How to Start a Drop Shipping Business Break Down
First and foremost lets get into what drop shipping is and what it’s not. Drop shipping is where you find a supplier of a product at wholesale price and you sell the product for retail price to customer. Once they purchase It from you or your posting on a website you then go to the supplier and order it on their website for the wholesale price. You then keep the difference in price.
Drop Shipping Example
An example of this is I have a website that sells watches. When people go to the website and purchase the watch or watches. I then go and purchase the item from my supplier of watches and have it delivered directly to the customer.
So if the watch costs $50 on the wholesalers website and I end up selling the watch for $80 I make a $30 profit just by connecting the two. It’s a simple way to make money online but at the same time it can be very complicated if you don’t have the right supplier.
4 Different Business Models Of A Drop Shipping Business
There are 4 different business models when it comes to creating a drop shipping business website. You can use Shopify, eBay, host your own products on your own website or buy a ready made alibaba online store.
These all have their own set of pros and cons.
Shopify Pros are the fact that it has a very friendly e-commerce set up. Its basically created for folks who want to create their own e-commerce website. Shopify has been around for years and the platform is super stable to build a business around.
The major con is the cost to use Shopify can get expensive when you really start to build out your store. You have ways to do things your self or you can outsource the set up through sites like Fiverr and Upwork. Again this can get very expensive if you’re not sure of the people you’re working with.
Ebay pros and cons are the fact that you can easily set up a eBay listing and make money on the platform but you won’t have access to the money until it is shipped and approved by the customer. The costs from PayPal can get really expensive and bite into your profits considerably.
Hosting your own website definitely has a bunch of pros but a bunch of cons along with it. When you host your own website you have to do all the designing and uploading of products. You have to make sure all is good with the e-commerce site when it comes to terms of conditions of your website. Marketing your website and hosting your website. Sure it could be a great way to have your own business but it will take more time and effort then you want to put in when you first start.
So what I recommend is buying a ready made website from the likes of Alidropship. The great thing about Alidropship it takes all the hard work out of your hands. Its a very plug and play type of service and its way better then starting from scratch or anything like that. They can create a store for you, you can buy a premium store or you can just use the plug in and create your own self hosted store through woo commerce. Either way this is the best option in my opinion when it comes to starting a drop shipping business.