9 Quick Tips About Drop Shipping for Beginners

Are you looking for some pointers about drop shipping for beginners?

Drop shipping for the first time can involve a learning curve. There are a lot of different aspects to it that make it different form other online business models. Drop shipping, in reality, is also very different from what you might have expected from what you’ve read.

If you are an eCommerce entrepreneur looking to get into drop shipping, here are some tips about drop shipping for beginners. You might find it very valuable to have this list to look back to as you get your business set up.

It’s a Partnership

Probably the best tip we can give for to beginners is understanding that it takes two to tango. The drop shipping business model requires high levels of collaboration. You as the seller need to have strong ties with product suppliers. You can’t get anything shipped out to your customers if you don’t have reliable partner suppliers.

Spend a good amount of time searching for and building relationships with a few suppliers. Make sure you have backup suppliers for your products, too, so you can continue to get those orders fulfilled. Sometimes a supplier will decide to back out. You don’t want to be left without a product source if that happens.

Stay Away from Directories

Avoid the drop ship vendor directories. These directories do not provide reliable information. Looking for suppliers through these lists will do you more harm than good. Directories might look like a good place to get started so that you don’t have to go hunting for suppliers from scratch. In the end, however, you will be much better off steering clear of them and doing the legwork yourself. You can find more trustworthy partners this way.

Know Your Flow

Drop shipping for beginners goes much more smoothly when you have a clear plan outlined from the get go. Create a chart of how you see your drop ship business working. Outline the steps clearly from sourcing to marketing to selling to keeping your customers happy.

On your chart, note the most important aspects of each step. This will help you stay on top of the main areas. As you build your business, you can keep an eye on your supply, your advertising, your sales channels, and your customers. This way, you can see at a glance where you can focus more attention and what changes you need to make to grow stronger.

Focus on Management

Order and inventory management is critical to the success of your drop shipping business. Everything hinges on a solid supply of product to support your sales volume. Make sure that you are developing solid relationships with suppliers. You will be dependent on them to fulfill your orders. Make sure that you check in with them periodically to ensure that they will be able to keep up with the number of orders that you expect over the next few months. Do this in advance so that they have time to prepare, especially when big sale days are coming up when you anticipate huge peaks in sales.

Use Specialized Tools

Find eCommerce tools that are specially designed for drop shipping. And use them to help you manage everything. Many different types of tools exist that can make tasks easier. Do some research into them and choose the ones that you find will best suit your needs. Drop shipping for beginners is so much easier this way. Without these tools, the tasks that you will have to perform on a daily basis can end up eating up a huge chunk of your time – and energy. You can’t afford this if you want to grow.

Monitor Shipping

One of the biggest problems that you will encounter with drop shipping is really horrible shipping speed. This is really down to your suppliers, but you need to step in when it gets bad. You are the face that the customers see. You will get all the complaints when their packages don’t arrive on time. Don’t let drop shipping mess with your feedback scores.

Talk with your suppliers early on about the shipping speeds that your customers expect and ask them if they can meet those standards. If a supplier falls behind, don’t hesitate to reach out. Contact them as soon as you see one order arrive late and ask them what happened. When you care this much, they will tend to care more, too. If you can’t come to an agreement, you should start looking for an alternate supplier who can respect your need for speed.

Continue reading this column on ConnorGillivan.com to learn more quick tips about drop shipping for beginners.