How great would it be to have more time to yourself? Either to enjoy the summer, to spend with your family or to free your time to really indulge your passion? Maybe you’ve been wondering how to make a bit more money on the side, to boost your income – so you can take that trip you’ve always wanted to do, or to help your family’s finances. If you want more free time or a bigger bank balance, then chances are, you’ve searched online for business ideas.
One option is to start a business selling, using something called DropShipping. There’s countless pages of information online about it, and you’ve probably seen the adverts too, on social media advertising or YouTube – sign up now, quit your job and retire in a week! Most of us simply ignore this kind of marketing – because it sounds too good to be true. Of course, if it was the case that we could all earn enough to retire in a week, everyone would be doing it.
Since that is clearly not the case, here’s the truth: anyone CAN make money by creating a business using DropShipping and selling online, but it won’t take just a week or so – it’ll take a bit longer than that. Launching any kind of business takes a bit of work – and selling online is no different. What can be made simple though, is the technicalities of selling online.
DropShipping is simply where a seller sells items they don’t own. They create the listing on their website or a marketplace like Amazon, and when they sell an item, they buy it immediately from a supplier. When the supplier receives payment from the seller, they ship the item directly to the customer. The best dropshipping products are typically found on Chinese marketplaces like AliExpress and Tao Bao, however you can also try Amazon, eBay, Craigslist, etc
With DropShipping, the focus is on selling and marketing – there’s no need for a warehouse, to pay for stock up front or doing any manual labor. That means it really is an inclusive business option – all you need is an internet connection and a laptop, tablet or even a phone that you can manage your business on.
What makes the whole process simple is using a DropShipping platform that connects you to reliable, verified suppliers – ideally, a platform that allows you to work with domestic suppliers so that you don’t have to deal with language barriers or long delivery times. You don’t want to have to deal with suppliers overseas that cause you headaches because their products are shoddy or their service terrible, do you?
When you’re looking for your DropShipping platform, find one that has thousands of products available for you to sell, and that allow for multichannel selling – which means that you can manage sales across a range of online marketplaces, such as Amazon, eBay, Wish and Wayfair, as well as your own website.
If this is all starting to sound a bit like those adverts that are too good to be true because it is so simple, then don’t worry – here’s where the work needs to happen. For businesses that are using DropShipping, the work is the process of getting customers to your products. In a nutshell, that means advertising. If you have the creativity to design great social media posts and you can handle customer service issues by email or phone, then you’ve got the skills you need to create your own DropShipping business. If you can handle setting up your own website, even better – but don’t worry if you can’t, you can sell on marketplaces and create a very successful business without.
When you’re choosing your DropShipping platform, be sure to choose one that allows your business to scale up gradually. The best DropShipping platforms provide free options to help you make a success of your business, but be sure to check that there aren’t additional costs for certain features further down the line. You don’t want to be paying over the odds when another platform will cost you less.
Once your DropShipping business is making a profit, you can choose what to do next. You can absolutely take advantage of the extra free time you have, or quit that job you hate, because you can manage your business anywhere you have an internet connection. But why stop there? Grow your social media following, do some influencer marketing, write a book or launch a blog – the choice is entirely yours.
For more information about DropShipping, Avasam.com have truly revolutionized the Industry with their automated platform. We’re in the process of giving them a try, and will report back.