https://youtu.be/Z0JGqEcR1CE

The best part of dropshipping is after you make a sale, you have a 100% automated fulfillment partner with Zendrop. As your partner, we source competitive pricing, vet all of our suppliers before bringing them onto our platform, and we’re fully transparent around shipping times, delays, and every step of the fulfillment process.

Most dropshippers do not understand how this fulfillment process works, so Zendrop's leadership team took a trip to our supplier's fulfillment center in China to show you how we execute every order.

Because of our ability to fulfill high volumes with no bulk ordering, there’s a specific supply chain setup that enables our suppliers to be able to do this. This is how the “dropshipping fulfillment model” works.

How Dropshipping Fulfillment Works

1. Once an order is placed, our suppliers will confirm if Zendrop has all the data they need to successfully fulfill your order. If they do not have the proper data (an incomplete address, incorrect SKUs, etc) we will send you a notification and request the proper data. This is instantly imported from your online store, but sometimes information is missing that our suppliers need to confirm before being able to ship your orders.

2. Once all data is confirmed, our supplier's purchasing team gets to work. Our suppliers only hold stock on a few items in their warehouse, since inventory management is not sustainable unless the product you are selling has an extremely consistent amount of high volume.

Keep in mind that our suppliers are running a business also, and the most important aspect of every business is cash flow. If they were holding on to a lot of inventory, they would not be able to purchase enough products to fulfill all of your orders. They would not have enough purchasing power. This means that when an order comes in, a dropshipping supplier needs to go purchase your products if they do not have them in their warehouse. This is the case most of the time.  

This part in the process is where some orders may experience a longer than normal processing time.

At this point, there are two different possible scenarios. Your product can currently be In Stock or Out Of Stock at the factory or manufacturer. Products that are In Stock are purchased by our suppliers and shipped to their warehouse same day or next day. This is the case most times. The part that gets tricky is if a product is Out Of Stock. In this case, if the lead time on the product being back In Stock is short, our suppliers will wait and purchase the item. This is where you can experience longer than usual processing times. If the product is forecasted to have a longer than desirable lead time, our suppliers will cancel the order and suggest that you find other methods of fulfillment. We will notify you in either case as soon as we have an update on the situation.

3. Once your products are at our supplier's warehouse (if they weren't there when the order was placed), this is when they'll be packaged, processed, and shipped. This is where our suppliers ensure that your orders have the correct products in their respective packages, thank you cards and invoicing is inserted, shipping labels are printed and your packages are sent on the fastest, most efficient method of shipping possible at that given time. Then a tracking number is generated, and uploaded back into Zendrop, which automatically communicates to Shopify to transfer the information to your store and to your customers.

At this point in time, your customers will be notified that their order has been fulfilled and shipped.

4. Customer receives their product and loves it and comes back to buy more, yay!

If you think of ALL of this typically happening in 1-3 days, it's a pretty amazing process our suppliers have been able to nail. We thank them for giving you the power to run your own business with such little barrier to entry.

Please keep in mind that products can be held at US Customs, get delayed in airtime, or unique situations like COVID-19 have the potential to create delays for all shipments. These are the most important times to be 100% transparent and over-communicate with your customers, as we will be with you.

In short, the two major variables for delays in processing time are Zendrop not having the proper information from your customers and whether a product is In Stock or Out of Stock when your order is placed. At both of these times, you will either receive a notification (via email or in-app) or you'll also be able to see everything on your Orders Page.

Please keep in mind that the information in this article is all related to Processing time, and shipping times are often out of our supplier's control once they leave their warehouse. Of course, they are always choosing the most efficient option at the time, but things change quickly.

If you have any questions about this article, or need technical support on your account, please reach out to our super support team by starting a conversation using the messenger in-app!

Happy Selling!

Let’s face it. You’ve probably started a Shopify free trial once or twice before, imported some products to your site, and maybe even threw a few bucks at Facebook for some entry-level advertising! To your surprise, dropshipping wasn’t as easy as most internet “gurus” claim it to be.

Here’s what 99.9% of “internet masterminds” won’t tell you: There is no such thing as a get rich quick business model. If it were that easy to do, it would have already been exploited 1 million times over. Although this might not be what you were hoping to read today, the fact of the matter is that dropshipping is hard. It takes discipline, sacrifice, and lots of long nights in front of your computer screen.

The good news is that dropshipping is the business model with the smallest barrier to entry.

Think about it; you can sell anything in the world, from any niche, without ever touching or seeing the product. Incredible.

Why is it that most people cannot cross the chasm of trial and error and scale their store successfully? What I’ve discovered as an e-commerce consultant working with thousands of students over the last few years is one common theme: Persistence.

The name of the game is testing.

My most successful students didn’t win big on their first, second, third, or tenth product. They won after trying dozens and dozens of products over months, and, at times, years!

Don’t get me wrong, every experiment has outliers, but you can’t get fooled by thinking every successful dropshipper wins big on product number one! That’s just unrealistic, and those expectations will discourage you, drive you crazy, and eventually force you to throw in the towel.

Without further adieu, let’s jump into the high-level overview for laying down a rational framework with realistic expectations for dropshipping.

Setting up shop

There are a few necessary startup costs associated with every business, and one of the most common themes over the last five years or so has been investing in a dropshipping course. In my opinion, save your money off the bat.

Here’s why:

YouTube has tons of free resources that can show you the basics of starting a Shopify dropshipping store (i.e., buying a domain, designing your site, setting up a Facebook Ads Manager, etc.).

After you’ve completely exhausted YouTube’s massive library of free resources and feel like you’re ready for high level consulting, you may want to look into Zendrop Academy. Zendrop Academy is open for all Zendrop users and consists of 35+ high-level tutorial videos covering all bases, from various testing, bidding, and scaling strategies to analyzing and interpreting data.

Start with the Essentials

There are thousands of tools, apps, and extensions that you can apply to your dropshipping business, but I’m going to be real with you: You don’t need more than ten platforms to crush it online.

My best advice would be to use the bare necessities.

Here’s what you really need to start off

• Shopify: Host your site
• Zipify: OneClickUpsell tool
• Zendrop: Import products and automatically fulfill orders
• Klaviyo: Email marketing and automation
• Google Sheets: Track profit and loss
• Free Shipping Bar: Average order value and conversion booster
• Facebook: Paid traffic
• Keywords Everywhere – Keyword research extension

By no means should you be limited to the above; this is my recommendation when starting. As you begin to scale, do your due diligence and research any new apps or services you wish to add.

Keep to a Disciplined Regimen

After joining a local gym, do you expect to be competing with world-class powerlifters the next week? Of course not. If dropshipping is new to you, understand that, like anything out there, you must work on your craft consistently to compete with the best.

Remember this: the market is a very fair place. If you put in the work, face adversity, and keep showing up as your best self day in and day out, you’re bound to reap the benefits. As I said earlier, don’t be fooled by these fake gurus out there. Dropshipping follows the same principles as most things in life. Work hard, stay focused, keep learning, and grow slow and steady.

Run a clean shop

The worldwide web is a vast place filled with all sorts of surprises. Don’t ever forget that on the other end of every visitor, click, and sale is another human being.

There will be plenty of opportunities to cut corners at another individual’s expense, but the “success” you may obtain at this point loses its meaning. Do the right thing always. Running an ethical company that’s upfront and honest with its customers will always pay off in the end.

Always be completely transparent.

Have fun with it

Dropshipping isn’t for everyone. The idea of earning an income while you sleep will have everyone signing up, but you need to be passionate about running an online business to get there. If money is the sole motivation, nine times out of ten, you won’t succeed in dropshipping.

Before diving headfirst into your store, ask yourself, “Is dropshipping really for me?” Please realize that this is a more significant commitment than it may seem to be at first.

If you check off all of the boxes, then my advice is to take action—happy dropshipping!

The holidays are right around the corner, and it’s essential that your e-commerce store is sharper than the pine needles on your Christmas tree. Let’s take a deep dive into five vital tactics you need to implement today to make sure your traffic is converting at a higher rate.

One of the most common reasons for having a low conversion rate is that customers are not interested in what they see when they land on your website or, even worse, they can’t find the information they need to make an informed purchase. Our goal as the seller is to ensure that the buying process is communicated clearly from start to finish.

As marketing expert Neil Patel puts it, conversion optimization is about one big thing: more revenue!

So grab your eggnog and Christmas cookies, and get ready for “the most wonderful time of the year (to be an e-com entrepreneur)!”

Tweak your cta copy

Dr. Robert B. Cialdini, author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, analyzed the American Cancer Society’s donations process. In his research, he was able to find that by making one small change to the CTA copy, they doubled the number of donations they received.

The original copy was as follows:

“Would you be willing to help by giving a donation?”

Dr. Cialdini added to the original copy:

“Would you be willing to help by giving a donation? Every penny will help.“

This simple addition DOUBLED the charity’s conversion rates, jumping from a 28% donation rate of the former to an even 50% conversion rate on the latter!

Why was this change so effective?

The psychology behind this lies in the simplicity of the action. If you give someone a small step to take paired with explaining just how simple it is, people become more inclined to take action.

If you want someone to take action on your free guide, up-sell opportunity, or quick consultation call, tell them just how simple the action is!

Take this example:

Instead of saying, “Access the free guide now!” try phrasing this point as, “Access the free guide now! It only takes 5 seconds.”

The 2.5 second rule

This tip is simple. Next time you seek to fix your website, ask yourself the following:

“Within 2.5 seconds, does my website tell customers who I am, what I do, how to contact me, and how to move to the next step?”

Have your friends and family visit your website for the first time—it never hurts to have a different set of eyes take a look. Before they look at it, ask them to keep these four questions in mind. Tell them to be honest with you, and if they don’t have the answer in 2.5 seconds, you need to make changes accordingly.

Less is more

Your website should consist of more “wow phrases” rather than tidal waves of information.

“Wow phrases” should all have one main element in common: What makes your product different?

It’s essential to provide a host of information about your product, but you need first to capture the visitor’s attention. A great tip for improving this aspect of your site would be to research brands that are notorious for having mint websites and product pages. Here are a few examples.

Trust badges and social proof

This tip should go without saying: If you want to close a deal, the customer needs to trust you.

Highlight what people are saying about your company and the products you’re offering. Have you won any awards? Have your products been featured on any significant networks or publications? Didn’t Susan from Oklahoma give your product a 5-Star review last week? Let your customers know they’re not alone if they buy your product!

Try combining rewards with urgency

Integrating count down timers with discount codes are a winning formula. Period.

Instead of having both:

“Your order is reserved for 15 minutes!” and “Use code ‘SAVE10’ for 10% off your order!” living separately on your product page; try combining the two:

“Use code ‘SAVE10’ within the next 15 minutes to receive 10% off your order!”

Combining these two useful conversion features makes for one excellent conversion feature. Conversion Pirate a great tool to produce the code needed to integrate this into your e-commerce store!

At Zendrop, we have one of the most lucrative affiliate programs in the game. If you are not already a Zendrop affiliate, click here to apply! If you are, amazing. You’re ahead of the game!

Here are 8 ways you can promote Zendrop in order to start earning passive income:

‘Top Tools’ List Within A Blog Post

Creating a list within a blog post is a simple and effective way to introduce Zendrop. You can include all your favorite marketing apps and tools you already use for your e-commerce business! When mentioning Zendrop, simply include your referral link and short description of the benefits.

In Depth Zendrop Review

Are you a Zendrop user yourself? Write a detailed review of the service and how it’s helped you grow your e-commerce business. This will ensure credibility with your audience and make them more inclined to sign-up. If you haven’t used the service, click here to sign up for an account with a 7 day free trial to our PRO Plan!

Add A Zendrop Banner To Your Website

We already have some designed for you within your affiliate profile under Assets. Don’t see the style or dimensions you want? Let us know and we’re happy to create something custom for you!

Youtube Or Tiktok Review Of Zendrop

Have a strong following on Youtube or TikTok? A video reviewing Zendrop with your custom link in the description is the perfect way to monetize your channel.

Promote On Social Media

On Instagram, you can add your referral link to your bio. If you have multiple links, use linktree to create a landing page for all of them. If you have access to the swipe-up feature, you can promote Zendrop through Stories and add your affiliate link to the image or video your users will be swiping up on!

Paid Advertising

Running paid ads for your affiliate link requires some experience. Results may be underwhelming if you are not familiar with how paid ads work, and the platforms you can advertise on are limited.

i.e. Facebook does not typically approve ads with affiliate links. So if you’re new to the digital marketing world, we suggest you use an alternative method to promote Zendrop. If you’re an ad expert, go for it!

Newsletter Blast

If you have a large email list, send a newsletter out to your subscribers letting them know the benefits of growing your e-commerce business with Zendrop.

Online Course Modules

Have an online course that talks about social media, e-commerce, dropshipping, and everything in between? Throw in a section on Zendrop and promote your link!

The fast-paced nature of dropshipping requires everything to run like clockwork, on time, and on scale.

But this is easier said than done because of all the moving parts involved. From inventory management, finances, human resources, marketing and everything in between – there’s a ton of stuff you need to stay on top of.

This is where automation software comes in. By using certain automated software, you can automate the more repetitive aspects of your business without cutting any corners.

Automation lets you scale your eCommerce business up more quickly while cutting down on the costs of upkeep.

Here are a few ways to automate dropshipping for your online business.

Use Email Autoresponders

Email autoresponders are valuable when it comes to capturing and keeping customers. You can tailor the type and sequence of email to fit the exact needs of your business. For instance, you can create automated emails that thank customers whenever they purchase a product. You can also create a promotional email campaign that coincides with each purchase.

The goal of email autoresponders is to ensure customers always have you in their minds. It’s effortless and doesn’t require any additional expenditure on advertising or marketing.

Prioritize Suppliers Automatically

The more sellers you work with, the more difficult things start to get. This is where Zendrop comes in. You can automate the prioritization of multiple suppliers to scale your business more rapidly and efficiently.

With Zendrop, you can also account for situations when we don’t have a particular product in our inventory. With our AliExpress import feature, allow us to fulfill any product you want to sell. The orders are then automatically fulfilled by us with custom branding and timely shipping, as per usual. All of this happens behind the scenes while you focus on more pertinent issues at hand: customer satisfaction.

Automate Tracking Details

Customers commonly ask, “When will my product arrive?”. Manually checking for expected arrival times can take up a lot of your time. If you’re a solopreneurs, you probably don’t have the time. You can set up automated shipping confirmation notifications to your customers using a tracking website like 17track.com

Wrapping Up

Automation can help you reach unprecedented levels of reliability and improve your operational efficiency by leaps and bounds. It lets you accomplish repetitive tasks and focus more on improving the service.

What automation software do you use? Let us know your thoughts and connect with us on social media.

Over the past few years, dropshipping has vastly increased in popularity among young entrepreneurs. One of the main reasons being, that online marketing and resources to learn about online marketing are becoming so much more accessible. And online marketing is the bread and butter of why dropshipping as a business model works.

There are many reasons why dropshipping is such a lucrative industry these days, one of which being you never actually have to hold stock of the products you are selling. This makes it very easy for e-commerce store owners to start a store or start a business with limited funds. E-commerce websites that utilize the dropshipping model only facilitate customers’ orders to their suppliers, either in China, United States, or Europe. And then you, the seller, get to cash out on the profits. Dropshipping not only significantly decreases your operational costs, but makes it so easy for you to scale even with limited funds.

Today, I’m going to teach you, start to finish, how to create a successful dropshipping store. So if you’re ready to create the career of your dreams, quit your 9 to 5 and scale a business larger than you’ve ever perceived, stick around and keep on reading.

There are a lot of moving parts that come with starting a dropshipping store. In fact, I could probably list over a hundred different things you need to do before publishing your e-commerce Shopify store. So in an effort to not overwhelm you, we’re going to simplify this process into five main steps.

However, Zendrop offers a completely free resource called the ZenRocket Challenge. The ZenRocket Challenge is a fully comprehensive, step-by-step detailed course, all about creating a successful dropshipping store. Register for the ZenRocket challenge and with that registration comes one month free on our Zendrop Pro membership.

Step 1

The first, and most important, step in creating your very first dropshipping store is going to be selecting your niche. Now, with the millions of products being sold online every single day, it can get quite overwhelming to think how saturated the market is. There are so many different types of products you can sell, different categories. Literally, the possibilities are endless. So where do you start?

If this is your very first dropshipping store, I recommend starting with a niche that you know, products that you understand, and maybe are even passionate about. If you’re a fitness junkie who loves living at the gym, I suggest selling fitness products. If you’re a mother of three who understands what your children need, you should probably go with children’s products. If you have the cutest and fluffiest dog at home that you love spoiling, pet products might be your go-to. Again, the possibilities are endless and there is no right or wrong answer. So do your research! Do some very serious self-reflection on what types of things you enjoy buying online.

The reason why this is so important is that when you’re starting your very first dropshipping store, you want to simplify the process of creating your ideal customer. And if you are your ideal customer, it makes it so much easier to cater your descriptions, copy, and your product images to the right customer.

So remember, pick a niche that you are either passionate about and/or have extensive knowledge in, in order to start a successful dropshipping store.

Step 2

Step #2 in creating a successful dropshipping store is performing competition research. With the rising popularity of dropshipping these days, you should expect some major saturation within your market. Now, this is normal and nothing to be scared about; we just need to get ahead of the game. It’s important to remember that you will not only be competing with thousands of other dropshipping stores, but also major retailers, such as Amazon or Walmart. So there’s a lot of variety for your potential customers to choose them. We just need to make sure that they are getting to your store first.

Oftentimes new dropshippers love to start with products that don’t have a lot of popularity, thinking that they can corner the market. Now, as ideal as this concept sounds, it’s not very scalable. You don’t have much market research in terms of what products are performing well or not performing well because you’re starting with products that might not even be popular yet or used to be popular. No competition means no demand for the product, which in turn, means no sales. Do your research and find products that have high competition. This means that these products are in high demand and therefore you have a larger potential for success with your first few products.

Zendrop does an awesome job in curating popular products based on industry trends. So if you’re searching for products on Zendrop, be sure to click trending products. You will see some high-performing products that we have found do really well on our platforms, as well as scale your stores.

Step 3

Once you have chosen your store niche and done extensive competition research, it’s time to choose a fulfillment partner. This is probably one of the most important steps in creating a dropshipping business because if you choose the wrong partner, it can quite literally ruin your dropshipping business. With most dropshipping suppliers being located overseas in China, it is very important to pay attention to communication, customer service, and shipping times when it comes to choosing your supplier. So be prepared to ask extensive questions when vetting various suppliers. Make it a goal to learn about the production capabilities of your dropshipping supplier.

As a baby dropshipper you might not have many sales coming in through your Shopify store yet, but when your store starts to grow, you want to make sure that your dropshipping supplier can scale with you instead of holding you back.

Zendrop is committed to providing the fastest shipping, auto-fulfillment, world-class customer support, and even US fulfillment. Personally, I think it’s a brainer. Your dropshipping supplier should be Zendrop. If you haven’t already signed up for your seven-day free trial to our Pro membership, the time is now to do so!

Step 4

You can quickly launch an e-commerce website using platforms such as Shopify, which is our preferred e-commerce store builder. There’s no need for any tech experience or website development; it’s pretty much “do it yourself.” And the capabilities of Shopify are very extensive for how easy the platform is to learn how to use. You can build the most beautiful, eloquent, and high-converting e-commerce store on Shopify within days. It’s very simple, easy to do, and easy to customize.

When it comes to building your Shopify store, you really want to think about branding. You want to think about what types of colors, fonts, aesthetics work best with the ideal customer you are trying to attract.

In the ZenRocket Challenge, we go into major detail in terms of how to build a converting Shopify store. So again, if you want your free trial to Zendrop Pro and a step-by-step guide to creating a successful dropshipping store, sign up for the ZenRocket Challenge!

Step 5

Okay, so you’ve picked your store niche, you’ve done extensive research on your products, you’ve chosen your supplier and you’ve built your Shopify store, so how do we make sales? Well, customer acquisition, of course. Let’s get into it.

Customer acquisition can come in many different forms for e-commerce businesses, but the most obvious and simple to execute is going to be Facebook advertising. Facebook advertising is the best friend of dropshippers because it makes it easy for you to test multiple products at once in order to find winning products, scale the ones that are successful, and get rid of the ones that aren’t doing so well.

If you are new to dropshipping and new to paid advertising, Facebook advertising can definitely look very, very intimidating at first. There are lots of moving parts, the backend can sometimes be confusing and Facebook changes it on a weekly basis, so it’s hard to keep up sometimes.

There are many free resources online to learn all about Facebook ads, but Zendrop has a resource right inside your Zendrop dashboard called Zendrop Academy. Zendrop Academy is an extensive Facebook mastermind tool. We have spent hours consulting with hundreds of experts to give you the most efficient and successful Facebook advertising tactics. Zendrop Academy goes into all of the Facebook fundamentals, landing page optimization, creating custom and lookalike audiences, five whole scaling strategies, and many other Facebook algorithm tactics in a six-part series.

Truly you cannot go wrong in terms of becoming an expert in Facebook advertising with Zendrop Academy. But you don’t have to take my word for it. You can take the word of the hundreds of users we have signed on at Zendrop that are currently scaling successful products.

It’s also important to think long-term with customer acquisition and marketing. You cannot put all of your eggs in the Facebook basket, even though it’s the easiest thing to do. I also recommend implementing email marketing as well as social media and influencer marketing as well. These are also things covered in the ZenRocket Challenge.

So do you feel like a dropshipping expert yet? Well, you’re halfway there! Now it’s time to get started on these steps and start creating the dropshipping store of your dreams so that you can create the career of your dreams.

Today, we went over defining your store niche, doing competitor research, choosing a fulfillment company, building your Shopify store, and customer acquisition. These five key features of the dropshipping business model are very important to take extensive time to master. With how rapidly growing the dropshipping industry is and how cheap it is to create a business, the time is now to enter the e-commerce space.

I can’t wait to see the dropshipping stores that you create, and I can’t wait to watch your success grow!