What is dropshipping? Explanations and basic principles of online business
The Internet is a veritable gold mine for making money, but it’s still complicated to find the ideal business!
Especially as you see it more and more, e-commerce is booming: it will represent 4000 billion euros by 2020.
More and more online stores are springing up so why not reap some of the spoils by launching your dropshipping site?
You must, of course, understand how dropshipping works to get started.
You have surely come across this term somewhere while browsing the internet. Perhaps on forums, on social networks, or even on certain websites.
Dropshipping or drop shipping is a term that comes up more and more in online sales and the trend in Europe and around the world is very real! But for a lot of people, it is still a misunderstood or even unknown concept.
So I’m going to explain to you what dropshipping means, how this business model works, why it’s emerging, and prove to you that anyone can get started.
Create your dropshipping store with Dropizi – 15 Day Free Trial
The principle of dropshipping
To fully understand the concept of dropshipping, you have to dissect the different steps step by step.
Three actors enter the dropshipping process:
- The supplier offers his range of products to resellers.
- The reseller or drop shipper, who highlights the supplier’s products on his e-commerce site
- The customer, who buys the products on the reseller’s site and has them delivered directly by the supplier
The 3 steps of dropshipping
To retrace the different steps in the other direction, you will put yourself in the shoes of an Internet user wishing to buy a product on a merchant site.
- When you arrive at the online store, you will find a product that you like. You will then proceed with the purchase.
- The e-merchant will receive your order. He does not have stock at home, so he will place an order with the supplier, indicating your address.
- The merchant’s supplier will therefore receive your order and will ship the product to your home.
This tripartite system represents dropshipping.
The drop shipper is simply a service provider whose sole mission is to sell the supplier’s product to recover a margin.
The advantage you have by launching an e-commerce dropshipping site and that you will be able to focus on your core business: online sales. At no time will you take care of logistics, stock, or shipping.
You have surely understood that the supplier has a very important place in the process. You need to find trusted suppliers!
To save a lot of time in choosing products and taking post-purchase orders, the Dropizi e-commerce solution offers you training modules to find winning products and automated steps to save time.
Dropizi will make it easier for you to get started effectively in dropshipping online sales and start generating sales!
Get started with Dropizi and take advantage of free training – 15 Day Free Trial
The dropshipping market and suppliers
Now that you know what dropshipping is, part of the business remains mysterious: how to have a turnkey dropshipping site with a quality supplier to launch your online business?
Dropshipping is largely powered by Chinese suppliers and wholesalers, and the number of Chinese companies specializing in this business has been steadily increasing for years.
This growth can be linked to their integration with Western companies.
With Dropizi, you have the opportunity to take advantage of many providers! This e-commerce solution is not just a simple turnkey solution for creating dropshipping sites.
It is also an extension that allows you to choose and import products from the largest e-commerce catalogs in the world into your store, taking advantage of supplier prices:
The Aliexpress supplier
We know that your success will, in part, stem from the choice of your supplier.
It is for this reason that during your product searches, Dropizi highlights trust indicators on the AliExpress site. This information will make it easier for you to choose your wholesaler and your dropshipping products to have a good niche site.
To create this confidence indicator, we base ourselves on essential criteria:
- the number of orders placed,
- the reputation of the supplier according to customer reviews and ratings,
- the delivery delay,
- etc
Create your Dropizi store with the Aliexpress supplier – 15 Day Free Trial
If you want to be sure to find a supplier that is the right one, you can rely on the quality of service. For that, there is nothing better than to test the supplier by ordering articles yourself.
You will be able to see the delivery times, the packaging, the range of products, and especially the quality of the products.
Another important element is the availability of the supplier. He must be responsive to the orders you are going to give him and if you need him in the event of a problem.
European supplier
To get started in dropshipping, you can of course find many suppliers closer to your place of sale, for example in Europe.
The solution Dropizi is a partner of several European suppliers and wholesalers in various themes such as BigBuy, BusyX Pro, or BrandsDistribution.
This partnership allows you to deliver to your customers much faster and to be more confident about the quality of the products sold.
Create your Dropizi store with a European supplier – 15 Day Free Trial
The budget to start dropshipping
You are probably wondering what is the budget to get into dropshipping?
The advantage of dropshipping is that anyone can create a site to sell on the internet.
The starting costs are almost nil.
This low investment is made possible because you have no stock and packages to do and therefore no logistics!
In traditional e-commerce, merchants warehouse their products or buy inventory in bulk. This is a very significant cost for e-commerce.
Dropshipping removes all these constraints, it’s risk-free!
Of course, there are a few mandatory expenses to consider when getting into dropshipping.
Costs to create the store
For example, your domain name. You must invest in the purchase of a domain name (around 10 euros/year).
If you are looking to use a powerful solution for the creation of your store with almost zero costs and have:
- great design,
- training offered,
- an automation tool for importing products and taking orders,
- partnerships with global suppliers,
- support from Business Coaches,
- etc
The Dropizi e-commerce solution is the only platform in the world to offer these services for only 27 euros/month.
Create a turnkey dropshipping store with Dropizi – 15 Day Free Trial
Costs to promote the store
If you want to generate many sales quickly, while waiting for your natural referencing to bear fruit, you will also have to invest in a web marketing strategy.
You can, for example, advertise on Google Adwords, Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, etc.
This investment will have repercussions on your site and you will quickly sell products to generate turnover!
Dropshipping players
Thanks to this flexibility, dropshipping is a profession without a diploma accessible to the general public and everyone can sell on the internet.
Auto-entrepreneurs remain the biggest followers of this model because it is very easy and very fast to create a business and launch an online store without stock management.
But there are also many people in professional retraining, unemployed, or still looking for an additional salary who start a dropshipping activity.
We can also mention students who often have many expenses in parallel with their studies and are looking for activities to earn money.
A few tips on dropshipping
Now that you know what dropshipping is, I’m going to share some tips with you before creating an e-commerce site.
When choosing your products from your supplier, read customer reviews to find out the specific pros and cons.
This information may be useful for choosing the article or even writing your product sheet.
Target a niche site and avoid creating a store that is too general. If you sell too many different products, Internet users will think they are on a marketplace and risk getting lost on your site.
In the end, they will leave without buying anything!
If a customer wishes to make a return, it is to you that he will turn. When estimating your profits, anticipate a 10% return on your products.