How to Start a Successful Shopify Dropshipping Store

Intro

Have you been thinking about starting a dropshipping business and need clarification about where to start? Don’t worry, here comes your help. This article gives you a walk-through step-by-step process you can use to launch your Shopify dropshipping store and start growing your business sales. Here are some steps you can take as you prepare to launch your new Shopify dropshipping business.

1. Choose Your Niche

You don’t just want to get into business and go about selling anything to anybody. You need to choose a specific field you will be operating. For example, will you be selling electronics, shoes, or beauty products? It is essential to have specific products you can sell to your customers. Choose a niche that you’re okay working in and also has market demand to get more customers for the products you will sell.

2. Do Competitive Research

Remember you’re not in business alone. Talk a look at how your business competitors work so you can get insights into how you will run your store. Evaluate the most trending products and all the consumer trends so you can know the products you will invest in and those that have high demand in the market. Here are some of the best ways to go about doing your competitive analysis and research.

• Use social media. Use spying tools on social media to know what your target customers are saying about different products they want to buy. Use social listening tools and listen to know what your target customers say about your competitor's products. That will give you insights into the limitations they have and what you can use to outsmart them and attract customers once you launch your dropshipping store.
• **_Use search engines. _**In addition to the above method, you can use search engines to learn more about your competitors. Let’s say you want to sell electronics like phones. Search keywords like “best new iPhones” and see the results. See how those competitors promote their services as that will give you ideas on how to run and promote your products.

3. Create Your Business Plan

You need finances to run your business. As you plan to start your dropshipping store, you need to have a strategy for raising capital to finance your new start-up business as you launch it. You can ask for small business loans to finance your new dropshipping store. It will be hard to start and launch your dropshipping store without enough finances.

Also, ensure you separate your personal finances and business finances because a mixup can affect your personal life if you use personal finances as capital in the business. Your plan should also highlight know you will run your business and promote it to target customers.

4. Set Up Your Shopify Store/ Build Your Ecommerce Store

You need an online presence to effectively run your dropshipping store. It is essential to have a website where you can direct your customers as you show them what you offer and how it will help solve their challenges. For a start, you can use and host your store with Shopify starting at $1 per month

Source: Shopify

It is also essential to use domain names that align well with your products and that your customers can easily remember if they want to return and make another purchase.

Many potential customers now use mobile devices for their product search. You need to optimize the Shopify store for mobile use. Ensure your store is easy to load and can work well on a mobile device with easy navigation for the potential customer. Hire a designer to get a quality and professional website dropshipping store.

5. Choose Products You Will Sell

You have already chosen your niche market and even done competitor market analysis, now choose the products you want to sell. Since you have an active website store, add clear images of the products to your ecommerce store. Here is an example of a cosmetics Shopify dropshipping store.

Source: ColourPop

Give each product detailed descriptions and show the customer the value they will get from your products. You can also add the cost of the product to make it easy for the customer to choose what to buy based on the price they see.

On the website, you can also add testimonials from your past customers to help build trust with prospects and get them to know more about the value you deliver to other customers with similar needs. See this testimonial here

Source: Ranktracker

6. Find Trustworthy Dropshipping Supplies

Since a dropshipping store gets supplies of the products from a third-party supplier, you need to have trustworthy and reliable supplies for your products. See how the entire dropshipping model works.

Source: Oberlo

You don’t want your customers to place an order, and pay for it only for you to get feedback from your suppliers that the goods aren't available. That will kill your trust with your customers and can lose them forever to other dropshipping stores.

Keep in contact with your suppliers to know the availability of products so you can be sure your customers get the goods on time once they order them. Some customers give up on a brand easily and a slight mistake like making an order and goods not available can push them to your competitors and you lose a chance to make a sale.

7. Add Payment Gateways For Customers

You need to have the right payment methods your consumers use to make orders. It is essential to have a combination of different payment methods so the customers can choose the one they are comfortable with. You may have the right business products, market the goods effectively, and lose the chance to purchase because of the lack of payment methods a customer wants. Also, ensure the payment process is easy and convenient for the customer once they place the order. See major payment methods you can use for your dropshipping store:

• Paypal
• Wise
• Stripe
• Shopify payments

Here is an example of payment methods from one of the Shopify dropshipping stores.

Source: Burga

8. Marketing Your Dropshipping Store

You want to get the word out there about your products to attract them to your store and make purchases. Once you launch the store, you need to market it and get prospects to visit your store and make purchases. Here is just a simple structure of how the different marketing strategies bring traffic to your dropshipping store.

Source: Major Impact Media

Check out these marketing strategies that can help you market your dropshipping store.

• Use social media. Since many of your target customers are on social media, you can build relationships with them and draw them to your store. You can use that opportunity to bring awareness to your dropshipping store and get them to visit your business. Join groups that are related to your niches and engage with the content posted on them. Also, post useful content and answer questions asked in the groups to show your expertise and attract leads to your business.
• Email marketing. Use different methods to get target customer contact details. You can create attractive lead magnets like ebooks that offer value to your target customers. With the details, you can start nurturing the leads as you attract them and show them the solutions your products will offer to solve their challenges.
• Use paid ads. Having captivating and attractive ads is a great way to get prospects to engage with your store and even convert to customers. Since you have done your market research and know the customers, optimize your ads and use keywords target customers are likely to use in their search for products.
• Influencer marketing. People trust people with influence in the market. Once your store is live, you can partner with influencers in your niche and get them to shout out about your brand. When target customers hear recommendations of your brand products from an influencer they trust, they will more likely engage with your business and even make purchases.
• Create content and optimize it with the right keywords. Target customers are always in search of the right products to help solve their challenges. In their search, they read and engage with different content. As part of your marketing strategy, create high-quality content on your blog and optimize the content with the right keywords they use in their search. You can use our tool to find the right keywords you can use on your content.

Source: Ranktracker

Give customers actionable tips and strategies they can use to solve their problems. Once customers see the value you give with your content on the website, email marketing, or social media, they will engage more with your business and even try out the products you offer.

• Great customer support system. To build trust with customers and grow your brand you will have to address customer needs as they engage and interact with your brand. You need to have a great customer support team. Once customers make a purchase, they need to know when they will get it and how. You can issue a tracking code for the purchased goods so they can closely monitor the products until they get them. You can also have a live chat on the website where customers can get immediate solutions about your brand and products if they need them.

Conclusion

When done right, a dropshipping business can be a great way to grow business and generate more revenue. It’s essential to have the right strategy as you start and launch your Shopify dropshipping store.

If you have been thinking of starting a dropshipping store and have doubts use the insights in this article to guide you. Take the initiative and launch that dropshipping business you have been thinking about and start generating more revenue.