To dropship on Ecwid, you’d have to create an Ecwid website, research a niche or a product you’d want to dropship, find a dropshipping supplier, install an Ecwid app to automate the product fulfillment process, run ads and drive sales!
I’d be discussing the steps to dropship on Ecwid below;
Create an Ecwid website
You can also just go straight to Ecwid and follow the instructions (which I believe are intuitive) and start creating an Ecwid website in 60 minutes, even if you are not tech savvy! Or you can watch this tutorial on creating an Ecwid website.
In this article, I’d be detailing how to dropship on Ecwid professionally!
Ecwid has a free forever plan and premium plans starting at $12.50/per month paid annually!
You should go for one of its premium plans! This is because in this guide would be using some premium features of Ecwid which includes the ability to install apps and to host your Ecwid website on a custom domain i.e your brand.com instead of your brand.company.site
Research a niche or products you want to dropship
Product research is often the thin line between success and failure in most e-commerce businesses (not just dropshipping).
You should aim for products or niches with high demand and low competition!
I have written a detailed guide on conducting product research for dropshipping and you can read that to know how I conduct my product research!
find a dropshipping supplier
Finding a supplier is an important step of any dropshipping business. Fortunately there are many websites where you can find a dropshipping suppliers.
Let’s talk about a few of them that have app integration with Ecwid.
- Spocket; if you like US and EU quality products gotten from US and EU suppliers with breezy fast shipping times to the US and EU then spocket is the place to go! Spocket is a hub for US/EU suppliers and they do have a free plan if you wish to use their service.
- Printful; printful is a site for print on demand dropshippers! If you want to dropship branded products, for example, shirts, sneakers, bags or mugs with your brand or graphic design on it then printfy is the way to go! The suppliers there basically print your design on the product before shipping it to your customers
- Wholesale2B ; this option is great if you want to dropship products at whole prices from Europe and North America based suppliers with faster shipping times to this regions.
Install an Ecwid app that automates the process!
Ecwid premium plans give you the ability to install apps from the Ecwid app store and also integrate a custom domain name. For example; yourbradname.com!
You can check if your domain names is available and purchase a domain name on namecheap then integrate it to your store by going to your Ecwid dashboard>>Click on set up your website and store front >> In the domain name and site address section, click on “change address”
Using a custom domain name would make your Ecwid store look more professional and will remove the default.company.site domain that Ecwid provides.
We recommend using a .com domain which you can get on Namecheap
To install Ecwid app; Go to your Ecwid menu/Apps/Apps market.
You’d find different apps that can help to extend the functionalities of your Ecwid dropshipping store! Some of these apps are free while others have a premium paid version.
To dropship on Ecwid, there are different apps that can support the dropshipping business model. They include;
- Printful app on Ecwid; connects your Ecwid store to Print-on-demand dropshipping suppliers on printfy, import products from printfy, automatically place orders on your Ecwid store to Printfy suppliers, fulfills orders, sync inventory and much more!
- Spocket app on Ecwid; connects your Ecwid store to spocket, automatically import products from Spocket to your Ecwid store, automatically place orders on Spocket from your Ecwid dashboard, sync inventory and many other functionalities!u
- Wholesale2B app on Ecwid; It automatically connects your Ecwid store to the wholesale2B platform. You can import products listings from wholesale2B suppliers, sync inventory, automatically place orders on Wholesale2B from your Ecwid dashboard and so many more features!
Integrate Ecwid with any other supplier (even if they don’t have an app)
Not every supplier you would want to use have an app integration with Ecwid, so how do you integrate any other supplier of your choice to Ecwid?
For example, at the time of writing this article, two of the biggest Chinese supplier website, Aliexpress and CJ dropshipping did not have any app integration with Ecwid.
So, if you really want to work with any supplier that do not have an app integration with Ecwid, you can simply add that individual supplier as a “staff” on your Ecwid store with order permission, so when you get an order on your store, the supplier would automatically get an email notification with the order details.
Here is a guide by Ecwid for adding staffs to your store with selected permissions.
Here is a list of websites where you can find many EU, UK and North America based suppliers with faster delivery time.
Market and scale your dropshipping business.
Marketing your dropshipping business usually comes in two stages;
- Product testing
- Scaling
The phase of product testing involves promoting the products to validate if those products will drive purchase.
This is often the hard stage of dropshipping and it’s often the stage where entrepreneurs might lose money, get impatient or just totally give up!
I have written a step by step guide on how I test products that have of course worked for me! You can read about my facebook product testing strategy.
Finally I often preach that dropshipping is not a viable business model in the long run!
I do agree that it’s a good way to make money online, research the market and find a good selling product!
The thing is once you’ve tested and found that product that brings in consistent sales then you should immediately scale your dropshipping business to an e-commerce brand!
Cost of starting a dropshipping business on Ecwid professionally.
- Optional dropshipping Apps (Spocket); it has a FREE plan but the premium plan starts at $24/per month
- Optional dropshipping Apps (Printiful); it has a FREE with no upfront monthly fees.
- Optional dropshipping Apps (Wholesale2B); it has a FREE plan but the premium plan starts at $29.99/per month
- Marketing; How much you spend on marketing depend on your product research and if your product is something that’s easily purchased online. It actually depends on a number of factors that influences how fast your ads begins to convert to sales but as an estimate, you could spend around $100 on PPC marketing to start seeing tangible data.
- A .com domain name (Namecheap); you can get a .com domain on namecheap for $5.98 per year.
- A professionally designed logo (Fiverr); you can get a graphic designer to create a professionally designed logo from as low as $5 on Fiverr.
