of Dropshipping

Do you know that most of the successful drop shippers move out of dropshipping?

Yes, in order to make more profits in eCommerce – successful dropshipping entrepreneurs either create their own product or go the other way.

They do not stick to drop shipping for a long time & moves out of this business model once they’ve gained practical eCommerce experience & made some good profits.

That means, dropshipping is a perfect eCommerce business model to get started with – in order to understand how online selling works & sharpen your marketing skills.

Or you can say, dropshipping can also be your gateway to successful online selling.

The low barrier to entry means more competition?

No matter how many others are in the run, those who make it are the ones who work really hard. While starting a dropshipping store would require very little money at first, but to implement a successful campaign – you need capital.

Just like every other business, dropshipping also require at least a $500 – $1000 budget to start with (depending on the target market)

The fact is that most of the students who learn dropshipping & start one after seeing others succeed, do not make it to a happy ending.

Probably because they don’t have had enough money to test out the true potential of their store, or they are not mature enough to dedicate enough learning & skills to make it a success.

Remember that drop shipping is almost free only to get started, everything else that comes along the journey is paid.

Test, Don’t QUIT

You can’t become profitable with Dropshipping until you test hard. There are rare chances that you’ll find a winning product on the first attempt.

Testing is an important part of eCommerce strategy & this is where most of the drop shippers fail.

Success in eCommerce requires marketing skills & tactics

There are a number of ways you could strategize your dropshipping plan, but first, you will have to be resourceful & eager enough to learn about eCommerce before seeing money pouring into your account.

Successful drop shippers have worked really hard in improving every aspect of their marketing strategy. From A/B Testing, finding lookalike audience on Facebook, to sending 200 clicks for product testing- they just test, learn & grow.

Dropshipping is definitely worth it & to reap the rewards from this business model, focus on becoming a better marketer with every campaign you execute.

Competition can be considered as healthy & low barrier to entry also mean – poor quality crowd. Most of the people who get into dropshipping quit after losing some money.

Recommended Read: How Much Money Do You Need For Dropshipping?

Is Dropshipping Worth it & Should I Try?

Dropshipping is a gateway to the eCommerce world & if you’re interested in selling things online – dropshipping is definitely worth trying.

The learnings that come along with dropshipping are tremendous. You not only understand how to set up an online store but also how to market it & make profits out of the little margins. Below are some important business skills that you’ll learn while drop shipping:

• Budgeting and Operations
• Research & Development (Market/Product/Niche Research, Trends/Competition Analysis, A/B Testing)
• Planning & Management
• Store Building Skills
• Design Thinking
• Copywriting
• Running Ad Campaigns

and much more.

Dropshipping works out for those who do not treat it like a get-quick rich scheme. Whether your first store fails or succeeds, you will for sure take away the learnings with you – that’ll benefit you in the long run.

And finally, since it’s a low-risk business model that doesn’t incur huge capital and you can be profitable with good products, dropshipping is something that every digital entrepreneur must experience.

Final Words

Beware of anyone saying dropshipping is dead because many are still making good revenue out of their stores.

Just like every other industry & business model, there is money to be made in dropshipping as well.

When in doubt, just look at the reasons why some are recommending it while others aren’t, and then decide for yourself based on your expectations.

If you’d like me to help you with your first dropshipping campaign, shoot me an email at sureshbhatts4n (at) gmail dot com

Finding it lazy to send email? OH boi, a tough journey ahead for you.

If you’re dropshipping or planning to get started with dropshipping, it’s absolute to know that suppliers are the backbone of this business & you can’t make it big without reliable suppliers.

When we typically talk about dropshipping suppliers, AliExpress is something that pops in our head – because of the endless number of product variation opportunities you get at this platform.

Also, there are many pros to using AliExpress but when you’re dropshipping to the US, AliExpress might not be the best for you & if you have been messing around the internet tryna find a reliable US dropshipping supplier, you are at the right place.

This post lists down all the popular dropshipping suppliers that ships to the United States & offers high-quality products for sourcing:

1. BDroppy by Brands Distribution

Just like Brands Gateway, Brands Distribution is another dropshipping/wholeselling B2B platform in the designer & accessories niche. It allows you to choose & sell products from over 120 Italian and international brands – including the highly popular ones like Adidas, Nike, Gucci, Fila, Armani, New Balance & more

Product Categories: Fashion & Accessories – Shoes, Designer Clothing, Handbags, Sunglasses, & more

Plans & Pricing: Starts from €99/month

Free Trial: No

Integrations: Amazon, eBay, PrestaShop, Shopify, WooCommerce

Returns/Refunds/Exchange Policy: Hidden

Shippping Area(s): Worldwide; Shipping to 50+ countries; Next day shipping

2. Brands Gateway

If you’re interested in Clothing niche, Brands Gateway might be a good option for you. As the name suggests, Brands Gateway is a portal offering thousands of luxury & branded fashion products.

Subscribing for their paid plan would allow you to sell luxurious products from popular brands like Versace, Dolce & Gabbana, Calvin Klein, Timberland, Tommy Hilfiger, Armani & more.

Brands Gateway offers an amazing customer support & offers dedicated account managers for dropshippers & wholesellers.

While the features & offerings with Brands Gateway are amazing – popular brands, high-quality products, fast delivery times – the pricing are a bit higher & may not suit everyone’s pocket.

Product Categories: Clothing, Shoes, Bags, Accessories, Jewelery, Sunglasses, Watches

Plans & Pricing: Starts from €295/month

Free Trial: No

Integrations: Shopify & WooCommerce

Returns/Refunds/Exchange Policy: Brands Gateway offers a 14 days return policy. If the customer wish to return the order for a change of mind or because the customer chose the wrong size/product, he/she will be charged for return shipment. In case of a wrong/damaged product delivered, there is no fee involved in returning shipment and no restocking fee will be charged.

Shipping Area(s): Worldwide

3. Spocket

For US dropshipping, Spocket is another great platform to go for. What’s best about Spcoket is that the portal focuses on onboarding suppliers from the US, UK & the Europe – and on the top of that – Spocket assures that the product listed on their portal are of high-quality.

Founded in 2017, Spocket has now a huge range of product catalog & you can filter out product based on where you want to get them shipped.

For product quality & delivery/shipping time evaluation, Spocket also gives you an option to order product sample – which is beneficial is many ways – not to mention, the product sample can be used to create unique product images & videos that you can further use for marketing.

Product Categories:

Plans & Pricing: Starts from $24 per month

Free Trial: 14 Days

Integrations: Shopify, BigCommerce, Wix, WooCommerce, Square, AliScraper, Felex

Returns/Refunds/Exchange Policy: Hassle free return policy – your supplier may have any of the three types of return policies allowed on Spocket: no returns allowed, a 15 day return period, or a 30-day return period.

Shipping Area(s): In Spocket, the shipping preferences vary by supplier & you need to check the product page description to see where the supplier can ship to. Most of the Spocket’s suppliers will ship worldwide.

4. Doba

Headquartered in Utah & founded in 2002, Doba is another great portal for your dropshipping needs.

With over thousands of top-rated dropship suppliers & millions of products in the catalog to choose from, you have a diverse range of choices.

What’s good with Doba is that all the suppliers are vetted – they must have met the Doba marketplace standards before becoming a supplier on Doba. Doba offers good customer support & can be reached via chat, email, or call.

Plans & Pricing: Starts from $24.99 per month(Flexible plans available)

Free Trial: 30 Days

Integrations: Amazon, eBay, Shopify, Bigcommerce, Woocommerce, Wix, Newegg & more. (all major integrations supported)

Returns/Refunds/Exchange Policy: At Doba, the returns, refunds & exchange operations are managed by suppliers individually, which means, there are certain conditions in which the suppliers have the right to reject or accept your request. In case of a defective or damaged product received, The supplier may refuse the refund application if the buyer fails to provide compelling evidence in time. Not to mention, in case of a non-defective return or refund, the repacking & restocking fee is applicable. You can view more about their return policy here.

Shipping Area(s): Doba’s suppliers do not offer worldwide shipping & currently only ship within the lower 48 continental United States.

5. Sunrise Wholesale Merchandise

Sunrise Wholesale is operating since 1999 & claims itself as one of the best dropshipping suppliers – but there are not too many positive reviews on the internet about Sunrise Wholesale to justify this claim.

Sunrise Wholesale has a good customer support team & offers comprehensive tools (eBay Listing Wizard and Research Tool, Amazon Selling and Research Manager) to help you with your dropshipping journey.

With over 15,000+ products to dropship, the popular product categories available at Sunrise Wholesale are Electronics, Household Items, Toos, Kitchen equipment, etc.

Plans & Pricing: $49.00 per month (billed monthly)

Free Trial: 7 Days

Store Integration: Amazon, eBay, Shopify & BigCommerce

Returns/Refunds/Exchange Policy: If the customer receives a broken or defective item, Sunrise Wholesale will send out a replacement or issue the credit amount to your account without any additional expenses to you. However, in case of a non-defective or non-damaged return, the product must be shipped back to Sunrise Wholesale within 30 days and they’ll levy a 20% restocking fee as charges.

Shipping Area(s): Sunrise Wholesale does not offer worldwide shipping & is only limited to the continental United States

6. MegaGoods

Plans & Pricing: $14.99 per month | Additional small drop-shipping fee of $1.50 per order

Free Trial: Yes, 30 Days

Store Integration: None

Returns/Refunds/Exchange Policy: MegaGoods guarantee against manufacturers’ defects for 30 days from the date of the delivery on almost all products. They have a comprehensive returns policy & you can find more information about it here.

Shipping Area(s): International Shipping available

7. DropCommerce

DropCommerce is another dropshipping product sourcing portal with oboarded suppliers from the US & Canada. DropCommerce claims to have listed high-quality products on their portal & the suppliers are reliable.

With a directry of over 400+ suppliers, DropCommerce powers tons of product categories to choose from.

DropCommerce also has an in-app messaging system that allows you to talk with the suppliers directly and you can also reques the seller contact details if required.

On the top of that, DropCommerce offers an amazing shipping time of 3-5 Days which you might love.

Product Categories: Diverse – Home & Garden, Wellness, Clothing, Jewelry, Parenting & Kids, Sports & Fitness, Beauty & Health, Pets, Bags & Luggage, Tech & Accessories, Outdoor, Stationery & more.

Plans & Pricing: Starts from $19 per month

Free Trial: 14 Days

Store Integration: Shopify, Wix, BigCommerce & Manual Integration

Shipping Area(s): North America

If you think dropshipping is just playing around with various products in a store, then you might need to reconsider. Why? Because there can be many approaches to building a dropshipping store and this blog post covers the various types of dropshipping stores you must know before starting out.

1. Print on Demand (POD) aka Print on Request

Print on demand is a business model where you can create your own designs, embed them on product images digitally to get the final product & start selling. POD products are not physically printed until you get an order, which means your supplier will print the final product only when the demand arrives.

Print on Demand is one of the most popular types of dropshipping & here’s how it goes:

1. You create a design
2. You embed this design on various product images to see how the final product will look like
3. You finalize some products & list them on your store or other marketplaces
4. You start selling & supplier will print the products on-demand basis

All you need at first is a design – which you can embed on multiple product images (you can use the same design on T-shirts & Mugs) very easily & quickly. If you feel like you can sell any of the final products, just export the final images & you’re good to go.

The designs that you create for POD products could be anything you could think of: a quote or saying, phrase, artwork, patterns, etc.

Below are some popular print on demand products that you can sell:

• Mugs
• Cushions
• Clothing & Accessories
  • Tees
  • Hoodies
  • Socks
  • Face Masks
  • Bandana
  • Scarfs
  • Pants
  • Leggings
  • Jackets
  • Fanny Packs
• Phone Cases
• Posters
• Tapestries
• Other Custom Gifts

Some popular print on demand suppliers you should check out:

• Printify
• Printful
• Teelaunch
• Lulu Xpress
• JetPrint

Print on Demand Pros: Why Print on Demand Might be good for you?

• You own your artwork/designs & can build a brand around it
• Quick products creation if you have the designs ready
• Hassle-Free Inventory: Since the actual products in POD are printed/created once you get an order, you don’t need to worry about the inventory numbers
• Easy return or refund policies by POD suppliers
• Offer good support to your consumers
• Design anything you could imagine
• Branding options available: you can add branded tags to your products. viz brand tags in Tshirts

Print on Demand Cons: Things to consider before starting out

• Require designing skills
• Lower or limited profit margins, however, if your design type is exclusive & unique, you can charge more
• Higher competition

Keys to a building a profitable POD dropshipping store:

1. It’s important to have your own store so you do not rely only on third party portals like TeeSpring, Amazon, eBay, etc
2. Having your own store helps you build authority & if your design types have a theme, you can start with a niche store. viz a store selling clothes with quotes targeted at engineers
3. Having your own store also gives you much more learnings throughout the journey
4. Refrain yourself from using trademarks, logos, or any other design type that resembles an existing brands’ identity or property. viz a checkmark that resembles Nike Logo, Pokemon, or other cartoon avatars
5. Create designs for which an audience type can be easily targeted. viz. a Yoga Tshirt for people with Yoga interests, Dog Tshirt for people who love dogs
6. While the inventory with POD can be unlimited, don’t forget to limit the number of stocks on your website frontend to deliver a message that generates scarcity amongst potential visitors
7. Before choosing your POD supplier, make sure that you check a few important things like:
   1. How long it takes to ship a product once an order is placed?
   2. What are the shipping methods available?
   3. How is shipping cost calculated?
   4. What are the merchandise options available (product catalog)?
   5. How easy are the returns/refunds policy?
   6. What are the branding options available?

2. One Product Store Dropshipping

As the name suggests, one product store dropshipping is creating a dropshipping business around one (or two similar) products only.

Unlike other stores, creating a one-product store allows you to channel all your efforts & resources in selling one product & excelling on everything beyond the journey.

You don’t need to create multiple descrptions for multiple products or worry about what all products should I feature on homepage.

It’s simply one product, one store, & everything around it.

One Product Store Dropshipping Pros:

• You only need to come up with one product idea
• Since your whole store will be around one product, you get an authority over other stores if you do it right
• Easy to manage operations & processes: hassle-free customer service since you need to deal with only one product query. Over time, you will excel at offering good customer services
• You can invest more time in crafting an efficient dropshipping plan
• Advertisement strategy would be easy: effective audience targeting, higher conversion rates,

One Product Store Dropshipping Cons:

• You cannot diversify the product catalog
• For this to work, you need to come up with a thoroughly researched product
• If the product fails, you need to build another campaign from scratch
• Fewer repetitive orders
• You need to stand out by designing & building a product-centered store
• Risky for long term if the product demand decreases

Keys to a building a profitable one product dropshipping store:

1. Invest good amount of time in researching & shortlisting your product
2. Ensure that the product is of high quality, I recommend ordering a sample first & see if it qualifies
3. Make sure you create high-quality content that sells
4. Instead of selling product features or specifications on the homepage, sell benefits
5. It’s important to shortlist at least three suppliers for your product, if something goes wrong with one, switch to other
6. Since you have only one product, you must encourage consumer feedback & analyze what could be improved.

3. Niche Store Dropshipping

As the name suggests, niche store dropshipping is selling products around a few specific categories & sub-categories. These types of stores cater to a narrowed audience. A most common example is a pet store, catering the need of only those who are interested in pets.

A niche is a niche, you can narrow down deeper or keep it broad. A pet store caters to a broad audience who is interested in pets, however, a dog products’ store would attract only those who have dogs as pets.

Also keep in mind that niche is not limited to product categories like health, pets, fashion etc. Most of the beginners gets confused here.

As per the definition, a niche is

A niche market is the subset of the market on which a specific product is focused. The market niche defines the product features aimed at satisfying specific market needs, as well as the price range, production quality and the demographics that it is intended to target. It is also a small market segment.

Wikipedia

What does it mean?

Well, a niche store can also be of the following type:

• Store selling products below $50 only is a niche store focused on attracting visitors who wish to purchase things below $50
• Store selling products only for women
• A store that sells only trending products

Almost every market can be segmented by the specific needs and preferences of its buyers.

Below are some common aspects based on which you can choose a niche:

• Location
• Demographics (Age, Gender, Income)
• Profession, Interests, Hobbies
• Pricing & Products Quality (viz a premium pricing store selling quality products)

Niche Store Dropshipping Pros:

• Good conversion rates
• Niche stores wins authority & have the potential to become a brand (if done correctly)
• More store revisits & hence recurring sales
• Lower competition (not always)
• Better visibility on search engines as compared to general store dropshipping
• Easy to build connections with visitors or buyers: since you already know the niche they’re interested in, many marketing efforts like email marketing become easy

Niche Store Dropshipping Cons:

• Less flexibility as compared to general stores: you cannot sell every other trending product
• You need content & marketing tone to address your targeted audience to convince them to buy
• A niche that seems profitable might not be actually profitable, so you need a lot of testing

4. General Store Dropshipping

A general store or flex e-commerce store dropshipping is selling products on your store around various categories. These stores can have multiple categories – completely unrelated to each other – products ranging from Bluetooth speakers, daily kitchen essentials to anything you could think of.

General Store Dropshipping Pros

• Flexible: You can sell any product you could think of to see if it works
• Easier to get started
• Higher chances of the long term sustainability
• More reach since you are selling to a wider audience
• Good opportunities for cross-selling, upselling & promoting sales via Email marketing
• Data analysis can open many doors: the best about general store dropshipping is that the data itself tells you what products to sell & what to eliminate

General Store Dropshipping Cons

• Low conversion rates
• Higher chances of getting cheap quality, irrelevant traffic, or sometimes spammy visits
• High-Competition
• Hard to scale
• You can lose money & time on testing & selling low-potential products
• Require high-budget for targeting & AB Testing
• Customer services can go worse since you will have a lot of different products & type of consumers to cater

5. High Ticket Dropshipping

High ticket dropshipping is selling expensive items to get highly profitable margins. Since it’s all about catering to rich segment of audience, you would need to be very serious about every single operations – from website store design to offering quality consumer support.

Not to mention, product quality must not be ignored at any cost. Ordering sample & going through product is a must: to assure quality & make promotional materials (images, video)

What’s luring about high ticket dropshipping is that you could literally cover your marketing expenses whilst becoming highly profitable with only a few sales. However, marketing budgets is on a higher side as well.

Such stores have products ranging from $200 to $2000 or even $5000 sometimes. It’s all about being profitable with the margins.

A store selling e-bikes worth $2000 would make $600 from a single sale (keeping profit margins to 30%). On the other hand, a store selling products ranging from $20 – $70 would make way less.

High Ticket Dropshipping Pros:

• Solid profit margins
• A lower number of customer queries & concerns (if product & operations are done well)
• Sustainable business model: Less but tough competition

High Ticket Dropshipping Cons:

• Not recommended for beginners
• Require high-budget to work it out: high advertisement budget, expensive operations
• Require a solid marketing strategy

6. Branded Dropshipping

This is an approach to sell dropshipping products under your brand name without actually manufacturing them. The profit margins are pretty higher with branded dropshipping as compared to traditional/typical dropshipping store.

Also there’s not any maximum selling price limit by suppliers.

A popular case study in branded dropshipping is of BlendJet.

Now look at some portable blenders available on AliExpress for dropshipping. Aren’t these similar to BlendJet? Yes, they are. But why BlendJet became a brand?

Simply because they have a reliable supplier who private label or white label high-quality blenders for them. Now that they’ve been in the market for a long time, they have everything streamlined – from consumer support to reliable suppliers with local warehouses in some countries.

Basically, branded dropshipping can be done in two or more ways:

• White Label Dropshipping: It’s when you collaborate with suppliers/manufacturers who can ship products with your brand name on them, by paying some extra fees.
• Private Labeling Dropshipping: It’s when you find a supplier/manufacturer who can manufacture products for you as per your requirements & customization. It’s about pre-ordering & paying for the number of products you want.

The big difference between these two is that white labeling attracts many businesses/entrepreneurs since there are fewer fees & fewer risks involved as compared to private labeling.

It’s because anyone can white label products by paying extra fees, but in private labeling, the manufacturer would ship an exclusive product for you. The risk is that it’s about pre-ordering.

However, private labeling is more sustainable since there won’t be competitors if you do some customizations on the product.

This dropshipping business model is recommended for entrepreneurs who want to build a sustainable brand your for sure you would need experience with eCommerce in the past to make it work.

Finding the right supplier(s) for your dropshipping business is crucial for success, yet many fail to build a solid foundation at this part.

Suppliers in drop shipping means wholesalers (not manufacturers) & a supplier can make or break your business.

Another difference to know is that you can work with suppliers individually or use platforms like AliExpress (where suppliers & products are listed & categorized)

Since legitimate suppliers are quite poor at marketing, they are often hard to find.

This article lists down some popular & effective methods to you help you find the right supplier for your next dropshipping store.

What to Look for in a Supplier?

Before you start the hunt, you need to understand some traits of a good supplier – so that you know what to consider before finalizing one to work with.

Just because a supplier is willing to collaborate with you, doesn’t mean it’s trustworthy. There are a lot of suppliers if you go on searching extensively.

Professionalism

This is definitely the foremost thing to consider. Dropshipping is a real business & suppliers are the backbone of it. One should always work with suppliers who meet some business standards in terms of communication & operations.

Reviews

Reviews are another primary thing to look at. Platforms like AliExpress allows users to add product reviews – these product reviews can help you get a hint on the products quality as well as suppliers image.

Make sure to go through the product/supplier reviews if available & see the pain points listed by other consumers or drop shippers for that supplier/product. You can also use Google to further inspect the suppliers’ image.

If you feel like the supplier is not good after reading reviews, don’t work with them.

Product Prices & Shipping Costs

Different suppliers may have different prices for the same product – the product quality may vary though. And so is the importance of researching the wholesale prices on the internet – so you know if the supplier you’re working with is actually offering you fair prices.

Shipping cost is another thing to consider & it varies from suppliers to suppliers – depending on the country you are targeting & if the supplier has a local warehouse within that country.

Customer Support Quality

Almost every supplier may provide a customer care number or email to reach them, but some of the suppliers have pathetic services. They don’t even know how to communicate. So it’s better to work with suppliers who can help efficiently help you with the queries you & your consumers may have.

Warehouse Location

If your supplier has a local warehouse within the target country you’re selling to – you would get leverage on shipping costs & time. This is definitely a plus.

Return/Refund Process & Damage/Defect Policy

This one is important, once you start pouring in some sales, things can go messy. One common thing that needs to be taken care are the returns or refunds, or damage/defect policy in business terms.

Ask your supplier about the terms & conditions when any damage to the product occurs or if any return is required due to a defective product. Either you or your supplier gonna bear the handling charges for replacing shipments.

Integration Possibilities for Product Importing & Orders Syncing

Do you want to leverage automation? In order to seamlessly import products to your store & sync orders with the supplier, many dropshipping product/supplier sourcing platforms like Spocket & Oberlo can be integrated within Shopify & BigCommerce – so the work can be automated & the supplier is notified as soon as the sale appears.

However, in many cases (especially when working with individual suppliers), you would need to manually forward each order. You should be aware of whether your supplier offers integration or any similar support – so you don’t have to do manual work.

Products Quality (verify by ordering samples)

This is the best takeaway tip that almost every dropshipping blog is sharing out there. It’s important that you verify the quality of the products by ordering samples from different suppliers, before launching into the market.

Bad quality products can do enourmous damage to your dropshipping business – increased returns, negative reviews & most importantly.

On the top of that – you lose many potential consumers (repeated sales) & you’ve already spent money to acquire them.

Many businesses across the globe calculate the CLV (Consumer Lifetime Value) & compare it with acquisition costs. Basically, a customer lifetime value means how much a consumer has spent on your business on average. On the other hand, acquisition costs are the money spent on acquiring each consumer.

It’s clear that if the acquisition costs are greater than the lifetime value of a consumer, you’re undoubtedly in loss.

Therefore, it is highly recommended to verify each product on your own by ordering samples, before you sell them to your customers.

How to Find Suppliers for Dropshipping?

Since most of the dropship suppliers do not focus on marketing, they are hard to find – sometimes very hard.

You can collaborate with a dropshipping supplier individually or use third-party marketplaces/platforms like AliExpress where a wide range of dropshipping products (categories) & suppliers are listed.

Some of these platforms are free to use, however, some might require a monthly fee to start with. Depending on your budget, you can opt for any method. Unquestionably, going with a free route would require more work as compared to using paid platforms.

It is recommended to finalize more than one supplier rather than solely depending on one – this will be your backup option when something goes wrong or the supplier does not meet your requirements.

Below are some ways you can find suppliers for your dropship business:

Method #1 Play Around with Google Search

A deep search on Google will help you find out a variety of suppliers as per your niche or products. What you have to do is search for suppliers using various keywords as per your needs.

You just have to be a little smart here & use some phrases that suppliers might use on their website – for dropshipping registration or inquiry.

In most cases, the phrase “become a dealer drop shipping” or “become a dealer dropship” works really well – because most of the dropshipping suppliers’ website has a page for retailers to contact them & this page has keywords like become a supplier, become a reseller, etc.

As we see, the above phrase is quite generic & hence suitable for entrepreneurs who are targeting to launch a general store.

However, to narrow down the searches for niche-specific or single-product stores, you can tweak the phrase & include location & product keywords.

For example, Become a dealer dropship/dropshipping [Category Keywords] + [Products Keywords] + [Location Keywords]

Become a dealer dropship + home decor (niche category) + us (location keyword)

Explore these results & use google to your advantage.

Remember that not all dropship suppliers are focused in marketing (SEO) & so don’t forget to check search results from 9th, 10th or even 50th page.

Method #2 Dropshipping Supplier & Product Sourcing Directories

Another cool & hassle-free method to find tons of dropshipping suppliers & products is to use free & paid dropshipping supplier directories & dropshipping product sourcing platforms – like AliExpress.

For beginners, it is recommended to opt for free platforms otherwise you would end up with $29-$50 additional bill on your monthly expenses, recurring each month.

1. Inventory Source

Inventory Source allows you to connect with over 300+ wholesale suppliers listed on their platform. It is basically a dropship automation software – product syncing, orders management, etc., – that integrates these suppliers to your online store or marketplaces like Amazon.

Although inventory source is a premium service, the best thing is that you only have to pay if you use their automation software or other features.

This means, browsing through a bunch of available suppliers is free & you can pick names from there & research them further on your own by visiting them via Google.

One thing I like about Inventory Source is that they have advanced filters to help you find the right supplier yu are

Plans & Pricing: You can browse through the dropshipping supplier’s directory for free, but the integration (products importing & orders sync) feature is paid.

2. AliExpress

AliExpress is the most popular platform to find millions of products for dropshipping from over 40+ niches. The majority of suppliers registered with AliExpress are from China. It also has manufactures registered from Australia, the US & other countries.

But since most of the products manufactured in China are of low quality, many of the dropship entrepreneurs are now ditching AliExpress & using alternatives like Spocket.

However, you can still find some good suppliers at AliExpress but the research needs to be done very thoroughly.

Plans & Pricing: Free to use.

3. Oberlo

Oberlo is a dropshipping automation platform that allows you to import products from AliExpress to your store. Once you sign up with Oberlo, you can browse through popular & trending products from AliExpress within the Oberlo web app & you can import them to your store in one click.

Plans & Pricing: Oberlo now has an amazing free plan that allows you to import up to 500 products to your store. This plan used to be paid a few weeks ago so this is definitely the right time to unleash the power of Oberlo.

4. CJ Dropshipping

CJ Dropshipping is another great platform that has millions of products to source for dropshipping.

The best thing about CJ dropshipping is that the platform allows you to select warehouse location from where the product will be delivered – helping you offer an optimal delivery time to your customers, as per the location you are targeting.

Plans & Pricing: Most of the features with CJ Dropshipping is free to use & a premium plan if also available.

5. Spocket

Another great platform to find quality products for dropshipping is Spocket. Spocket has more than thousands of quality products for dropshipping – ready to be delivered in a fraction of days.

The reason behind the success of Spocket is that they have manufacturers from the US, EU, & Australia that offer quality products – unlike AliExpress, wherein most of the products are of cheap quality.

With that being said, Spocket not only gives you advantage over product quality but also over shipping times, which if definitely a cruical factor for success.

Plans & Pricing: The free plan offers nothing & just lures you to get signups. The basic plan starts with $24/month & allows you to import only 25 products. Furthermore, the $49/month plan allows you to import up to 250 products. Definitely not worth it if you are a complete newbie

Method #3 Browse Through Trade Shows & Expos

Another way to find dropshipping suppliers for your store is by visiting trade shows & expo websites to browse through the list of active exhibitors participating or have participated.

This method is used by a few & is effective in the long run.

However, one must keep in mind that these exhibitors are manufacturer/wholesale suppliers, not dropship suppliers – meaning that most of them will not be interested in working with you.

But if you outreach them, represent yourself & tell them about your plans, there are chances that you’ll convince them in collaborating with you.

Finding a supplier this way means more profitability & good business relationships – but the work is tedious I must say.

Final Step: Establish Yourself & Contact Suppliers/Manufacturers

Contacting manufacturers directly is one more option & efficient in terms of business relationships & profit margins – but finding a manufacturer & convincing them to work with you is tedious.

Now that you’ve seen a few methods to find suppliers, you can start searching & shortlisting some. While searching for suppliers, you will definitely come across manufacturers.

Not all manufactures would be aware of dropshipping & hence you must reach out to them directly & ask if they are open to collaboration.

You can introduce yourself as a small business founder & let them know how passionate you are to make your business up and running.

Contacting manufacturers directly rather than suppliers is a path to way more profitability – you get the products at wholesale prices if you manage to convince manufacturer.

While reaching out, pitch your plans & help them understand how you can bring value & sales to their business – if they are unaware of dropshipping.

If the manufacture seems to be not interested, you can ask them if they can share the list of wholesale distributors they are working with – which you can further contact to see if they allow dropshipping.

The Bottom Line – Summing Up

Suppliers are the backbone of the dropshipping business & you cannot succeed without good ones. Since you don’t hold any product inventory, your dropship business is solely dependent on suppliers you’re working with.

I hope this article helped you understand some ways to find legitimate & quality suppliers for your dropshipping plans. Just keep in mind that genuine suppliers:

• Do not ask for monthly fees until there are services that justifies the price
• Do not sell to the general market – they are a wholesale business & wholesale business is B2B not B2C
• Do not ask for an additional commission on each sale
• In most cases, do not ask for minimum order quantity

With that being said, make sure that you invest a good amount of time in finding a reliable supplier for your store. All the best & thanks for reading 🙂