Shopify Dropshipping: Everything you Need to Know

The pandemic has given people flexibility, new time-management skills, and a work-life balance that they may not have ever been able to experience before. That situation increases the eCommerce businesses.

For new online business opportunities for entrepreneurs, there are lots of chances that you’ve come across dropshipping. Dropshipping is a business model that is a flexible way to run your business. Dropshipping business model is supported by most eCommerce platforms. Shopify is one of the platforms of eCommerce that supports Dropshipping.

Now here in this blog, we will understand everything about Dropshipping and how Shopify Dropshipping is useful.

What Is Dropshipping?

Dropshipping is a perfect online business model which is very useful and simple for new entrepreneurs. Dropshipping is a method for online stores, where instead of inventory, merchants purchase products from third-party suppliers when customers make an order to a store owner, they simply contact the supplier, and then the supplier ships the products directly to the 3PL shopify fulfillment companies. A 3PL, or third party logistics company, is a fulfillment and logistics partner that provides ecommerce fulfillment, inventory storage, kitting services and other offerings to business customers. With this process, there is no need to store your inventory yourself. With this process, there is no need to manage inventory.

Dropshipping is a good business model for retail stores, they don’t need to have stock products, order inventory in bulk, or physically fulfill the orders in any way. It is also a great method for new entrepreneurs as it doesn’t need much operational capital as it used to be needed in the traditional retail model.

What Is A Dropshipper?

A dropshipper is a supplier or manufacturer who manages the entire inventory for the retail store and ships the order directly to the customer’s door. The main work of a dropshipper is to maintain the retailer’s traffic so they (dropshipper) can earn more profit.

What Is Shopify?

Shopify is the biggest eCommerce platform that facilitates entrepreneurs to establish their own online stores. Shopify is used to make you able to build your own store even with or without any technical experience. It is best for entrepreneurs who want to start their own dropshipping business. Shopify will provide you full access to the wealth of dropshipping and marketing tools available on its platform.

What Is Shopify Dropshipping? How to Start?

Shopify is the leading eCommerce platform that helps new budding entrepreneurs to start their online businesses without any hassle of inventory. Shopify Dropshipping is a method in which entrepreneurs or retailers sell their products online on their Shopify store and don’t need to physically store these products or ship them directly to their customers.

Instead of this, Shopify purchases these products from the manufacturer or a third party and then ships them to the customers who ordered via a dropshipping provider.

Simply put, the Shopify dropshipper manages all the marketing and sales for the entrepreneur’s Shopify store, and the dropshipping supplier manages the order fulfillment. Thus, Shopify dropshipping lets Shopify store owners start a business and sell their products online to their customers without actually having or storing the products themselves.

How to Start Shopify Dropshipping

Now, here are the few steps that will help you to know how Shopify Dropshipping starts:-

1.  Select a name and create an account on Shopify

Select a name for your online store and make it simple, creative, and memorable. Shopify provides you with a name generator where you can write down a word and it will generate a name with that word. After choosing the right name for your online store now create an account on Shopify. To create an account on Shopify you need to visit its homepage and

• Click on “Start a free trial”
  
• then enter your email id in an empty field on the next page
  
•  then enter the password and, then enter the name of your store that you have selected for your dropshipping store
  
• now click on “create your store”
  
• After this you will have to fill in a few questions then your Shopify account will launch.

2.  Amend settings

Shopify has done some basic settings for newly created accounts. This setting is for how to receive money from your customers, make your store policies, and fix your shipping rates.

Payment – After creating your Shopify Dropshipping store, the first thing that you have to fix is the payment information. For that, you need to go to Shopify’s Settings page and select the Payments tab on the left and add your payment information.

Store Policies – When you create your own Shopify dropshipping store, make necessary store policies according to yourself. Shopify also provides you with helpful tools that will automatically generate a pre-patterned privacy policy, refund policy, and terms and conditions for your store. Shopify lets you access these tools, just click on the Checkout tab and scroll down to the bottom to find the relevant fields in the Shopify settings. Then click on the generate button.

 Shipping charges – The easiest option is to offer free shipping for your Shopify dropshipping store. If you offer different shipping rates for different regions then it becomes a bit confusing. Just go to Shopify settings and click on the shipping tab. Then delete all domestic shipping zones and add “Free International Shipping” into the Rest of World section. Then set “Free Shipping Rate”.

3. Launch Shopify Dropshipping store

To launch your Shopify dropshipping store you need to add all the necessary information. For that go to the “Sales Channels” tab on your Shopify admin dashboard then select the “Add an online store” option. After that now you have “add products” and all the necessary details to finally launch your store for customers. Add your product/s, upload photos for product/s, edit the title, and product description, and then assign a tag for your product/s.

“Tags” helps you in organizing your products. After creating your collection of products for your online store now it becomes easy for customers to navigate into it.

4.  Design your online store

Design plays an important role in your eCommerce store so make it simple and highlight the main things. There are two most important things in designing your store first, the theme, and the other logo. Shopify provides you with a free image library called Burst, which has a lot of images that you can use on your website.

Select a theme from Shopify “theme designer” by clicking on the ‘customize’ button and then you can change the layout and color scheme of your store by using the design options.

Now second is the logo, your Shopify dropshipping store logo must show your brand which will help customers to remember your brand. You can use different fonts, colors, icons, and positioning to develop the best logo for your brand. You can create your own logo by using software like Photoshop, or Canva.

5.  Now Sale & Earn

Now after creating your Shopify Dropping Store, start selling and earning money. Use different marketing campaigns to draw potential customers and use various marketing channels like Facebook, Instagram, etc.

Advantages Of Shopify Dropshipping

Dropshipping is a good business model for new entrepreneurs to start their businesses with it. Shopify is one of the simplest and most popular platforms where you can create and run your store. Here are some advantages of Shopify Dropshipping: –

1. Less capital required

The most significant advantage of Shopify dropshipping is that it requires less capital. There is no need to purchase products or invest money in them.

2. Low overhead

Dropshipping lowers the overheads as there is no need for investment in infrastructure. That also reduces the overheads, like workforce, machinery, equipment, tools, packaging supplies, maintenance of the infrastructure, and more.

3. No inventory

There is no need to have inventory or manage inventory.

4. Simple and easy to manage

Shopify Dropshipping is easy to launch with a few simple steps to follow and also very easy to manage.

5.  Flexible

You can run your Shopify dropshipping store from anywhere; you just need an Internet connection. You have to communicate with suppliers and customers.

Disadvantages Of Shopify Dropshipping

There are some disadvantages of dropshipping as follows:

1. Profit margins are low

The biggest disadvantage of Dropshipping is that the profit margins are low. It is a highly competitive niche market.

2. Inventory problems

There is no need for inventory in dropshipping but it also creates problems like you can’t keep track of which items are in and out of stock.

3. Shipping issues

Customers expect Speedy order delivery from you. For this, you need to have different suppliers from different locations. This will create confusion about shipping charges and suppliers’ increased prices.

4. Suppliers’ issues

Whether you or dropshipping suppliers anyone can make mistakes in fulfilling the orders. Missing items, botched shipments, and low-quality packing are a few issues related to suppliers.

5. Branding is difficult

Building your own brand is difficult here because you don’t have control over it. The supplier has the most control over the product.

Conclusion

Shopify dropshipping is a great business model for new entrepreneurs to test a new product range or supplier. You can earn a lot of profit with Shopify dropshipping with proper planning and consideration. You need to test a wide range of eCommerce marketing methods to drive traffic to your online store and generate revenue.

To know more about these and other tools that will help you to grow your business and increase user engagement, schedule a free demo with NotifyVisitors.

FAQs

1. What is Shopify dropshipping?

Shopify Dropshipping is a method in which entrepreneurs or retailers sell their products online on their Shopify store and don’t need to physically store these products or ship them directly to their customers. ry and ships the product for you.

2. Why do people use Shopify for dropshipping?

With the extensive features of dropshipping, Shopify has become people’s favorite platform for building a dropshipping online store.

3. How can I make dropshipping a successful business?

Choosing a trending niche is an integral part of the success of any business. Other than this, several other factors, like appealing products, low shipping cost, competitor research, etc., play a crucial role in the success of a dropshipping business.