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Dropshipping is an excellent way to start your own business. If you opt for this business model, you’re selling a manufacturer’s products.
For example, if you want to start a coffee dropshipping business, you won’t need to buy tons of coffee, store it, and ship it; all of that will be handled by your supplier. You will be responsible for marketing, looking after your customers, and branding your business.
The dropshipping business model has many advantages and is scalable enough to allow you to expand your business internationally. However, as with all businesses, there are certain pitfalls and tricks you should know about in order to be successful.
In this post, we’re offering 6 useful tips that beginners can use in dropshipping.
1. Eliminate Bad Suppliers
Most suppliers are aware that by offering quality service, you will continue to bring them more sales. For this reason, you should have no trouble finding a reliable supplier that offers good products. However, if you don’t happen to be so lucky, bear in mind that you can always get rid of bad suppliers.
For instance, if the supplier you have chosen consistently ships faulty products or they don’t use the shipping method you have selected, you can easily remove their products from your store. There are thousands of suppliers out there that sell similar products, so you will find a suitable replacement in no time.
2, Have a Presentable Website
If you are sending traffic to a site that is difficult to navigate or simply looks visually unappealing, you immediately diminish your brand’s credibility. Before launching your dropshipping store, take some time to analyze other sites in your niche. Check out how their products are categorized, what their homepages look like, their images, the copy format on their product pages, and any features they include.
Once you have an idea of what your website should look like, use a dropshipping website builder to build your site. Be sure to add the most common functionalities you have found in your research, including email capture, product reviews, and rating. You can also add pages to feature your shipping information, FAQs, refund policies, and so on.
3. Provide Outstanding Customer Support
As your dropshipping business grows, managing customer support through a single email inbox will prove to be impossible. Similarly, using Excel spreadsheets to handle all customer queries and returns will only lead to mistakes and chaos.
Consider writing a series of FAQ articles and implementing a help desk to ensure quality customer service. Help desk software will provide you with a centralized location to manage your customer issues and correspondence. In addition, be sure to offer more than one contact channel such as phone, video calls, and instant messaging. Finally, considering the fact that over 70% of consumers still prefer live agents over chatbots, it might be wise to invest in human agents.
4. Automate Your Tasks
Dropshipping tools like Dropified, Oberlo, and Spocket can help you automate many aspects of your business, but there there is a multitude of tools out there to help you with every type of automation.
For instance, tools like Hootsuite, Buffer, and Sprout Social can help you schedule social media posts, QuickBooks and Zoho Books are excellent for bookkeeping, and HubSpot is a great option for customer relationship management.
5. Focus on Marketing
Making sales ultimately depends on people being able to find your store online. Having a great website is a great start, but you will also need to invest in driving traffic. There are many different marketing tactics and channels you can try, including social media, SEO, paid ads, email marketing, influencer marketing, or video marketing.
However, instead of juggling between all of these options, it’s best for beginners to focus on a handful of tactics to invest their time, effort, and hard-earned cash.
6. Create Attractive Offers
Dropshipping can be very competitive, so you should think about how you can encourage people to choose you over other dropshippers. This could include offering buy-one-get-one-free deals, bundling complementary items at a discounted price, offering discounts to first purchases, etc.
Discounts and special offers can help your dropshipping business grow its customer base and boost sales. Try several different strategies to see what works best.
Final Thoughts
Dropshipping is the fastest way to get a business up and running. However, as with every other business, it requires time, wise decisions, hard work, and resources in order to achieve success. The 6 tips in this article will help beginners make the right decisions and see results faster.
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