Ecommerce Valley is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more
Have you ever wanted to open your own online store but felt as though it was impossible due to start-up costs?
A typical online store requires you to buy your inventory up front. The good news is that you can make money with dropshipping.
The dropshipping model eliminates the need to spend a ton of cash on products that may or may not sell. The dropship model is a low-cost and low-risk way to open your own eCommerce business.
How Dropshipping Works
Dropshipping is a very straight forward process. Unlike a typical eCommerce business, you do not have to spend any money on products to stock and place into your store.
Instead, you locate and use dropshipping suppliers. Let’s say for example that you want to open a store that sells pet products.
It could cost you hundreds if not thousands of dollars to buy all of the inventory that you need to sell in your online store.
By finding dropshipping suppliers that manufacture and sell the pet products that you want to sell, you can place those same items that they sell into your online store.
When a customer orders a product from your store, you then buy that product from the dropshipping supplier. During checkout, you input your customer’s shipping details and the dropshipping supplier will ship the item to your customer for you.
This entire process can be automated for you using dropshipping software. I’ll explain how to do this below.
You do not ever touch any of the products. All of the shipping and handling is taken care of by your dropshipping suppliers.
The profit that you make is the difference in price between what you charged the customer and what the dropshipping supplier charged you for the particular item.
Finding Dropshipping Suppliers
Locating legitimate dropshipping suppliers is often a difficult process when doing it yourself. You have to do all of the work of finding suppliers that have products that you want to sell.
Then you must sort them out, contact them, and sign up with them. Each supplier may have different terms. Some may require you to have a reseller license.
Others may charge a dropshipper fee per item sold. Some may charge a monthly fee, and in worse cases, some may not offer products at wholesale pricing.
Rather than go through the hassle of locating each supplier that way, I recommend sourcing products for your store from AliExpress.com
AliExpress is one of the largest online retailers in the world. They are owned by AliBaba. AliExpress is made up of merchants primarily based in China and other locations around the world including the United States.
They carry millions of products many of which are offered at wholesale pricing. There are no registration fees or requirements to begin selling. You can literally begin dropshipping products today if you wanted to.
Here are some other benefits to sourcing products from AliExpress:
- 200,000 exporters
- Some suppliers ship from the U.S.
- Over 100 million items
- No entry or participation fees
- No limits on your profit margins
- No limits on the amount of products you sell
- Works with individuals and registered companies
- Free shipping on most items
- Ships to over 200 countries worldwide
- Online shipping tracking
- Wide range of shipping methods
- Buyer protection system with full money back guarantee
Many successful dropshipping store owners source their products from AliExpress due to the low pricing, wide selection, and ease of use.
Opening Your Dropshipping Store
It would be extremely difficult to attempt to manage your own dropshipping store without software to automate the process.
Thankfully there is software available for anyone to use and open their own store. The one that I use and recommend is AliDropship.
AliDropship is a WordPress dropshipping plugin that transforms a WordPress website into a full-featured AliExpress dropshipping business.
The software has a ton of features to include:
Automation
- Search and import an unlimited amount of products
- Auto updates product information
- Pricing automation
- Fulfill orders automatically
- ePacket shipping filter
- Auto order tracking
Customization
- Built-in themes
- Product customization
- Unlimited number of products
- Product variations
- WooCommerce support
- Built-In Image Editor
Marketing
- Discount coupons
- Product reviews
- SEO product tags
- Abandoned cart
- Email lists
Managing
- Live statistics
- Payment gateway integrations
- Inventory management
- All-in-One dashboard
- Cash-back system
- Free lifelong updates and support
It also available for WooCommerce if you prefer to use WooCommerce as your shopping cart software.
You do not need to have any WordPress experience to use AliDropship. In fact, when you buy the plugin and bundle in their web hosting, they will install WordPress and the plugin for you for free:
You can build your own dropshipping store for well under $200. What other retail business can you start for less than $150?
Order a Custom Built Dropshipping Store
If building your own store seems like a daunting task or you simply prefer to save yourself the time and work that is involved, you can have the AliDropship team build a custom store for you.
Unlike other services which provide a similar service, you are truly going to get a custom store. There are three custom store packages to choose from.
Regardless of which packet that you choose, you will be assigned your own personal manager who will handle all of the details for you.
This person is your go-to person for any questions, concerns, or feedback that you may have regarding the buildout of your store.
Here is what’s included with a custom built dropshipping store:
- Niche research – They select a trendy, high-demand niche for you after analyzing it for stable long-term positions and a great potential in future.
- Domain name(.com) – Search engine-friendly domain name relevant to your business
- Custom design – You get a unique design including a custom logo, header images, icons, favicon, banners, etc.
- Mobile devices ready – A perfect responsive design fitting the screen size of any device, whether desktop or mobile.
- Google Analytics integration – GA stats integrated – to keep you informed about the website’s traffic, its sources, visitors’ behavior, conversions, etc.
- Up to 12% AliExpress cashback – Get up to 12% cashback for your every purchase on AliExpress.
- WP dropship plugin – The plugin allows searching, importing and updating products on your site directly from AliExpress quickly and easily.
- Payment gateways – AliDropship Plugin supports the most popular payment processors like PayPal, 2Checkout, Stripe, PayU.
- Delivery time – You’ll have a full-fledge dropshipping business: 5 to 15 days depending on your package.
- On-site SEO – Increase visibility within the organic search results and to deliver targeted traffic to your site.
- Social pages – Accounts of your business on the top social networks and integrate social buttons and widgets on your website.
- Promo video (Ultimate Package) – Video will help you to promote your webstore and tell your customers about all the advantages of your products and services.
- Social media promo tool (Ultimate Package) – A special plugin will automatically post your products and promote your business on 4 top social networks.
Check out the custom store packages here.
What Happens After You Have Your Dropshipping Store?
Like any business, it is important to remain realistic about what is involved to run it. Although you are using automated software, this will not generate sales.
In order to make sales, you have to get the products and your store in front of your target audience.
This will involve promoting your store and products through different advertising methods. You can do both free and paid advertising.
Free promotion for your store can be done using social media channels such as Facebook pages, Pinterest, and Instagram.
You can also run paid ads on these platforms as well to include Google Shopping Ads.
If you choose to open your store using the AliDropship plugin, you can take advantage of their Social Rabbit Plugin which automatically promotes your business on four major social networks: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest.
Promoting your store using paid ads will require a bit of learning on your part. However, even the most inexperienced dropshipping store owners have managed to learn and have achieved great success.
I highly recommend reading the free marketing tips available on the AliDropship blog.
The creators of AliDropship not only created the software but they are also successful dropshipping store owners themselves. They own several stores that earn well into four and five-figures per month.
Is It Possible To Make Money With Dropshipping?
There is no shortage of success stories when it comes to people all across the globe earning income from dropshipping.
People from all walks of life have managed to become online entrepreneurs by opening their first dropshipping business.
Since the dropship model is low-cost to get started and low-risk as well, it is a matter of putting in the work to get your business off the ground.
There are millions of people on the internet at any given moment and with advertising, you can reach the audience that is interested in what you have to sell.
I believe if you go into your business with realistic expectations and you’re willing to put in the effort, there is no reason that you cannot achieve success as well.
You can build your store yourself or have your store custom built. Either way, you can expect free lifelong updates and customer support with AliDropship.
Whether you are wanting to earn part-time income or grow your store to produce a full-time income, it is all possible.
