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Drop-shipping done right, what you need to know before you start



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Drop-shipping done right, what you need to know before you start

We've all tried to do drop-shipping at one point or another. If you haven't, I'm sure you've thought about doing it but just haven't pulled the trigger yet. For those people on the fence about drop-shipping, I understand your worries. You don't know what to offer and once you're all set up with an item or two, you don't know if it will sell anyway.

Drop-shipping is getting easier year after year because of all the systems out there that basically help you set up your website in order to drop-ship whatever you want. When I started out, I had a small electronics website that I was drop-shipping with. I would make a sale then go over to the original website and purchase the item with my clients information. Now a lot of you who already do drop-shipping know there can be information leaks, which I'll cover in this discussion, just not right now Drop-shipping done right, what you need to know before you start I had plenty of them because I didn't know what I was doing in the beginning. I didn't know what to price my items at, I didn't know how to figure out what items to sell and I didn't know how to get people onto my website and keep them there for the sale.

Now I've been doing SEO and Marketing since late 2003 and I've loved every minute of it. What I don't love is drop-shipping in some niches because of the charge back rates. I basically avoid certain types of niches because the charge back rates are 10x higher than anything else, which I'll be covering Drop-shipping done right, what you need to know before you start

Now then, let's get to it.

What you need to know about drop-shipping in the beginning

1. Where to get items
A lot of people will argue on this point, but I like to source my items from aliexpress since they are usually coming right from the manufacturer which means I will get a really good price. Sure, not everything is super branded, so if you want to sell Prada handbags you'll need to look somewhere else obviously lol.

Aliexpress has a ridiculous amount of items on their marketplace, which makes it easier to find the best price for a single item since manufacturers will be making the same item and pricing it different in order to get your sale. You can find one manufacturer selling a toy at $10.00 and another selling it at $9.00 just to undercut their competition on the marketplace. Another reason this could be happening is that the higher priced manufacturer could just be a re-seller using the original manufacturer as a source. I've seen this happen a few times, but aliexpress usually cuts these people and if they don't, you can filter them easily.

I like to filter out any manufacturer or seller who doesn't have 5 stars on the items I'm looking for. I will then sort the items by how many sales it has had, and now I usually have the main manufacturer where the re-sellers are getting their items Drop-shipping done right, what you need to know before you start I will also make sure that the item has epacket shipping available so that I don't get charged an additional $10 for shipping.


2. The Setup
When setting up my websites, I will use alidropship to import anything I want to my website. I use it for WordPress, not woocommerce, because that's just what I'm more comfortable with. It comes with multiple free themes and if you use the developer for hosting, you will get a good discount and a free SSL Drop-shipping done right, what you need to know before you start

What you'll now do, after everything is set up and installed, is log into aliexpress in a different tab and then close it. Go back to your plugin and type in the keyword you want to search for. You'll now have a list of items you can import and that's it lol. You can select as many items as you want for your store and the plugin will import the images, variations, descriptions, ratings, reviews, etc. Some other plugins will limit you to 25, 50 or even 500 items for a monthly charge. The alidropship plugin has a one time fee, which I love, and lets you upload as many items as you want to your store.

After I get all the items on my store, I will now go through them and edit the titles and descriptions. This will take a while if you have a lot of items on your store so I would suggest you do this in waves. Upload 25 items and then go through them to edit the descriptions and titles. This way you'll have 25 items ready to go on your store and you can then begin on the next 25. What I love is that the items aren't live right away, you can have them unpublished until you've edited everything you want, then make them live for everyone to see. I usually have 100 unpublished items ready to go at any given time just so I can release a few here and there for the "New Arrivals" section that shows up on my homepage Drop-shipping done right, what you need to know before you start

After you get all of this done, you're ready to sell Drop-shipping done right, what you need to know before you start


3. Where to get your traffic
This leads to conflict usually, because everyone has their main source of traffic for websites where they sell something. I'm here to tell you that they're probably all good for your website, but facebook ads is what I like to use in the beginning because I can get super targeted and sometimes my items go viral with little effort Drop-shipping done right, what you need to know before you start

What I use:
  • Facebook Ads
  • Adwords (not right away)
  • Bing Ads (not right away)
  • BuySellAds
  • ProjectWonderful
  • Social Media

Now there is a strategy I use when it comes to advertising and also getting traffic in. I will start with Facebook not to just get traffic to my website but to also build up my websites Facebook page. I do this because I can then post and basically get free adverts in front of anyone who liked my page. There's no guarantee that your post will be seen by anyone, but usually it does and gets a few likes which help get the ball rolling Drop-shipping done right, what you need to know before you start After Facebook is up and bringing in some traffic I will look through buysellads and projectwonderful to see if I can find some cheap ad spots with high potential. Buysellads sells ads based on the website owners pricing and projectwonderful lets the users bid for ad pricing for the day. BSA is good for bigger websites with a lot of traffic, but you better be ready to drop $100+ on an ad that may not work at all. ProjectWonderful is a good place to test some ad spaces because you can bid $2 a day and add $20 to your profile so it runs for 10 days. If the ad converts, I usually fund it for a minimum of 1 month and monitor it so make sure I don't get out bid.

For social media I just make my profiles on the big platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, pinterest, twitter, etc. and use the ones that are best for my niche. Usually this comes down to publishing more on Facebook and Instagram, but not always.

As for Adwords and Bing Ads, I only use these after everything else is working well. I will never invest in Adwords and Bing Ads in the beginning because you can't get as targeted as Facebook ads and if you mess up one little thing when setting up your campaign, you could be wasting a lot of money. I like to set these campaigns up over time and slow roll them so that I can get the best ads ready for when I do open up the flood gates lol.


4. Information Leaks
Some people have problems with information leaks and customers complaining because they just paid more for something they didn't have to. This is actually a pretty simple fix since the manufacturers on AliExpress have worked with numerous drop shippers in the past and know your routine.

All you have to do is simply add a little line of text in the "Additional Info" box for the item in your cart, and have it say something like "We are drop-shipping this item to one of our clients. Please DO NOT add any promotional material of business information within the packaging or on it. Thank You Drop-shipping done right, what you need to know before you start " Now I've been doing this for years and I haven't run into anyone saying "Hey! I could have gotten this for cheaper at AliExpress! I want my money back!" This is because the manufacturer knows that if they burn you, you're not going to be ordering from them again. If they burn your relationship with them, you won't be sending them any more sales, and you're more valuable than a single customer since you're the middle man for hundreds or thousands of customers Drop-shipping done right, what you need to know before you start


5. Niches to avoid
Now this might be obvious, but not everyone thinks rationally when drop shipping. You can't get the idea in your head the the more expensive an item is, the more money I'll be making, because it will come back to bite you in your butt (and your bank account).

Roughly 2 years ago I was drop-shipping hover boards and I was making a decent amount of sales. The only problem is that roughly 50% of the sales were fraudulent or filed charge backs. I couldn't afford to keep doing this because I was always afraid that if I invested too much of my money elsewhere, I would go bankrupt from the charge backs. To fix this, I dumped the website entirely and now avoid some specific niches.

Niches and things to avoid:
Electronics - Avoid these because they will almost never be name brand and you'll see charge backs because people will quickly figure it out and think you're scamming them.
High Ticket Items - Avoid these types of items because there's not much meat on the bone when it comes to profits. You might sell 100 fur coats a day, but you might only make $25 per coat. Now that's a good amount of money just for drop-shipping, but your charge backs might kill all your profits and possibly kill your business.
Fad Items - Items like hover boards, fidget spinners, shopkins, etc. I avoid these because the market is ALWAYS saturated when you're trying to advertise. People can find the cheapest one online and they will buy it. But pricing your items as low as you can, without giving them away, isn't always the best way to make money lol. And if you're targeting a high ticket fad item like hover boards you're almost always going to lose lol.



In Conclusion:
If you follow what I said above, you can have a well oiled drop-shipping machine set up within the week that doesn't cost you a monthly fee Drop-shipping done right, what you need to know before you start You won't have all the headaches of saving images, setting up your design, entering everything manually, etc. This is the most simply point and click drop-shipping system that I can think of, and I know it's profitable because I still use it today. I actually plan on setting up another website starting next week using exactly what I said above, because I know it works Drop-shipping done right, what you need to know before you start


Remember to follow me!
https://www.seoclerks.com/user/Razzy


Thanks!

Razzy

Comments

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kgord
Thanks for breaking this down in a succint and easy to read format. I think a lot of people perhaps interested in drop shipping will have their eyes opened from this, and will know what to look for. You have really been very helpful to those who are looking to make money in this special way.



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augusta
Yes,this is what I have always wanted. a breakdown of dropshipping. I have learned alot already. this was well dissected and even a novice can step things up.

This has been one business that I have eyes for.Will be following this systematically to see how it goes.



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Corzhens
I was interested in drop shipping before I came across affiliate marketing. I have many friends in Facebook who are into drop shipping and they tell me that they are earning extra money from that work. I believe them because they have been doing the promotional posts for years now and maybe they have mastered the business of selling that their customers are growing.



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overcast
I agree the fad items and the electronics definitely needs to be avoided. You have to find the items which can be easily sold. You can take a look at the mall shops online and offline. And they can give you idea of the items to avoid. I have seen that most of the trendy items are not worth for the online dropshipping. They can be sold offline. But that is all about it. Most of the people who wish to get into dropshipping have better results with the accessories, jewellery and beauty market. That works for many business types.



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kgord
I have thought of these kinds of businesses before, but not sure how long it takes to make money. I don't want to burn people out with facebook ads and the like either. I don't like being spammed with ads that I have no interest in, and I am sure that others do not like it either.



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Corzhens
I used to have an offline business of selling clothing items. The most important part in preparation is the search of a good supplier. It's not just about the price and quality of the goods but also the integrity and dependability of your supplier. There are lots of suppliers online and all you have to do is to check very well on your prospective supplier before getting into a contract.



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DarthHazard
Information leaks are probably the most important thing to remember and make sure that it doesn't happen. Like you summarised in your post, if your customer finds out that you are selling the product to them at a much higher price then they may complain and you may end up losing a future repeat customer. It's important that you try to avoid this as much as possible. And I'm sure most of the suppliers will be happy to avoid upsetting you to ensure you buy from them again



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Pixie06
My friend is actually in the drop shipping business. She mainly sells cosmetics and she has been in this business for more than 5 years. If you have a reliable supplier then it is easier for you to succeed in this business. My friend has definitely been successful. Drop shipping if done correctly can be very profitable. You must try to maintain a very good relationship both with suppliers and customers.



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