Doing business is all about smartness with a blended strategy of hard work.
The internet has really given us incredible opportunities. In fact, never before it has been possible to start a business with zero investment. There is a new age business model known to very few people. It is called “Drop Shipping”. It is very simple and straightforward and very lucrative. The best part of this business model is that it is entirely different from all other businesses put together.
Drop Shipping is a business model that allows you to sell physical products without buying the inventory upfront.
Benefits of Drop Shipping
The benefits of this business are many. Let us have a look as to why you can pursue this business.
You need less than $100 to start making money from it.
You are not required to buy anything and make your house a warehouse, so this means you do not have to ship anything
You do not need to stock inventory.
You do not need to ship anything.
You can work online from anywhere in the world.
If you are a frequent traveler, your business will not even get affected.
You do not even have to use your own money to pay for the goods, so just relax and you can even start the business with zero capital.
You only have to work a couple of hours every week to keep everything the business running smoothly.
Requisites of a Drop Shipping Business
After knowing the benefits and ease of doing drop shipping business why the delay in starting one?
Let us start one immediately.
However, before that, it is essential to know what is needed and how to move on with it.
The first thing that you require is hot and trendy products that customers prefer.
Last but not least one needs an effective marketing strategy, unique advertising campaign, and negotiation skills to be successful in this business field.
Now let us discuss the products and their availability.
You can find trendy products from the largest online retailers like Amazon, Flipkart, SnapDeal and many more.
You can look for popular Gadgets, popular fitness items, popular pet products be it their foods, clothing or other accessories. You can even look for “whatever you want to sell” from these sites.
Once you narrow in on the list of items that you want to sell, focus on those products that were created or uploaded with the last 18 to 24 months. The reason behind this is quite simple, the public demand. Once you have a good list of around 20 products or equivalent, then it is time for the scaling of the dropshipping business.
In the next part, we will understand the step-by-step process of how to scale a dropshipping business.
Scaling a Drop Shipping Business
Step 1
Go to ShopifyCommerce and open a new store. It’s free for 14 days, and if properly utilized you will make plenty of sales during this trial period.
Step 2
Go to OberloCommerce and create an account. Then add the plug-in to your store. You can do this from the back-end of your store.
Step 3
Set up your payment processor using either Stripe or PayPal.
Step 4
Go to AliExpress, open a new account, and import your desired products to your store using the plug-in.
Marketing the Business
Now comes the most difficult part, i.e. marketing your dropshipping business.
Decide and prepare a budget plan for your advertising campaign.
Start with say about $100.
Now if you think that $100 is too much and you don’t want to part with your personal cash, you can opt for an idea. Sell any item on eBay or Craigslist that you no longer need or is now obsolete. You will get liquid cash for yourself and will also save your personal cash if your business goes on a downside.
As soon as you get the desired amount to divide it in half. This will suggest you spend and invest wisely.
Now it is creativity time. Set up a Facebook page for your store and run test ads until you find a customer or a buyer of your products that you wish to sell. Plan you daily budget. Say about $10 per day.
At times, people think as to what if my products are not sold out. Since you are selling trendy products, everything will get sold off.
As said earlier, you have divided the budget and kept the other $50 aside. Now it is time to utilize the other half of the budget. Here you need to find large Instagram pages of size at least 50k+ and nearly 1 to 3 % engagement. You can calculate engagement using likes. Add the total number of likes for their last 10 posts.
Now divide the number of engagement with 10 to get the average number of likes. Once you derive the average number of likes, divide that number by the total number of followers. Now, the final number will be your average engagement.
Now it is time to promote your product. Send an email to the Instagram page that you have previously selected and enquired if they are ready to promote your product. Here your negotiation skills should play a crucial role. For the page size of 50,000, you should not pay more than $15. And for 100,000 you should not pay anything more than $20 to $25 and finally, for 200,000, the pay should not exceed $30 to $50.
Pain Points
Suppose you are planning to sell goods for pugs. Do not ever try to advertise on pet pages. Never think of advertising in on dog pages. Advertise only on pages dedicated to pugs. The selection of advertising pages also matters.
“Two weeks is more than enough to set up your own gold mine”.
Sunny Side
Now as soon as you turn on to make profit, it is only then you can try to expand your business. With $50 in hand, you can easily manage 2 to 3 Instagram pages with the requirement and calculations discussed previously.
Finally, by the end of the week you will sell a lot and keep making profits. Now you can re-invest you profit that you earn. This will again save your personal hard-earned money (if any) from going on a tussle.
Once your store gets big enough and you are going consistent business, you will have the choice to sell it for big profits or keep it as a passive source of income.
