Since you clicked on this blog I’m assuming you’re already familiar with Dropshipping and what it entails, if not take a look at our blog about dropshipping for beginners to catch up.
Today, we’re going to take a look at the do’s and don’ts of dropshipping to help you streamline your approach to the dropshipping game.
Don’t sell exactly what everyone else is selling
When choosing what to sell it can be a very appealing idea to sell what’s trending at that time, it makes sense due to the demand for that specific product being high at the time. However, what you may not know is that you’ll be up against the larger businesses that buy in bulk. This makes it incredibly difficult to source products for a price that makes your profit margins large enough to be worth selling.
On top of this, the product lifetime is so much more temporary. Let’s go back to when the series “Squid Games” was trending, Dropshippers would have had to be very far ahead of the game to catch that merchandise at the right time before it became irrelevant. There is a very small window for these products to be sold, and in this time the stock is normally bought up in bulk very quickly, leaving no stock for dropshippers who buy on demand.
For some help deciding on what to sell online, read our blog on The definitive guide to help you decide what products to sell online.
Do play around with offers
People like when things are fresh, as if they’ve found a holy grail and were lucky enough to get 10% off something that was overpriced anyway. This is where discount strategy comes in. You want to be offering variation in products and prices so that you can appeal to multiple geographics to increase your sales.
I’m not talking about a discount strategy similar to “Wish.com” where their laser pointer is on sale from £2,521 down to 25p. You still need to make a profit, one way to do this is to have a unique item to sell and put a time-based discount on it. This means you would place a discount on your item and show that this discount runs out in several hours. Time-based discounts take advantage of a strategy known as FOMO, or fear of missing out.
Don’t try to sell more by charging less than competitors
If the only thing that makes your business different is that your prices are lower, you need to understand that due to how competitive the dropshipping field is, it won’t be long before someone else comes in and offers an even lower price for the same product. The best plan is to establish a unique, profitable product with a steady price that is also affordable for the consumer.
This way the product will create its own demand and customers will acknowledge how much this specific, good quality item is and will be willing to pay as it seems more worth the money than a pale cheap imitation product.
Do adhere to your experience
You may have a large amount of experience in a specific topic prior to setting up your dropshipping business. The worst thing you can do is act like none of that matters to this new frontier. Instead, you should use your past experience to help you with what products to sell, shipping methods to use, marketing methods to deploy and so much more. If what you know and love is fitness, consider selling products that you would use or want to be sold e.g; specific type of creatine you would recommend.
The more familiar you are with elements of what you sell, the better you will be able to run your business. Because of this, if you are setting up a dropshipping business, build it around your area of expertise, it’ll make life a lot easier for you.
Don’t rely on it as your sole source of income to begin
Don’t get me wrong, dropshipping will make you money if you do it right, but to start you should be wise with your financial plan. It should begin as a side hustle so that you can still have a steady source of income from your actual job. Depending on how well your dropshipping site performs and how much time you put into it, you can later make it a full-time priority as your main income stream.
It’s a very competitive market so it’s best to feel your way through that and make your own moves in your own time. On top of this, your starting revenue amount will probably be too low to become your full-time job. But, once you’re established, the sky is the limit!
Do utilise your website for dropshipping
Your website will be your main way of gaining the most online sales. SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), CRO (Conversion Rate Optimisation) and PPC (Pay Per Click) are all your secret weapons to optimise your website to bring more people onto your site, keep them on your shop and then get them to buy something. This should be utilised as soon as you can as marketing via your website is really what’s going to be the difference between your site and any other dropshipper.
This should be done in an order of SEO, CRO and then PPC as you should have your website ready to go and optimised before you put money into advertising it.
To Sum Up
You may feel like you have missed the boat on the drop ship (see what I did there) but by using this and our beginners guide to dropshipping you should catch up pretty quickly to the rest. So there’s no time to wait, get started dropshipping today.
