As the online earning field is growing, demand for new niches and new businesses is growing as well. To start Dropshipping is one of the most potential and money making business. Though several people are already invested in it but there is always some space for new dropshippers.
How Dropshipping Works?
Dropshipping is actually a retail fulfillment business where clients order products from your store. Whenever an order is placed on your store you go to the supplier and ask him to send the products to your customer directly.
So, you don’t have to really see or handle or store the product yourself. It saves you from inventory management, sending out products and much more. You also don’t need much capital as compared to retail store.
Secondly you can list products on your store with profit while the retail price is much low. Say you order a product which you listed on your store for $80 while in retail it’s price is $30. So, its a straight $50 profit.
Have a look at this infograph by WooDropship to have a better understanding of dropshipping.
What is Needed to Start Dropshipping?
Though you don’t need much capital to start dropshipping but you will need atleast $500 to get started. Here is the list of what else you will need:
1. Hosting & Domain
Hosting is where you will keep all the data of your store so that customers can access your website even when your computer is offline. There are many good hosting providers with NameCheap and BlueHost as the best or you can choose any you prefer.
Domain name is the world wide web address which the customers will use to access your store. While buying a domain name make sure that it is attractive, easy to remember and related to your business. For example if you are deciding to start kids clothing store, something like kidsclothing.com will be best. If the desired domain name is not available than you can create variations and check or you can use this name generator to generate an effective name for you.
2. Store Setup
The second thing that you will need to do is to setup an attractive e-commerce store. If you have some know-how of web design you can create a store yourself or you can hire someone to do the job for you.
If you decide to go yourself you should know how to setup WordPress site and WooCommerce as well. If you don’t here is a quick guide on how to setup WordPress and WooCommerce.
Remember: Your store design will play a vital role to build trust and attract audience. So you should pay special attention to store design. Make it as much professional as you can.
3. AliExpress Account
This is where our products will come from. Signup for free with AiExpress and start browsing cool products. Once you find a product that you think is suitable for your store contact the supplier and ask for product details. Ask questions like “How long will it take to ship to your destination country?”, “Can he offer you any discount?” and if possible order a sample for yourself so you can know about the quality of the product.
4. Importing Product to Your Store
Importing products to your store can be a hectic task when you are doing it manually. But there are many automation plugins available that can help you import products in bulk. For now I will recommend you to use the free plan of Ezusy.
First of all signup for free account.
Now login to your account and go to Dashboard > Settings > Manage Stores.
There will be a store listed with name “Current Store” click on the Edit Store option and edit the details. Once you are done hit Save.
Now login to your WordPress Dashboard > WooCommerce > Settings > Advanced > Rest API > Add New Key
Fill-in description and the Permissions should be Read/Write. Hit Generate API Key.
Now head back to Ezusy dashboard and go to Settings> Manage Stores and hit connect on the store you just edited.
Now enter your store URL. Say it is yourstore.com and enter your conusmer key and secret we generated in previous steps.
After you have filled-in the required information hit Connect.
5. Chrome Extension
Next thing you have to do is install chrome extension of Ezusy. Installing this extension will enable you import products from AliExpress to your Ezusy dashboard. And from Ezusy dashboard you can easily push them to your store.
6. Setting Pricing Rules
Before you import your first product to your store you have to set a few things up. For this go to your Ezusy Dashboard > Settings > Pricing Rules
There you can set pricing rules. I usually multiply the original price with 2 and sale price (for some products) with 1.75. It is just my way of dealing things, you can increase or decrease pricing according to your choice.
That’s all you are ready to start dropshipping. If you need further guide you can read our quick review on DOs and DONTs of Dropshipping or if you are finding it hard to find good trendy products you can follow our guide on how to find trendy products.
