Top 15 Dropshipping Methods & Ideas From The Pros

Gary O’Toole, Owner, Gary O’Toole Marketing

The most common issue I experience with dropshippers is that many look at it as a get rich quick scheme and so try to sell products that they don’t have any emotional connection to. As a result, the due care and attention is not applied for their branding.

Dropshippers who are enthusiastic about what they sell are much more successful. Their passion comes across in the eye to detail within their branding, photography, along with considerate social media posts.

Most importantly, passion driven dropshippers take some opportunity to interact with their audience on both paid ads and organic social media. A timely, honest response and acknowledgement is critical to getting your audience to understand, like, and trust that your brand. Instagram direct messaging is an absolute goldmine where the only required currency is time to locate your ideal audience using hashtags and attempt to engage in actual, meaningful connections together. Have an interest in them, and they will return that 10x over.

Reggie Dean, Senior Managing Partner, The Bounce House Store

Among the dropshipping tips that I’ve learned along the way pertains to market selection. Here is the first step when starting out, and is possibly the most essential and can either set you up for success or doom you to failure. I have found (after much trial and error) that passionate/hobby markets do far better than other niches. For example…let’s consider Yoga vs. dining area tables. People are far more likely to be passionate about Yoga and products related to Yoga than dining area tables. This fire ultimately contributes to more sales opportunities and repeat customers.

Choosing a fire niche sets you up to be prosperous in your area.

Ian Atkins, Finance Editor, Fit Small Business

With regards to what products to sell via dropshipping, you may easily be tempted to provide just about anything that could generate a good profit so long as there are suppliers around. But before you post photos of these big vases or paintings or even people home theater systems that you couldn’t believe suppliers are available at a really low price, remember the risks involved in a dropshipping business. Logistics should be among the top concerns when shipping an item, so it is far better to think about light and durable products instead of heavy and brittle ones. It’s also wise, particularly if you’re just beginning, to steer clear of products that need more than simple technical aid to set up.

Obianuju Helen Okoye, MD, MBA, MS-Epi, Owner, ImportantGoals.com

Besides the usual dropshipping platforms, consider using other ones too. I recommend trying AliExpress. It has the same vendors who also have eBay accounts in US locations. They’re usually quicker, as they do not wish to get punished by eBay. They generally have US partners and warehouses and they provide a USPS tracking number. This can be provided to a client, also makes for better customer satisfaction compared to supplying them with a Chinese international tracking number.

Additional tips: When dropshipping from AliExpress, always ensure that you select ePacket shipping, and make sure it is delivered via ePacket rather than China Post. This is only because ePacket can easily be monitored, and China Post is a much difficult platform to navigate as it’s mostly in Chinese.

Adam Pearce, Co-Founder & Marketing Director, Blend Commerce

The key to successful dropshipping is to create a brand that is stronger than your merchandise. The error that lots of dropshippers create is to just list a variety of incoherent products across multiple niches. Choose a market with goods which have the exact same look, feel, and quality. Product descriptions on the store must then mimic the manner of big brand competitors. For example, if your selling men’s style aimed at the 18-25 year-old marketplace, use exactly the same product description fashion as Hollister. Just examine the construction of the sentences as well as the adjectives and mimic. Crucially, when using Facebook advertisements, use carousel-style product and lifestyle images. With a well designed shop logo and routine social media postings, you can definitely create a solid brand feel around dropshipped products.

Krista Fabregas, Ecommerce Writer, Fit Small Business

There is no better way to begin your journey into e commerce and dropshipping by attending events like the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition (IRCE). Attending means learning first hand from already established online businesses which have extensive knowledge in the dropshipping business. It also will not hurt you’ll be able to network with trusted wholesalers and retailers that you may do business with someday. .

Among the Significant reasons Why You Need to attend IRCE:

• It pertains to online companies of all sizes
• It’s not quite as expensive as it sounds
• Highly educational
• Motivates your imagination
• Takes away a lot of the guesswork in setting up your own business

Kevin Tao, Chief Digital Officer, NeuEve

I Suggest ShipBob, a YCombinator-backed startup. ShipBob does all FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) does, however much better and cheaper. ShipBob does not charge for packaging or picking or warehousing. If this sounds too good to be true, their business model is that they negotiate more affordable volume-based prices for shipping, they charge you only what the normal postage price would be, and they keep the gap. They’ve a great API and integration with everything.

Anthony Capetola, Marketing Manager, Sales & Orders

One of the key dropshipping suggestions to remember is to not only rely on the XML feeds which are provided by wholesale suppliers, manufacturers, and other shops. The descriptions are generally generic, which not only can decrease your conversion rate, but it’s also bad for SEO as you are competing with the rest of the dropshippers which are utilizing the identical material for their shops.

When it might be a pain and time consuming, it is well worth producing unique product descriptions which are optimized for your key words which you are seeking to rank for. Your product descriptions should mention attributes and advantages while linking with shoppers on an emotional level. Remember, overall, people are absurd — creating that emotional connection through a exceptional product description can help a dropshipper make the most of a person’s natural cognitive biases.

Another tip unique to dropshippers is to look at the picture quality of this supplier — while it is sometimes not the situation, poor quality photos can be a strong indicator that the provider or the item isn’t up to snuff.

Samantha Henderson, Co-Founder & Senior VP, Business Development, RevCascade

In every supplier-retailer dropship connection, a myriad of details have to be exercised in order for either party to see profitable sales. Aspects that have to be considered include: How are merchandise content and information managed, and how can it make its way onto the retailer’s site? How is inventory updated and synced into the merchant’s site? When orders are placed, how does the supplier receive that advice? Who has paid for what proportion of this sale, and if? How are items actually shipped–whose carrier account is utilized? How are returns coped with?

Obviously, dropshipping is a complex, multifaceted clinic that always means that retailers and suppliers are constantly exchanging data back and forth. To triumph then, the key is to remember that dropshipping is a connection between supplier and retailer, and it requires efficient communication, transparency, collaboration, and organization on the part of both parties.

A wholesale dropship freelancer knows why strategic product positioning on an internet shop is significant to business. More frequently than not, clients decide in only a matter of minutes whether to stay on your site or to move on to the next one according to what they find on your main page. Because of this, smart store owners have adopted a featured merchandise screen section on their main page where they show their most popular products. However, why stop there?

When you’ve caught the client’s attention with your featured products, the next thing they will do is to compare your cost with other sellers. Most resellers decide on a simple pricing strategy, forgetting that offering a more aggressive price for their featured products can potentially shut them with the deal. This pricing plan, called featured merchandise pricing or product specific pricing, may initially sound like too much effort, but it only requires a couple minutes to apply while providing you a great chance to leverage your traffic.

Clients will add your featured product to their cart once they recognize instant savings, and will then proceed to include more attachments related to the merchandise to spread out their transport cost where you can make your extra margin.

Among the best dropshipping tip is to market what you know makes sense, particularly if your experience prove to be in large demand, innovative products. Moreover, the beauty of getting the ideal product knowledge ensures you are able to take most of the guess work out of your selection of products. It’ll show in how that you present the item on your website, the confidence in the deals you offerup to this degree of customer service you’ll be able to supply. And because vendor ratings are a major driving force in ecommerce, knowing your merchandise well will increase your client’s confidence in your business and ultimately bring more potential customers.

If you are dropshipping a few items, don’t hesitate to request a sample from your supplier. Suppliers will usually be happy to give you a sample of your product in a discounted rate.Having a sample of your product gives many advantages to you as an Internet vendor:

• It lets you take a better quality product photograph
• Being able to experience the product helps you write a better product description
• You can use it for video product reviews, ads, and other marketing materials
• It will Provide you a chance to experience what it is like to purchase from your store and make alterations to it whenever necessary

Use your online store to place your order, and make sure there’s a smooth integration of your order processing system with that your dropshipping provider.

If you’re dropshipping a number of items, request samples of your featured goods first and determine if utilizing those samples to improve your marketing materials will increase your sales.

A dropshipping supplier normally caters to over 1 retailer, in precisely the same manner that a dropshipping retailer also copes with more than one supplier. So regardless of which category you fall under, you will have to have a reliable platform to handle the data exchange operations between you and your counterpart. This is where automatic dropshipping options come in.

Platforms vary depending on the complexity of functions it offers, and its level of integration with other business tools. It’s vital that you do your research and know what choices are available on the industry so you can match it to exactly what your business requirements.

Have a look at Fit Small Business’ article on the best order direction and dropshipping system on the Market for 2017.

As in any business, dropshipping also presents a range of potential issues. Issues such as back orders, lost shipment, and yields can be a bit more complicated when dropshipping is involved. For starters, you do not have direct control on what the merchandise will look like when it reaches your client. However, planning for these contingencies is possible too. Discuss policies and obligations and come to an agreement with your dropshipper from the start to be certain both sides will put at the maximum effort to get around such scenarios.

It might initially seem to be an unnecessary expense until a customer’s package gets lost. With no tracking number and shipping insurance, there’s no way for you to retrieve the item. Aside from having to confront the fact that you have just missing out on the cost of the merchandise, you will need to bear the unflattering comments from the dissatisfied client who will tell their friends and coworkers not to use your services. So one of those good dropshipping tips to bear in mind is to not hesitate on investing a bit more on those security essentials.