So you’re just starting up your brand new dropshipping venture, planning your storefront, building your social pages, finding some awesome trending products, and researching best practices.
It’s all going great. right? Well, it might be if you make sure you are going about things the best way to keep your customers happy and see your profits soar!
However, the dropshipping world is crammed with experts and those who seem to know what’s best for you. But do they have your best interests at heart or are they just spinning ugly truths, myths, and complete downright lies?
So before we delve deeper into our best hints and tips on the best way to dropship and dispel a few of those rumors, let’s hit the short answer first.
What are some of the most common dropshipping myths? Common myths about dropshipping include “a store is quick to set up” and a most well-known myth “very little upfront cost”. Other myths include “a winning product you will automatically make money quickly”, and “AliExpress dropshipping is a one-stop answer to successful eCommerce profits”.
Ok, so now we’ve got a few of the ugly truths out of the way, let’s first start by myth-busting how your important sales funnel team, social media influencers have to say about the simplicity of seeing up your ECommerce store.
Ugly truth about setting up your store
So this might be one of the main reasons you started your dropshipping business in the first place. Right?
You’ve read everywhere online from the glamorous influencers how you can set your store up in an evening, sit back with a beer, and do nothing.
Let’s find out if this is the truth or an ugly dropshipping lie.
Myth: it’s easy and quick to set up a dropshipping store
There is far more work involved in setting up a store than these shiny influencers might lead you to believe.
Although when you look at other businesses then it can, of course, be a quicker way to build a successful online ECommerce store, than literally building one out of bricks and mortar.
However, you have your work cut out in terms of:
- Niche: Choosing a niche (possibly where most of your time will go initially)
- Theme: Deciding on your store’s theme (modern and vibrant, cool, and vintage, etc.) along with details such as the font that will best appeal to your target market.
- Images: Even choosing images can be time-consuming, whether you create your own photoshoot or if you decide to go with stock images.
- Terms and conditions: Reading through terms, regulations, and policies can also add a hefty time drain.
- Supplier: Finding a supplier is going to be a really important part of the dropshipping store set up process. Making sure you have a supplier who offers express delivery, quality goods, and is reliable is crucial.
- Email: Researching an email system will also potentially add hours to your set up.
- Apps and tools: Discovering tools and apps which will set you apart from your competitors in the kinds of service you offer, including the best discount tools so you can always offer great marketing campaigns to encourage your customers to spend at your store.
- Advertising: Choosing campaigns such as those offered by the socials such as Facebook and Pinterest aren’t cheap when you are first setting out, let alone the time-consuming process required to sift through the offerings and trial them. Google Ads will also set you back between $1 and $2 per click.
So as you can see from the above, setting up a dropshipping store isn’t as simple as influencers say.
The ugly truth: it’s time-consuming and advertisement costs a bunch
Myth: little upfront cost
As we’ve already mentioned above, Google ads can really eat into your marketing budget.
Although Facebook ads are one of the most major traffic sources, it too is climbing in cost and year on year getting more expensive. and it’s getting more and more expensive.
Those who decide to dropship thinking of it as a fast route to cash, without much investment will realize that without a great marketing strategy, it can be very difficult to almost impossible to get good returns.
It’s a fairly common story for Dropshippers to pour money into split testing products to only receive clicks, no purchases which only benefit Google ads.
The ugly truth: you just can’t spend little and
expect to hit a sales boom
Myth: If you find a winning product, you’ll get rich quick!
Although this sounds like an obvious win/win, the reality is that finding a niche no one else is on, is not an everyday dropshipping occurrence!
It can take lots of trial and error before you land on a great product, but you can bet your bottom dollar you won’t be the only one to have discovered it!
Not only that, the real truth is that dropshipping is an industry that has very low margins, so you need to sell a great number of products before you start to see the dollars roll in.
Ugly Truth: highly competitive, low margin
Myth: AliExpress order fulfilling is easy
So it seems that everywhere you turn, someone is mentioning AliExpress and dropshipping in the same breath. Probably consistently enough for you to think it really is the only option and you’ll become a dropshipping champion overnight!
However, the real truth of the matter is that the deathly slow shipping of ePacket can ruin all your blood, sweat, and tears building trust with customers and more importantly, stands to completely sabotage your hard-won account rating.
Added to the fact that the holiday season is an utter nightmare when it comes to your best-selling items. During this period they can be difficult or even worse, impossible to get hold of.
The ugly truth: 90% Dropship with AliExpress died
due to little control of the supply chain.
Myth: you can travel the world while the store runs itself.
This might be one of the main reasons you decided to start your dropshipping venture. Those wonderful starry-eyed stories you’ve read of an idyllic laptop lifestyle.
Who needs the expense and hassle of running a bricks-and-mortar shop when you can drop ship your business from a laptop and discover yourself in Indonesia!
However, in order to keep your business profitable, it will need significant input from you. It’s just not sustainable to leave your brand building and marketing at the airport!
The ugly truth: Brand and sustainable business
Ok so now we’ve got those dropshipping ugly truths, myths, and downright lies busted, let’s look at some of our best tips for getting a successful store off the ground.
The right way to do dropshipping
Ok so now we’ve given you the real lowdown on all the usual dropshipping suspects, keep reading for our best tips!
1. Specialize and niche down! So rather than hitting every single product and creating a mishmash of various departmental areas in your store, try to concentrate on a few specific products that best showcase your brand.
2. Choose a niche you understand. It goes without saying, your customer service won’t be of any use to your customers if you have no idea about your own product areas or even how they work. Keep authoritative and make sure you have at least a passing interest in your products and make sure you are up to date with as much product knowledge as possible.
3. Don’t just jump into hot niches. These are more than likely going to be saturated and one more dropshipper to the party isn’t going to grow your business. instead, go for a niche you really understand, so you can market about its uniqueness.
4. Work with reliable suppliers. It doesn’t take an expert to convince you to make sure you always choose a reputable supplier that offers quality products, express delivery, and crucially, an automated system
5. Go for the long-term. Don’t just set up for a quick hit as this is likely to backfire, leaving you at a place where you may have wasted both your time and money. Set up a workflow with VAs and suppliers, continue to create a brand that has a unique story, and make sure you keep building and enhancing brand awareness.