In this dropshipping tips for beginners, I’d give some honest advice on things I wish I knew when I first started dropshipping.

Here is the background, I had done loads of research being the curious person that I am and having very little money to risk on any investment. Being broke was a huge factor for me, I just wanted to be rich or at least have a decent income! But I wasn’t ready to gamble my savings so I really wanted to be sure if dropshipping was worth it for beginners or if it was just a hype?

Is dropshipping worth it for beginners?

Dropshipping is worth it for beginners. It has a low entry barrier, doesn’t require a lot of money to start, it can be very profitable and is a great starting point for researching the marketing before investing in an ecommerce brand.

There are different ecommerce platforms to start dropshipping, for example; Shopify, Amazon, Ecwid, Ebay, Woocommerce and I sometimes wondered if there was even a way to start dropshipping for free.

I browsed for a lot of dropshipping tips because I wanted to know exactly what to expect if I started dropshipping. So, my first hard lesson was pretty unexpected and its this:

take every dropshipping guide on the internet and off the internet with a pinch of salt.

I’m not saying the guides are useless or that they are all created to mislead, No! In Fact they can be very useful with the aim of pointing you to the right direction but have you ever heard the term “trade secret?” Or the phrase “experience is the best teacher” or that “what works for Mr.A may not work for Mr.B” well this is true for dropshipping and every other business. While you can get a grit of the steps by researching and dropshippers can tell that it’s been good or bad for them and could even show you their true income reports to motivate you, there is still no guarantee that it will work out the same way for you.

Is dropshipping overhyped ?

Dropshipping is a business model and a business model can’t be overhyped! Like every other business model, there could be profit or losses. However, a mentor could overhype his results especially if he’s trying to sell a course and one dropshipper’s strategy may not work for the next.

In Dropshipping and basically every other business model, there are a lot of variables to success! Some could have found their success in analytics because that is where their strength lies but you may find your success in branding, or bundle offering because that’s your grind! You could learn a lot of dropshipping tips from the guy who is talking about analytics and you could give his strategy a try. If it works for you, great! If it doesn’t, then take any part that worked for you, take any lessons from the part which didn’t, use your intuition, tweak the strategy and find what really works for you! Don’t be too hard on yourself trying to follow a guru to your grave. Don’t be afraid to be unique in the game! 

Yes, you could get a ton of very useful dropshipping tips and advice here and there! But everyone’s got their own website, platforms, product, tools, niche, descriptions, adsets, personal strengths, weaknesses and attitude to the business! Yes it does help a lot to seek advice and learn from people who are in the dropshipping niche! But know that experience will teach you best! You can achieve your goals, learn the lessons from others but go your unique path if and when necessary. Your trade secrets can be different from the next Dropshipper, what matters is that everyone is winning!

Is wholesale better than dropshipping? 

Wholesale and dropshipping both have their advantages and disadvantages and one isn’t necessarily better than the other.

If you have in-depth knowledge of a product’s profitability then wholesale would be a better suited option than dropshipping. However dropshipping is suitable, if you aren’t sure of the market because it involves testing the market, finding a winning product and earning while having a lower cost entry barrier than wholesale.

The dropshipping business model is an ecommerce fulfillment model whereby the dropshipper does not produce, stock, deliver or keep inventory of products. A dropshipper focuses on marketing and finding buyers for the product and has an agreement with a supplier who fulfills his buyer’s orders. A Dropshipper then makes money by earning a profit margin.

Dropshipping is generally cheaper to start than wholesale but in order to have more control over branding, shipping times and customer experience, most established dropshippers transition to private labeling and wholesale.

Dropshipping tips for Amazon FBM beginners; 

Dropshiping on Amazon can easily be done with the Amazon FBM (fulfillment by merchant) program. This model involves the seller listing products on his Amazon store and fulfilling orders through a supplier.

Amazon has two seller programs; the FBA (fulfillment by Amazon) and the FBM (fulfillment by merchant) seller program.

FBM is the most convenient program for dropshippers. This is because for the FBA program, the seller will have to bulk order products and send them to Amazon fulfillment center and Amazon distributes product orders to the seller’s customers. Whereas, the FBM program allows the seller to fulfill the product orders by himself or his supplier. The FBM program does not require the supplier to send bulk products to Amazon fulfillment center.

You can learn more Amazon FBM dropshipping Vs Amazon FBA

Amazon dropshippers can source products from dropshipping suppliers of their choice. then list the products on their Amazon store as an FBM seller, that way product orders can be fulfilled by their suppliers.

Its recommended to read Amazon policy before starting to dropship on Amazon. The policy does not allow dropshipping directly from other online marketplace. For example Walmart.com, Ebay etc

Basically Amazon doesn’t want their customers to receive products in the custom packages of another online retailer. i.e a Walmart branded package and invoice.

Therefor, Amazon frowns at direct dropshipping from other ecommerce retailers. The precaution to take when dropshipping on Amazon is to ensure that your supplier won’t be shipping the product to Amazon customers in another ecommerce retailer’s branded packages or invoices.

You can simply discuss this with your supplier and order a sample product for yourself, just to test if your supplier is following the rules.

Dropshipping on Amazon can be very profitable with a low entry barrier and little overhead cost but since the marketplace is already very saturated, the competition is high.

To stay ahead, detailed Amazon product research and product differentiation is key and a software like Junglescout can help you find an Amazon winning product.

Dropshipping tips for new Ebay sellers;

Dropshipping on ebay is one of the easiest ways to dropship. You can easily copy and paste product listings from a dropshipping supplier to your ebay store with a mark up profit margin.

However, as an Ebay dropshipper, you’d be competing with other ebay sellers, so make sure to do your market research which will enable you pick and list potentially marketable products.

Dropshipping tips for new Shopify merchants; 

You can dropship on Shopify. The advantage of Dropshipping on Shopify vs other market places is that you aren’t drawing customers to your competitors. For example; a visitor can see your listing on Amazon and easily check out your competitor’s prices and you can easily lose that potential customer to other Amazon sellers! 

We hope this article helps!