Step-by-Step Guide to Starting Your First Drop Shipping Store in 2021

UPDATED FOR 2021

The hard part was deciding to explore e-commerce as a business opportunity, to augment a current income and eventually (as is the case with many of our Dropified members) replace the day-job with drop shipping store models.

So, if you are just getting started this year (2021), here is a simplified list of the steps needed to get rolling.

Pick a Niche and Secure the Domain Name and Email Address

This is one of the most important decisions to make about an e-commerce business. What niche and category of products will you choose?  Most power sellers start with a product niche that they understand personally, involving personal interests or hobbies that they already have.  Why? Because understanding what motivates the purchase is easier as a current customer or frequent buyer.

Makes sense, right?  But this familiarity also branches out into other important economies of scale.  For instance, blogging and social media.  Curating content is easier when there's a genuine interest in the niche.  So, pick something enjoyable for the first 1-2 stores.

After deciding on a focus niche, choose the domain.  We know that platforms allow selection of a hosted domain name, but is it necessary to buy the root domain and own that address too?  Absolutely.  Imagine a year or two from now, when that store has been built into a super powered profitable business.  Would it be ideal for someone to register a website with the same name and steal traffic and potential sales from the site, by spoofing the branding?  (Trust us… it happens all the time).

Purchase the formal domain name from GoDaddy and park it if there are no plans to use it right away.  And remember to renew it annually to protect the brand against imposters.   While doing that, make sure to pick up a business email package, so that an info@ email address can be added for the store to handle customer service queries.

Choose a Shop Platform

Dropified works with virtually all e-commerce shop platforms, but our shortcut tools to click and add products from AliExpress work with Shopify and Woocommerce.   If another platform has been selected, be aware that Dropified can still be used, but product specifications will need to be downloaded via .CSV export with product images manually added to the shop.

Dropified product tools will do all the heavy lifting (and save a ton of time with click and add functionality) when using Shopify or Woocommerce stores.

Design the Store

Let that creativity loose!  Design the kind of e-commerce store that stands out from the competitors.  How? Start by searching other shops that sell similar products and add a personal touch and branding to the website.

Thinking of page structure and organization for the store?  Here is a list of essentials:

• Product pages
• Contact us form (for customer service and questions)
• Terms and Conditions page (required by search engines). This page should also outline the return and refund policy.
• Testimonial page. Collect customer feedback on the products sold to assure customers that the store is a reliable vendor.
• Sale or discount product page (for bundles and special promotional offers).
• Mailing address. To avoid using a home address, consider a street address through UPS or iPostal1, that functions like a PO box.  This will allow registration of a Google My Business account (which does not allow PO box addresses).
• Customer service telephone number. Don't use a personal cell phone.  Check out service providers like Grasshopper.

Periodic email communication with customers is essential, so don't forget to enable a subscribe now feature, allowing customers to sign up.  MailChimp is an easy email marketing platform that integrates well into virtually any shop or online store.  It will manage email lists, allow segregation of lists (by purchase preferences for instance) and distribute special offers, promotions, coupons and more.

Don't forget to add PERSONALITY to the shop!  Show passion for the product niche and make the user experience interesting, to convert site visits to purchases.

SSL Certificates Security and Payment Settings

SSL Certificates are a cryptographic key that identifies a business as a trust worthy one for financial transactions, secure browsing and data transfer.  This is an essential step to demonstrate the reliability and legitimacy of a retail shop with search engines like Bing and Google. They are available through Shopify and Woocommerce platforms.  When the SSL setup is complete for the store, visit a free testing site like Qualys to verify the settings.

Create an AliExpress Account

This only takes a few minutes.  Visit AliExpress to create a vendor account.

Get a Free Trial of Dropified (Add the Browser Extension)

Yep, this part is easy too.  Just visit our pricing page to sign up for a free trial to test drive the SaaS tools available right away with Dropified.

Connect the Shop(s) to Dropified

We've made it quick and easy with a video tutorial for connecting Woocommerce and Shopify shops to Dropified. Just visit our video tutorial page for step-by-step instruction and screenshare. It will only take about 4 minutes to connect the store to Dropified.

Organize the Product Boards

Can we share a pro-tip that will save time? Before starting product research and discovery, and saving products from AliExpress to Dropified, organize the product boards first.  Think about how to keep these products sorted by category, then add the products.   From the product boards, those products can then be connected to the shop(s) using Dropified.

Watch the video training tutorial for creating and organizing product boards.

Product Research and Discovery: Using Dropified Filters

It's a little bit of work but a lot of fun.  After completing the set-up of a first store, it's time to start ‘shopping' for trending products to sell from AliExpress.  But being strategic about product choices is important, picking products that:

• Have high sales volume (think of this as an indicator of consumer demand).
• Come from reliable and highly rated vendors.
• Have the shortest possible delivery times (choose ePacket when possible to reduce delivery time from the wholesaler to the customer).
• Variants that are popular sellers (don't waste time adding custom product descriptions for variants that have a low sales volume). If they aren't selling, they are probably not worth the effort to add that variant to the shop.

Use gut instincts to choose trending items that everyone wants to buy and keep the product focus as narrow as possible to a specific niche.  Specialty stores get more traffic and have refined branding that appeals to a specific target market and consumer.

Stay ahead of the game by organizing a product ‘wish list' using Dropified.  That way, seasonal products and special offers can be organized for products to add later.  Visit our blog for some tips.

Add Products to the Store

Once the boards are organized with exciting products, the next step is to connect them to the store or make them ‘live' for purchase on the website.   Visit our video training portal for a tutorial and learn how to quickly connect products, modify product descriptions, select variant images (or edit them) using Dropified.

Learn How to Fulfill Orders (Or Set Up Auto-Fulfillment)

There are two ways that business owners can fulfill customer orders, as the sales start rolling in.  The first option is manual order fulfillment, and that's where many beginners start so that they can be more hands-on and evaluate purchases, and track customer service issues.

Visit our video training portal for advice and a guide to fulfilling orders manually, or to create the settings that will allow Dropified to automatically fulfill orders as they come in.  Remember to notate each vendor order to remove the shipping waybill or invoice in the customer packaging, so that the customer does not see wholesale cost information when they receive their order.

Set Up Social Media Promotion

What are the social media channels that e-commerce power sellers rely on, for sales and promotion?

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram

Depending on the product and target market (are sales also directed at businesses who may use the products?) it may also be worthwhile to set up a LinkedIn Company page, and post products, blogs and special offers on the world's largest B2B networking site.

Aim to post content at least 5 days a week and investigate social scheduling software like Hootsuite or Sprout Social, which will allow pre-written posts and automated social sharing.   Remember to include quality images, share blog posts and other content that will help draw traffic to the drop-shipping site.

Add Content to the Blog

How do the products fulfill a lifestyle need or want for customers?  Blogging allows e-commerce business owners to share valuable tips and advice that consumers appreciate, and it helps to create a community of repeat visits (and purchases) when the blog stays interesting.

Aim to blog in the beginning, at least 10 times per month, and keep articles at least 350 words in length.  Long format blog posts (1,000 words or more) are valuable in terms of SEO and will help appease search engines like Google and Bing and encourage them to refer more traffic to the site.

Keyword research is an important part of e-commerce success. Neil Patel shares a great article with a list of free keyword research tools to get started with.  And since most households are using virtual assistants like Alexa or Google Home to find products, remember to include voice search key strings (conversational search terms) that customers would use to find those products.  Make those keywords and strings part of the product descriptions, social media hashtags and blog content.

Upgrade to Dropified Plan Membership

After the free trial of Dropified is over, and the email tips and advice have helped with setting up and growing an e-commerce business, we'd like to extend an invitation to remain part of our thriving community by subscribing to one of our monthly/yearly plans.

Remember, the support team at Dropified is always ready to pitch in and answer questions about our software, or general questions about e-commerce business strategies.