Dropshipping Essentials for Beginners

There's two very polarizing opinions on dropshipping. Some people say it's oversaturated, while other people swear by it. But let me tell you that in 2020, the global dropshipping market size reached $128 billion. That's a lot. But guess how much it's actually projected to reach in 2026? $476 billion. Insane. Absolutely insane. So you know what that means for you? That means that you are just as capable as anyone else to claim your piece of the $476 billion pie. So if you're a beginner, you're going to learn what dropshipping is, how to start dropshipping with AliExpress and Shopify. And at the end of this video, I'm going to let you in on what are the hot products to dropship. This is the ultimate beginner's guide for dropshipping. So buckle in and let's do it. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome back. And if you're new here, welcome. My name is Michelle Bali. I'm a creative strategist and I'm your host for today's video. Now, this channel that you're on, this channel right here is called Learn with Shopify. It's going to give you all the information that you need in order to start, run, and grow an online business. If you like dropshipping, if you like this channel, if you like making lots of money, then hit subscribe. And guys, do me a favor, please hit that like button because it really does help keep this channel alive. Okay, let's get into it. What is dropshipping? So dropshipping is a low-risk, low-cost way of running an e-commerce business. Let me explain. Let's say you wanted to open up an online store. One route that you can go is go to a manufacturer, get a custom product made, pay a bunch of money for inventory and keep that inventory maybe in your basement somewhere and then you open up an online store and then you ship orders from your house. That's one route, right? Another route is you can go to the drop shipping method. With this method, instead of creating a product from scratch, you work with a supplier to choose products that they already have in stock, and you just simply make them available on your store. So to do that, the first step you would make an e-commerce store, you would link your supplier's products on your own store, then you would advertise your products through ads and social media, and then you would start getting orders. Once a customer places an order from you, it's the drop shipper that gets notified. So the dropshipper will get your customers'orders ready in their warehouse, ship it out, and let your customers know that their products are on the way. So essentially, the dropshipper is responsible for sourcing the product, fulfilling the order, and shipping it out to your customers. That first method we talked about, you're responsible for literally everything end-to-end. But with dropshipping, all you're responsible is making sure that A, you've chosen a good product in the first place. B, advertising your products and also dealing with customer service and the operations of your e-commerce store. So now you're probably wondering, well why wouldn't everyone just go the dropshipping method if it's so easy? So there are pros and there are cons to both. The cons of dropshipping, you have less quality control over your products, that's because your suppliers are the ones who are doing the quality control on each product and package before it goes out. Another con is that you may have a hard time selling a product that is truly innovative and that no one else has. Because your supplier likely has other clients that they're selling to, whether it's the same or similar products, and that also means more competition. Alright, so let's move on to the pros of dropshipping. So first of all, you can get your ecommerce site set up really quickly within a few clicks, which is amazing. Another thing I love is that you can easily test products and suppliers with no commitment. Also, dropshipping means less work for you because you're not gonna have to ship every order. And it also means less risk because you're not going to need to pay any money upfront in inventory. You're only going to need to pay for the cost of products as the orders come in in real time. Another thing is that you don't have to hold any inventory, which means you're not going to have a million boxes in your living room, which is great. So this next one can be a pro or a con, and that is you're only as good as your supplier. So let's say they're amazing and they're on time with every order, then you're good. But if they're experiencing delays and half the products they ship are broken, then it's actually your business that's going to suffer. How to drop ship. So here's how to get started with drop shipping in seven. steps. So first step, do research on your dropshipping business idea. You're going to do research on a niche you're interested in and find out how profitable it can be. So here are some tools to get you started with that. Google Trends, guys. Google Trends can help you determine if a product is trending upward or downward. Deezers, guys. Deezers order volume will let you search for products based on order volume to see how in demand your business idea is. Use a competitor spy tool, something like SimilarWeb. It's going to allow you to go on your competitors websites and see how much traffic they have and who their competitors are. So step number two is to choose a drop shipping supplier. So at this point you've vetted what products are profitable. Now you want to make sure that you find a drop shipping supplier that is going to give you high quality service in order to grow. Like I said, your dropshipping business is literally as only as good as your supplier. So you want to make sure that you're doing this right because this step is really important. All right, so let's head over to AliExpress. So AliExpress is one of the most popular marketplaces for new and expensive... dropshippers. It's gonna allow you to easily find any type of product from fashion to toys. And with AliExpress you have access to tons of drop shipping suppliers from all over the world. AliExpress is known for their inexpensive products which is great news for you because as a reseller you'll be able to mark up the price and sell it to your end consumer to be able to make a profit choosing to drop ship from Aliexpress means there's no upfront costs or fees so you can test out products in your store without any financial commitment so if you want to be able to add Aliexpress products to your Shopify store in one click you're just gonna download a Shopify app called Deezer's this app is free and integrates easily with your Shopify store after you download this app you're going to want to vet suppliers based on their product quality and shipping time and their reviews i would recommend that you order some products before you actually sell them to be able to get a better feel for the product quality and their shipping time so the next step is you're going to build your e-commerce store right you've got your products you've got your suppliers now you need to build your e-commerce store your e-commerce store is where you're going to send your traffic you're going to sell those products and process payments now i'm 100 certain that i'm being biased when i say this but Shopify is the best place to build an e-commerce store hands down. Even when I'm not on a Shopify YouTube channel, I recommend it to my clients that are just starting out because A, it's inexpensive, B, it's easy to use, and there's a million apps that you can choose from. So I personally just think it's the best. I would recommend you start with a free trial. I will link that for you guys in the description. And then once you have that, start with a free theme. After that, you're going to choose a domain. You're going to give your store a name. And then you're going to download that Deezer's app that I've that I was telling you about. I would also add in some apps like One Click Upsell and Klaviyo just to start, but basically that's an overview. If you wanna learn how to set up a Shopify store from scratch, then check out this video right here. That's gonna get you sorted. Also guys, we offer a totally free e-commerce course that's designed to help you get your store up and running very quickly. Even if you have a low budget or you're a total beginner, this course is gonna be perfect. So if that's something that you are interested, I will leave a link for you guys in the description box below as well. And all you have to do is sign up. up with your email and you're going to have full access. So I'll leave that for you guys in the description box. So the next step is to market your dropshipping store. Now with so many things about dropshipping being automated, you can spend time focusing on marketing and promoting your business. A good marketing strategy is going to set you apart from all that competition in dropshipping and it's going to help you make sales. So here's how to advertise your dropshipping business. All right, number one, run paid Facebook and Google ads. Now you might be thinking, well, I don't really have money for ads, but think of Think of it this way, spend the money on ads that you would have otherwise spent on inventory. The reason is because Facebook ads are scalable and if you have a really good ad specialist that knows what they're doing, ads can be that key that helps blast your business to the moon. Number two, get into influencer marketing. As a new drop shipper, you may have a limited budget to market your business, right? Influencer marketing can be an affordable way to reach your target audience because people tend to trust influencers more than traditional advertisers. So if you go this route, keep in mind that this is a strategy that works most at scale. Number three, start content marketing. Write blog posts, film YouTube videos, or get your products featured on podcasts. My tip here is make sure that there is a call to action. I actually have a client that gets thousands of views on this one blog post, but he forgot to put in a call to action, so he didn't sell any products. So make sure that you're using up to 30% of your content marketing to sell products. You don't need a year of planning, a million dollars in startup funds, or even a desk desktop computer to start an e-commerce store. By the time you're done watching this video, you'll learn how you can start a dropshipping business in 7 steps with $0 and just your cell phone. So let's get started. Hey guys, welcome back. And if you're new here, what is up? My name is Michelle Bali. This is Learn with Shopify, the channel that has all the information that you need to start and grow an online business. So if you're an entrepreneur, then make sure that you're hitting subscribe and if you end up finding this video helpful please do not forget to give it a like it's a small thing that you can do to make a really big impact on our channel here so i would really appreciate it step number one research your market it's important to research your market to determine whether it will be profitable so head over to google trends type in your market and narrow down to a specific location and you can even narrow it down by industry right over here now we're looking for the trends in interest over time so if it's ever Evergreen, meaning it has a consistent medium to high level of interest, that is a stable market to enter. Stable markets and products are better long-term. But don't overlook any spikes you see. If you see a big spike like this one here, that means it's a trendy market. Short-term trends can also be very lucrative. Step number two is find your product. So after you've found your market, head over to Facebook. I have the app installed on my phone, and then I'm just going to hit the search button. and type in the problem that you want to solve with your product. Remember that the most successful products solve a real problem. So I'm typing in migraines and then hit the groups tab and then join all the groups so that you can better understand the specific issues these people have. When you better understand their specific issues, you can actually sell products that can help solve those problems. Now, so once I've joined all the migraine groups, what I found was a lot of people were complaining that their migraines are mixed. with tension headaches so i want to head over to alibaba and type in tension headaches but you would just type in the specific problem that you found so i'm going to go in with these pressure point clips but of course there's so many options so how do you know which to choose you're going to choose based on how trustworthy the manufacturer looks so that's step number three which is vet your manufacturer so if i click into my product here i can see how many stars they have i wouldn't do less than 4.5 and then you could also see how many years they've been in business and For this, I would do like four and up. Now don't forget that your drop shipping store is only as good as your supplier, is only as good as your manufacturer, so make sure that you are choosing wisely. You especially want to make sure that they have quality products and they have speedy shipping. Step number four is build your store. Now we get to the creative part where we launch our online store with Shopify and by the way if you're not familiar with what Shopify is, Shopify allows you to quickly and easily build an online store. So instead of building one from scratch, which takes a lot of time and money, you would get Shopify. So if you want to follow along with me for this part of the video, here's what you're going to do. You're going to download the Shopify app on your phone. You're going to create an account and sign up for the three day Shopify free trial. The free trial is truly my opinion, the best way to get started with drop shipping from your phone without using any money. And it will allow you to give Shopify. kind of like a test drive without committing to any monthly plan. Then just follow the prompts like naming your store, choosing a domain name, and next you'll want to design what the store will look like. The app is super powerful and it allows you to make changes right on your phone, just like this here. Step number five is add your products. So next you'll want to download the Alibaba app. So from here we can find the product that we had just found. and add it just like this to our store. So see, this is how our storefront is looking like to our customers, so it looks great. And now step number six, once we have our store all ready, is that we want to market our store. So if you wanna do this entire process for free, you can market your store through social media, email marketing, and video content. And if you have a bit of cash to spend, maybe consider running Google ads and Facebook ads because those are always going to be central and pivotal to any e-commerce business. What makes dropshipping so enticing is that you can set up your business quickly, easily, and virtually for free. But the main problem that dropshippers face is the lack of competitive edge, because dropshipping products are so accessible, you and millions of others can potentially be selling the same product. So how do you convince customers to buy from you instead of the next guy? And the answer is, is that it boils down to differentiating yourself through brand storytelling. So for example, who would you buy from? This brand here? that clearly shows what life is like without migraines. It's like a whole story, you know? Or this story here that also sells migraine solutions but has no real focus or no clear brand storytelling. So here's how to tell a brand story. First, you wanna make sure that you have your values and core ethics set out and clear. You wanna make sure that's clear within yourself. Second, you wanna disseminate information about who you are and what it is that you do. So whether that's on your website, through your social media platforms, through influencers, you want to make sure that you're getting that message across. And thirdly, you want to make sure that you are creating a community around your brand and your story that you're telling. So it's important to really believe in it, communicate it, and then get others to join you in on your mission. So if you're ready to build your brand and start telling your brand story and you want to get into the details of launching your online business, we offer a totally free e-commerce course. designed to get your online store up and running quickly, even if you have a low budget and you're a total beginner. So you're going to learn how to develop a must-have winning product, build a powerful brand around it, design an e-commerce website, set up manufacturing and fulfillment, and launch a viral marketing strategy. You'll also gain dozens of expert-produced playbooks, templates, and worksheets. It's designed to help you build your business the smart way. If you're interested, I will leave a link for you guys in the description box below. All you have to do is sign up with your email and you will have full access. You guys want to see what TikTok made me buy? I'm weirdly embarrassed about this. So guys, I bought this little stackable lunch containers. So cute. I got these little travel cases for my makeup and whatever. And then I got this insanely expensive hairdryer. And if I'm being honest, it was not worth the money. But the point is, is that two out of these three products were more than likely dropshipping products. So I'm going to teach you how you can get set up on dropshipping only using TikTok. And you know what, guys? There is huge opportunity to sell with TikTok right now. 43% of Gen Z is starting their online product search on TikTok rather than on Google or any other search engine. So with that said, let's learn how we can get riche off of TikTok together. If you guys are new here and you do not already own a Shopify account, What are you waiting for? So I'm going to put a little link for you guys right here in this video where you can click and activate your free trial and there's no credit card required, which is really nice. Now, this tutorial that we're about to watch today is going to be a lot more fun and easy to follow along if you do have an account. But also, if you're a total newbie and you have no idea what kind of a business to start or how to run your first Shopify store, or even how to generate sales, we actually have created a very special course designed to take you from first day to first sale. And it is absolutely free. Some business gurus sell their courses for hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. And to be honest, guys, what you get doesn't even come close to what you would learn in this value-packed course. So if you guys are interested, click the link in the description box below to learn more. If you're new here, welcome to Learn with Shopify. This is an official Shopify channel where we teach you how to grow a successful online business. My name is Michelle Bali. I'm a creative strategist. I'm going to be your host for today's video. Now enough rambling, let's get into it. Okay, so first we got to find a product. So we're going to go on to exploding topics. I'm going to start by trending over the past six months. And I'm going to choose the pet industry because I feel like everyone just seems to have a dog these days, you know? Look at these hilarious results. Okay, so first we have a lick mat. I have literally no idea what that is, but I'm intrigued. Especially because the growth has been up 326%. Okay, so the next step is to take a product that excites you. and start doing some of that competitor research. Okay, so I'm going to type in lick mat for pets into Google and okay, I get it now. So I guess this product is supposed to keep your dog distracted and entertained as they try to like lick the food off the mat. So just from doing a scroll on Google here, I can see that some companies are going to be selling this for as little as six dollars and some are going to be selling it for as much as twenty five dollars. So for me and my products, I want to make sure that this has good profit margins. So I'm going to pop into CJ dropshipping to see how much this actual product is going to cost me. Okay, this one's like a buck. This one's like six bucks. And oh my God, look at this one right here. This is a cat anti-lick shame circle. How hilarious and how sad. It kind of reminds me of the cone of shame from the movie Up. There's something so sad about that movie. I'm definitely more of a ratatouille kind of girl. Okay, so enough rambling. Let's look into this first one here. The things that I'm looking for here is number one, how good are the product photos? Like you want to make sure that the product photos are high resolution and professional looking. The second thing that I'm looking for is how fast the shipping times are and how much the actual product costs. Sometimes guys, it is worth it to pay a little bit extra in order to get the product over to the customer faster. And the last thing I'm looking for is what are the profit margins? So consider how much it costs to ship and for the product itself. And if you are making 20% or more, because you're going to have other expenses like advertising, for example. So I'm seeing my competitors selling this product for anywhere between six to $25. And this one is going to cost me about nine-ish dollars. So that's not so bad. I can probably sell this for about $13 to stay competitive and to make some money off of it. Now, guys, if you are finding this video helpful so far, do me a favor and hit the like button. It is a small thing that you guys can do to help me and this channel out. Okay. So after that, you're going to want to order a sample. You want to make sure that the product is good quality and that the shipping times are what they say they are, but you'll also want to use this product to create content for your ads and for your website. You're going to want to record videos that are thumb stopping. Like if someone were scrolling and saw an ad for this, you would want them to be so intrigued that they would just click through. Maybe your ad is really, really weird. Like maybe you have a dog eating really, really, really fast in a really sped up video. Or maybe you're showing an incredible result with a product like you're getting all your work done, you're cleaning the house, you're taking care of the kids because your dog is so busy with this mat. I don't know. But the point is, you're going to want to tell a story with your video. Beginning, middle, and end. And you don't want to make these too, too salesy at this point or too, too pushy. You are just here to record a good story. Once you make these videos, you're going to want to edit them. to add sound and captions and cut them down to be relatively short, 10 seconds or less. We'll need these videos in a sec, so hold on to them. Next, we have to build a Shopify store. So I'm going to leave you a link in the description box so that you can follow along and that's going to give you access to a free trial. If you're not familiar, a domain is your website's address. So for example, mine could be pawlickinggood.com. But yeah, you could buy yours through Shopify domains. It shouldn't be more than 20 bucks, so it's pretty inexpensive. And then you would design your store on Shopify. They came out with a bunch of new themes, so you can choose from some of these free themes. And then you can also head over to Copy.ai to help you write some product descriptions and an about us page. And that'll probably take you about like 20 minutes. And then you're going to need a logo for your Shopify store. So here's another AI tool that's really great. It's called Looka and you can get your logo from there. So at this point you might have spent three hours max doing all of this and no more than a hundred dollars. So doing this is relatively quick and inexpensive. So with that amazing content that you made, you want to post it to TikTok and you're going to notice something really funny happen. The videos that you thought would smash are probably going to tank and the videos that you thought were trash are probably going to do super super well. I don't make the rules. But have you guys noticed that? I feel like TikTok is weird sometimes. It plays with you. Let me know if that's ever happened to you before. Let me know in the comment section. But anyways, you're going to find those hard hitters, the ones that get lots of engagement, and you're going to want to run those as ads. If you want an updated video on how to run TikTok ads, then leave me a comment below, and if we get a hundred people commenting on that, then I will make that video for you guys. I just think that this video would be way too long if we put that in here. But yeah, guys, that is it. You just learned how to leverage the power of TikTok to start and grow your dropshipping business. If you guys remember to do this after you set up your business and run your TikTok ads, please come back to this video and let me know how you did with it. How did it go? I am so excited for you guys. This is going to be such a great journey for you. And one more thing, if you are an e-commerce entrepreneur and you have had success with your business, I would love to have you on this channel as a feature, so if that is something that you're interested in doing and teaching our community about, How you got to where you are? Then leave me a comment down below and the name of your brand and we may be in touch. Here's what no one is telling you guys about the dropshipping business and we're going to explain it in under nine minutes. First thing that you need to know about dropshipping is the difference between dropshipping and an e-commerce business. A dropshipping business will have an online store and when an order is made the manufacturer or supplier will get notified and ship the order directly to the consumer. The dropshipping store owner has no control over the product quality and the shipping time. Now on the flip side, an e-commerce brand, also an online store, but in this case, the store owner has already paid for the inventory up front. Hence, they actually have the products at home or in the warehouse. They are in control of the product shipping time and product quality. So with dropshipping, there are a few things that you need to be aware of. Number one, your shipping times may be slow or the product may never arrive even. And it's going to leave your customers unsatisfied. And you're likely going to get complaints and negative reviews because of this. This makes it really challenging to keep customers. And this is all because your manufacturer is responsible for your shipping and you just have no control over this. Number two, you also want to be aware that the quality of your product may be subpar. Products might arrive. arrive at your customer's door either broken or not as pictured. And again, you don't have control over this because your manufacturer is in charge of the quality of your product and you don't get to see it before it gets to the customer. Number three, another fundamental flaw of drop shipping is that you have little to no control over the branded experience that your customer receives. So, you know, customers are more likely to feel satisfied receiving a clean branded box with marketing materials rather than a product stuffed into a crumpled plastic bag. And again, you have no jurisdiction over this because your dropshipping partner is going to control all of that. And number four, because of all of these things that I've just mentioned, Facebook absolutely hates dropshipping businesses. Dropshipping businesses have received a really negative reputation regarding quality and customer service. And for that reason, Facebook has made it hard for dropshipping businesses to scale using Facebook ads. Facebook may decrease the returns on your ads, which is problematic because as a dropshipper, you rely heavily on Facebook ads to grow your business. And number five, the next flaw in the dropshipping business model is that it is hard to remain competitive. The products you sell could technically be sold by any business if they wanted to. So for all these reasons, developing a winning dropshipping business may take time and effort. So dropshipping doesn't sound like such a good idea after all, but hold up. Don't be so quick to write it off because dropshipping can still be profitable. But before I go into that, If you find these videos helpful, feel free to give us a like and while you're at it, hit subscribe so that you can continue to learn with Shopify. But back into dropshipping, what else is good for it if you can't use it to build a long-term million dollar empire? Well, one of the significant advantages of dropshipping is that it helps non-existing businesses get their feet off the ground. You can use dropshipping to validate your idea and see if customers will buy from you. Once you feel validated, you can turn your dropshipping business into an e-commerce business where you hold your own inventory, create your own unique products, and have your own product images and videos and content for your website and ads and so on. As an e-commerce brand, you're gonna want to invest in influencer marketing. You're going to want to invest in affiliate marketing, PR, email marketing, good customer service, better shipping times, all of that. But sometimes making that leap from drop shipping to e-commerce can be a little scary because investing and holding inventory is costly. Taking on the cost of working with a warehouse, that's also an added expense that you might have yet to experience as a drop shipper, right? And after all that, there's no guarantees. It's costly to take a product that you've previously drop shipped, design it to be better, and have your own unique competitive edge, right? All of this costs money. So how do you know when you're ready to make that leap from dropshipping to e-commerce? And what are the steps that you can take to make it easier on yourself? I recommend pricing out all the expenses before making the switch. If your business revenue can afford the cost of making the switch, that's a good indicator that the demand for your product is there and it is time to grow. Working with an agent is also a really great way to make this transition easier on yourself. An agent is gonna help find winning products for you and they're going to recommend what suppliers to work with. They will also tell you whether the product you want to sell is legal or trademarked, which will also protect you from legal issues in the future. And of course, as you transition from dropshipping to an e-commerce business, making your products more competitive by customizing those products will be crucial to your business's longevity. And an agent can also help you with this. They're also going to help you because they're going to offer faster shipping times in contrast to what AliExpress and Alibaba can offer. This has been a trending topic. here on YouTube over the past year. And hopefully this condensed overview has helped guide you in your dropshipping journey. So yeah, guys, hopefully this video was helpful. Thank you guys so much for watching and I will see you guys next week. Peace.

But guess how much it's actually projected to reach in 2026? $476 billion. Insane.

Absolutely insane. So you know what that means for you? That means that you are just as capable as anyone else to claim your piece of the $476 billion pie. So if you're a beginner, you're going to learn what dropshipping is, how to start dropshipping with AliExpress and Shopify.

And at the end of this video, I'm going to let you in on what are the hot products to dropship. This is the ultimate beginner's guide for dropshipping. So buckle in and let's do it. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome back.

And if you're new here, welcome. My name is Michelle Bali. I'm a creative strategist and I'm your host for today's video. Now, this channel that you're on, this channel right here is called Learn with Shopify.

It's going to give you all the information that you need in order to start, run, and grow an online business. If you like dropshipping, if you like this channel, if you like making lots of money, then hit subscribe. And guys, do me a favor, please hit that like button because it really does help keep this channel alive.

Okay, let's get into it. What is dropshipping? So dropshipping is a low-risk, low-cost way of running an e-commerce business. Let me explain. Let's say you wanted to open up an online store.

One route that you can go is go to a manufacturer, get a custom product made, pay a bunch of money for inventory and keep that inventory maybe in your basement somewhere and then you open up an online store and then you ship orders from your house. That's one route, right? Another route is you can go to the drop shipping method.

With this method, instead of creating a product from scratch, you work with a supplier to choose products that they already have in stock, and you just simply make them available on your store. So to do that, the first step you would make an e-commerce store, you would link your supplier's products on your own store, then you would advertise your products through ads and social media, and then you would start getting orders. Once a customer places an order from you, it's the drop shipper that gets notified. So the dropshipper will get your customers'orders ready in their warehouse, ship it out, and let your customers know that their products are on the way.

So essentially, the dropshipper is responsible for sourcing the product, fulfilling the order, and shipping it out to your customers. That first method we talked about, you're responsible for literally everything end-to-end. But with dropshipping, all you're responsible is making sure that A, you've chosen a good product in the first place.

B, advertising your products and also dealing with customer service and the operations of your e-commerce store. So now you're probably wondering, well why wouldn't everyone just go the dropshipping method if it's so easy? So there are pros and there are cons to both.

The cons of dropshipping, you have less quality control over your products, that's because your suppliers are the ones who are doing the quality control on each product and package before it goes out. Another con is that you may have a hard time selling a product that is truly innovative and that no one else has. Because your supplier likely has other clients that they're selling to, whether it's the same or similar products, and that also means more competition. Alright, so let's move on to the pros of dropshipping.

So first of all, you can get your ecommerce site set up really quickly within a few clicks, which is amazing. Another thing I love is that you can easily test products and suppliers with no commitment. Also, dropshipping means less work for you because you're not gonna have to ship every order. And it also means less risk because you're not going to need to pay any money upfront in inventory.

You're only going to need to pay for the cost of products as the orders come in in real time. Another thing is that you don't have to hold any inventory, which means you're not going to have a million boxes in your living room, which is great. So this next one can be a pro or a con, and that is you're only as good as your supplier.

So let's say they're amazing and they're on time with every order, then you're good. But if they're experiencing delays and half the products they ship are broken, then it's actually your business that's going to suffer. How to drop ship. So here's how to get started with drop shipping in seven. steps.

So first step, do research on your dropshipping business idea. You're going to do research on a niche you're interested in and find out how profitable it can be. So here are some tools to get you started with that. Google Trends, guys. Google Trends can help you determine if a product is trending upward or downward.

Deezers, guys. Deezers order volume will let you search for products based on order volume to see how in demand your business idea is. Use a competitor spy tool, something like SimilarWeb.

It's going to allow you to go on your competitors websites and see how much traffic they have and who their competitors are. So step number two is to choose a drop shipping supplier. So at this point you've vetted what products are profitable. Now you want to make sure that you find a drop shipping supplier that is going to give you high quality service in order to grow. Like I said, your dropshipping business is literally as only as good as your supplier.

So you want to make sure that you're doing this right because this step is really important. All right, so let's head over to AliExpress. So AliExpress is one of the most popular marketplaces for new and expensive... dropshippers.

It's gonna allow you to easily find any type of product from fashion to toys. And with AliExpress you have access to tons of drop shipping suppliers from all over the world. AliExpress is known for their inexpensive products which is great news for you because as a reseller you'll be able to mark up the price and sell it to your end consumer to be able to make a profit choosing to drop ship from Aliexpress means there's no upfront costs or fees so you can test out products in your store without any financial commitment so if you want to be able to add Aliexpress products to your Shopify store in one click you're just gonna download a Shopify app called Deezer's this app is free and integrates easily with your Shopify store after you download this app you're going to want to vet suppliers based on their product quality and shipping time and their reviews i would recommend that you order some products before you actually sell them to be able to get a better feel for the product quality and their shipping time so the next step is you're going to build your e-commerce store right you've got your products you've got your suppliers now you need to build your e-commerce store your e-commerce store is where you're going to send your traffic you're going to sell those products and process payments now i'm 100 certain that i'm being biased when i say this but Shopify is the best place to build an e-commerce store hands down.

Even when I'm not on a Shopify YouTube channel, I recommend it to my clients that are just starting out because A, it's inexpensive, B, it's easy to use, and there's a million apps that you can choose from. So I personally just think it's the best. I would recommend you start with a free trial.

I will link that for you guys in the description. And then once you have that, start with a free theme. After that, you're going to choose a domain.

You're going to give your store a name. And then you're going to download that Deezer's app that I've that I was telling you about. I would also add in some apps like One Click Upsell and Klaviyo just to start, but basically that's an overview. If you wanna learn how to set up a Shopify store from scratch, then check out this video right here. That's gonna get you sorted.

Also guys, we offer a totally free e-commerce course that's designed to help you get your store up and running very quickly. Even if you have a low budget or you're a total beginner, this course is gonna be perfect. So if that's something that you are interested, I will leave a link for you guys in the description box below as well.

And all you have to do is sign up. up with your email and you're going to have full access. So I'll leave that for you guys in the description box. So the next step is to market your dropshipping store.

Now with so many things about dropshipping being automated, you can spend time focusing on marketing and promoting your business. A good marketing strategy is going to set you apart from all that competition in dropshipping and it's going to help you make sales. So here's how to advertise your dropshipping business. All right, number one, run paid Facebook and Google ads.

Now you might be thinking, well, I don't really have money for ads, but think of Think of it this way, spend the money on ads that you would have otherwise spent on inventory. The reason is because Facebook ads are scalable and if you have a really good ad specialist that knows what they're doing, ads can be that key that helps blast your business to the moon. Number two, get into influencer marketing. As a new drop shipper, you may have a limited budget to market your business, right?

Influencer marketing can be an affordable way to reach your target audience because people tend to trust influencers more than traditional advertisers. So if you go this route, keep in mind that this is a strategy that works most at scale. Number three, start content marketing. Write blog posts, film YouTube videos, or get your products featured on podcasts.

My tip here is make sure that there is a call to action. I actually have a client that gets thousands of views on this one blog post, but he forgot to put in a call to action, so he didn't sell any products. So make sure that you're using up to 30% of your content marketing to sell products. You don't need a year of planning, a million dollars in startup funds, or even a desk desktop computer to start an e-commerce store.

By the time you're done watching this video, you'll learn how you can start a dropshipping business in 7 steps with $0 and just your cell phone. So let's get started. Hey guys, welcome back.

And if you're new here, what is up? My name is Michelle Bali. This is Learn with Shopify, the channel that has all the information that you need to start and grow an online business. So if you're an entrepreneur, then make sure that you're hitting subscribe and if you end up finding this video helpful please do not forget to give it a like it's a small thing that you can do to make a really big impact on our channel here so i would really appreciate it step number one research your market it's important to research your market to determine whether it will be profitable so head over to google trends type in your market and narrow down to a specific location and you can even narrow it down by industry right over here now we're looking for the trends in interest over time so if it's ever Evergreen, meaning it has a consistent medium to high level of interest, that is a stable market to enter. Stable markets and products are better long-term.

But don't overlook any spikes you see. If you see a big spike like this one here, that means it's a trendy market. Short-term trends can also be very lucrative.

Step number two is find your product. So after you've found your market, head over to Facebook. I have the app installed on my phone, and then I'm just going to hit the search button. and type in the problem that you want to solve with your product. Remember that the most successful products solve a real problem.

So I'm typing in migraines and then hit the groups tab and then join all the groups so that you can better understand the specific issues these people have. When you better understand their specific issues, you can actually sell products that can help solve those problems. Now, so once I've joined all the migraine groups, what I found was a lot of people were complaining that their migraines are mixed.

with tension headaches so i want to head over to alibaba and type in tension headaches but you would just type in the specific problem that you found so i'm going to go in with these pressure point clips but of course there's so many options so how do you know which to choose you're going to choose based on how trustworthy the manufacturer looks so that's step number three which is vet your manufacturer so if i click into my product here i can see how many stars they have i wouldn't do less than 4.5 and then you could also see how many years they've been in business and For this, I would do like four and up. Now don't forget that your drop shipping store is only as good as your supplier, is only as good as your manufacturer, so make sure that you are choosing wisely. You especially want to make sure that they have quality products and they have speedy shipping. Step number four is build your store.

Now we get to the creative part where we launch our online store with Shopify and by the way if you're not familiar with what Shopify is, Shopify allows you to quickly and easily build an online store. So instead of building one from scratch, which takes a lot of time and money, you would get Shopify. So if you want to follow along with me for this part of the video, here's what you're going to do. You're going to download the Shopify app on your phone.

You're going to create an account and sign up for the three day Shopify free trial. The free trial is truly my opinion, the best way to get started with drop shipping from your phone without using any money. And it will allow you to give Shopify.

kind of like a test drive without committing to any monthly plan. Then just follow the prompts like naming your store, choosing a domain name, and next you'll want to design what the store will look like. The app is super powerful and it allows you to make changes right on your phone, just like this here.

Step number five is add your products. So next you'll want to download the Alibaba app. So from here we can find the product that we had just found. and add it just like this to our store.

So see, this is how our storefront is looking like to our customers, so it looks great. And now step number six, once we have our store all ready, is that we want to market our store. So if you wanna do this entire process for free, you can market your store through social media, email marketing, and video content. And if you have a bit of cash to spend, maybe consider running Google ads and Facebook ads because those are always going to be central and pivotal to any e-commerce business.

What makes dropshipping so enticing is that you can set up your business quickly, easily, and virtually for free. But the main problem that dropshippers face is the lack of competitive edge, because dropshipping products are so accessible, you and millions of others can potentially be selling the same product. So how do you convince customers to buy from you instead of the next guy?

And the answer is, is that it boils down to differentiating yourself through brand storytelling. So for example, who would you buy from? This brand here? that clearly shows what life is like without migraines.

It's like a whole story, you know? Or this story here that also sells migraine solutions but has no real focus or no clear brand storytelling. So here's how to tell a brand story. First, you wanna make sure that you have your values and core ethics set out and clear.

You wanna make sure that's clear within yourself. Second, you wanna disseminate information about who you are and what it is that you do. So whether that's on your website, through your social media platforms, through influencers, you want to make sure that you're getting that message across. And thirdly, you want to make sure that you are creating a community around your brand and your story that you're telling. So it's important to really believe in it, communicate it, and then get others to join you in on your mission.

So if you're ready to build your brand and start telling your brand story and you want to get into the details of launching your online business, we offer a totally free e-commerce course. designed to get your online store up and running quickly, even if you have a low budget and you're a total beginner. So you're going to learn how to develop a must-have winning product, build a powerful brand around it, design an e-commerce website, set up manufacturing and fulfillment, and launch a viral marketing strategy.

You'll also gain dozens of expert-produced playbooks, templates, and worksheets. It's designed to help you build your business the smart way. If you're interested, I will leave a link for you guys in the description box below. All you have to do is sign up with your email and you will have full access.

You guys want to see what TikTok made me buy? I'm weirdly embarrassed about this. So guys, I bought this little stackable lunch containers. So cute. I got these little travel cases for my makeup and whatever.

And then I got this insanely expensive hairdryer. And if I'm being honest, it was not worth the money. But the point is, is that two out of these three products were more than likely dropshipping products.

So I'm going to teach you how you can get set up on dropshipping only using TikTok. And you know what, guys? There is huge opportunity to sell with TikTok right now.

43% of Gen Z is starting their online product search on TikTok rather than on Google or any other search engine. So with that said, let's learn how we can get riche off of TikTok together. If you guys are new here and you do not already own a Shopify account, What are you waiting for? So I'm going to put a little link for you guys right here in this video where you can click and activate your free trial and there's no credit card required, which is really nice.

Now, this tutorial that we're about to watch today is going to be a lot more fun and easy to follow along if you do have an account. But also, if you're a total newbie and you have no idea what kind of a business to start or how to run your first Shopify store, or even how to generate sales, we actually have created a very special course designed to take you from first day to first sale. And it is absolutely free. Some business gurus sell their courses for hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.

And to be honest, guys, what you get doesn't even come close to what you would learn in this value-packed course. So if you guys are interested, click the link in the description box below to learn more. If you're new here, welcome to Learn with Shopify. This is an official Shopify channel where we teach you how to grow a successful online business.

My name is Michelle Bali. I'm a creative strategist. I'm going to be your host for today's video.

Now enough rambling, let's get into it. Okay, so first we got to find a product. So we're going to go on to exploding topics.

I'm going to start by trending over the past six months. And I'm going to choose the pet industry because I feel like everyone just seems to have a dog these days, you know? Look at these hilarious results. Okay, so first we have a lick mat.

I have literally no idea what that is, but I'm intrigued. Especially because the growth has been up 326%. Okay, so the next step is to take a product that excites you. and start doing some of that competitor research. Okay, so I'm going to type in lick mat for pets into Google and okay, I get it now.

So I guess this product is supposed to keep your dog distracted and entertained as they try to like lick the food off the mat. So just from doing a scroll on Google here, I can see that some companies are going to be selling this for as little as six dollars and some are going to be selling it for as much as twenty five dollars. So for me and my products, I want to make sure that this has good profit margins. So I'm going to pop into CJ dropshipping to see how much this actual product is going to cost me. Okay, this one's like a buck.

This one's like six bucks. And oh my God, look at this one right here. This is a cat anti-lick shame circle.

How hilarious and how sad. It kind of reminds me of the cone of shame from the movie Up. There's something so sad about that movie. I'm definitely more of a ratatouille kind of girl. Okay, so enough rambling.

Let's look into this first one here. The things that I'm looking for here is number one, how good are the product photos? Like you want to make sure that the product photos are high resolution and professional looking.

The second thing that I'm looking for is how fast the shipping times are and how much the actual product costs. Sometimes guys, it is worth it to pay a little bit extra in order to get the product over to the customer faster. And the last thing I'm looking for is what are the profit margins? So consider how much it costs to ship and for the product itself.

And if you are making 20% or more, because you're going to have other expenses like advertising, for example. So I'm seeing my competitors selling this product for anywhere between six to $25. And this one is going to cost me about nine-ish dollars. So that's not so bad.

I can probably sell this for about $13 to stay competitive and to make some money off of it. Now, guys, if you are finding this video helpful so far, do me a favor and hit the like button. It is a small thing that you guys can do to help me and this channel out. Okay. So after that, you're going to want to order a sample.

You want to make sure that the product is good quality and that the shipping times are what they say they are, but you'll also want to use this product to create content for your ads and for your website. You're going to want to record videos that are thumb stopping. Like if someone were scrolling and saw an ad for this, you would want them to be so intrigued that they would just click through.

Maybe your ad is really, really weird. Like maybe you have a dog eating really, really, really fast in a really sped up video. Or maybe you're showing an incredible result with a product like you're getting all your work done, you're cleaning the house, you're taking care of the kids because your dog is so busy with this mat. I don't know.

But the point is, you're going to want to tell a story with your video. Beginning, middle, and end. And you don't want to make these too, too salesy at this point or too, too pushy.

You are just here to record a good story. Once you make these videos, you're going to want to edit them. to add sound and captions and cut them down to be relatively short, 10 seconds or less.

We'll need these videos in a sec, so hold on to them. Next, we have to build a Shopify store. So I'm going to leave you a link in the description box so that you can follow along and that's going to give you access to a free trial.

If you're not familiar, a domain is your website's address. So for example, mine could be pawlickinggood.com. But yeah, you could buy yours through Shopify domains.

It shouldn't be more than 20 bucks, so it's pretty inexpensive. And then you would design your store on Shopify. They came out with a bunch of new themes, so you can choose from some of these free themes. And then you can also head over to Copy.ai to help you write some product descriptions and an about us page. And that'll probably take you about like 20 minutes.

And then you're going to need a logo for your Shopify store. So here's another AI tool that's really great. It's called Looka and you can get your logo from there.

So at this point you might have spent three hours max doing all of this and no more than a hundred dollars. So doing this is relatively quick and inexpensive. So with that amazing content that you made, you want to post it to TikTok and you're going to notice something really funny happen.

The videos that you thought would smash are probably going to tank and the videos that you thought were trash are probably going to do super super well. I don't make the rules. But have you guys noticed that? I feel like TikTok is weird sometimes.

It plays with you. Let me know if that's ever happened to you before. Let me know in the comment section.

But anyways, you're going to find those hard hitters, the ones that get lots of engagement, and you're going to want to run those as ads. If you want an updated video on how to run TikTok ads, then leave me a comment below, and if we get a hundred people commenting on that, then I will make that video for you guys. I just think that this video would be way too long if we put that in here.

But yeah, guys, that is it. You just learned how to leverage the power of TikTok to start and grow your dropshipping business. If you guys remember to do this after you set up your business and run your TikTok ads, please come back to this video and let me know how you did with it.

How did it go? I am so excited for you guys. This is going to be such a great journey for you. And one more thing, if you are an e-commerce entrepreneur and you have had success with your business, I would love to have you on this channel as a feature, so if that is something that you're interested in doing and teaching our community about, How you got to where you are?

Then leave me a comment down below and the name of your brand and we may be in touch. Here's what no one is telling you guys about the dropshipping business and we're going to explain it in under nine minutes. First thing that you need to know about dropshipping is the difference between dropshipping and an e-commerce business. A dropshipping business will have an online store and when an order is made the manufacturer or supplier will get notified and ship the order directly to the consumer.

The dropshipping store owner has no control over the product quality and the shipping time. Now on the flip side, an e-commerce brand, also an online store, but in this case, the store owner has already paid for the inventory up front. Hence, they actually have the products at home or in the warehouse. They are in control of the product shipping time and product quality. So with dropshipping, there are a few things that you need to be aware of.

Number one, your shipping times may be slow or the product may never arrive even. And it's going to leave your customers unsatisfied. And you're likely going to get complaints and negative reviews because of this. This makes it really challenging to keep customers. And this is all because your manufacturer is responsible for your shipping and you just have no control over this.

Number two, you also want to be aware that the quality of your product may be subpar. Products might arrive. arrive at your customer's door either broken or not as pictured.

And again, you don't have control over this because your manufacturer is in charge of the quality of your product and you don't get to see it before it gets to the customer. Number three, another fundamental flaw of drop shipping is that you have little to no control over the branded experience that your customer receives. So, you know, customers are more likely to feel satisfied receiving a clean branded box with marketing materials rather than a product stuffed into a crumpled plastic bag. And again, you have no jurisdiction over this because your dropshipping partner is going to control all of that.

And number four, because of all of these things that I've just mentioned, Facebook absolutely hates dropshipping businesses. Dropshipping businesses have received a really negative reputation regarding quality and customer service. And for that reason, Facebook has made it hard for dropshipping businesses to scale using Facebook ads. Facebook may decrease the returns on your ads, which is problematic because as a dropshipper, you rely heavily on Facebook ads to grow your business. And number five, the next flaw in the dropshipping business model is that it is hard to remain competitive.

The products you sell could technically be sold by any business if they wanted to. So for all these reasons, developing a winning dropshipping business may take time and effort. So dropshipping doesn't sound like such a good idea after all, but hold up. Don't be so quick to write it off because dropshipping can still be profitable.

But before I go into that, If you find these videos helpful, feel free to give us a like and while you're at it, hit subscribe so that you can continue to learn with Shopify. But back into dropshipping, what else is good for it if you can't use it to build a long-term million dollar empire? Well, one of the significant advantages of dropshipping is that it helps non-existing businesses get their feet off the ground.

You can use dropshipping to validate your idea and see if customers will buy from you. Once you feel validated, you can turn your dropshipping business into an e-commerce business where you hold your own inventory, create your own unique products, and have your own product images and videos and content for your website and ads and so on. As an e-commerce brand, you're gonna want to invest in influencer marketing. You're going to want to invest in affiliate marketing, PR, email marketing, good customer service, better shipping times, all of that. But sometimes making that leap from drop shipping to e-commerce can be a little scary because investing and holding inventory is costly.

Taking on the cost of working with a warehouse, that's also an added expense that you might have yet to experience as a drop shipper, right? And after all that, there's no guarantees. It's costly to take a product that you've previously drop shipped, design it to be better, and have your own unique competitive edge, right? All of this costs money.

So how do you know when you're ready to make that leap from dropshipping to e-commerce? And what are the steps that you can take to make it easier on yourself? I recommend pricing out all the expenses before making the switch.

If your business revenue can afford the cost of making the switch, that's a good indicator that the demand for your product is there and it is time to grow. Working with an agent is also a really great way to make this transition easier on yourself. An agent is gonna help find winning products for you and they're going to recommend what suppliers to work with. They will also tell you whether the product you want to sell is legal or trademarked, which will also protect you from legal issues in the future. And of course, as you transition from dropshipping to an e-commerce business, making your products more competitive by customizing those products will be crucial to your business's longevity.

And an agent can also help you with this. They're also going to help you because they're going to offer faster shipping times in contrast to what AliExpress and Alibaba can offer. This has been a trending topic.

here on YouTube over the past year. And hopefully this condensed overview has helped guide you in your dropshipping journey. So yeah, guys, hopefully this video was helpful.

Thank you guys so much for watching and I will see you guys next week. Peace.

Transcript for:Dropshipping Essentials for Beginners

Transcript for:
Dropshipping Essentials for Beginners