The Dropshipping business model can be started with the least amount of capital spent. It’s a retail fulfillment business model where the customers order via a website but the seller does not keep the product it sells in stock. Instead, the seller uses suppliers to ship the products directly to the customers on its behalf. 

The cheapest way to start a dropshipping business is to use a free e-commerce platform WooCommerce via WordPress. Both platforms can be used without any cost to you. WordPress has hundreds of free online shop themes that are easy to design. Just upload your products’ images and details to your store and start selling right away.

How to Start a Dropshipping Business

Starting a dropshipping business requires product and niche research. From the business name, which product to sell and how to market your products need to be well-planned and executed.

Many dropshipping articles online would advise you to start a general store and then try to pinpoint which products would sell, focus on that, and then start narrowing your business to that niche. However my strategy is the other way around.

Niche-specific stores have higher conversion rates than general stores because people visit the website with a buying intent compared to general stores with lower conversion rates because people visit the website most of the time just to check the products but without buying intent.

I started my dropshipping business by spending less than $50 on web hosting fees and domain registration. Designing the website, uploading products, marketing, fulfillment of orders, and customer service are all manned by me. It’s pretty much a one-man show. 

As you may have already known, you must be equipped with the right knowledge and skills to do all these things. Graphic designing (logo, marketing content), web development (designing website), social media marketing, and customer service are the key knowledge to have if you plan these things on your own. 

Of course, you don’t have to do them all on your own, you can hire a graphic designer and web developer to help you out with the technical part. Although web developers can have high fees, I suggest trying out and playing around with the drag-and-drop themes on WordPress. If you plan to use Shopify or Wix, both platforms also have drag-and-drop themes that even beginners with zero knowledge of web designing can actually do.

Where I market my products

I basically market my products on four main social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Although you don’t need to use all of these platforms. The first thing to find out is where you can find the market you are trying to target. 

Some niches are focused on Twitter or Facebook and not on Pinterest. An example would be podcasters. They are not so active on Pinterest but you can definitely find this market on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Linkedin. 

It’s important to do research about your niche first to know how to market your products effectively. Read our article on Complete Guide to Identifying Your Niche.

How to market your products with zero ads spent

Would you believe I did not spend a single cent on ads but I was able to earn $10,000 in just 4 months? Yes, it’s possible!

As you can see the page has reached over three million impressions and over a million reach in just seven days. This is the screenshot of my Instagram account with over 80k followers as of May 2020 Just 15 months after I opened my dropshipping business.

Want me to help you grow your Instagram page too? Schedule a free assessment today.

Provide value to your audience by sharing topics that matter to them. If you are selling kitchen tools, I advise you to share kitchen hacks videos or articles. You may also want to share recipes where they can use the products you sell. Earning your followers’ trust is important to make them buy products from you.

Do not post selling posts all of the time. Your followers will feel that you are only after their money.

It’s an 80/20 marketing rule. How does this work? It’s a pretty simple rule actually – give your audience 80% value and only sell 20% of the time. Remember that when you market your products you don’t always have to sell. The first thing you should do is to provide value to your audience to gain their trust and make them loyal followers. Loyal followers then become your fans and as you already know fans buy products. 

So the key takeaway here is to provide value, earn their trust, make them loyal followers, and become fans. 

Tips on how to be successful in dropshipping

I started my Dropshipping Business in February 2019. I spent the whole month building the website. But during this time I was already reaching out to my niche through social media. I started marketing products in March of the same year. 

You have to be consistent in posting content on your pages. Analyze each post weekly and see what type of content gets the most engagement When you’ve identified which type of post your audience best resonates with, post more of those types of content.

Keep experimenting until you’ve identified which contents work and which don’t. If you post 4 times a week, only sell once in those four posts. It is also important that you learn each social media platform really well. The type of posts on Facebook might not work well on Twitter and vice versa.

You can also use tools or apps that will help you boost your sales such as growing your mailing list. Sending emails to your customers to let them know of the new products in your store or even a new post in your blog.

Learn How to Use Social Media to Drive Traffic to Your Website.

I got my first sale in the same month I opened the store and the sale continued on until I made the first $10k sale in the fourth month.

Many of the subscribers in my own mailing list have asked me how I did this so I started sharing my advice on how to start a dropshipping business. Anybody can do this as long as you stay focused and give this your 100% time and dedication. 

Read our Complete Guide on How to Start Your Dropshipping Business.

So my advice? Learn the skills you need to run a dropshipping business – social media, marketing, and customer service are some of the key things you should learn to be successful. Imagine building an online store but don’t know how to market the products. Or get sales but don’t know customer service. You might not have a good chance of being successful.

Repeat buyers, word of mouth, and providing value are still the best marketing technique anyone can have than relying on ads alone.