Online businesses have been the go-to strategy for several entrepreneurs. However, the elaborate processes can sometimes require extreme micromanagement which can be daunting, especially for aspiring entrepreneurs, and tend to discourage them from seizing this lucrative opportunity, causing delayed decision-making or complete rejection of the venture.
What if we told you that there is a proven and practical approach to ensure steady e-comm business growth?
We’re talking about the dropshipping business model!
E-commerce dropshipping, as some of you must already know, is a business model that allows you to sell products directly from third-party suppliers with your brand name through your website without owning or holding them in physical form.
Meaning – no inventory!
And all of this is done legitimately!
Marvellous, right?
If you’ve been considering the dropshipping model for your business growth, you’ll find this blog extremely informative and useful. Be sure to read it till the end, for here, we have provided the resources that can help you explore it further.
Let’s start with learning who this business model is most suited for.
Who is Dropshipping for?
Dropshipping is for those who either want to begin their venture or expand their business in the e-commerce industry but are looking for a hassle-free way to sell products while reducing their overhead cost.
One of the highlights of dropshipping is that you don’t need to hold the inventory and manage delivery by yourself. The third-party suppliers you partner with manage the operations, fulfillment, and delivery for you. Of course, you will need to collaborate with your supplier to ensure timely order delivery; however, most of the backend work is done by them.
Continue reading to know how the process works.
How Does Dropshipping Work?
It’s crucial to understand the processes involved in e-commerce dropshipping. Once you do, it will be easier for you to decide if this business model is suitable for your goals.
Here’s what it consists of:
1. Customer Places the Order
To enable customers to place their orders, you need to first launch your online store and attract customers to it. This requires separate preparation, which we discuss in detail below (refer – How to Start a Dropshipping Business). Your website is where your customers will place their orders.
2. Order is Sent to the Supplier
Once your customers choose their desired products and place their orders, the orders are sent to your chosen third-party supplier. In some cases, you may have to approve the orders before they are sent to the supplier.
3. Supplier Packs and Ships the Order
Once the order is confirmed, the supplier prepares, packs, and ships the orders to the customers. You, as the seller, can track the order progress at every stage to ensure that the order is shipped within the agreed timeline.
4. Customer Receives the Order
The supplier delivers the order to the customer within the agreed timeline.
As you can see, the dropshipping business model takes care of several processes, namely order preparation, packaging, and shipping, leaving you, the entrepreneur, to focus on what’s really needed—your business growth!
This model, therefore, can redefine the future of e-commerce.
Let’s dive into this topic before learning how you can start your own dropshipping venture.
Why Dropshipping is the Future of E-commerce
Dropshipping services eased the way into e-commerce for many entrepreneurs, who saw considerable growth and established themselves in the industry.
Here’s how:
1. Focused Approach
Successful dropshipping businesses have a focused approach; they cater to a targeted customer segment, narrowing the focus, and selling a select range of products. This allows businesses to improve their positioning and appeal to a customer base that, at times despite being smaller, is likely to be dedicated and loyal.
2. Curated Range of Products
A carefully selected range of products allows brands to target a specific audience based on their needs, interests, and trends. It is more focused, aligns each product to your brand’s identity, establishes relevance with your customer base, helps you build a stronger relationship with them, and maintains your brand’s position in the market. Curation also helps narrow down the use of effective tools, such as SEO techniques, that can improve organic traffic.
3. Customer Insights
While customer insights can be drawn from every market, those from a crowded market make it challenging to focus on the unique customer requirements. Insights for a curated range of products aid in better focusing on crucial preferences and needs, allowing you to strategize for profitable sales.
4. Premium Price
The issue with a non-specialized market is that the price point is consistently lowered to stand better chances of being picked by consumers who consciously choose low-budget options and don’t care much about product quality and branding. Products that align with customers’ personal interests, needs, and values, can allow you to set a premium price and sustain better margins compared to those who sell low-quality alternatives.
5. Better Social Media Engagement
Your brand can create its own community by leveraging the power of social media and initiating meaningful engagements that resonate with your customers’ interests. You can provide value to your customers through informative, educational, and even entertaining social media content. This, in turn, helps increase brand visibility, drive organic traffic to the brand’s social media pages, and establish an authoritative position in the market.
6. Better Conversion Rates
With a focused approach, it is easier for your business to target its market efforts and run campaigns that resonate with the customers searching for those products and features.
Say, someone is looking for kitchen appliances with unique features, and you cater to that market. Highlighting those features, and addressing the customers’ pain points, preferences, and desires will help you create a stronger connection with them, improving the return rate of customers and consequently raising conversion rates.
7. Scalable
Dropshipping is flexible and requires a low initial investment. With this business model, you have the freedom to add high-demand products to your range and open opportunities to expand your business at a low-risk stake. Automated operations help manage daily orders efficiently and systematically while requiring less or minimal human interference, allowing you to focus on marketing and sales. This makes it possible for you to offer a wide range of products to your customer base across the world. You can target different locations as well where your products are in demand, as long as the suppliers fulfill orders in those locations.
Also, since most processes are automated, dropshipping is considered a highly data-driven business model, which enables you to eradicate guesswork and have a focused and strategic approach. These factors minimize operational complexity, making the business model efficient enough to adapt to market change.
In short, the future of dropshipping is bright if entrepreneurs, such as yourself, understand it thoroughly and choose the right tools, resources, and suppliers to partner with.
It’s good to see that you’re still with us. We can now safely presume that you’re interested in knowing how you can explore this opportunity.
Let’s crack on!
How to Start a Dropshipping Business
Digital dropshipping is fairly easy than it sounds once you understand how it works and what you need to do to run one successfully.
Here’s how you can launch your dropshipping business:
- Curate a range of products based on product and keyword research. Conduct competitor analysis by researching marketplaces, social media, etc.
- Find suppliers for your chosen range of products. It can be a challenge to find suppliers, especially for products that will differentiate you from your competitors. Dropshipping platforms or apps would come in handy if finding the right suppliers is a challenge. These platforms are user-friendly and can help you connect with a network of suppliers to partner. The next section addresses this subtopic more in detail. There, you’ll learn about the best e-commerce dropshipping platforms you can try to run your venture successfully.
- Create a business plan. You may consult or hire experts with rich experience in dropshipping business, branding, marketing, etc., at this stage to strategize growth.
- Create your website and list your chosen products. Ensure you provide detailed product descriptions for the customers to make informed decisions.
- Utilize marketing tools and social media to advertise your website and products to attract customers to improve sales.
Now, let’s check out the platforms you can choose from.
Best E-Commerce Platforms for Dropshipping
While there are quite a few dropshipping websites out there, here are the topmost platforms that have enabled dropshipping companies to run successful businesses:
1. Shopify Dropshipping
Shopify dropshipping allows e-commerce entrepreneurs, like yourself, to sell products through a Shopify store. This model requires you to partner with third-party suppliers who handle the inventory. You can also benefit from Shopify fulfillment and Shopify shipping, wherein Shopify manages, packs, and ships the products on your behalf.
2. Amazon Dropshipping
If you want to sell your products on Amazon without holding the inventory, Amazon dropshipping business is for you. As with Shopify, Amazon shipping takes care of order fulfillment till the orders are delivered to the customer’s doorstep.
3. Etsy Dropshipping
Etsy is an e-commerce platform for unique handmade and vintage items. Their dropshipping business model is the same as the others. You list products on your Etsy store and leverage Etsy traffic to make sales. Something you should know is that Etsy integration requires third-party apps, such as Etsy API, Printful, or Printify. Etsy fulfillment takes care of managing and packing the orders, while Etsy shipping services take care of the delivery.
4. Wix Dropshipping
Despite being a website builder, Wix supports dropshipping, allowing you to reduce your overhead costs when selling products online. You need to set up a Wix store, connect with dropship suppliers, and reap the benefits of automated fulfillment and delegated shipping.
By now you must know how important the backend processes of fulfillment and delivery are in this business model. With the right shipping platform, such as envia.com, which partners with your supplier, you’ll never need to worry about missing your delivery timelines. This is how envia.com can add value to your business.
How Envia.com Helps in Dropshipping Service
Before knowing how envia.com can help your dropshipping venture, let’s look at what it is.
Envia.com is a shipping solution for online businesses that offer advanced features, such as e-commerce integration, multi-shipment handling, customized tracking pages, and more, to streamline your shipping.
Now, how can they help in dropshipping?
With envia.com, third-party suppliers can:
- Ship multiple shipments
- Ship bulk shipments
- Personalize the logistics of the shipments
- Get automatic invoicing
This is possible because envia.com offers the following e-commerce and shipping integrations for businesses:
E-commerce Integration:
- Salesforce Integration
- SAP Integration
- Zoho Integration
- Shopify Integration
- Kometia Integration
- Ship Hero Integration
- Open Cart Integration
- Jumpseller Integration
- Ecwid Integration
- Shoplazza Integration
- Allegro Integration
- CS-Cart Integration
- Ekart Integration
- Multivende Integration
- Verskis Integration
- Shein Integration
- Bling Integration
- Magento Integration
- WooCommerce integration
- Amazon Integration
- Unicommerce Integration
- Wix Integration
- Ebay Integration
- Etsy Integration
- Squarespace Integration
- VTEX Integration
- Walmart Integration
- nopCommerce Integration
- Lightspeed Integration
- Tray Integration
Shipment Integration:
- DTDC courier
- Amazon shipping
- Shipping hero
- International shipping
- Delhivery courier service
- Blue dart courier service
- Xpressbees courier
- Ekart courier
- Ecom Express courier service
- Shopify shipping
- Ebay Shipping
- Woocommerce shipping
- Magento Shipping
- BigCommerce Shipping
- Wix Shipping
- Squarespace Shipping
- Zoho Shipping
- OpenCart Shipping
- VTEX Shipping
- Salesforce Shipping
- Walmart Shipping
- Shein Shipping
- Magento Shipping Services
- Kometia Shipping
- Ship Hero Shipping
- Jumpseller Shipping
- Ecwid Shipping
- Shoplazza Shipping
- Allegro Shipping
- CS-Cart Shipping
- nopCommerce Shipping
- Quick Books Shipping
- Unicommerce Shipping
- Lightspeed Shipping
- Verskis Shipping
- Bling Shipping
- Tray Shipping
To summarize, envia.com provides its services to 20,000+ companies and handles over 1M+ shipments every month. This re-emphasizes that not only is envia.com established, but it is also thriving in its industry.
If you are a dropshipping entrepreneur or a supplier who has been struggling with order delivery, you must connect with envia.com for effective delivery solutions.
Still have questions about dropshipping?
These frequently asked questions should answer some of them.
1. How much should I invest to start a dropshipping business?
To start a dropshipping business, you need a minimum investment to create and maintain your online store with a preferred domain name and integrate it with a dropshipping platform that connects you to reliable third-party suppliers. While the amount varies depending on the dropshipping platform you choose, you may need to spend anything between USD 30 to 300, or more. The best way to go ahead with this is to carefully study the packages offered by the dropshipping partners and suppliers, and choose the one that suits your needs the most.
2. Who handles customer service in dropshipping?
While most of the dropshipping process is automated, some responsibilities lie with the entrepreneurs. Thus, marketing, sales, and customer service will remain your responsibility, and you will need to have enough skilled resources to handle the same.
3. How and where to find dropship suppliers?
You can connect with dropship suppliers through a supplier directory or via dropshipping companies or platforms that have third-party suppliers listed.
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