Hey all, it’s Matt from Style Factory here, the go-to site for ecommerce advice.
In this video I’m going to show you how to dropship with Shopify.
Stay tuned to the end to get all our top tips for turning your dropshipping business into
a success, and for a handy hint on how to access a unique Shopify trial designed especially
for dropshippers.
Before I dive in though, here’s my usual reminder to like this video, subscribe to
the channel and hit the notifications bell.
This helps us out and gives you easy access to all our Shopify resources going forward.
Right, let’s start things off with a key question: what is dropshipping?
Dropshipping is a business model where you don’t manufacture, purchase, store or deliver
any products.
Instead, you take orders for products via an online store, and pass them onto a supplier.
The supplier then charges you for the goods, and sends them to the customer.
To make a success of Shopify dropshipping, there are four key steps you need to take.
The first one involves starting a Shopify trial — but doing so in a particular way.
One — pick the right Shopify trial.
Most people who are thinking about starting a Shopify dropshipping business head over
to the Shopify website and hit the free trial button.
Now, while this is a perfectly good way to get going with Shopify, dropshippers are better
served by signing up to Shopify in a specific way — namely, by accessing Shopify’s free
dropshipping starter kit.
You’ll find a link to this starter kit in the video description.
Now, the starter kit gives you a 14-day trial of Shopify, which is usually extendable upon
request.
But more importantly, it also gives you a host of free training materials to help you
get started with dropshipping.
Once you’ve signed up to the starter kit, you’ll start to receive emails containing
your free training resources.
Make sure you read any guides or watch any videos these contain before launching your
Shopify store, as they are produced by experienced and successful Shopify dropshippers, and contain
a lot of extremely useful resources.
Once you’ve set up your Shopify account and studied the dropshipping resources it
contains, it’s time to think about what you’re going to dropship (and to who!).
This is where finding your niche comes in — so let’s take a look at that.
Two — find your niche.
No business becomes a success unless it successfully manages to tap into the right niche — and
a Shopify dropshipping business is no exception here.
There are three main ways to identify a good niche to dropship in: via keyword research,
by using Google Trends; and by using data from advertising services.
Keyword research gives you a great way to identify potentially profitable niches: if
you find out that a lot of people are searching for a particular product each month, that
it’s going to be relatively easy to get your store to the top of the search results
for that item, then happy days: you’ve just found a niche.
You’ll need a keyword research tool like Semrush or Ahrefs to perform keyword research.
You’ll find links to free Semrush and Ahrefs trials in the video description, as well as
a link to our guide on performing basic keyword research.
Another way of identifying potentially lucrative dropshipping niches involves using the free
Google Trends service.
This lets you see how popular particular search phrases are on Google (and how popular they’ve
been over time).
You can also use Google Trends’ ‘Shopping Trends’ section to identify shopping-related
searches that are particularly popular, right now.
For some more information on how to use Google Trends to identify potentially lucrative niches,
please follow the link to our Google Trends tips in the video description.
And finally, you can use advertising data to identify a niche.
Facebook and Google Ads, typically the two main services used for advertising dropshipped
products, both let you access a wealth of data about people’s interests and searches.
You can use this information to see what sort of demand there’s likely to be for particular
products, and use the available data to decide upon your dropshipping niche.
When you’ve worked out what niche you want to operate in, it’s time to find a dropshipping
supplier.
Let’s take a look at that.
Three — Choose a dropshipping app To get dropshipping on Shopify, you need to
work with a dropshipping supplier.
And the best way to do this is usually via a dropshipping app.
You’ll find a really wide range of these in the Shopify app store.
A dropshipping app connects you to a supplier; lets you pick and choose which of their products
you want to list on your site; imports all the relevant product details onto your site
automatically; and notifies your supplier every time there’s an order that needs to
be fulfilled.
Now, given the large quantity of dropshipping apps available in the Shopify app store, it
can be quite hard to choose which ones to use.
But a couple of particularly popular apps worth highlighting are DSers and Spocket — these
two apps are commonly used in conjunction with a lot of ecommerce platforms in general,
not just Shopify, and they let you dropship a vast range of products.
If you’re interested in print-on-demand dropshipping — which lets you add your own
custom designs to products — Printify and Printful are popular, well-established choices.
When choosing a dropshipping app there are some key things to watch out for, however.
You should ensure that any dropshipping supplier you use is reliable; the goods you’re dropshipping
are ethically produced; the shipping fees are low; delivery times will be swift; and
the cost for using the app is not excessive.
Dropshipping apps on Shopify come with a ‘support’ section where you’ll find a contact email
address and FAQs section.
You can use both to perform due diligence on dropshipping apps and their suppliers.
Once you’ve installed a dropshipping app, you can now select the products you’d like
to sell on your ecommerce store.
Using most dropshipping apps involves a process in which you browse products, select the ones
you want to list on your store and then simply ‘push’ them to Shopify.
This will import all the product details to your Shopify store automatically — images,
descriptions and so on.
When you’re finished adding products, it’s time to market your dropshipping store.
Let’s move onto that.
Four — market your dropshipping store.
At this point you’ve got your Shopify account, found your niche and have added all your products.
But unless you have a strong marketing plan in place, your lovely new ecommerce business
isn’t going to make any sales.
There are four things that you’ll typically need to focus on to make a success of a Shopify
dropshipping store: search engine optimization, content marketing, online advertising and
email marketing.
Let’s go through these quickly now.
Search engine optimization.
Search engine optimization — or SEO — is the process of optimizing your store around
keywords that you want to rank for in search results.
It may sound scary, but it’s actually easier than you might think, and there are lots of
resources available online to help you with it.
In the video description, you’ll find links to some key SEO starter guides and useful
resources on Shopify SEO.
Content marketing.
As its name suggests, content marketing is a way of using your content like blog posts
or videos to attract visitors to your site.
If your content is strong enough, it’s likely to perform well in search, and if it’s trustworthy
and informative enough, it’s likely to encourage people to buy from you.
You’ll find some links to essential Style Factory resources on content marketing in
the video description.
Online advertising.
When it comes to online advertising, there are lots of platforms that let you run ads
online, but Google Ads, Facebook and Instagram end up being the starting point for many dropshippers;
they are easy enough to use and command huge audiences.
There are also lots of resources available online to help merchants make the most of
them, and we’ve linked to a few of these in the video description.
Email marketing.
Email marketing is a hugely effective way to generate sales.
Newsletters let you place your latest products right in front of the people that are most
likely to buy from you, and they typically offer you a great return on investment.
Again, you’ll find links to some key resources on how to get going with email marketing in
the video description.
So that’s it: our guide to starting a dropshipping business on Shopify!
A quick reminder that if you want to dropship on Shopify, you should really start by accessing
the Shopify dropshipping starter kit — it gives you some really excellent resources
to make the most out of the dropshipping model.
You’ll find a link to the starter kit in the video description.
For more great Shopify tips, don’t forget to subscribe to our channel and hit the notifications
bell.
And finally, if you have any queries about setting up a Shopify dropshipping business,
please let us know in the comments section below!
We read them all and will do our best to help.