Consider your customer's experience when you're starting out. Your customer doesn't need to know of your supply chain and 9 out of 10 times, they don't care. They only know of your store and that's who they'll hold accountable fairly so by the way. Don't create or go into a situation whereby you are giving your customers such a hard time.

 Here's what you need to know: After your customer places an order, for example you're selling candles, they pay $30 directly to you, they receive conformation. You then forward this order to your supplier and pay them ($15 could be total cost paid to your supplier) your order is packaged with your label and it is shipped out to your customer. Sounds great right? You have to be willing to offer customer support even when things move smoothly. That is how you create repetitive clients and not just one timers. What you also need to know is that you need to communicate with your supplier before you place orders on their website.

 Checklist:


What are our products?

 What are we providing apart from items?

 What makes us different?

 How can I put my customer first?

Don't be one of those ill planned dropshipping businesses with shady sales tactics, overpriced with cheaply made products. Approach this venture the way you would any other business. Take time to build a very strong foundation.

 Not only does this make sense but also if you do get tired of it, you could always sell it. But no one is going to buy a poorly run online store, the crucial part will set you aside from your competitiors. You'll be bringing in something they can't/won't bring to the table.
 What is your value preposition?

Focus on adding value in everything you do. That's how you get customers' attention. You'll be able to grow a loyal customer base, You'll gain a lot more of trust and you'll be able to gain more customers in the long run.

Choosing the right product

Firstly, We advise you to sell something you enjoy using. It's really hard to add real value to common niches like phone cases, clothing, makeup, etc. Niches are extremely high competition, are they impossible? To do? No. But it won't be easy to gain sales . You'll have to market your products excessively in order to grab peoples attention.

There's a lot to consider but we've narrowed it down for you:

The right niche is not always easy if you're looking for the most profitable niche, you may want to cancel out the chances of it being easy. 

Don't rely on best selling products, unless you can tweak it to seem different, xyz's best sellers won't always be YOUR success story.

If it's not adding any value, you are probably going to have one short journey with your store.

The niche you choose will 100% affect your business negatively or positively, if you choose a great niche you can be sure to have a business that will last longer. A lot of people advice you to go for the niche that speaks to you so long as you can:

-Strategise your marketing and customer care.

 -Automate your business without losing the personal touch.

 -Advertise almost the same way or even better than your. competitors. 

-Offer more than what other people are offering (Increase value)

Plan this well so that you don't end up closing your store after some time losing time and resources. Starting from scratch all over again is not healthy.

If you are dropshipping make sure you know that custom made/ private label products are slightly harder to dropship and you'll have a relatively low profit margin because:

1.You'll need custom content to match the product at hand.

2.You'll need to pay for a smaller amount of products and normally you save more when you purchase customs in bulk.

All in all, make sure there is demand, if there isn't then make sure you are able to create one however if you have little to no money, you are better off driving in a less crowded niche. The more you love this niche, the more you'll want to make it work.

Can you add value?

if all you're doing is copy pasting from an existing store then be sure to know your store won't perform well. A customer's willingness to pay X amount comes from the value you've created. A lot of people just want to sell, sell, sell. It's not the best way to run any business and customers can see right through you. It's easy to tell if a business is just trying to make a quick buck because you are not emphasising on value. You cannot put one's dollar up then put the person down. Don't focus on selling, money follows result, put in the work, add value and watch how people will flood your sales notification.

FIND YOUR NICHE

Types of niches you could look into: Travel, Custom t-shirts, coding, phone cases, etc.

Start with something that requires nothing more than 3 products.

Is it sustainable?

Choosing something naturally sustainable ensures longetivity in your business.

When it comes to choosing the right product make sure you are going for something affordable to purchase & resell, add value, make sure this product is profitable even after value is added. You don't have to eliminate your profit to make a lot of sales and this is why adding value is so important, because you no longer need to cut down any costs. You can add value by providing behind the scenes footage/ photos, tutorials , high quality photos, customer care and so much more.

Here are some ideas:

Phone accessories (Cases, Chargers)

 Books

 Clothes (Lingerie, Swimwear) 

Tea

 Shape-wears

 Crystals Jewellery & timepieces

 Home decor

 Kitchen accessories 

Beauty

 Skincare 

Haircare Etc..

Once you know what product you want to sell, you need to work on making sure that you're getting premium discounts, this won't be made available which is why you need to stick to one or three suppliers and build a really great relationship to be able to get all these deals.

Pricing

People don't give this process a lot of thought but it's a great thing to work on, especially if you want to succeed. Before you slap a price on a product, think about the following.

What is your profit percentage?

As in how much money would you like to make from each product? 

How many sales are you able to bring? (or you think you can) If you are not sure, you can always shoot for a price three times more than the buying price. Theoretically speaking

If you are buying items from $0.1-$5, You can sell them for $10-$20.

If you are buying items from $6-$15 you can sell them for $15-$30

TIP: When you're pricing your product, never stick to your true pricing. Let's say you're selling hair for $50 or at least you plan to, always add an extra 15%-25% so that when you throw a sale or give your clients a discount you're not hurting your pockets. *This does not apply to ebooks.*

A lot of things affect pricing, especially if you're adding value, make sure your value reflects in the prices.

1.Competition- We so often price our products according to our competition. We need competitive prices to make it work.

2. Content & customer satisfaction- How far are you willing to go for your customers? If you provide an amazing customer experience and top notch visuals, your prices are allowed to be slightly higher than your competitors.

3. If the demand is high, this means everyone is buying and the prices go up, if the demand is low, you'll have to lower your prices so that you can keep selling. Normally demand is extremely high when the product is trending.

4. The economy- If people don't have enough cash flow, you won't be able to keep high prices because not enough people can afford it. It's not under your control and it's important to consider this when you're pricing your product.

5. Keep a range of products & prices. If you have 3 items on your store, you can choose to sell two products at a lower price and sell one for sell two products at a higher price and sell one at a lower price.

6. Pricing is a game of numbers and you need to be highly invested, invest your time to research, there

are certain trends we can oversee and some we can't but we need to be ready for both.

You can price your products, -Based on costs: If costs are low, you can make your products affordable and still maintain a 25%-75% profit range.

-Based on competition: Again, if you have added more value, you do not need to go extremely low, people see the value. If you are not adding value then you'll have to strategically price your products lower than your competitors .

-Based on Demand: The higher the demand, the higher you charge

When you're launching a new product, you can either offer a premium discount (for a limited number of people) then put your normal pricing or introduce your normal pricing (it's usually much higher) then bring in the discount later.

Number 2 would be a great way to get most of your money back quickly but focus on providing affordable pricing.

Always consider your international customers and the customs fee(s) they have to pay, if you know your product is not a wow factor, don't overprice. Once your customer pays the customs fee(s) and they realise your product is just basic, they won't ever come back. The experience overall especially with the content has to be worth the price they're paying.

Choosing the right supplier: Can be tedious, but you have to really do your research, trial & error until it's done right.

You are looking for these qualities: 

-Easy to talk to

-Affordable 

-Quality is maintained and overall provides you with a great experience.

You can place test orders to ensure you know exactly how to handle them, you could place a test order and ask someone you trust to also place an order and compare your overall experience, this includes monitoring the shipping & processing time.

If a supplier says it takes 2 days to process an order, you tell your customer it takes 3 days.You do this so that you have room for mistakes and when you deliver in time they see it as an amazing trait, that you're working overtime

AliExpress is a great way to start. Visit www.aliexpress.com Log in or create an account and start browsing.


Let's say you want to sell hair (wigs) search for human hair, there are so many choices so let's say you want to do lace front wigs.

LOGIN/SIGNUP

FILTER YOUR SEARCH


4-5 stars, quick response, do they support shipping or are they able to accommodate your needs? *Always communicate with the seller before you start selling their items on your site. *Make sure you buy from a supplier that has reviews and highlight the supplier's weakness & strengths.

EXAMPLE

Overall evaluation: Your supplier's problems will be your problems, you want to choose a supplier with less negative reviews. For sure, it is time consuming but in this line of work, the less surprises the better.

This same formula can be used on/for Amazon suppliers as well.

Now that you know how to source and what factors should be considered when choosing a product and its price, you can go ahead and answer the quiz section.

Marketing & Social Media
Proper marketing is cruicial when you are dropshipping. You don't necessarily need to go HAM but a well planned out marketing strategy is very important.

Dropshipping requires you to have a fairly strong online presence which will demand you to work on the following:

What channels can you use for marketing?

-Tumblr

 -YouTube

 -Write up a blog (according to your niche, if you're selling jewellery you may want to start a fashion blog giving free tips and tutorials this gives you the chance to link your products.)

-Local.com, magic yellow

 -Adwords

 -Vimeo

 -Triller 

-Trip

-advisor 

-Yelp

-Groupon 

-Craigslist 

-Twitter

 -Facebook

 -Instagram

 -Reddit

Tips to consider:

-All of these require you to get your creative juices flowing.

-They require you to be on top of your game at all times.

-Why? If you do get high traffic your way, people will keep leaving because you're not offering enough to make them stay. Clear visuals are important, what kind of emotions. are you trying to provoke?

These are all factors to consider.

What should you start with?

 -You can start with Instagram 

-Facebook 

-Twitter 

-Youtube 

-A blog post

Any of the above or all of them.

Social Media Checklist

-Instagram

-Username checks out 

-Account opened and running 

-Arrange a theme for your page 

Catchy and informative bio I.e. -Few words to describe your business -Point towards your link -Attach the link to your website 

-Catchy & fun profile picture 

-If you will be having a section for story highlights, invest in highlight covers.

Facebook

 -Facebook page

 -Highlight/edit important info

 -Catchy bio 

-Facebook page cover 

-Facebook profile picture

-Theme in relation to your posts

Youtube

-Youtube channel cover 

-Youtube profile picture

 -Catchy bio/description 

-Pre-plan your thumbnails for your videos.

 -Catchy, colourful, slight clickbait (for the attention if needed)

Blog Checklist 

-Cover Post 

-Topics brainstorm 

-Images to use

General content checklist

Pre-plan your content, know what you want to talk about, when and why, why? because you need to be intentional with your product/business.

 An instagram post can be made with the intention of establishing someones trust in your business, posts like these are often tips, tutorials, advice or/and information.

Categorise your content into different sectors:

i. Building trust by being informative 

ii. Building relationships with your customers.

 iii. Creating hype around your product

 iv. Advertising a new product 

v. Showing people how to use your product - creates sales.

 vi. Humorous and relatable moments to create interaction.

Take compelling photos. Post at the right time- when engagement is high. You can engage with your audience by doing giveaways, showing behind the scenes, working on informative posts 


You can either pay popular instagram pages like @themelaninshaderoom or @startablackbusiness for promo. Send them your well though of/ created post after payment and repeat. This will increase engagement on the posts you already have. Don't run an ad with an empty page.

You can also pay Instagram & Facebook to promote your post- this is great for brand awareness but then again your business page should already have content that will make them stay.

Linking your website on your stories is also a fantastic way of directing traffic to your page.

Checklist:

-High/decent quality images to share on social media 

-Host a giveaway 

-Post a behind the scenes 

-Post quotes, informative posts. 

-Post tutorials & advice

-Pay for promo 

-Run an IG & Facebook ad 

-Post in an active FB group 

-Post frequently on your story

You can also choose to sell on Facebook, it creates direct and instant sales and a lot of those are inevitable if your content is always on point. It's straightforward and gives you a lot of leverage.

We do not want to overcomplicate this process, you are not required to do everything all at once. You can start with instagram then move to Facebook or vice versa. 

Take one step at a time. It is crucial that you take your time and focus on understanding your journey, it's not a sprint race and finishing first or in this case faster does not mean anything. It's better to do this well. It saves you time in the long run.

Marketing goes further than social media, you need an easily accessible website, something one can navigate through without any hassle. Make it easier for your customers to get what they want.

How to know if you need a better website layout:

I. Your site does not look professional, it looks rather sketchy and untrustworthy. 

ii. The font is difficult to read

 iii. Not enough visuals 

iv. Majority of the images are taken from another business and it shows. Not only is it unprofessional but also it is very fraudulent. You wouldn't want someone using your pictures for their own benefit so don't use other people's images. At least don't make it a habit.

 v. It's just confusing in general.

vi. You're putting a lot of things on one page especially products. If you have a lot of products, categorise them into collections or segments.

 vii. Reduce abandoned carts, people don't finalise their order it's for various reasons, so many reasons as to why people rarely make it through to checkout.

You can reduce the frequency of abandoned carts in an email recovery campaign. You could send them a discount code or free shipping. This can convince your visitors to complete their purchase .

Money is in the mailing list now, according to Shopify-roughly 24% of revenue comes from email marketing. It's one of the best ways to create repeat customers.

You can use a mailing list to: Send tutorials, informative posts blog, Youtube channel promotions & deals, but we've broken it down for you.

-Send a welcome email as soon as a customer buys something from you. 

-Provide freebies to your mailing list 

-Provide exclusive discounts 

-Help customers get the most out of their recent purchased products. 

-Send regular newsletters 

-Ask for feedback 

-Thank your highest value customers 

-Run a Logo campaign

If you have a live chat option, it enables you to have direct conversations with your customers so you can answer & address your customers upfront. 

All the key points mentioned previously are sure to give you a pretty 5-6 figure after a few months in your journey. We're sharing more tips in the quiz section.

 For your business you can always visit websites like pexels.com for copyright free images. Canva is also an amazing platform for creating graphics.

A lot of people create from scratch but there are plenty of designers on sites like envato or creative market that offer really affordable tools for you to use. Content is absolutely everything and you need to stay on top of the game if you want to win.