With major impacts on business such as pandemics and the high street under increasing pressure to continue trading, many are looking to move their retail business online or even protect themselves against the uncertainty of the job market by starting a dropshipping store.
According to recent research by grandviewresearch.com, dropshipping revenue is said to grow to a whopping $577.9 billion by 2025. So how do fledgling eCommerce stores hope to compete?
Today we’re going to explore one of the most important ways you can stand head and shoulders above the crowd and ensure your store is getting a slice of the action!
Many dropshipping entrepreneurs are wondering how they can grow a successful store and whether branding a dropshipping store will help them.
So let’s look at the brief definitive takeaway first so you can get started building an empire!
Why should you brand your dropshipping store? Branding your dropshipping, eCommerce, or Shopify store is crucial to attracting target customers in your niche, building a reputation, encouraging multiple purchases, awareness of your store, charging higher prices, saving you money and time, whilst ensuring you get ahead of the completion.
Ok so with that in mind, let’s start to explore why you should be working on a great brand to get ahead of the competition. We’ll begin with some of the advantages. So you can see more clearly why branding your dropshipping store is important.
Advantages of branded eCommerce store
Branding your Shopify or eCommerce store is possibly one of the most important ways of growing a successful dropshipping business.
But what is a brand? In a nutshell, it’s a direct reflection of you, what you sell, and your offering as a whole.
“Branding your Shopify or eCommerce store is possibly one of the most important ways of growing a successful dropshipping business.”
First impressions count
Branding is no doubt the first impression your audience has of your business and it’s also the way your products and store stand out among the competition in your niche.
Another important element of a brand is that it helps your audience and customers understand what to expect as soon as they encounter your website.
Branding is not just a logo
Branding brings a wealth of advantages to your eCommerce store. Branding is not only your mission statement and your voice… but also your marketing materials, packaging, and website. It’s the main reason people will choose you over others with similar offerings.
It’s crucial to remember when you are trying to build a successful dropshipping store or if you’re just about to launch, that branding is not just a logo.
For smaller businesses especially, branding is crucial to attract and retain loyal customers.
Let’s look at some other advantages of branding and why you should brand your dropshipping store.
- Get ahead of the fierce competition
- Build awareness of your store
- Create the right environment to grow customer loyalty
- Higher evaluation when selling the store
- Credibility in your niche
- Better branding means you can charge higher prices
- Leads to returning customers and referrals
- Branding will save you money and time
“Branding is not only your mission statement and your voice but also your marketing materials, packaging, and website.”
What happens if you don’t brand your eCommerce store?
There are a number of people who might start a dropshipping store believing it’s the easy route to quick cash. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case.
Like any other enterprise, it’s important to be on top of your game and make sure you stand out from the incredible number of competitors you will most certainly encounter.
Without a discernible brand, your store will simply get lost in a sea of competitors who do have a robust, engaging identity. Without a brand, your store will simply not be sustainable.
If you go down the line of simply setting up some products in a store, forgetting it, and expecting a return, then you’ll be setting yourself up for a fall, not to mention possible financial loss.
“Without a discernible brand, your store will simply get lost in a sea of competitors who do have a robust, engaging identity.”
What does it mean to brand your dropshipping store?
According to The Malhotra (2012), branding is defined as:
“process of utilizing marketing strategies to enhance their products or service’s image so that it is more readily recollected by the customer”.
This literally nails why it’s so important for your fledgling eCommerce or dropshipping store.
Put simply, It’s all about how your customers perceive your products and store which in turn, makes them more likely to shop with you.
Remember, branding isn’t just about putting logos on the product, it’s an all-level marketing strategy that needs careful thought.
Take a look at what branding is below, these factors remain at the core of good branding.
- Advertising
- Customer service
- Promotional merchandise
- Reputation
- Logo
So how do you start to brand your dropshipping store? Let’s find out.
How do I brand my dropshipping store?
Online presence
Although branding isn’t entirely about your business name and a logo, it’s of course a necessity to get one! There are lots of free online tools that can help you find the perfect one for your business story.
Before you decide on a name, make sure you do suitable research so you aren’t stepping on anyone else’s toes and make sure you avoid IP infringements.
Then go ahead with searching for:
- Store domain
- Store logo
- Facebook page
Packaging and other prints
To give a little extra to your customers and real personal touch, don’t forget to add Inserts, thank-you cards or branded free giveaways, which can be samples of your product.
By building a stellar relationship with your customers adding thoughtful extras, it will help you to build trust and also ensure returning customers.
Product
There are many ways you can physically brand your products, right from engraving your logo on the product through to adding a personalized label tag. By doing so, you can build a customized offering for your customers.
Even if you starting out on your dropshipping venture and aren’t quite ready to budget for real-time branding of your products, then at least make sure your storefront and any listings are branded with your fonts, logos, and color schemes.
5 dropshipping branding tips
- Start as soon as you can before launching your store and build your brand strategy into the whole launch plan, alongside daily marketing.
- Although light colors might look stylish on your website, it can be difficult to make stand out on printed products and packaging. Make sure any color combinations which will be used on packaging work well with ‘Magenta Yellow Black.’ or more commonly known as CMYK which are the four main colors used in printing. As opposed to Red Green Blue or ‘RGB’ which is used for creating images on your computer screen,
- Make sure you steer clear of over-complicated designs as these can be difficult when printing and embedding your logo.
- Ensure you work with suppliers who are able to customize your products and packaging. Make sure you research those suppliers thoroughly as the minimum order quantity or ‘MOQ’ can vary considerably.
- When building your brand it’s important to also partner with a supplier who is able to provide you with sample products to build that all-important customer engagement.
And finally…
So now you can see why it’s paramount to your Shopify store or dropping shipping venture to have a clear brand identity, we hope we have helped you get started! Need more help? Why not contact us now to get started!