How to Dropship on WooCommerce
These days, becoming an entrepreneur is easier than ever. One of the best industries to break into is online retail, thanks to booming customer demand. According to recent data, e-commerce stores raked in over $146 billion in the second quarter of 2019 alone. So, there is a lot of money to be made for the enterprising business owner.
When it comes to running an online storefront, however, what can you do if you don’t have much capital? Without funds, you can’t expect to buy inventory and pay for shipping costs. Fortunately, you don’t have to, thanks to dropshipping with WooCommerce.
In this article, we want to go over the steps necessary to dropship on WooCommerce. Even if you’re not familiar with online retail, it’s relatively easy to get started, and the right work ethic can yield substantial results.
See also: How to Dropship Like a Pro – An In-Depth Look at Dropshipping
What is Dropshipping?
If you run a brick and mortar storefront, you would have shelves of products that people come into your store to buy. A digital storefront operates similarly, with businesses keeping stock on hand and sending it out whenever a product is ordered.
With dropshipping, however, you act as an intermediary between a supplier and the customer. You list products on your site, but you don’t manage warehouses of inventory. Instead, the supplier handles fulfillment for you. Whenever a customer orders something, you forward it on and collect a profit.
While this method of online retail is easy, it does come with a few caveats, which we’ll get into later.
Why WooCommerce?
Although you could start a dropshipping business without WooCommerce, the fact is that you’re setting yourself up for a lot of extra effort. WooCommerce is a plugin for WordPress, and it’s one of the easiest tools for building an e-commerce business. Not only that, but WooCommerce also enables you to start dropshipping almost immediately. Best of all, you don’t need a master’s degree in programming or engineering to get your ship up and running.
Related article: How to Start a Dropshipping Store with WooCommerce
Dropshipping with WooCommerce
Now that we know why you want to build a digital storefront let’s focus on the how. Here are the steps you should take to get your company off the ground.
Step One: Find a Niche
Technically speaking, you could dropship tons of different products to people all over the world. However, as a new business, you won’t be able to market to millions of customers, nor will you be able to compete with corporations like Amazon or Walmart.
The best way to ensure long-term success is to focus on a particular niche. Some examples could include pet supplies, cosmetics, or baby food. You want a niche that attracts specific demographics but isn’t so unique that there isn’t much demand.
To help you determine the best niche to pursue, you should look up trending products online. Fortunately, Google makes it easy to see how well individual items are performing in searches and sales. This way, you can be sure that you’re going to get significant traffic right away.
See Also: Finding The Best Niche For Your WooCommerce Store
Step Two: Find a Supplier
One of the primary problems with dropshipping is that you’re not in control of the products or fulfillment. Instead, you have to trust your supplier to have items in stock and to ship them promptly when an order comes in. If a product arrives late or damaged, the customer will blame you, not the manufacturer.
So, the best thing you can do for your business is to meet with and compare different suppliers. Discuss the products you want to sell and talk about price points. Also, keep in mind that drop shippers will be inflating costs to cover shipping, which means that you may have to charge more for your customers. In many cases, your profit margins are going to be relatively thin, so be aware of that.
Step Three: Build Your Site
As we mentioned, WooCommerce comes with so many tools and features to help you create a successful dropshipping business. It comes with tons of templates, photo tools, checkout systems, and more. We highly recommend looking through the plugin and familiarizing yourself with its features before going live. This way, you can anticipate any challenges and address them immediately.
Check this article: The Ultimate Guide on Building an Effective WooCommerce Store
When trying to build a successful dropshipping site, keep these factors in mind.
- Use High-Quality Images – if possible, buy some of the top trending products so that you can take better photos of them. Most suppliers will have bland pictures against blank backgrounds.
- Use Keywords – you want customers to find your store, which means that your site has to be optimized for search engines. Look up the top-ranking keywords for your niche and populate your pages with them. Be sure to utilize title tags, meta tags, image tags, and everything else.
- Offer Free Shipping Whenever Possible – unfortunately, companies like Amazon have trained consumers to expect products to get delivered fast and cheap. If you’re charging more than the competition and your customers have to wait longer, they will simply find an alternative.
- Streamline Your Checkout – many e-commerce stores experience abandoned shopping carts all the time. While there are multiple reasons for this, a complicated checkout process is one of the most prevalent. Remove as many steps as possible so that your customers can buy freely without any obstacles.
Check this article that talks about How to Dropship Like a Pro – An In-Depth Look at Dropshipping
