Yahoo Finance How to start a dropshipping business in 3 easy steps
Now more than ever, a few extra hundred dollars per week would be incredibly useful.
In the age of COVID-19, instead of binge-watching Netflix, you can start to put your spare time towards making some cash from your couch.
One of the easiest ways to make this cash is through your own online dropshipping store.
Dropshipping is the process of buying and selling items online without having to actually buy any physical inventory upfront. This enabled me at just 15 years old to start my first online business and, three years later, have turned over millions selling online.
I certainly didn’t have any degree in eCommerce. In fact, I actually learned how to dropship through YouTube and articles just like this.
You’ll be able to sell a product to customers, learn how to use Facebook to advertise and spend little to no money getting started.
Also read: 17-year-old CEO’s million-dollar journey
Also read: How this 17-year-old Queenslander uses drop-shipping to make millions
1. Pick your product
The first step towards selling anything online is picking what to sell.
Believe it or not, it can be pretty much anything you want. In my opinion, the best thing to sell would be novelty products. The wackier the better.
This can be anything from laser hair removers to unique dog toys.
I tend to spot trends in the current market. A great one right now is office accessories, which you could sell to the millions of workers being forced to work from home. The choice is completely yours.
Start your product search at AliExpress, which is a site where thousands of Chinese suppliers post their products, and every single one of them can be sold.
Spend an hour, pick a few and save them.
2. Start your shop
Now that you know what you want to sell, you have to build an online store.
The best place to start is Shopify. With no computer skills required, you can build your own online store within a few hours and for under $50.
Once you are done, you can import the products you saved from AliExpress over to Shopify.
The only expense so far has been $50 for your store and the best part is, you never have to order inventory until someone orders and pays you for them through your Shopify store.
Now you are ready to sell!
3. Get marketing
So now you have some great products to sell and a good looking, functional and professional store to sell them on, you need some people to sell them to.
Marketing isn’t for everyone as it does take some skill but the best place to start is Facebook Ads.
Within an hour and for as little as $5 a day you can have a simple ad for your product being shown to thousands of people at a time.
Alternatively, you can try advertising your product in Facebook Groups: if you’re selling dog products, you’d advertise them in a dog-focused Facebook group. A niche Facebook group it’s where all the fanatics lie of who would be your best and most likely customers.
Starting any business is never a walk in the park, even online ones!
Business requires determination and a will to succeed, but if you follow these three steps, you’ll be well on your way to building a successful business for little-to-no money.
Not only will you make money but also gain a highly valuable skill set you can take back to the workforce that employers will pay you extra money for.
So stop reading, get going!
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