With the rise of dropshipping businesses, you might be wondering what they are and how you could potentially get involved. As far as businesses go, drop-shipping is one of the simplest and most risk-free ways to start your own.
Some facts about dropshipping and how you can get started.
The Basics
So, what is drop shipping, anyway? Basically, a business with inventory will have a third-party business (the drop shipper) sell the business’s products from the drop shipper’s storefront. This works well for both parties because the original business can move more inventory, and the drop shipper makes an income without having to actually make or stock products. In a way, dropshipping is a form of marketing. You would be responsible for attracting customers and moving products. As you might imagine, this can all be done remotely and wouldn’t require a physical storefront or warehouse to maintain.
Choose Your Product
When deciding what type of dropshipping you’d like to do, it’s important to consider what kind of product you can confidently sell quite a bit of. Getting too generalized and ambitious can spread your business too thin and make it hard to actually profit. The good news is, if you settle on a niche but discover down the road that it’s not working for you, drop shipping makes it incredibly easy to pivot. All you have to do is find a new product source and change your marketing approach to start a whole new business.
Find Your Source
Your next consideration should be where you get your products from. To make the most profit, you’ll have to do some research on B2B logistics to find who has the best wholesale price for the product you want to sell. You can even find websites that will make custom wholesale products, so it’s not necessary that you sell ready-made products if that’s not your niche. Ideally, your products should be of good quality and should be accurately represented by the pictures and descriptions on your website.
It’ll be easy to find something popular that’ll sell easily, so your real work will be figuring out how to present it in an attractive way on your website. You should make sure your supplier ships orders quickly and that their return policy is reasonable and easy for customers to use. And, last but not least, your supplier should offer enough of a percentage to you that you’re able to make a profit.
File Your LLC
Once you’ve nailed down the basics, it’s time to register your business and get started. The purpose of doing this is to get your TIN number from the IRS for taxes. Then, you’ll open a bank account linked to that TIN number, which will make business expenses and taxes much easier to handle. Now is a good time to decide what you want your business to be named.
Create a Website
After all the business details have been worked out, the fun can begin. Creating a website can be tough, but thankfully there are tons of e-commerce products out there that make the process a lot easier. Whether you choose a content management system like WordPress or work with your drop shipper’s site, your choice will be determined by your business’s individual needs. Ideally, your website will automate the process so that you won’t have to enter each individual sale from your website to your drop shipper.
Spread the Word
Now it’s time to get the word out about your business and start marketing. Social media, as always, is a great place to do this. Being active online consistently and utilizing SEO will help direct traffic to your website and start making your business reputable. Eventually, you may make enough revenue that you’ll consider paying for ads and commercials. A banner on Facebook, for example, can be a great way to get the word out to tons of people for a relatively small investment. Drop shipping can be a lucrative, simple business opportunity.
