The importance of finding the right products for your dropshipping business cannot be overemphasized. The niche you choose for your dropshipping business may attimes affects your dropshipping business goals. You have to understand your niche market so well and that is why I always preach starting with a product or two on this blog.
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Product sourcing is crucial to the success of any ecommerce or dropshipping business. Having known the product or products you are going to be dropshipping, then you have to find out where to actually source for those products.
Create a lists of your niche products, you can use an excel spreadsheet; write the names of the products and the sources in order to remember where you have found the products initially. Do a Google Search to have more informations about the products, visit marketplaces (Aliexpress, CJ, Chinabrand, Mega goods, Amazon, Ebay etc) to source for your dropshipping products. You can also base your product search on the trends or demands by potential customers.
Below are some products ideas to dropship;
- Phone Accessories
- Customized T-shirts
- Customized Phone case
- Baby Products
- Women Fashion Wears
- Jewelry
- Healthy/Super Foods
- Gym and Fitness Equipment
- Skincare Products
- Customized Mugs
Note that this is not a definitive list of what sells in the marketplace, these are just the most popular selling items over the years.
In finding the right products to Dropship, the following criterials would serve as a guide;
- The Product Price:The price the products are sold for and the amount you are going to be adding to the products as profit is very important in product sourcing. You may also want to set prices for wholesales and retails. If your prices are low, it may amount to more sales but less profits and vice versa. The profit margins for dropshipping business may be between 10% – 40% which is what you as a dropshipper should aim at. It is important to try and fix prices that works for you and your customer’s expectations.
- Durable Products:Customers are likely to create repeated orders for disposable or renewable products which can bring in more sales. You can actually setup these kind of products to be on a subscription bases for your customers which means fixed products availability for your customers and more sales for you. You can even make this offer more attractive by giving discounts on products subscriptions to customers.
- Products Size & Weight: Smaller and lighter products are cheaper and easier to ship to customers than heavier and expensive products in dropshipping business. Larger products can be drop shipped with a relatively large profit margin too, but starting small is the best. It is always a good idea to go for products with free shipping and epacket products in dropshipping business. Remember, shipping fee may attimes affect your profit margin.
- Cross-Selling Products:Cross selling products are products that are closely related. When these products are combined and sold together in your dropshipping stores then it means you are giving more value to your customers. You have to think of related products in the same niche that you can combine together as cross-selling products. You might choose to sell your main product at a lower profit margin to encourage your customers to buy and then make up for lost profit by cross-selling other accessories and components for the main product with a larger profit margin.
However, it is very important to note that Finding the right products to dropship would depend majorly on the kind of Suppliers available for those produtcs. Suppliers are the bed rock of any dropshipping business because they are the ones that would help in fulfilling orders by shiping the products to your customers. If your suppliers are not reliable, it can affect the success of your dropshipping business.
The Question now is How do we find Reliable suppliers?
Running your dropshipping business with reliable supplier is the most important step in setting up a successful brand for your business. If your suppliers are not reliable, all the blames will still be on you because your customers are dealing with you directly and not your suppliers.
In choosing the right suppliers for your dropshipping business products, do bear in mind, the following factors:
Find a dropshipping Supplier who is efficient with the shipping process. Long shipping period may be unacceptable to your customers, remember, the market is very competitive. You can place a test orders with your supplier to see how the process works and get a better idea before you conclude on using the supplier for your dropshipping products supplies.
Find a dropshipping supplier who provides high-quality products. Product reviews and testimonials can go a long way in boosting your dropshipping business and this can only be achieved if the products are of high quality. Only when the customers are satisfied would they be willing to write a review or give testimonials about your products.
Find a dropshipping supplier who is technologically capable of scaling with you in the future should in case you need to expand and increase demands of those products. When choosing your suppliers, make sure that they have the technological capabilities to keep up with your business growth.
You can search up on Google for list of reliable suppliers and their email addresses or locations if needed. The search results, may have a complete directories of drop shipping suppliers and their contact information. You can also visit Aliexpress marketplace to have a clue through each supplier’s customer rating and their years of being in the business.
Once you’ve gotten the contact details of the dropshipping suppliers for your chosen products, send them a short email to make enquiries concerning how they operate and how their services can help your dropshipping business.
It is not always possible to know if you would be able to partner with a supplier for a long time until you have actually tried using the supplier for your products supplies. The retailer-supplier relation is a long term one, thus needs a certain level of commitment.
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