Dropshipping how to get started? A world of effortless profit?

You may have already heard among your friends or relatives about someone dropshipping, but you are wondering how they got started. You see that some make a lot of money and you want to start too, but you don't know how.

Appvizer explains in this article how to get started with dropshipping and also gives you some valuable advice on what to avoid.

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Dropshipping, how to get started?

Many people believe that starting a dropshipping business is not difficult, but although starting this type of business is inexpensive, as you do not need a warehouse to manage the stock or a room to work in, the seller or dropshipper needs a lot of effort to acquire new customers and find the right business marketing strategy .

How to find a market niche

The first thing to do is to identify the market niche, you may be wondering how to choose the right niche?

First of all, it has to be something that interests you, as you will have to devote a lot of time to your business and if you choose a product that does not interest you, you will be quickly discouraged.

You should also:

• Choose products where the profit margin is important, often these products cost the most.
• Take care that the shipping costs are not very high, because it is often the shipping costs that drive customers away.
• Choose a product that is attractive, affordable and accessible so that it can be bought by customers.
• Use Google AdWords to see that this product is searched for and see the percentage of a potential sale.
• Benchmark to see what your competitors are selling your product for in order to avoid giving a relatively high price and turning customers away.
• Choose products that are needed but hard to find.

How to choose a supplier

Choosing the right supplier is very important, make sure their service is correct, because the wrong choice of supplier can lead to a loss of customers and turnover.

So who is the ideal supplier? An ideal supplier is one who dispatches orders on the appropriate dates, who takes care of the packaging to prevent the products from arriving damaged to the customer, and who ensures that the goods offered are consistent with the description.Another important element is the language spoken you must ensure that you have a common language in which you can communicate.

Creating an e-commerce site

In order to sell your products online, you will undoubtedly need to create a site. There are various e-commerce platforms that can allow you to create a site in just a few clicks. Using these types of platforms is in most cases very intuitive and easy. You can also customise your page and adapt it to the products on offer.

Run a marketing campaign

In order to attract customers, you need to think about a marketing campaign, so you can use social networks to make your brand known. You should also use SEO tools to increase your visibility in search engines. You can also use e-mail marketing to offer reductions or keep customers informed about current offers on your online site.

Upselling and cross-selling

With this technique you can encourage customers to buy a more expensive product or offer complementary products to the one added to the shopping cart.

This technique can help you increase your turnover, as you allow customers to discover new products or to remember that that product might also be useful or even necessary, leading them to add it to their cart.

What to avoid when starting a dropshipping business

I can assure you that it is not only beginners who make mistakes, it is often also those who have been dropshipping for several years. This is why we list the most common mistakes so that you can pay attention:

• Collaborating with the wrong people:collaborations on social media are often unprofitable, as the product is not consistent with the chosen influencer. Often some dropshippers tend to look at the number of followers rather than the content proposed by the influencer.

• Sell a lot, but earn little: one of the mistakes to avoid is to want to see that you make a lot of sales and therefore sell at a very low price without ensuring a minimum profit margin.

• Avoid choosing too narrow a niche: this can be a limitation as it will be difficult to test new products in your shop if sales do not go well.

• Avoid selling low quality products. You should always make sure that customers have confidence in the products you offer so you should test them before you start selling them on the web to see the quality of the products.

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How much does it cost to start a dropshipping business

One of the biggest advantages of dropshipping is that you don't have to buy your products before selling them, but this does not exclude the fact that there are certain costs to start and continue the business effectively. Among these costs we can find:

• The cost of setting up the online shop.
• The cost of hosting.
• Small commissions for listing each product you want to sell.
• Commissions to be given to the supplier: some suppliers may charge commissions. For using their dropshipping services.
• Marketing costs: depending on the marketing strategy chosen, there may be additional costs.
• The opening of a VAT number: dropshipping has certain legal requirements, such as opening a VAT number, in order to be able to operate your business smoothly.

Dropshipping may seem to be a profit-only activity, but you will certainly have realised in this article that there are certain costs involved in doing this activity, which, depending on your ambitions, may be of a higher or lower cost.

In order to succeed in this sales model, the essential element is to identify a niche market that is consistent with your ambitions and that you find interesting. This is because if you are interested in a product you will certainly be able to convince others to buy it, another element for which it is important to choose the right product is that especially in the first few periods the profit will be very limited and if you also find yourself selling something you don't like you will immediately drop your arms.