This incredible form of commerce has changed the lives of thousands of entrepreneurs and has expanded the reach of countless brands. As a business model based on e-commerce , this stock outsourcing trend has impressive potential; It is a different alternative to promote even what is not in stock and to outsource the logistics.
If you still don’t understand how it works, you should stay; if you want to learn more, also stay. From now on, you will finally have a plan to create your own business and without so much investment risk.
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Dropshipping as a business model
Businesses that are based on referral sales have a starting point that dates back to the 50’s and 60’s. However, with the advent of the Internet, the creativity to carry out this type of agreement enters a new field. Initially, the novelty was to create an online store, but when the item is expensive products, not all entrepreneurs can equip themselves with a sufficiently large stock to satisfy the demand. Faced with this frustrating economic circle, dropshipping was born , which consists of selling third-party products through your online store. In this model, you only have to ensure the offer to the public and the conversion; You have a stock and logistics provider that supplies the needs of your consumers within a framework of benefits that cover the needs of both.
Suppose you want to enter the market . You create the online store and link the virtual catalog to your supplier’s stock but add your profit margin. When the customer buys, your supplier checks, packs, and ships the merchandise to the customer, and all parties receive exactly what they want.
Why is dropshipping so profitable?
Like any business, dropshipping can be incredibly lucrative. However, this has the plus that it is not you who makes the large investment in infrastructure and logistics. Therefore, the level of rewards you can get is much higher in terms of productivity.
You just have to make sure of your digital presence, maintain adequate hosting to support transactions and a website that attracts and converts prospects into recurring buyers.
Let’s see how you can get started with this.
First steps to start your dropshipping business
The first thing you should do is identify the type of products you want to sell and the niche you will be targeting. For this you will need to use market research tools. Although it is true, anything can be sold, the ideal is that you offer what said audience is looking for, don’t you think?
In a second move, you must look for at least three providers. Each of these should offer:
- Affordable prices that allow adding a profit margin without affecting too much the perception of the audience.
- Excellent logistics for communication, traceability and delivery of orders.
- Store architecture that allows you to connect your stock with your own store.
- Response times appropriate to your needs.
- Ample stock to support your orders and that of hundreds of people who probably also have contracts with it.
- Unquestionable reputation. Due to the great wave of scams that exists on the internet, it is best to have providers that are completely clean in terms of reputation.
It will interest your strategic planning guide
Many of these suppliers can be contacted directly on Amazon, eBay, Alibaba or AliExpress.
However, here I share three dropshipping providers that have proven to be quite reliable in the sector.
- redpointshop
- bigbuy
- plasticosur
How to create my store for dropshipping
The only thing you have to worry about in this business is that your store is optimized to speed up transactions and, in turn, achieve more and more conversions. For this you can locate your trusted programmer and start graphing what you need.
However, you can do it yourself thanks to important CMS like Shopify or WordPress . In the latter, you will need to add the WooCommerce plugin that will allow you to create an online store and has all the tools to process transactions.
Being CMS , these platforms will allow you to create stores in minutes according to your needs. Of course, you will need to equip yourself with hosting, domain and I suggest adding a corporate email package.
With providers like Hostgator , Bluehost , Namecheap , or others, you can find amazing packages that do all of this. In addition, a good hosting service is accompanied by an SSL certificate, which will give your website a better image and will favor aspects such as buyer confidence.
Attract traffic and sell in my online store
Now, you can be hanging on the internet, but if you are not visible and striking, there will be unfavorable results. To do profitable dropshipping , you must strive to attract the most amount of traffic and this is achieved through positioning strategies.
For example, the use of blogs that have valuable content and in turn a keyword strategy oriented to transactional searches. On the other hand, resort to advertising on social networks, programmatic advertising, Google Ads, and be in charge of managing increasingly better databases.
Additionally, within the content marketing strategy , you will need to connect a subscriber system for the newsletter.In this way,you will be able to carry e-mail marketing campaigns and you will show your target audience that you are a benchmark in the sector and that you are prepared to satisfy their demand.
At this point, your focus should be focused on visibility and the persuasion/negotiation strategy. It is the part that takes the most work, but if you manage to do it correctly, I am sure that your efforts will have been worth it.
Wait no more and start your dropshipping business now.