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If you’re interested in starting a Shopify dropshipping store, here are some tips that will help make your process as easy and streamlined as possible.
Because you don’t have to acquire things in advance or have inventory on hand, dropshipping is a popular low-cost eCommerce approach. Shopify, which includes Shopify’s Oberlo, links to hundreds of drop shippers through applications that automate every process, making it the fastest, simplest, and most cost-effective method to start an online business.
To begin dropshipping on Shopify, you must first create an account; Shopify provides a 14-day free trial to assist you in getting started. After that, you can connect the free Oberlo dropshipping software and begin creating a dropshipping product collection. Expect to pay at least $120 for your Shopify dropshipping store’s initial setup and at least $30 per month for platform costs.
Step 1: Create a Shopify account.
The first step is to create an account with Shopify and activate your free trial. To do so, go to Shopify and fill out the form below with your email address, company name, and password.
If you’re still undecided about your company name or idea, don’t let that stop you from trying out Shopify and Oberlo. In your Shopify shop settings, you may modify the name of your business and even your email address at any moment. Exploring dropshipping items using Shopify and the Oberlo app is a great method to come up with new company ideas and try them out.
Shopify will lead you to your shop dashboard after you’ve signed up and validated your email address. You may use Shopify’s basic setup procedure to get your shop up and running.
To set up your shop, go to your Shopify dashboard and use the basic setup procedure.
However, for the sake of this tutorial, we’ll concentrate on how to link a dropshipping app to your dashboard in order to investigate dropship items.
Step 2. Connect the Oberlo App to Your Shopify Store
You’ll need to connect a dropshipping app to be able to browse and add items to your Shopify shop. Oberlo is fast and simple to set up and operate since it is Shopify’s fully integrated drop shipping supplier network.
After you’ve made an Oberlo account, you’ll be brought to your dashboard, which has a simple setup process that you may use.
Step 3: Create a Shopify Dropshipping Store and find products to sell.
Your product discovery adventure starts once the Oberlo app is installed in your Shopify shop. With a few keystrokes, Oberlo’s easy interface allows you to do wide or detailed product searches. It’s a good idea to start by looking at other items that are similar to your company concept (or ideas) and seeing what you can find.
Before you begin looking for items, consider the nation in which you want to sell them so that you may compare shipping options, pricing, and delivery times.
Click the “Selling to” filter and make a selection to filter the items by the nation you intend to ship to.
There are two methods to look for products:
1. To locate goods you’re interested in, type keywords into the search field. To obtain more precise results, filter the product category.
2. Browse items using product categories and subcategories.
You may examine shipping cost estimates for items by clicking on the arrow icon next to the product description after you’ve selected your nation in the “Selling to” drop-down.
To access comprehensive shipping charges and delivery estimates, click the small arrow symbol next to the shipment time period estimates in a product thumbnail.
Here’s an illustration of what you’ll see if you click on the arrow icon. You can see the many shipping options, as well as the projected delivery dates and prices.
Click on the thumbnail picture to learn more about the product.
Variants, more product photos, delivery options, a complete product description, and the current stock inventory level may all be found on the product page.
How to Choose the Right Oberlo Products to Sell
Before you start building a large product list in Oberlo, there are a few things to bear in mind:
- Be prepared to create product descriptions: While most Oberlo dropship providers supply item data such as size and material, few offer a ready-to-go thorough product description; even if they do, you should write your own to relate the item to your brand and consumer.
- Review pricing: Oberlo automatically sets a suggested retail price, but it’s a good idea to review the profit margin and search online to see if that price is competitive with other sellers; many successful drop shippers use a marketing tactic of raising the price on all items and then offering free shipping sitewide.
- Customers should be informed about shipment times: Because you don’t have control over how orders are fulfilled when you use dropshipping, it’s a good idea to give expected delivery timeframes in your product descriptions.
- Check supplier reviews: For each transaction, suppliers are given a rating, which is reflected in their feedback score.
By hovering over a supplier’s rating on the product page, you may view their rating.
- Examine the photographs of the product: Because you won’t be keeping stock, it’s critical that you purchase goods that provide high-quality photographs right away.
- Check product statistics: See whether the product has received favorable feedback, how many sales it has made, and how many Shopify/Oberlo shops it has been presented in.
Product statistics is another part of the product page that you should pay attention to.
Positive evaluations and a large number of sales can be seen on this product page. When we look at the website as a whole, we notice high-quality photographs and lots of information for our description. This item is ideal for our dropshipping business. You’re now ready to go on to the next step, which is to import the product into your Shopify shop.
Step 4: Add Oberlo items to your Shopify store
You can add items to your Shopify shop after you’ve decided the ones you want to sell. To add dropshipping items to Shopify, you must first add them to your Oberlo Import List.
Click “Add to Import List” on the product page.
After that, the product will appear on the “Import List” page, where you may make changes to its details.
You’ll see the list of items you’ve selected to add to your Shopify shop after you click “Import List.”
Edit Product Specifications
Before importing products to your Shopify shop, we recommend editing product data in the Oberlo dashboard.
On the product information page, you’ll notice five tabs, as seen below:
We may do the following on the “Product” tab:
- Make a change to the item’s title. Long product names filled with keywords are often included by suppliers to help them appear in search results.
- If you haven’t already, manually add it to one or more Shopify Product Collections; if you haven’t, you may do it later in your Shopify dashboard.
- Determine a product’s “Type,” which Shopify will use to automatically assign things to “Collections.”
- For search engine optimization (SEO) and site search, include keyword tags.
Have three to five sentences as your product description on the “Description” tab. Determine whatever pertinent details from the original product description should be kept. Remember that well-written product listings reduce refund rates, increase sales, and help you establish client confidence. Learn how to create effective product descriptions.
All product descriptions will be imported in English, as a reminder. If you want to utilize a different language, you’ll need to change the language of the product information to match the language of your shop.
Review the various variations on the “Variants” page and deselect any that you don’t wish to sell.
- Select versions that are appropriate for your shop. If you’re selling pet accessories for little dogs, for example, you may exclude bigger dog equivalents.
- Potential clients may get overwhelmed if there are too many options accessible. This might lead to hesitation and sales that aren’t completed.
You’ll see possible versions and their pricing on the “Pricing” page, as well as potential delivery charges, the retail price, and the potential profit you’ll earn. Learn how to set a product’s pricing.
- The price you must pay the supplier for the goods and shipment is shown in the cost and shipping columns. Use this information to figure out how much you should charge for the item in your shop.
- Set the product price that your consumers will pay you in the pricing field.
- The profit column shows you how much money you could make if you sold this product.
- The compare at price column assists you in deciding on discount pricing for your products.
You’ll find all of the photographs a supplier has for a product under the “Images” tab. By reviewing each picture, you may choose the ones that apply to your shop.
Oberlo automatically saves your modifications as you go through each tab. When you’re finished, click the “Import to store” button to add the item to your Shopify product list right away.
You have the option of importing items and saving them as a draft or making them immediately accessible in your Shopify shop. This product will be imported as a draft in our instance.
You’ll see the product on your Shopify shop dashboard after it’s been imported. By opening a new tab and navigating to your Shopify account, you can discover it. Select “Products” from the drop-down menu. Alternatively, you may go to your Oberlo dashboard and choose “Edit Product on Shopify” (after the product is imported).
When you choose “Edit Product on Shopify,” a new tab for your Shopify product detail page will appear, as seen below.
In your Shopify dashboard, you may make more adjustments to your product description, title, and photos. You may also tag them, group them into collections, and do other things.
Sort your Oberlo products into categories.
Following the import of a few Oberlo goods into Shopify, the next step is to set up your Shopify Store via the Shopify dashboard. To begin, create Product Collections to categorize your dropshipping goods and make buying simpler. To do so, go to your Shopify dashboard and choose “Collections,” then “Create Collection,” and you’ll get this page.
Consider Shopify Collections to be product organization tools. These are used to categorize your items by kind, sale price, tags, and other factors.
Step 5. Set Up Your Shopify Dropshipping Store
It’s time to finish crucial shop information in Shopify once you’ve set up your product collections. These are some of them:
- Set up a Shopify shop theme, which is the design of the store.
- Shoppers will be able to navigate more easily with the help of menus.
- Information about payment, delivery, and taxes
- Create or link a domain name for your shop.
We’re not going to go over each of these setup procedures in great depth since Shopify walks you through them on your dashboard.
Add More Products & Promote Your Shopify Store
You may begin investigating additional drop shipping product possibilities and marketing channels after your starting Shopify dropshipping site is operational. The secret to dropshipping success is curating a compelling range of items and selling them effectively. Shopify can assist you with all of these things, which is why it’s our #1 recommendation for beginning a dropshipping company.
Of course, using Oberlo to find and add new items should be a continuous process, but you can also look at other dropshipping programs in the Shopify App Store. These are some of them:
- POD (print-on-demand) drop shippers: POD (print-on-demand) like Printful and Printify allow you to customize a variety of items with your own designs.
- Specialty drop shippers: Sites like Modalyst and Spocket link you with products created in the United States, Canada, and Europe; you may also use Dripshipper to offer custom-packaged coffees.
- Using large dropshipping networks like Inventory Source, you may add complete vendor lines or name-brand items to your portfolio.
You’ll also want to use Shopify’s built-in marketing tools to broaden your consumer base. Here are four techniques to sell your items that you may try right away once your business is up and running.
- Shopify makes it simple to list any or all of your drop-ship items in a Facebook Store.
- Shopify now links your drop-ship items to shoppable Instagram posts, allowing you to sell on Instagram.
- Use email marketing: Shopify has strong built-in marketing tools that you can use to inform your consumers about new items, discounts, and other special offers.
- Improve your site’s search engine rankings: Use Shopify’s built-in SEO tools to create keyword-rich collection page descriptions and blog entries that will help your site rank better in the search engines.
Of course, every dropshipping firm must continue to improve its product range, advertise it, and respond to consumer inquiries. Nonetheless, Shopify’s interconnected platforms will make these duties as simple as possible.
The Price of Starting a Shopify Dropshipping Business
Startups, particularly dropshippers, frequently have a limited budget. As a result, it’s also critical to think about the expenses of putting up a Shopify dropshipping shop. The following are the running costs of a simple Shopify dropshipping store:
- A Shopify monthly membership is $29 per month.
- Oberlo subscription: There is a free plan that lasts indefinitely and a premium membership that costs $29.90 per month.
- A domain name: For $14 per year, Shopify can register a domain name for you.
- Product expenses: Set aside $75 to $100 for initial product expenditures to try things before putting them on your site. Depending on the items you wish to list, this may differ.
Based on these figures, you should anticipate paying a one-time $120 setup charge for your Shopify dropshipping business, as well as a monthly platform fee of at least $30; product costs will vary substantially depending on the items you choose.
Conclusion
It’s simple to start a Shopify dropshipping company. Use third-party applications to identify things to sell and add them to your site so you can establish a fully functional Shopify shop in a matter of hours. You may begin promoting your company after your shop is up and running.
