How To Make Money Dropshipping

It is simple, isn’t it? Choose a product, build a store, and sell. Well, the business model of dropshipping is easy to understand, but the execution is much more challenging than you think.

The steps below will outline how to make money dropshipping. Each step requires several actions, all of which will culminate in one thing: sales. In the end, you will have learned how to approach dropshipping with the proper mindset and proper tools.

Building Your Dropshipping Store

1. Choosing A Dropshipping Niche

You may have heard this a thousand times, but niche selection is important, and it is why there is a need to talk about it.

What is a niche? A niche is an area of expertise or domain. In the physical world, your retail business may be in the fashion niche, kitchenware, sportswear, bodybuilding and fitness, etc.

There are reasons people build stores this way, and those reasons are market size, target audience, and specialization of the business owner.

Here are key considerations when choosing a niche:

• You must understand the product or the industry itself
• The niche must have a market or demand
• There must be reliable suppliers for it
• The niche must be specific, not broad

Dropshipping is like a physical business. You cannot sell everything all at once. The more focused you are, the easier it is to manage and grow your business.

You will never see a coffee shop sell shoes, and you will never see a motorcycle shop sell air conditioning or HVAC supplies. This principle applies to dropshipping, too.

Do not get too carried away with trends. The very first thing you must think about is your level of knowledge, not about dropshipping, but about the product.

For example, there may be a big demand for women’s formal shoes. However, you are an athlete. You do not wear high-heeled shoes, so you have no clue what these customers want. You do not even know what their pain points are, so you are better off selling something that you understand, like rubber shoes.

2. Choosing A Dropshipping Product

After deciding on a niche, product selection is the next key factor in building your store. A successful business relies on choosing the correct product.

Most dropshippers go to AliExpress, but this method for product selection is outdated. Instead of doing this, use a program like Tradelle. It is a tool that shows you product data, which will help you make the right business decisions.

The images above show the kind of information you will find in Tradelle. The top one is an overview, including the profit margin for the product. 

The second one has back-end information—things you will never see in AliExpress. If you pay attention to the charts, you will see that:

• There is an upward trend for this product’s social interest
• The competition is too small; only nine websites sell it
• The interest is coming from high-economy markets (USA, Canada, and Australia)

This product checks all the boxes. The demand is high, the competition is minimal, and the market is high-income.

In addition to using a program like Tradelle, you must order the product. Doing so makes it possible to check the product’s quality. From here, you can honestly ask yourself: will customers feel they got their money’s worth if they bought this?

3. Choosing A Dropshipping Platform

Shopify or WordPress? BigCommerce or Squarespace? There are so many platforms to choose from. The right decision depends on your needs and skills. The two biggest are Shopify and WordPress, so what should you choose?

Here are the pros of Shopify:

• Easy to build a store
• No need to code to have a functional website
• Integrates with so many third-party apps
• Single point-of-contact for issues (contact Shopify for problems)
• Lots of users share their experiences on forums
• Multiple payment processing options available (Google Pay, Apple Pay, Shopify Payments, PayPal, etc.)

The challenge with Shopify is its cost. You need at least $25 monthly for its upkeep. Yes, it is a subscription-based platform.

The other challenge is flexibility. Although Shopify has thousands of themes or templates, you cannot design your website through drag-and-drop. Shopify also uses a special coding language called Liquid, which means you need to learn it if you want to modify your store from its root program. 

Now, here are the pros of WordPress:

• Free to use; you need to pay a hosting service provider, though
• Has thousands of apps and plug-ins for support and integration
• You can build your store from scratch; avoid looking like a generic store
• Highly flexible; it is easy to find coders who can help you
• Affordable; you can start a dropshipping store with as little as $3 per month

One challenge in WordPress is the complexity of building a store. It has a steep learning curve, and you need to do everything manually. For example, you have to install WordPress to your domain host, activate a payment system, use a design program like Elementor, etc.

Between the two, you will save time and effort with Shopify. If you want, you can use Tradelle to build your Shopify dropshipping store. For as little as $49, you get the following benefits:

• 30-day money-back guarantee
• A store designed to convert visitors
• 20-hand-picked products for your selected niche

This should get you jumpstarted with your dropshipping business. Instead of wasting hours or even weeks experimenting with Shopify, just let the professionals build a fully functional store for you.

4. Choosing A Dropshipping Suppliers

Finally, it is time to find suppliers. There are many of them, so do not worry about their existence. What you should worry about is their product and performance.

You will always hear about AliExpress, but don’t go this route. There is nothing wrong with it, but do not forget that AliExpress is a retail platform. Sellers pay AliExpress a fee for items sold.

And who pays these fees again? You do? Why not cut the middleman to get more profit? You can do this with Tradelle. It is not only a supplier database but a supplier itself.

What does this mean? Tradelle not only has a supplier database platform, but they are suppliers themselves. They have warehouses for their products, and they will fulfill the orders for you. Although Tradelle is not a manufacturer, they do have contact with manufacturers where they source their products.

The benefit of doing this is that you are dealing with only one entity. The only organization that you may have an issue with is the shipping or logistics company, which is out of Tradelle’s control.

With Tradelle, you have a guarantee that the products are of high quality. You will also make more money because they sell products at a lower price than AliExpress listings.

3 Best Ways To Market Your Products

There are many ways to market dropshipping products, and it is a good idea to do all of them. The more presence you have, the bigger your reach is going to be.

The three primary ways to market are advertising, blogging, and social media. All these have associated costs. It is only you who can tell which one is the most practical.

1. Advertising Your Dropshipping Products

The three best platforms to advertise are Google, Facebook, and Instagram. For now, forget about TikTok because there is too much politics going on.

Here are some key pointers when advertising:

• Manage your costs; advertising is expensive so take it slowly
• Target the big countries only (US, UK, Canada, Australia)
• Videos are more effective than images

Your ads must show the benefits of the products to the target buyer. If possible, show a problem that your problem can fix. Without this element, the viewers will only swipe or skip your ads.

Ads only work if you target the right people. It is why you need to learn, among other things, keyword selection, country and demographic options, age demographics, and many more.

A problem you are likely to face with advertising is the material. Many suppliers do not provide video demonstrations, so you will have to do the videos yourself.

2. Blogging About Your Dropshipping Products

Blogging is not entirely dead, as some people claim. Many people still read, and it is because they can get information faster this way than videos. 

The goal of blogging is to rank high on search engines for keywords. If people find your blog posts and read them, the same people can be your customers.

Here are some tips on how to use blogging for marketing your dropshipping products:

• Write articles that solve problems
• Use keywords; search for topics that have a high search volume
• Write better and longer blogs than the high-ranking ones

The best types of posts for dropshippers are:

• Listicles – articles that have a list, like Best Pet Feeders for Cats
• How-tos – blogs that instruct the reader, like How to Train a Chihuahua
• Comparisons – articles where you compare products and tell the reader which one is better

Place links to your products in some words in your blog. For example, if the article is about feeders, you can use the term or phrase automatic feeder with a camera and then hyperlink that phrase to your product page. 

Blogging takes time. If this is your preferred marketing strategy, start by creating a profile of your target audience. Create a “doll” or a persona. Then, list down these “ideal customer’s” problems.

This list is going to be your guide as to what articles to write. There is no specific target length for the articles. However, always strive to write better ones than the high-ranking blog posts for that topic.

Publish at least once a week, but do not write for the sake of ranking only—always think of the reader and the value they get from your blog posts.

3. Social Media Content For Your Dropshipping Products

The last way to advertise your dropshipping products is via social media. Like blogging, this is a lot of work. What you want to do is build a community of people who have the same interests. This interest must have something to do with your store’s niche.

Going back to the pet store example, you can create a social media page for dogs, and its content should be focused on dogs.

Do not post images of your products. Nobody wants to see them. If you ever do, make it appear like it is only an afterthought. Like blogging, the focus of your posts must be solving people’s problems.

Here are some tips to think about:

• Give advice or instructions
• Show humanitarian causes, like supporting pet foundations and charity events.
• Tell people something they do not know, like the heaviest dog recorded, or the smartest dog alive.
• Educate people; tell them what foods a dog should not eat.

Social media also covers YouTube, so it is a good idea to have a channel. You do not have to show your face if you are not comfortable with it, and do not worry about it. There are many successful faceless channels on YouTube—what matters is the value you provide.

Tools To Use For Dropshipping

All businesses and trades need tools, and dropshipping is not exempted from this. These tools can help you manage your business more efficiently, saving you time and money.

1. SEO Tool

Use SEO tools to identify the keywords people search for when looking for products. Do the same thing to find high-volume keywords for your blog topics and ads. 

Here are the best keyword tools you can use for free:

• Answer the public
• Ubersuggest
• Google Trends
• Google Ads Keyword Planner

Again, it is ill-advised to pay for keyword tools like Ahref or Semrush. These tools are for big marketers and media companies. They cost about $100 a month, and this is money better spent on something else.

2. Product Research And Integration Tool

While it is easy to find products, it takes a lot of work to transfer the images, sizes, and product descriptions to your store. Even worse, if the price has changed, you will also need to change the price at your store one by one.

What does this tool do, anyway? A product research tool is nothing more than an information database. The system scrapes information online and shows data about the product. However, a tool like this will be of little to no use to you if you cannot transfer the product to your store.

There are many dropshipping tools like this, but Tradelle should be your first choice. Why?

Here are the benefits of Tradelle:

• Accurate data
• Easy product importation
• Automated product fulfillment
• Real and updated tracking numbers

Many tools do not give you all these features and benefits, and you end up spending more money to fill the gaps in your business needs. With Tradelle, you only need one tool, and you can use it for free.

3. Writing Tool

You need to write materials, not only for your product descriptions but for your ad copy and landing pages. Your two options are to hire a human writer or just use AI like ChatGPT or Google Gemini.

AI is great for product descriptions and simple ad copy, but not for long-form articles for your blogs. Do not expect something fresh or original from AI—these machines are efficient, but they merely re-write words that are already out there.

Use AI for writing if you only want to re-write things like product descriptions, features, benefits, etc. For blogs, it is always best that you hire a human being. If not, use AI but take the time to edit the article.  

4. Image And Video Generation Tool

Your store needs images—appealing ones. Although the supplier has product images, they will never be attractive enough. In most cases, they will not match your brand’s theme or design.

You do not need to buy the products to produce new images. What you must do is change the background and make it blend with your website. You can also add some text or put the products together to create a bundle.

You can hire a graphic artist for this, but their services are costly. A good alternative is to use AI image generators. You can use these tools to remove backgrounds, add a different background, make a human hold the product, put the product on a windowsill, etc.

There are free AI tools out there, but it is better to pay a subscription. Free AI tools do not provide consistent outputs. Plus, free AI tools limit your credits, which means it can take years before you can produce all the images you want.

Dropshipping Problems And How To Fix Them

Dropshipping is lucrative, but it is also challenging. There is no way to list all sorts of issues here, but below are the most common ones.

Problem 1: No Sales

Here are some of the most common reasons people do not buy your products:

• They do not trust you
• Your presentation is awful
• Your prices are too high
• You are marketing to the wrong people

Sales is a result not of effort, but of doing the right thing. Trust is something you build over the years. Presentation requires professional designs (which is why it is better to hire someone to build your store).

Prices are easy to change. It is, after all, a competition. Marketing is a tough nut to crack, but there are many materials you can watch and read to do it right. At its core, you must understand what your customer’s problems are and offer your product as a solution. 

Problem 2: Low Profit Margins

Dropshipping is widely known as a cut-throat competition. It is because many people think that it is the price that drives sales. The real problem is how you position your ads and how you make them.

You can make huge profits if you make your products look expensive. While there is nothing you can do about the product itself, you can do so many things to make the items look elite.

So, that is one solution: make your products look expensive and people will spend money on them. The second solution is bundling or BOGO sales. You can increase your revenue if you can convince a buyer to purchase two or more products than just one.

Although your profit margin will be lower because of discounted bundles, your overall profit per transaction will go higher. This is what is called average order value (AOV) in business. The higher the AOV, the better it is for your pockets.

Problem 3: Delayed Shipping

If your supplier is the cause of the delay, the only solution is to change suppliers. There is nothing you can do about it. You can give them feedback if you want, but if their standards are low, there is no reason for you to expect much.

Now, delayed shipping can happen for many reasons—war, customs, weather, etc. If this is the cause, you need to set customer expectations properly. If the typical shipping time is five days, add one or two more to account for potential delays.

Problem 4: Supplier Issues

There are several potential problems with suppliers, such as these:

• Handling too long
• Poor product quality; broken items
• The product is not as described
• The product is out of stock

The solution here is to assess the supplier even before you choose them. This may sound expensive, but you do not have to order all the products. Order one or two from the same supplier, and you should be able to assess if this supplier can be trusted.

If not, move on to the next. Do this again until you find one that you can work with. This approach is better than just trusting the whole process. Bad suppliers can damage your business. Customers will ask you for a refund, and you will end up losing money over this.

What Tradelle Fixes For You

Tradelle eliminates the third and fourth problems. You will not have issues with shipping, product quality, and also supplier reliability. Tradelle is in itself a supplier, and it will not work with third-party organizations that will tarnish its name.

Sales and low profits are different beasts. No system or program can solve this with a guarantee because dropshipping is a competition. The only way to beat the competition is to get better at marketing. If you improve your sales, profitability will soon follow.

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Summary: How To Make Money Dropshipping

Some claim that dropshipping success only happens because of luck. The truth is it isn’t. Like all kinds of careers, you need to possess many skills to make it work. Dropshipping is like that—from product selection to after-sales support, there are many skills you need to master.

Take one skill at a time and build your expertise. If you have the budget, outsource the work so you do not spread yourself too thinly. Focus on the things that matter, and more importantly, always pay attention to the buyer.