If you’re thinking of starting a drop-shipping business  as a side income gig or a means to leaving your full-time job – you have landed on the right page. In this guide, you will learn everything you need to start your own drop-ship business. In this guide, we will cover the following topics:

 

 

• What Drop-shipping is?
• What You need To Start Your Drop-Ship Business? And How To Get started With (SaleHoo)?
• How much it cost to start your own drop-ship business?
• Why you should start your own drop-shipping business (Advantages To Drop shipping)?
• How to Promote Your Drop-ship Business?
• What Is The best course to learn more about dropshipping?

 

 

 

 

What Is Drop-shipping?

 

 

So first, what exactly is drop shipping. It is simply a business where you are able to sell products to your customer without holding any inventory. And how exactly does that work? Well, when a customer purchases an item from your store at retail price. You will then need to forward that order to your supplier (we will talk later on how to choose the supplier for your store), which you pay the wholesale price. And once your supplier receives the order, they will then ship the merchandise directly to the customer under YOUR business name, leaving you earn the profit margin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In essence, with drop-shipping, all you really have to do is just set up the retail website , find customers (we will talk more about driving customer to come to your website), and handling customer support. Not hard, is it? In fact, drop-shipping is a very easy business model and an exciting journey to start now a days.

 

 

 

 

What You need To Start Your Drop-Ship Business? And How To Get started With (SaleHoo)?

 

 

Now that you know what drop shipping is, next you will learn what you need to start in order to get your drop ship business up and ready. With this said, the first step is to decide on a Niche. Most people get stuck on this step, and so if you are unsure of how to find a niche, you can simply use a key word research to help you find a profitable Niche.

 

In order to know which products to sell, you must learn what a niche is and its importance when selling online.

 

 

So what exactly is a Niche?

A product niche pertains to a particular segment of a market that a seller focuses on selling in, based on your market’s needs and wants.

 

 

 

If you are still unsure of what niche to go for, You can check out this free key word research tool course to help you find a Niche.

 

 

 

Why Choosing the Right Niche is Important

 

 

• With a ton of competition online, selling in deeper market segments can help you stand out from generic product categories.

 

• Not to mention, when you choose a niche, it will help you narrow down your target market, which makes it easier for you to focus and sell your products.

 

• Lastly, choosing the right niche is important because selling niche items will help you easily understand your product and who it’s for, which will lead to better customer service which can potentially result in repeat sales.

 

 

 

 

Tips on choosing the Right Target Market

 

• You want to have a well-defined target market which allows sellers to succeed as it gears their niche toward an identified audience that are more likely to buy their items. In other words, if you are selling pet items, you don’t want to be targeting audience that are not interested in your products. Because you will end up with little to no sales.

 

• When analyzing your niche’s key features, it helps you identify who will benefit from what you offer. So again, as you can see, picking a niche is very important for your drop shipping business.

 

• Segmenting your target market by age, gender, lifestyle, hobbies, occupation, and even income and education level, helps you to market your niche to a more specific demographic.

 

• Get real people to answer surveys and questionnaires as these data provide metrics that funnels potential leads.

 

 

Now that you have picked out a niche, or at least have a better idea of what a Niche is. Next you need to figure out how to find the perfect supplier and products. Again, this is not an easy task to do. But we got you covered.

 

 

 

Finding The Perfect Supplier And Products

 

 

A lot of people get stuck on this step, because they don’t know where to search for suppliers to buy merchandise from. You can’t trust all drop shippers in China. Some may take your money and not send you items. Others may send you illegitimate items that are illegal.

 

 

With all this said, to save you the time, the easiest way to find drop shippers that you can trust is through SaleHoo. Let’s talk a little bit about Salehoo.

 

 

 

What Is SaleHoo?

 

SaleHoo is an online directory that has over 8,000+ drop shippers, wholesalers and liquidators.

 

 

 

Why SaleHoo?

 

 

• Using a directory like SaleHoo is good because you can ensure you will be dealing with verified suppliers you can trust.

 

• Before a supplier is added to the SaleHoo directory, they must go through a stringent verification process, proving that they can be trusted and are real.

 

• There are also user reviews, so you can choose to only deal with suppliers that have passed both SaleHoo’s test and have good user reviews.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Salehoo has a 60 day money back guarantee.

 

• There’s a neat tool popular amongst eBay PowerSellers called SaleHoo Labs that pulls data on eBay, Amazon and AliExpress’s hot products. It then crunches the data to find the best-performing products based on category, sales numbers, competition, prices and popularity, and provides a list of suppliers that have the products in stock.

 

• You will get full instant membership to the SaleHoo community of over 137,000 experienced online sellers. So you are not alone, you can ask experienced online sellers.

 

• They have fast responsive customer support. So if you are ever stuck and need assistance, Salehoo is there to help answer any questions you may have.

 

 

RELATED: 

Difference Between Salehoo And Oberlo?

 

 

How to Figure Out What Profitable Products to Sell Using SaleHoo

 

 

To figure out which products are profitable to sell, use the SaleHoo market research lab because:

 

• It is updated every few days to provide the latest trending products online.
• When you use the market research lab, it allows you to focus on high-profit products by setting the Sell Rate to at least 40%, and Competition set to “Low”.
• You can also find bigger ticket items under High Competition. Filter the results by Product Type and you’ll find accessories and other related items that can equally bring in higher profit margins.
• The Market Research Lab is a free tool . However, paid subscribers can get complete access to some supplier suggestions of featured products.

 

 

 

How The SaleHoo Market Research Lab Works: 

 

Now, let’s find out how the Market Research Lab, and sales directory work. With this said, first let’s see How SaleHoo Labs works:

 

 

 

 

 

Moving along, once you have decided on the product, now it’s time that you visit the SaleHoo Directory to find trustworthy, low-cost suppliers that carry your chosen product.

 

 

Helpful tips for how to import safely without SaleHoo:

 

• Only deal with suppliers that have been selling products for 2+ years. You need to look into their history.
• Always check for reviews from suppliers online. It is not recommended to use a supplier that doesn’t have reviews.
• You can ask for samples first, and buy small lots first. So once you are sure of the product you want to sell, then go ahead and purchase bigger lots.
• If they have a website, check the WHOIS details, and see if the website has been online for 2+ years.
• Use tools like Google Places to verify their physical location exists.

 

Check out the video below to help you learn How SaleHoo Directory works:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last but not least, you need to then contact suppliers to get your product at the lowest cost so you can resell it at a higher price and earn big profits. It is really as simple as it sounds.

 

 

 

 

How Much It Cost To Start Your Own Drop-ship Business?

 

 

You don’t have to break the bank in order to start a drop ship business. Again, if you want to use Salehoo to help you find suppliers, you need to pay a membership fee. And at this stage, Salehoo only offers annual subscriptions. You can click here for more information on SaleHoo plans (a new window will open).

 

 

Please remember, even if you have no technical experience, SaleHoo will give you all the training you need and much more. So you are not alone.

 

 

 

 

Tips To Help You With Your Drop Shipping Business

 

 

So just so you know, SaleHoo will help you with connecting with suppliers and picking your products to sell. However, you still need to now choose the selling platform. So you need to decide between selling on an established platform, or starting your own independent online store. If you want to sell on an established platform like Amazon or eBay, below are some advantages to that:

 

• It’s so easy to set up an account and start selling using these established platforms.
• eBay and Amazon already attract huge amounts of traffic (potential customers).
• Not to mention, Consumers trust these platforms. They have been around for such a long time.
• You can make significant money through them. Check out this free webinar on How To Build A $100,000 Amazon Dropshipping Business

 

 

 

On the other hand, the down-side to using established online platforms such as Amazon and eBay is that:

 

• You will be charged fees for every sale you make.
• You have limited control (branding, customer service, product photography etc).
• You’re in direct competition with sellers on the same platform. And that’s why some people prefer to sell using their own independent online store.
• Consumers have a huge amount of choice in one place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some people prefer to start their own independent online store. And this is not as hard as people may think, because SaleHoo makes it easy for them to get started with all the tools and resources they have available.

 

 

But to be honest, you need to put in the time and hard work into it. Just so you know, if you choose to go that route of starting your own online store, there are some things to keep in mind such as:

 

 

• You would need to pay for your own web hosting. But this is not as expensive as you might think.

 

 

 

With this said, You can actually start a website for less than $4 a month with Blue Host. And if you sign up with Blue host, you will get a free domain for the first year.

 

 

 

Why You Should Start Your Online Store With Blue Host?

 

• Blue host is one of the most established hosting brands on the internet.
• As mentioned earlier, you will get a free domain name for a year included with your purchase.
• They are reliable.
• eCommerce features are good with multiple shopping carts available and SSL security.
• Not to mention, blue host is fast and they have a 30 day money back guarantee.

 

 

 

 

 

Furthermore, you could even use an e-commerce platform such as Shopify. With Shopify you can create a beautiful, high-converting. Not to mention, you could even try Shopify for FREE for the first 90 days. Simply click here to start your free store with Shopify today. You need an email address to get started. If you don’t already have an email address, please click here to see a step by step of how you can create a Gmail email account in less than 2 minutes today for free. 

 

 

 

With this said, if you are looking to start your own e-commerce store using Shopify, then I highly recommend you check out the course called Shopifortunes. It is a very useful course for newly starting online business owners and is affordable. You can click here to learn more about Shopifortunes course.

 

 

As you already know, you need to work hard at driving traffic (customers) to your online store. Compared to the guaranteed traffic you get from when running your online store on established platforms.

 

 

With this said, it can be achieved. You can check below for tips to market your online store and drive traffic to it.

 

 

It will take time to rank on Google and you’ll have to invest in SEO and marketing. However, in the long-run, it is well worth the investment. 

 

 

But as mentioned earlier, with the use of a key word research tool, you can learn all about SEO and marketing in such a little time. If you are interested in learning more about SEO and marketing, check out this FREE course here to help you get started. You will learn so much from this course, so please don’t forget to check it out.

 

 

 

 

Why You Should Start Your Own Drop-shipping Business (Advantages To Drop-shipping): 

 

 

 

• When you decide to drop ship, you do not need to purchase stock up front.
• You only buy the product once you’ve secured the sale.
• No risk of being stuck with the product that you can’t sell.
• You don’t need to pack or ship the product. A drop shipper will send it directly to the customer.
• Not to mention, starting a drop-shipping business is so easy and fun.
• Starting a drop shipping business is not as expensive as you might think. You can start your drop shipping business for as low as $50 a month.

 

 

 

RELATED: 

Is It Safe To Import From China?

So What Exactly Is Drop Shipping?

 

 

 

How You Can Promote Your Online Store?

 

 

There is more than one way to promote your online store. For instance, you can use Face Book Ads. It is recommended to use Face book ads to promote your online store because:

 

 

• It’s easy to get started.
• You can control how much you spend each day. So this will depend on the budget plan you have in place.
• You can target highly-specific demographics (location, interests, relationship status etc).
• When you use Face Book ads, it can yield fast results.
• Not to mention, when you use Face book ads, it helps to increase brand awareness.
• And don’t forget that a good ad can go viral, lead to more traffic resulting in more sales.

 

 

Aside from using Face Book ads,  you can buy ads for your store to appear at the top of the page for the keywords you want to rank for. And if you choose this method, it is highly recommended you check out a key word research tool to help you with that. You can check out this free key word research course to help you.

 

 

With this said, when you use a key word research tool, you will

• Achieve great exposure in search results.
• You can target highly-specific demographics (location, language, device etc).
• Able to Maximize exposure to your ads with high volume keywords related to your niche.

 

If you are planning on starting an online store using the Shopify platform, and looking for ways to drive free traffic to your shopify store, please read more here for more information!

 

 

Another way to use to promote your online store is through the use of an email marketing tool. Below you will see how an email marketing tool can help you  promote your online store:

 

• Building an email list is one of the most effective ways of acquiring customers.
• You will capture email addresses, such as request to sign-up at checkout, or an offer or competition that requires an email address.
• Once you have a decent list of email addresses you have a way of reaching a large group of people regularly, for free.

 

 

 

With all this said, there are so many great email marketing tools out there, but it’s highly recommended to check out AWeber to help you promote your online store. AWeber has recently launched a new feature where by you are now able to pair an ecommerce platform and email marketing to increase conversions. 

 

 

 

• When you use AWeber, you will find that it is simple to create and deliver.
• They have great support.
• Customizability.
• Easy to manage.
• AWeber has a lot of Free educational resources and training to help you get started.
• AWeber is reasonably priced compared to so many email marketing tools out there.
• Not to mention, Aweber has a  Free Plan, which you can sign up for free and there is no credit card is required.

 

 

 

Furthermore, you can promote your online store by simply starting a blog, and so you would pick out a niche related to the products you are selling on your online store, and include links to your website, you can increase traffic and acquire new customers.

 

 

Moreover, you can promote your online store through Social Media Marketing. So you would simply share content on your social media accounts relating to products in your store and etc.

 

 

 

Lastly, no matter which method you choose to promote your online store, don’t forget to keep up with your customer service. Answer emails and questions, and update your FAQ page (if you have one). And stay on top of your social media. Refine your ads, run contests, and promote like crazy.

 

 

 

Please feel free to share your preferred method of growing a new drop-ship business below.

 

 

 

SaleHoo Educate

 

SaleHoo’s new premium education platform where customers can access in-depth courses, taught by eCommerce experts, on how to launch a successful online business. Our first course shows people how to build, launch and scale a successful dropshipping store on Shopify.

 

 

• SaleHoo Educate is the go-to education platform for eCommerce entrepreneurs who want to learn how to launch and grow an online store the right way, using Shopify, Amazon, and more.

 

 

Hope you have found this article of help to you. And hopefully now you know what drop-shipping is and how you can get started with SaleHoo. Please feel free to leave your comment below if you have any questions. And don’t forget to share and subscribe to our news letter to receive our latest blogs and guides straight to your email inbox.