How To Make Money Dropshipping

Hey there my loyal band of sea changers… I hope you are all well. As those of you familiar with my site will know, I spend a lot of time assisting those looking to make an income online in order to get out of the daily grind and fund that all important sea change.

Today I am going to discuss another popular method of online business arrangements as we discuss how to make money dropshipping. In short, dropshipping works in a similar fashion to affiliate marketing in that you attract visitors to your website and sell the products of others without the need to hold inventory.

Can you make money dropshipping? Yes you can – if you are willing to work at it you can definitely make enough to earn a decent living for sure – and many do!

So if you are interested in this area as a means of funding your sea change then grab yourself a drink as we check out the following:

• What is Dropshipping?
• What is good about it?
• What is not so good about it?
• How do you pick your products?
• What do you need?

How To Make Money Dropshipping: What is Dropshipping?

Dropshipping is the process where you perform the following (there are a number of variations to this but this is the guist of it):

• Choose a product that you wish to sell.
• Strike a relationship with a wholesaler.
• Promote the product for whatever price you see fit – on your own website or via a marketplace site such as Alibaba, Amazon or Ebay.
• Manage the sales processes and customer service.
• Send the final order and payment to the wholesaler for packaging and shipping.

The money that you make is effectively the difference between whatever you managed to sell the product for and the wholesale price that you owe the vendor. The process is similar to affiliate marketing in that you are generally promoting the products of others without the need to actually hold any inventory. With affiliate marketing however, you are paid a commission on whatever price the vendor sets but do not manage any customer service, sales processes or post sales requirements.

You Are Reading This Because of Wealthy Affiliate

That's right! Wealthy Affiliate provided me with all of the tools and training I needed to get this post in front of my audience - a.k.a YOU!

You too can start your very own online business here that can make you money from anywhere in the world!!  

See How I Built My Affiliate Site Here

Check out my post: Affiliate Marketing vs Dropshipping

What is good about it?

There are some real advantages to this type of online business including:

The model works – As I have mentioned above, there are many that make good money with dropshipping. It is not a get rich quick scheme (despite what some aggressive online coaches will tell you it is) but you can make some money relatively quickly here if you are able to attract visitors to your site/marketplace or choose the right products. Other advantages to this model include:

• There is no need to hold inventory or manage shipping.
• You own the customer list – which is another means of building an effective email list.
• You control the cost of the product and hence the profit margins.
• You can control when you put things on ‘sale’, group them in packages or increase the price for high demand items.

Low barrier entry costs – Again, as there is no need to pre purchase products or hold inventory, the initial setup costs here are quite low. Most requirements, such as a website or social media for marketing, are generally free, or close to it. There is some dropshipping specific software if you choose to use it however most of these will also offer free trial periods or low cost subscriptions for those starting out. In most cases, you will be able to get yourself setup to start promoting whatever product you have chosen for less than $100. There are also a number of services out there that can assist you with your dropshipping without any initial outlay ay all.

Harness the internet – With the invention of the all things internet with its websites and social media, there is a whole new range of platforms with which to promote your products. There are over 2 billion people online worldwide which has not only led to greater exposure to potential sales, but a growing number of products to promote as well.

What is not so good about it?

Now, of course there are also some sticking points with dropshipping that also need to be highlighted and whilst I personally don't believe that they should deter you if this is a line you wish to go down, they are certainly things to be aware of. They include:

Success takes a while – I mentioned this earlier, success takes time – meaning that unless you are patient and work hard, you may start to question whether it is all worth it.

You have no control over stock quality – Many dropshippers work in fast moving products and ‘fad' items such as fashion items and fidget spinners (remember those?). The trouble here is that as manufacturers of these products make more and more product (or sense that their ‘run' is coming to an end) they may let the quality of their products slip – which generally reflects directly in the dropshipper and not the manufacturer.

Slow shipping or poor customer service – Another disadvantage with dropshipping when dealing with vendors is that the customer is yours, not theirs hence sometimes shipping priorities are not where they should be.

Competition – Think you can make a fortune from Fidget Spinners? Yeah, well so does every other dropshipper out there… This can lead to reduced profits as you all try and undercut each other.

How do you choose products to sell?

As it is with affiliate marketing, dropshippers tend to fall into two main categories:

Sell and switch

These are the sellers who target high turnover and popular items and then, once the market falls, find the next ‘hot' product to sell. Don't get me wrong, this can be extremely lucrative and as we will see below, there are some software programs that can assist with this. As an example, I did some research and found some of the most popular products for dropshippers in the past 12 months (in no particular order):

• Magnetic / wireless phone chargers
• Waterproof mobile phone cases
• Inflatable pet collar
• Slime
• Ear phones
• LED Lamps
• ‘Smart' light bulbs
• RFID Wallets

There are plenty more but I think these give you a good cross section. You can also not go wrong if you stick to popular online niches such as pets, hobbies, toys and self care etc.

Finding sell and switch dropship products

To find products within this type of operation, you can find look in a number of ways such as:

• Marketplace reports – Sites such as Alibaba, eBay and Amazon (who incidentally will all manage dropshipping operations for you as well) provide sales reports on what is selling well at the moment.
• Google Trends – Have an idea? Use Google Trends to see what interest is out there in terms of online searches. Below for an example is trends over the past 5 years on fidget spinners (hmm looks like we have missed the boat on that one which hopefully demonstrates my point above).

• Website reports – There are also a number of websites/programs that an alert you to new and upcoming products such as:
  • Coolhunting.com
  • Trendhunter.com
  • Salehoo.com

Single niche selling

Single niche selling dropshippers are those who have decided to focus on a single niche or sub niche where they work on the sale of those products only. This works more like an affiliate marketing arrangement where the dropshipper will:

• Determine the products that they wish to sell within their sub niche – generally they know what they want to sell alternatively the processes discussed in the previous section can assist here.
• Build a website where they write about their chosen area in the spirit of discussing problems and outlining how their products can provide solutions (such as what golf balls to use on hard fairways for example).
• Refer the readers to a link where they will purchase the product – usually a sales/ecommerce page within the website where the sale is managed.
• Sales and shipping is manged by the wholesaler as outlined above.

Finding niche related dropship products

To find niche related dropshipping suppliers online, you can enter searches such as “dropship: xxx” into your favourite search engine. Let's for example look for dropshipping products in the travel niche:

Note: These results will usually be based on your geographical location.

From here you can search through and find programs that:

• Offer dropshipping services – Not all product suppliers offer dropshipping as a service – this may just mean that you need to organise the shipping yourself after it is delivered to you.
• Have experience and are helpful – If they are not helpful and/or appear inexperienced then you can expect the same when you are trying to process sales.
• Have acceptable fees – most dropshipping wholesalers will charge a small fee for the dropshipping service – just make sure it is not so high that it eats into your profit margins.

What do we need to do?

Once we have all of the above sorted, or at the very least a plan in place, we need to choose and setup the media that we intend to use to sell our product. This can include:

Build a Website

If you are looking to build your online business as a dropshipper or supplier in either the sell and switch or niche type arrangements, then chances are you will most probably need a website. Websites allow you to solve problems via blog posts and videos that people can view in order to identify the solutions that they need. Usually, this process is fairly straight forward in that you build your website, write posts (on how a certain type of luggage is great as it can be used as carry on for example), then provide links so that your readers can view/purchase the relevant materials from your site/ss.

You Are Reading This Because of Wealthy Affiliate

That's right! Wealthy Affiliate provided me with all of the tools and training I needed to get this post in front of my audience - a.k.a YOU!

You too can start your very own online business here that can make you money from anywhere in the world!!  

See How I Built My Affiliate Site Here

Promote on Social Media

When it comes to any sort of online sales process, there is probably no more powerful tool than Social media. It has the power to reach thousands and allows you to target specific segments if you choose the correct platform. In terms of dropshipping, a good platform to start with is FaceBook where you can discuss products, components, specifications, accessories and techniques with your audience, display products in use and show videos.

However, if you are looking to set yourself up as an expert within the niche, then programs such as Instagram, YouTube or Pinterest will be your go to option. This is great for visuals such as pictures and/or videos showing you working with or demonstrating your chosen product/s.

Join like-minded groups

Anther great tool when it comes to selling products online are social groups. By getting involved with these groups you can really get a great understanding as to what its members are struggling with, what information they seek and what products they are looking to buy. Below is an example of travel related FaceBook groups (there are obviously groups for any sub niche you are interested in):

Note: Results are geographically based. Many of these groups will not allow you to spruike or promote your sites directly, however if you can interact and demonstrate your knowledge then people will ask you directly for the information. At the very least, as above, it is a great way to get ideas and insight into what people in this area really want to know about and what they are buying online.

Dropshipping Software

Another necessity that might be of use for those in the dropshipping game is dropshipping software applications. These applications include such services as:

• Finding profitable products via inbuilt research tools.
• SEO and traffic generation processes.
• E-Commerce and sales pages.
• Automated order fulfillment and vendor payment.
• Find similar/same products at a better price.
• Analytics and reporting.
• Customer records management.

And so much more. These programs, like most of this type, vary in price based on the services required and the size of your store but generally start at around $20 – $40 per month. Popular options include:

• Dropified
• Oberlo
• Spocket
• Easyship
• DSCO

Another term that has started to appear within the dropshipping world is one called dropsurfing. This is the process where software programs such as the above allow you to promote a product and then once a sale is made, utilise the software to find the same product from a number of wholesalers to find the best price. The theory is that more profit can be made by shopping around just as you would a retail purchase and not necessarily wholesaling via the same vendor for every sale – even for the same product.

Conclusion

And there it is – The ins and out of how to make money from dropshipping. I hope it has been helpful and as usual, please do not hesitate to comment below if you have any questions, need some advice or have any experiences to share.

Do you want further assistance with any of the above or need help to build your own dropshipping related website?

Are you looking for a comprehensive training platform that can give you step by step training, 24/7 support, tools to develop and host your very own website, ongoing assistance with SEO and social media and access to some of the best online marketing minds on the planet, then click on the following link to read more about Wealthy Affiliate.

Until next time

Have fun

Paul

Note: If you make a purchase from this page, there is a very good chance that I make a commission from it – these commissions do not increase your sale price.

Introducing Wealthy Affiliate, My #1 Recommendation for Setting Up Your Own Online Business

When I started, I knew I wanted to work online, but had absolutely no idea where to begin! You see I had watched friends of mine run a sales party to sell essential oils and someone asked if they could just sell them online?

Then, as I sat on the bus heading into my office job, I started to wonder if I could do just that, sell essential oils online.

Anything to stop having to catch this bus to and from work every day right!

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And to cut a long story short, after 10 months I realized I didn’t really like writing about essential oils, so I sold the site for about $2000. But I had learned so much that I started another – about fishing and camping!

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Now, through my travel blog, I’ve been able to fund my passion for travel and explore different places around the world.

In the past few months, I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to some amazing destinations, including Bali, Los Angeles, Dallas, Vancouver and Las Vegas.

The success of my travel blog has allowed me to fully fund my travels and explore new destinations with my family.

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As you start your journey, Wealthy Affiliate is there for you with the most comprehensive training package I have ever seen – And as I have mentioned, I have used a few in my professional career trust me.

To get you started, Wealthy Affiliate has recently introduced the Hub.

The Hub

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Wealthy Affiliate Training

Then as you continue your journey, the Wealthy Affiliate Hub is there for you with the most comprehensive training package I have ever seen – And I have used a few in my professional career trust me.

Above we discussed the use of the Hub to set up a website. Once you have done this, you will be able to access the “Step-by-Step Core Training”.

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Member Training

There are also Live weekly classes taught by REAL industry experts on a range of topics like artificial intelligence (AI), SEO, YouTube, WordPress, PPC marketing and more.

Great, What Else Does Wealthy Affiliate Have To Help You?

So, let’s keep this short, Wealthy Affiliate is a one-stop-shop platform that provides:

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You Can Try it Yourself For Free

Now of course I can tell you all about how Wealthy Affiliate works (because it does) until I am blue in the face. But every other program out there – including the shams and scams – will tell you the same thing!

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And of course I will be there to help you every step of the way as well!

Look, in the interest of transparency, whilst Wealthy Affiliate does offer a free starter membership, this is designed to give you a look around, have a practice and see if it is worthwhile for you – which is a really great option.

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Afterall, every business needs tools to grow!

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So How Much Does This Really Cost?

Wealthy Affiliate does not use upsells once you join – but as I mentioned in the video, to succeed here you will need to invest in a membership. There are a couple of options that provide access to all the tools, training and assistance that you could need – and a free domain as well.

Wealthy Affiliate offers a trio of membership tiers, as detailed on their pricing page.

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And Don’t Forget the Personal Coaching

Once you join, not only do you get plenty of assistance from me, but you also have access to expert coaching, support and mentorship from real industry experts.

I mean, you can have access to all of the top-tier affiliate marketing training in the world, but inevitably, questions arise, particularly during the initial stages.

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Wealthy Affiliate Works: Real Results From Real People

As I have mentioned a number of times, Wealthy Affiliate has helped me make real money online though its training and tools.

I have made money each month as well as a sale for $17,000.

But again, those promoting other programs will tell you the same thing!

So let’s get away from me and see what others are saying:

To start with, Wealthy Affiliate has a 4.9 out of 5 Star TrustPilot rating, which is a remarkable accomplishment in any industry, let alone the online business industry.

And here are some of those reviews:

And this is what people are saying within Wealthy Affiliate as well:

So, Let’s Make a Decision!

Let’s be frank, you have read this far so why not go all in, click on the button below to get started on the way to your very online business.

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And once you are in and have had a play around with the hub, look for the little envelope on the top right and there will be a message from me. It is of course automated so respond to let me know you are there and we can start this journey together.

(oh, and the profile is mine so you can find me that way as well)

See you there

Paul