Opening an online store is often daunting: You have to deal with inventory management, packaging and shipping, and it get discouraging. If this is what you think, you don’t know dropshipping! Let’s take a look at how, step by step, and in just a few hours, you could open your own dropshipping store and start making money pretty quickly.
- Here's the program
- What exactly is dropshipping?
- Dropshipping controversy
- Is dropshipping legal?
- What are the key steps to open your dropshipping store?
- Why doesn’t my store work?
- Some tips to succeed in your dropshipping store
- Conclusion
- EcoTips
- Pros and Cons
- Information recap
But before we start, you should know that I’ve already written an article about the basics you need to know to open a “classic” online store, so I strongly advise you to go and read it before going further. This article is, in a way, a complement to it.
What exactly is dropshipping?
Dropshipping is an e-commerce model that allows online store owners to sell products without having to store or ship them. When a customer places an order, the seller simply buys the item from a third-party supplier who will ship it directly to the customer.
This frees up time-consuming tasks for online store owners (who often work alone) to focus on other things such as promoting their products, providing after-sales service, finding new products, etc.
In concrete terms, here’s how it works: First, you’ll build an online store, and you’ll see that it’s not very complicated using a service like Shopify or Wix, as we’ll see. You will then add products that you will find for example on AliExpress, in your product catalog (title, images, descriptions, etc.). When a customer places an order in your store, you will just have to order and pay for the product on AliExpress, indicating the name and address of your customer for shipping. The final customer will receive the package directly at home without you having to take care of it, and you will pocket your profit on the way. Isn’t that great?
We’ll see all this in more detail but before that, you should know that I’ll mainly talk about Aliexpress in this article, but you can find very good products on other platforms, such as Doba, Bigbuy, Wish, Salehoo, Alibaba, VidaXL, DHGate, Novaengel ou encore Banggood.
This is how dropshipping worksDropshipping controversy
I’m just going to make a little parenthesis here because dropshipping has sometimes been violently criticized by some influencers who believe that selling something that everyone else can buy cheaper elsewhere is a scam, not to say theft. Because, indeed, and to use the example in the previous section, your customer could very well have paid less for the product you sold him if he had bought it himself on AliExpress.
Buying and reselling goods at a profit has been the basis of commerce for thousands of years. The traveling salesman who, with his donkey or camel, went to sell pottery to the villages surrounding the town where he bought it is not much different, in my opinion. So, of course, this merchant brings an added value since he saves the villagers a trip to the city and the time that it represents.
This is precisely where the interest of dropshipping lies for the buyer: the added value it brings him. First, he doesn’t have to look elsewhere to find the same product since he already has it in front of him, but he also has the guarantee to benefit from a good after-sales service. Well, ideally, because the reality is sometimes quite different.
What seriously harms the reputation of dropshipping are the unscrupulous “popup” store owners, who sometimes act in a rather dishonest way. They open a store, sell a lot of products with sometimes outrageously high margins, without providing any service to their customers (they never answer any mail), sometimes not even delivering the goods to the customer since they don’t buy them and keep all the money for themselves, then close down as soon as their reputation starts to smell bad, only to open another store in the same style a few days later. These are the real crooks!
So avoid behaving like these parasites, find great products, provide a 5-star after-sales service, and do everything you can to keep your customers happy and wanting to come back to your store. I’ll come back to this later.
Is dropshipping legal?
Yes, dropshipping is completely legal, there is no doubt about it. It is just a commercial activity like any other, and this term simply refers to the way an online store is managed, nothing more.
On the other hand, you will have to acquire an entrepreneur or micro-entrepreneur status, when you start at least, to be able to legally exercise this activity. Many dropshippers take the risk of starting up without having a legal status, but it is a risk that can cost you dearly. Be aware of it.
Also be very careful about the products you sell on your store. Make sure that none of them violate copyright laws or are counterfeit. The big brands are very careful about this, and you could be in serious trouble if you are not careful.
What are the key steps to open your dropshipping store?
Let’s take a look at how to open your online store, step by step. I’ve already covered this topic in this article, but dropshipping has some notable specifics that are worth knowing. So I’m going to get to the point, skipping some of the steps I’ve already covered elsewhere, such as finding the perfect name for your business or skimming over some of the others already well developed.
1Find a niche
Generalist stores that sell a wide variety of items from very different fields are already very numerous on the Net. As a result, it is strongly recommended to focus on a precise and more targeted market.
This is called a “niche”: a market segment in which there is a group of people with common interests or needs. This is your target, the ones who will be potentially interested in your products.
Here are some examples of 10 niches that are currently doing very well. This list is far from being exhaustive and can be broken down into sub-categories to target your customers even more precisely.
- Pets: toys for dogs, food supplements, winter clothes, cat trees, grooming accessories, anti-odor systems, original collars, beds, etc.
- Eco-friendly products: chemical-free cleaning products, photovoltaic and wind energy production, everything that replaces plastic (wooden toothbrushes, reusable isothermal bottles, shopping bags, solid shampoo bricks, etc.), and everything that is recyclable and reusable in general.
- Fitness and sports in general: accessories to practice at home, transport bags, clothing and underwear, shoes, stretch mats, bodybuilding accessories, protective glasses, etc.
- Home security and home automation: alarm systems, surveillance cameras, intrusion detection, locking systems for doors and windows, remote opening and closing systems for gates, etc.
- Beauty care: products to strengthen or color nails, facial care, hair loss prevention, makeup of all kinds, massage devices, hair removal, etc.
- Clothing and accessories: all clothing for women, men and children, accessories such as belts, sunglasses, scarves and bandanas, caps and hats, gloves, etc.
- Kitchen utensils: food processors, knife kits, vegetable peelers, cake molds, blenders and mixers, cutlery, airtight boxes for storing food, fruit presses, etc.
- Home decoration: frames and pictures to hang on the wall, wall stickers, storage space, lighting, cushions and other comfort accessories, knick-knacks and statuettes, floral art, etc.
- Weight loss: appetite suppressant herbal teas, fat burners, slimming creams, effortless muscle machines, low calorie meals, etc.
- Esotericism and spirituality:: everything related to yoga, Reiki, Feng shui, Zen, meditation, and all esoteric trends.
- Survivalism: multipurpose knives, fire starters, camping accessories, alternative means of communication, compass, freeze-dried meals, etc.
And you don’t necessarily need to have thousands of items in your catalog. 20 or so is enough to get started. You will then fill it in as you go along. Some online stores even offer only one product!
Single product stores
Single product stores have been very trendy for the last 2 or 3 years and are a great option for those who are just starting out in the world of dropshipping and online sales. It allows you to target a very specific market niche and to focus only on it.
It also facilitates the management of your store since you only have one product, even if it comes in different versions, and then above all it will facilitate the marketing work since you will concentrate all your efforts to promote and improve the performance of this single product rather than a multitude.
2Create your online store
There are different ways to create your website, but I advise you to use a platform specialized in the creation of online stores (such as “website builder”). The most popular one is definitely Shopify, which for 24€ per month will provide you with all the necessary tools to create and manage your dropshipping store, and that’s without having to know a single web programming language. Here is a video that explains how it works.
But creating a website when you have no experience can be quite complicated, even through a platform such as Shopify, which is however one of the simplest and most intuitive on the market. For this reason, I advise you, if you have the budget, to hire a specialist who for a very reasonable price (usually between 100 or 200 dollars), will do all the work for you. You will then have time to concentrate on other more important tasks (finding a profitable niche, suppliers, and products).
For this, go to a freelance marketplace such as Fiverr or UpWork. There you will find dozens of talented developers who can help you. Be careful not to entrust this task to an amateur (they are often the cheapest) because it is crucial that your store is clean and correctly configured.
And later, when you have gained some experience in dropshipping and online sales, you can, if you wish, switch to tools that offer you more freedom and control, such as WordPress/WooCommerce, Adobe Commerce or Prestashop. But for now, it’s all about being efficient.
Then, once your store is created, you will have to learn how to manage orders, payments, customers, etc. Nothing too complicated, you’ll see, but this learning stage is important so spend the time you need. In just a few hours you should have the basics to get started. And for that, you can go to the Shopify help page which is both clear and comprehensive.
I’m talking about Shopify because it is for me the ecommerce platform offering the best features/quality/price ratio, but there are others such as Sellfy, shift4shop, Ecwid ou même Wix, Weebly ou SquareSpace.
3Find one or more suppliers
A majority of dropshippers find their products on AliExpress, and some others on Wish or other marketplaces. But AliExpress is the “number one” because its catalog of products is absolutely massive (more than 100 million!), and the prices are the lowest you can find on the market, which leaves room to add a comfortable profit margin on resale.
However, there are two major drawbacks to working directly on AliExpress: First of all, AliExpress is a marketplace, and therefore, thousands of merchants sell their products there. In case of a problem, you will have to deal with a different person each time, and this does not always go well (someone who speaks very bad English, who does not understand your question, who does not recognize his mistake, or who does not even answer you sometimes…).
The other problem comes from the delivery time. They are often very (too) long. The processing time of the order and the shipping of the package can indeed sometimes take several days, and once shipped, it often takes several weeks (between 3 and 5 weeks!) before the customer receives his package.
For these reasons, some dropshippers, especially those who aim to work on the long term and build a good reputation around their store, go through a platform specialized in various services related to dropshipping or through an agent. Let’s see this in detail.
aThe dropshipping providers
Dropshipping providers offer a wide selection of products at competitive prices, often the same as found on AliExpress, but also offer advanced order management and delivery features to make the dropshipping process easier for resellers.
Compared to buying on AliExpress, these dropshipping providers generally offer a smoother and simpler experience. The order management interface is more intuitive, and they offer dedicated customer support to solve problems (they often speak local languages such as Mandarin, Cantonese, Wu…) or answer questions.
Additionally, some dropshipping platforms offer product customization or branding options that are not available on AliExpress. This can be useful for resellers who want to add their own logo or brand to their products, and thus stand out from the competition.
Most dropshipping platforms offer shorter delivery times than AliExpress, as they have stocks of goods located in different parts of the world, especially in North America and Europe. The goods are therefore sent from the place closest to the customer, which also sometimes avoids possible customs fees.
Finally, these platforms allow you to connect your store, whether it is on Shopify or elsewhere, directly to their services, via an app or a plugin. These will allow you to add products to your store very simply and quickly, and thus to import the title, description, images and other useful elements of each of them. No need to spend hours copy/pasting texts and downloading images to create your product pages. Just 2 or 3 clicks, then modify the description to make it even more persuasive, and check if the rest is correct.
As you can see, the advantages of these platforms are numerous, and it is understandable why many dropshippers go through one of them. But if not all of them do this, it’s for a simple reason: Dropshipping platforms generally offer a smaller choice of products, and the prices, even if they remain interesting, are often a bit higher than on AliExpress.
That said, if your ambition is to create a store on the long term, and your priority is to satisfy your customers, you should seriously consider using one of these dropshipping platforms. Unless your store only offers one product, and in this case, it is better to find an agent as we will see later.
What are the 12 best dropshipping providers?
Here is a small selection of the most popular dropshipping providers available. You can choose one of them, but feel free to compare them to see which one suits you best.
I’m ranking the first ones here in order of preference, but as I didn’t test them all, the others are displayed randomly.
- CJdropshipping
- SourcinBox
- HyperSKU
- Spocket
- Dropified
- Eprolo
- nichedropshipping
- zendrop
- Syncee
- Importify
- Dropship.me
- wiio.io
bThe agent
More precisely called “dropshipping sourcing agent”, it is a person or a company that takes care of finding suppliers and products, and negotiating prices for dropshippers. These agents can work with suppliers located in China but also in other countries. They usually have a well-filled address book and can therefore propose solutions for all types of online stores.
Their role is essential because they act as intermediaries between the manufacturers or those who supply the products, and the resellers who use the dropshipping model. They take care of all the problems related to stock, logistics, delivery, etc. They usually speak English and the local language, which makes the task much easier. They are your eyes and hands on the spot.
Working with a dropshipping provider or agent offers real advantages for your business.6 methods to find a dropshipping agent
There are several methods to find a sourcing dropshipping agent:
- Search the internet: You can start by searching online to find an agent, as some have their own websites.
- Join online groups: There are many online groups, especially on Facebook, dedicated to dropshipping resellers that can be a good place to get recommendations and advice.
- Do a search on Fiverr or UpWork: Many agents offer their services through these freelance marketplaces. If you search for the right keywords,you should find someone without difficulty.
- Search on Reddit: Reddit is a rather underestimated social network because there is a lot of diverse information. Register, and post the question in the “dropship” subreddit. You should get answers pretty quickly. You can also do a search because others have already asked the question before you.
- Ask the question on Quora: Quora is a platform where you can ask any kind of question. So launch a keyword search, and if you don’t find a relatively recent answer, ask the question yourself.
- Use a dropshipping sourcing platform: Some dropshipping platforms, which I mentioned earlier, also offer sourcing services to help resellers find suppliers and products.
Whichever way you use, take the time to research and compare the different dropshipping sourcing agents available before choosing the one you will work with. Be sure to check out their reputation and experience, and don’t be afraid to ask questions and ask for references before making a decision.
You can then start working with them, but if you find a problem, discuss it with them as soon as possible, and don’t hesitate to find another agent if you’re not satisfied with this one.
4How to find the best products for your store?
Successful products have a name in the sales world: “winning products”. Finding these “winning products” is not that simple and just using your intuition for this is a mistake that many beginners make. But don’t worry, there are techniques to do this, and I’ll give you some of them.
Product search platforms: There are websites, and even apps, that offer new potential winning products every day. These services are often paid but also offer free content. So it’s a good way to find your winning products, even if everyone else is going and so you’ll never be alone on this.
Here is a list of 8 winning product search sites: Product Mafia, Thieve, Pexda, ecomhunt, Niche Scraper, DropShip Spy et E-sniper
- AliExpress: When searching, it is possible to sort the results by order number. You will notice that some products have been sold in thousands of copies, sometimes even much more. An absolute hit, which means that we are dealing with a winning product.
- Other marketplaces: Check out Amazon Best Sellers, eBay or even Etsy, see what’s working right now, identify the most successful stores and see what their bestsellers are.
- Facebook groups: There are many FB groups dedicated to dropshipping, some more specifically to winning products. To find them, simply search in the Facebook search bar, then filter the results by clicking on “groups”.
- Blog posts: A Google search will help you find blog posts that offer product listings or niches, but also other useful content related to this topic.
- Spy on the competition: Go to other dropshipping websites. Find out which products have the most reviews, and especially which ones are promoted because they are often the most popular.
- See the number of views/likes on social network ads: Search for e-commerce related content on Instagram and Tik Tok. You will certainly come across videos or advertising posts of dropshippers. Theoretically, the higher the number of views/likes, the more it’s a potential winning product.
- Google Trends: a great tool to check the popularity of a product type, trend or even a niche. When you think you have found an interesting product, check it out with this tool. If you want to know how it works, it’s here.
Pay particular attention to the quality of the photos, that they are sharp, bright and well framed.5How to sell your products online?
Now you’ve found a good niche, built your beautiful dropshipping store, and added each product in your catalog. All that’s left is to sell. Yes, but to do that you need to let people know that your store exists. As I like to say, you may have the best product in the world, but if nobody knows about it, it will be a failure.
So you have to promote your store, but especially your products, online. Here is how you can do it:
Conduct A/B tests: Advertising is expensive. That’s why it’s important to run A/B tests beforehand. This involves comparing the performance of different versions of your ads. Let’s say you want to promote a pair of shoes. You will create different versions of your ad, varying the title, the text, the images and even the targets.
Once you have several versions of your ad, you’ll launch micro-campaigns on Facebook Ads, putting only a few dollars on each, then wait to see which one generates the most conversions or has the most “likes”. You can then use that one, and launch larger campaigns, not only on FB Ads, but also Google Ads. And if you don’t know how it works, here is a tutorial for FB Ads and another for Google Ads.
Most advertisers use this method to identify the best performing versions, and thus optimize their ad campaigns and improve their results. So do the same.
Create short videos: Well-crafted videos are always a hit on Instagram and Tik Tok, so this is FREE advertising! Order one or more of each product you want to promote, and shoot short videos of max 1 minute. If you don’t know how to do it, look at what your competitors are doing and do the same, or even better.
Above all, take care of the quality and make sure that the brightness is optimal (neither overexposed nor underexposed), that the colors are vibrant, that the image is sharp. There are plenty of tutorials on YouTube to teach you how to take decent videos.
Then create small and simple montages and add some music that is both discreet but dynamic (don’t get too psychedelic). There are free tools, such as Canva, to create your videos in just a few clicks.
And concerning equipment, there is no need to buy a camera or any other expensive device. A simple smartphone (of good quality though) is enough.
Collaborate with micro-influencers: Look on social networks (Instagram and TikTok) for not too famous influencers (between 1,000 and 10,000 followers) who address your target audience. You can also use stars like Bella Poarch or khaby lame, but be warned that your bank account might get a nosebleed.
When you have found them, send them a collaboration request explaining what you are selling and what you expect from them. If the response is positive, send a proposal for collaboration and be sure to specify the terms of your agreement. This will usually cost you money, but sometimes you’ll just have to offer a product or compensation in exchange for the promotion (this is especially the case with nano-influencers).
You can also use specialized platforms, such as stellar.io, favikon.com, findly.co or hypeauditor.com, which allow you to find influencers based on their audience and specialty.
Use all social media: Create a Facebook page, Instagram account, TikTok, Pinterest, Twitter, and even YouTube, and share as much content as possible there, making sure to insert well-targeted hashtags. This will allow more people to see your products and easily share them if they want to.
Hire a marketing specialist: If you have the budget, hiring a marketing specialist is an excellent investment, especially if you are a beginner and don’t know anything about this particular subject. They can handle the promotional campaigns, and you’ll learn a lot from them.
You will find very good ones on Fiverr and UpWork, but make sure he is a good one (look at the ratings and read the reviews). And don’t worry, contrary to what many people think, it won’t cost you a fortune. Some marketers offer to help you promote your products for just a few dozen dollars.
The promotion of your products, and more globally the marketing management of your store, are key elements of online business. There is a lot to learn about these topics, so I advise you to take a close look at them because they can help you quickly increase your sales.
6Track your performance and adjust accordingly
There are all sorts of tools to measure the performance of your online store, starting with Google Analytics, a free tool that gives you a detailed view of your audience, how your visitors interact with your site, and search engine performance.
Google Analytics can help you manage your online store in several ways:
- Traffic tracking: You can track how many people visit your site and how they access it. This can help you determine which traffic sources are most effective and target your marketing efforts accordingly.
- Performance Analysis: This allows you to track conversion rates and sales for your online store, which will help you determine which products are most popular and at what times of day your sales are highest.
- Conversion optimization: Using Google Analytics data, you can identify which pages on your site are not performing as well as others and make the necessary changes to improve conversion rates.
- Ad targeting: You can use Google Analytics data to target your ads based on location, device and user interest, which can help you reach a wider audience and get better results on your ads.
So by using Google Analytics, you can better understand how visitors interact with your site and make informed decisions to improve your online store and thus increase your sales.
There are many other online tools that can provide you with data to adjust your marketing strategy and improve your performance. Among them are Ubersuggest, Ahrefs or Semrush. This is an important topic that would deserve an entire article on its own, which I will probably write one day soon. But in the meantime, I invite you to read this article to learn more about it.
Why doesn’t my store work?
There is a huge amount of online stores of all kinds today, especially dropshipping, and the majority of dropshippers who start up give up after a few weeks because of lack of results.
However, every problem has its solution, and those who give up either failed to identify where the problem came from or did not have the courage or energy to solve it. I can’t help you with the latter, but for the former, here are some tips.
First of all, the important thing here is to put yourself in the customer’s shoes and understand why they did not buy your product. We will see this by following the whole process that leads to make a purchase online.
So the right questions to ask yourself are:
Was your ad seen by the right people?
You’ve launched ad campaigns on Facebook and Google, but are you sure you’ve targeted them correctly? If for example you offer dog toys, and only people who don’t have any pets came across your ad, it is understandable why you are not selling anything.
Hence the importance of first identifying the type of consumer likely to be interested in your product (gender, age, geographical location, family and professional situation, etc.), which is called a persona (or avatar), and then to properly set the targeting parameters for each ad campaign.
Did these people want to click on your ad?
Advertising is a science (or almost). And this science has been studied by professionals for decades by marketers and other sales specialists. So if you’ve never created an ad before, I strongly advise you to get trained quickly. And don’t worry, you don’t need to go back to school for that. There are some great articles on the web, like this one for example, that will teach you the basics of marketing so you can get started efficiently.
After they clicked, why didn’t they buy?
There can be several possible causes here. First of all, once they arrived on your store page, was the prospect (potential buyer) convinced by what was displayed in front of them: Does the title match the product, is the description convincing enough, are the images beautiful enough to make them want to buy, is the price reasonable, etc.?
Then, perhaps the prospect added the product to his cart? Why didn’t they finalize the purchase? Was it too complicated? Did they encounter a technical problem? Does the design of your store inspire enough confidence? Perhaps the payment method he wanted to use was not offered in the payment options? Were the shipping costs too high?
You need to check every detail of your store and the buying process, called “sales tunnel”, and identify all the elements that could scare your prospect away. Make a few test purchases yourself to see if everything goes smoothly.
And don’t hesitate to call on a professional to help you because it is often one of the points I mentioned in the previous paragraph that causes problems, and it is not always easy to identify them when you are just starting out.
Remember that, in a sales process, each step must be optimized!
Some tips to succeed in your dropshipping store
Let’s end this article with some tips that will be very useful for you to achieve the success you are hoping for. I’ll take the opportunity to address some topics that I haven’t talked about here yet but that I think are important. So, in bulk:
- Take care of the design of your store: The prospect needs to feel confident when he lands on your store. If the design is too different from what they already know, chances are they won’t stay. When you create your online store (with Shopify or other), select a theme among the most downloaded because they are mostly the most efficient. And above all, put the important elements (navigation menu, promos, purchase button, etc.) prominently!
- Check out the most famous online stores: Look at all the elements that make up each page, the way each one is laid out, the colors that are used, the way the title and description of the products are written, the type of images displayed, etc. These sites are usually built by professionals, so you can learn a lot from them.
- Order your products before selling them: This will allow you to judge the quality, but it will also allow you to take original pictures to insert in the product sheet of your store, but also to create some small videos for social networks.
- Don’t be too greedy: As you decide the profit margin applied to the price of your products, it can be difficult to estimate it. After adding in your share of the costs of running your store (Shopify subscription, transaction fees, taxes, etc.) add in a reasonable margin. Also look at the price each item is selling for on other stores that are already doing well, to see if you are not too expensive.
- Don’t buy anything rated below 4.5/5 on AliExpress: If you’re buying directly from AliExpress, it’s crucial to make sure the merchant is someone you can trust first. Browsing the reviews left by buyers can therefore help you form an opinion about him.
- Take care of your after-sales service: I can’t insist enough on this point, but it is crucial if you want your customers to be satisfied and come back. Don’t forget that a happy customer will be your best ambassador to his friends and family.
- Encourage your customers to subscribe to your newsletter: It’s the best way to keep in touch with them and to offer them your latest offers or show them new products. Sendinblue et MailChimp are good services to start with, and they offer a free plan. And to know how to do it, click here.
- Add customer reviews to your product pages: Copy/paste reviews left by customers on AliExpress, especially at the beginning, and include one of their images. Then, encourage each customer who buys from you to leave a review with a picture of the product. Offer a coupon code or a small gift in exchange. These reviews, if they are mostly positive, have a huge power to convince new customers. This can be installed easily with an app/plugin.
- Beware of influencers on TikTok or YouTube: Those who talk about dropshipping often post earnings amounting to several thousand dollars earned in just a few hours. Often, they earn their living mainly with what their videos bring them (via affiliate links or paid by the number of views), or they have something to sell (a training, a subscription to a service, etc.). The information they give is therefore sometimes embellished or highly exaggerated to please you and encourage you to watch other videos. This is not the case with all, but with many.
- Use the “scarcity” technique: This technique consists in creating the impression that the product is rare or that the offer is limited in time. This has a psychological effect on the prospect who will feel that he is missing out on a deal if he does not buy immediately. So it can be an offer that expires after X amount of time (you can then display a countdown right next to the buy button) or show that the current stock is relatively low, implying that it is successful. This can also be installed easily with an app/plugin.
- Run promos: People love to pay less, even if it’s not really the case. So run a promo on every product you run an ad campaign on.
- Offer free shipping: many dropshippers offer free shipping, including the price of this shipping in the selling price. Others do not, but offer free shipping when the cart reaches a certain amount. Both techniques are worth it, so you have to test them on your side.
Conclusion
The dropshipping market is already well saturated and the best years, before 2018 when dropshipping exploded on the Net, are already far away. The competition is nowadays rather tough and it will be much harder to make a place in the sun among this multitude. That’s why you’ll have to work hard, and especially smart, to optimize your chances of success.
Don’t forget to also read my article “How to create your own online store” because you will find other important information there. So, I’ll leave you here, and come back to add more elements to this article as soon as I can.
EcoTips
Environmental and climate change issues are more than ever at the heart of the concerns of this 21st century, which is why I am proposing a few ideas that will enable you to limit the negative impact that the implementation of this idea could have.
These solutions that I suggest are sometimes largely insufficient to compensate for these negative impacts, such as carbon offsetting. Unfortunately, there is not always an ideal and 100% efficient solution, far from it. And if you have others, please do not hesitate to share them in the comments below.
I won’t hide it, dropshipping is an absolute environmental disaster. Yes, even if you offer eco-friendly products. Because if China is currently the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the world, it is also and mainly because it produces most of the goods we all consume. From toothbrushes to airplane components, China has become the world’s factory in recent decades. And I’m not even talking about the GHGs emitted by the delivery, by plane, or cargo ship, or the thousands of products sent around the world every day.
And then there is also the various pollution caused by the chemicals used in the manufacturing process, some of which are even banned in Europe and the US because they are so harmful to both the environment and to us, and which pollute the air, the earth, and the water. I think that of all the ideas published so far on Sweekr, this one is the worst in this respect.
So, there are some manufacturers who are aware of this and try to produce goods with less impact on the environment, but they are still rare, and most of the “eco-friendly” products you’ll see on AliExpress aren’t actually eco-friendly. It’s just good old greenwashing.
So, what to do? My advice (and you should tell me what you think), is to choose to sell products that have the least impact on the environment and contain the least amount of plastic. Personally, I did dropshipping for a while, to test and also because I really needed money, and I chose to sell jewelry (little material, iron, or alloys often, small and light for transportation…). So it’s up to you.
But the best thing to do is to quickly give up dropshipping and gradually move towards more “classic” sales and prefer really eco-friendly products (even if it won’t solve the problem of GHG emissions linked to the delivery of your products). Or better yet, sell digital products (training, music, eBooks, apps, etc.) whose files are hosted on servers powered by renewable energy (e.g. GreenGeeks).
That’s it. I will stop here, even if there is still a lot to say on this subject, but I wanted you to know, it is now done.
Pros
- Very good way to get started in online sales.
- The risk is low since the investment is also low.
- Possibility to earn your first dollars quickly.
- You can work from home or from anywhere in the world.
- You don’t have to worry about storing your products or delivering them.
- The choice of products you could sell is huge.
Cons
- A very big negative impact on the environment. China is the biggest emitter of GHG.
- A lot of competition and therefore a lot of abandonment after only a few weeks sometimes.
- Communication with AliExpress merchants is sometimes difficult, and delivery times are quite long.
Info
- Location: From home or while traveling.
- Investment: Relatively low.
- Earnings perspective: Potentially high. It depends on your communication and the interest of the prospects for your products.
- Required: Business acumen, an interest in sales and marketing, concern for customer satisfaction, bookkeeping skills, love to learn.
- Risk level: There is a risk of failure, especially if you don’t do things right.
- Implementation time: It takes at least a few days to get your store ready and properly set up.
- Material needed: A computer and a good Internet connection.
Great post. thank. I’m from Argentina and would like to get started, but I am afraid that the market is already saturated. What do you think?
Well, there’s a lot of people doing dropshipping, but by finding a good niche and producing impactful and well targeted videos of your products, it can still works well.
I usually like your posts, but now I don’t understand why you’re encouraging people to get into dropshipping. I think it really sucks to sell stuff for more than you can buy it for with just a little G research.
Thanks for your comment. I understand your question, but I’ve already answered here. 😉