Recently, Dropshipping has become one of the most popular online business ideas. This is mainly due to the fact, that it requires very little investment but the market is enormous.
The more traditional e-commerce business requires to manage product inventory, as well as handle different shipping logistics. On the other hand, with dropshipping you can start an online business without the need to manage inventory or deal with shipping.
Today, we will show you step-by-step how the entire process of setting up a dropshipping business with WordPress works. We aim to share with you tips on how to find the best possible products and how to grow your business.
What is dropshipping?
Dropshipping is an online business in which the e-commerce store does not keep the products in stock. This means there is no inventory cost. Instead, when the client likes to purchase a product, the owner of the store will make an order with the original vendor and has the item shipped directly to the customer.
The difference between the traditional e-commerce business and dropshipping is that with dropshipping you do not need to have the products in stock. This means you do not have to worry about handling and shipping logistics.
When you sell a product through your online store, all you need to do is forward the purchase order to the manufacturer or wholesaler who will do this for you.
As dro shipping requires very little operating cost and is quite easy to set up, it’s become a very popular global e-commerce trend.
There are certain pros and cons to this business model, which you need to keep in mind before you set up your own аropshipping business.
Pros:
Lower investment than typical e-commerce stores
No need to purchase products and manage any kind of inventory
- You don’t handle the shipping yourself
- You have the option to sell different products from a number of manufacturers and vendors
Cons:
You do not have any control over availability and product quality
It‘s difficult to manage customer expectations as you do not have any control over shipping and quality of the products
You are making less profit, as instead of buying products in bulk, you are selling them one item at a time
Aside from these factors, drop shipping has proven itself is an affective moneymaking business. You can use it to earn extra money on the side, as well as build a profitable business.
How to start the dropshipping business?
This is not as difficult as you may think. You can use a number of e-commerce platforms which allow you to set up a drop shipping store without the need of having any technical skills.
You can use WooCommerce due to it’s low set up cost, flexibility to customize your store, and the ability to use multiple payment gateways.
WooCommerce is a popular choice for a dropshipping platform as it runs on WordPress, which is the most popular website builder. With the help of WooCommerce, you have access to thousands of extensions, third-party integrations, as well as beautifully created store designs.
What do you need?
You can download WooCommerce as a free plug-in. You would need a selfhosted website in order to start your drop shipping business.
You would need the following items:
Domain name
Web hosting account
SSL certificate
Once you choose a hosting company, you will be provided with login details on your email address. From there you can log into your WordPress dashboard from your hosting Control Panel.
Next step, is installing and activating the WooCommerce plugin. You after this, WooCommerce will guide you on how to select currency, as well as other basic settings.
How to choose a design for your store?
The first thing you need to do is customize the appearance of your store. Lucky for you, you have the option to select amongst thousands of WooCommerce themes.
How to find Dropshipping products to sell on your website?
You now need to find the products you wish to sell on your dropshipping store. You need to first decide what kind of products you wish to sell.
It’s best to choose a niche for your store. This will make it a lot easier for you to choose the products, as well as your customers.
It’s best to choose a niche which you have some knowledge of and previous experience. It will be a lot more difficult and will require a lot more effort to work with products you are not familiar with.
After making your choice, try looking for products in that category.
Aim at products with high demand and low competition.
Try browsing Amazon and collect some data for your research. The platform will show you which are the most searched for and best-selling products in all categories available.
How to find vendors and suppliers?
Once you have set your sights on the products, you now need to find the suppliers of those products.
There are many online marketplaces where we can find vendors and suppliers from around the world. Here are the best drop shipping market places you can use to look for suppliers:
- SaleHoo
- AliExpress
- Etsy
- Doba
Aside from dropshipping products, you can also sell third-party products for affiliate commission. This will give you the opportunity to offer a large range of products.
Your best source for affiliate product is Amazon.com. Your earnings might be lower, as you do not have the option to set custom pricing. However, you will be given the chance to find unique products which will help you to provide more shopping choices on your store.
How to add drop shipping product to your WooCommerce store?
By default, WooCommerce does not provide a dropshipping functionality. Lucky for you, there are a number of excellent extensions which allow you to do that.
With the help of an extension, you can easily add products, collect orders, set custom prices, send them to your supplier, and much more. The functionality of your extensions will depend on your marketplace and supplier.
If you have productя with multiple suppliers from different market places, you will need multiple dropshipping extensions to automate the checkout process.
Here are some of the best dropshipping addonds for WordPress.
- AliDropship
- WooDropship
- WooCommerce Dropshipping
How you add products to your store depends on which marketplace, extension, or supplier you choose. If the extension you use allows you to import products automatically, you can just do that.
If you however, wish to add products manually, this is what you need to do.
Manually adding products in WooCommerce
Adding products is quite simple. Go to Product – Add new page from your dashboard.
You can start by filling in a detailed product description and product title. Now, select product category and upload the product photo.
Images can be found on the supplier’s website. Make sure to ask for their permission if you can use them. They can also provide you with additional product images.
Now, add product details under Product data section. There you can set attributes, price, as well as other options.
You can now provide a short description for the product. It will appear on the shop front, product search pages, and product category. You can now publish your product and it will appear on your store.
Repeat this process for all products.
How to manage dropshipping orders?
After adding products to your store, customers can now buy them from your website. You can review your orders from WooCommerce – Orders page.
Depending on the extension you have used, you can see an option to fulfil orders. This will send the order to your supplier who provides the product.
If your extension does not have that feature, you need to manually place the order with your supplier. It can be done by providing them with the order details and shipping information.
Each order can be reviewed by clicking on it.
There you can view customer payment information, product which was ordered, as well as edit the order status. Once the order is shipped by the supplier, you can change the status to completed.
How to grow your drop shipping business?
The difficult part is actually after you set up your store.
You need to bring traffic to the website, promote your business, convert traffic into customers, as well as constantly improve your marketing strategy.
Lucky for you, there are a number of extensions and amazing tools you can use to help you with this goal.
E-commerce SEO
Search engine optimization will help you bring more traffic from search engines to your website.
Optimise conversions
Once you have some steady visitors, you need to turn them into paying customers. This is called conversion. Conversion optimization will help you boos sales, making it incredibly important for your success.
You can use OptinMaster, which is the number one conversion optimization toolkit.
Recovering abandoned carts
Be aware, that a lot of visitors may not complete their purchase.
They might create an account, add product to the card but complete the purchasing process. You need to bring those customers back.
E-commerce analytics
You need to track if all of your effort of paying off. With the help of MonsterInsights, you can install Google Analytics and see all relevant data.
With the help of this plu-in you can track customers, see which products they prefer, as well as the pages they visit.
We hope today‘s guide was helpful in learning how to start the drop shipping business with WordPress. Drop a comment below and share your thoughts.
