Are you an entrepreneur looking to take your eCommerce business to the next level with a Shopify dropshipping store? Look no further! In this comprehensive guide, we’ll walk you through the process of setting up and launching a successful dropshipping store on Shopify.
From choosing the right products and suppliers to creating a visually appealing website, we’ve got you covered. Plus, with the power of the Shopify app ecosystem at your fingertips, you’ll have all the tools you need to streamline your business and provide an exceptional shopping experience for your customers.
So if you’re ready to take the plunge and build your dropshipping dream, let’s get started!
What Is Shopify Dropshipping?
So, how do Shopify and the dropshipping business model make a great combination? Shopify’s unique platform provides an excellent solution for dropshippers to list and sell their products. Aside from being an easy-to-use online store builder, Shopify also has an entire dropshipping ecosystem of apps and services to assist dropshippers like us.
Before building a Shopify dropshipping store, we must grasp how Shopify fits the dropshipping model.
Shopify is a leading eCommerce platform that hosts our online stores. Its functionalities help us design and set up our dropshipping website, market our products, handle payments, and much more. Moreover, the Shopify platform is incredibly user-friendly, meaning we don’t need coding skills to build or design our store.
As a trending business model, dropshipping enables us to sell products globally without holding inventory. When we receive an order in our store, we simply order it from our supplier, who delivers it to our customers. Finally, we only have to pay after the customers buy from us.
Is Shopify Dropshipping Legal?
From a legal perspective, Shopify dropshipping is a legitimate business. However, before dropshipping, we must be aware of specific laws and regulations.
Abiding by the rules and regulations helps us avoid legal troubles later. Plus, we should also avoid dropshipping illegal products such as copyrighted or dangerous products. Overall, if we follow the eCommerce regulations, we can dropship smoothly.
How To Make Money Dropshipping On Shopify?
Essentially, we can make money easily with Shopify Dropshipping if we follow the right strategies. Shopify is one of the most popular eCommerce platforms and makes dropshipping easier than ever before. Plus, we can quickly create a professional-looking store from scratch and start selling items in no time. Furthermore, Shopify offers a range of helpful integrations.
To make money dropshipping on Shopify, we should focus on refining our product selection, setting up our store, and optimizing our shipping strategies. Additionally, launching effective marketing campaigns and providing top-notch customer service is also a must. Besides that, we can also learn how successful Shopify dropshipping businesses operate their stores to adopt key strategies.
The Advantages & Disadvantages Of Dropshipping On Shopify
To understand Shopify Dropshipping better, let’s look at the advantages and disadvantages of dropshipping on Shopify:
Advantages
- No selling limits
- Fully customizable & easy to use
- Multiple store themes
- Built-in blogging feature
Unlike some platforms, Shopify has no selling limits. Additionally, we can easily customize our dropshipping stores with custom themes and designs to stand out from the competition. On top of that, it has a built-in blogging feature that we can use to promote our products and drive organic traffic to our store.
Disadvantages
- No organic traffic
While Shopify has many benefits, it has one minor drawback. Since Shopify is a customizable website rather than a marketplace, it does not have readily available traffic. However, we can promote our Shopify dropshipping store with the help of marketing strategies like Facebook Ads. This helps us to generate traffic and achieve sales conversions.
How To Start Dropshipping On Shopify
Now that we know dropshipping and Shopify complement each other, we’re ready to learn how to implement their benefits in the real world.
Here are seven steps to building a winning Shopify Dropshipping store:
- Find Trending Products To Dropship On Shopify
- Set Up Your Shopify Dropshipping Store
- Promote Your Products: Online Marketing
- Fulfill Customer Orders On Shopify
- Managing Returns & Refunds
- Provide Excellent Customer Support
- Scale Your Shopify Dropshipping Success
Let’s understand how to carry out these steps in-depth for excellent results.
1. Find Trending Products To Dropship On Shopify
When building a Shopify dropshipping business, the first and most fundamental step is to do proper product research. Additionally, choosing good products to sell consistently can skyrocket our sales and help our store take off quickly. With that in mind, here are some essential product research methods:
- AutoDS Product Research Tool
- AutoDS Product-Finding Blog
- AutoDS Best-Sellers YouTube Playlist
- Supplier Bestseller Sections
- Spy On The Competition
- Keep Track Of Social Media Trends (e.g., #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt)
- Analyze Dropshipping Ads
For instance, finding out what’s trending gives you an idea of what sells. The AliExpress Dropshipping Center is an excellent place to get ideas for trending dropshipping products. Similarly, another method is to use spying tools like Koala Inspector to check a product’s performance and import it directly to our store.
How To Find Products For Shopify Dropshipping With AutoDS
Another great way to find in-demand products is by using AutoDS’ product research tool. In essence, AutoDS has an advanced product research tool that helps us to find trending products from US and Chinese suppliers. Moreover, it allows us to import products directly from the same tool and helps handle returns in a single click.
While we might find many products with these tips, adding all of them is impractical. Even when we find plenty of good products, narrowing them down is still crucial to get a clear idea of what to sell.
Here are six things to keep in mind while searching for products:
- Products should not be available in something other than local stores.
- Customers should not be able to guess the product’s price.
- Find a problem-solving product that makes our customers’ lives easier.
- Ensure that the product supplier offers fast shipping and delivery times.
- Products that customers can buy impulsively without putting much thought into it.
- The product should cost under $30 per item.
Furthermore, with the Product Research Spreadsheet, we can organize the information and analyze the products well. The spreadsheet has specific questions that you fill in to spot trending dropshipping products with the highest potential to become winners.
To create a new spreadsheet with your products, open the spreadsheet, click on ‘File,’ and choose ‘Make a copy.’ Finally, save the new spreadsheet and start working on product research to find your first bestseller.
2. Set Up Your Shopify Dropshipping Store
The second step is to set up your Shopify dropshipping store. Setting up a Shopify store requires plenty of time, effort, and focus, but it will pay off if you do it right. Here are the basic steps to set up a working Shopify store:
I. Sign Up For Shopify
Setting up our account for Shopify is an easy process. We should consider signing up with Shopify’s 14-day free trial to test before we buy.
To sign up, enter a valid email address, choose a password, and fill in a temporary store name. Then, we can finish the signup process by answering questions about our business.
At this stage, we don’t have to worry about subscribing or entering a payment method. We’ll deal with that once our store is all set up.
Tip: It is better to use our 14-day free trial after completing the product research phase. Instead of wasting the trial period on product research, we can use it to build our Shopify store.
II. Name Your Business
After making our Shopify account, we must choose a name related to our store. For example, if your store sells dog products, something like Doggy Hub or Doggyverse will make sense. Additionally, we need a simple yet creative name for our business.
That’s where the Business Name Generator comes in handy. It is a free tool that generates unique and original business names. Additionally, the tool saves us time by checking the domain availability of our business name.
III. Connect Your Domain
The next step is to connect the domain with our Shopify store. A domain is a website address where people can find our business online.
Instead of using Shopify’s long and complicated web address, using our domain name is a simple way for people to find us.
For example, doggytreat.com is better than doggytreat.myshopify.com.
To get a domain name, we can use GoDaddy to reserve a domain name. The cost of hosting a domain for our Shopify store can range anywhere from $10-$20. Once you enter a valid domain name and follow Shopify’s instructions, the new domain name connects easily with the Shopify store.
If the automatic method doesn’t work, read Shopify’s tutorial on manually connecting a third-party domain.
IV. Create A Shopify Store Logo
Like picking a name, a creative logo helps differentiate our store and establish a brand. A good logo is a visual essence of our business that helps brand our store.
To create unique logos in a matter of minutes, Hatchful remains an excellent choice. As a free online logo maker tool, we can quickly create beautiful logos for our business.
Once we create our desirable logo, we should save all images and sizes in a folder later. They will be helpful to us once we get to the branding stage.
V. Get A Shopify Store Theme
The fifth step is to choose a niche-suitable theme for our Shopify store. That’s because themes are the visual and user-friendly interface that shapes customers’ experience while browsing and navigating our store. Also, a good, responsive, mobile-friendly theme converts viewers into buyers.
While there are paid themes, more than 100 professionally designed themes are freely available on Shopify.
VI. Choose a Dropshipping Tool To Automate Your Business
After setting up a Shopify store theme, we must find a dropshipping automation tool to streamline our business operations. If you love letting dropshipping software handle most of our tedious manual tasks, then dropshipping automation is for you.
For an automated dropshipping Shopify business, AutoDS is an excellent tool. It helps us save time and scale our business with its wide range of dropshipping features, such as:
- Quick Product Importing
- Over 25 Suppliers
- Price & Stock Monitoring
- Automated Order Fulfillment
- Tracking updates
To begin automating your Shopify dropshipping business, register for an AutoDS account. Next, fill in your payment details for the AutoDS subscription. Inside the AutoDS app, from the left menu, choose ‘Add Store,’ enter your store’s web address and click on the ‘Add Store’ button.
Then, install the AutoDS app on our Shopify store. Finally, click on ‘ Install app’ to integrate the AutoDS app successfully with our Shopify store. Well done! Now, we have a working automated Shopify store.
VII. Import Products To Your Shopify Store
Next, we’ll import products to our Shopify store. Connecting a dropshipping software lets us easily import tons of products, saving us the time of doing it manually.
One of the many features available with the free AutoDS Helper extension is the one-click importer that helps import any products from our suppliers in a few clicks.
The one-click importer enables us to create and export a CSV file containing our product list from the supplier page. Then, we import it to our store via the AutoDS platform. Most importantly, we can complete the process in just a few clicks which is a huge time saver.
VIII. Optimize Product Pages To Convert
We’re almost there. After setting up our store and importing our products, it’s time to optimize the product pages. The product page shows the details of the product we are selling, like product description, specifications, images, the ‘add to cart’ button, and the ‘buy it now’ button.
Since customers directly land on our product pages from our ads, we should optimize the product page to attract the customers’ interest as soon as they land on our product page. Also, it should communicate the problem-solving capability of the product clearly to the customer.
If you need help optimizing product pages to increase sales, we recommend reading 10 Ways to Increase Your Product Page Conversion For Your Shopify Stores.
IX. Create A Professional Shopify Homepage
Our targeted ad directs potential customers to our product page. However, most will go to the homepage to check other available products and our store’s credibility. Therefore, we must professionally design a homepage to make the store look attractive and trustworthy.
As a rule of thumb, the name and logo of the business should always appear on the top. After placing the name and logo, update the announcement bar to offer discounts, promo codes, etc.
Next, redesign the homepage with relevant section names and use free stock image websites for the cover image, like Pixabay, Pexels, Unsplash, and Burst.
Similarly, edit the theme colors to match your brand style.
Even though our targeted ads do not direct buyers to the Shopify store homepage, they should look professional and lead our customers to the product pages elegantly.
X. Store Policies And Legal Pages
When dropshipping on Shopify, setting up store policies and legal pages is equally important. That’s because store policies are guidelines for conducting our business online.
So, pages like store policies, legal pages, FAQs, contact forms, etc., may not be the most thrilling side of creating our eCommerce store. Still, they are necessary to inform and avoid customer confusion.
That’s why we have done most of the work by preparing ready-made structures for those pages to save you time. Just fill in the relevant information in the following articles to get your policy pages ready:
To add policies, go to the Shopify dashboard, click on ‘Settings’ from the left bottom of the page, and click on ‘Policies.’ Here, we’ll find different policies of our Shopify store, like privacy, returns, and refund policy. Finally, we can then edit or replace them with new ones.
XI. Set Up The Shopify Navigation Menu
The navigation menu displays links to pages on your store, like the ones we just set up (policies, legal pages, etc.).
The main menu (top) and footer menu (bottom) are the two sections of our website in which we display the relevant pages and policies. Our customers can easily explore different pages on our Shopify store via a clickable link on the main menu and footer menu.
To edit the Shopify Navigation menu, go to Shopify admin, select ‘online store,’ then click on ‘navigation.’ On the navigation page, we can add a title to the menu by clicking ‘Add menu item.’ For example, Home, Product, About Us, etc.
Now that the titles are ready, we can link each with a website address that takes it to a specific page. Then, we click ‘Add’ to save them and finally choose ‘Save menu.’
XII. Set The Shopify Store Currency & Payment Provider
Now that we’ve set up our navigation menu, let’s go ahead and set up our store currency and payment providers. The store currency should be set up so that our customers see the currency when browsing through our site. For example, if we’re selling to US customers, choose ‘USD’ currency.
However, if we want to target multiple countries, not just the US, we can use free apps like the Auto Multi-Currency Converter. It automatically converts and updates the store’s currency according to our choice.
Regarding payment, Shopify provides different payment options for different countries. For US residents, Shopify Payments is the default and ideal method since it accepts most credit cards. Similarly, Paypal is also an option for US residents.
If we’re not US residents, we cannot use Shopify payments. Instead, we need to sign up with third-party payment options. We can find convenient payment solutions from the list of additional payment gateways to choose one suitable for our location.
For example, if we’re from Denmark, choose ‘Denmark,’ which will show all the acceptable payment options in that country.
XIII. Shopify Checkout Settings & Shipping Zones
When customers buy your product, they’ll be redirected to Shopify’s checkout page to pay and complete their purchase. Simplify the checkout process for customers by configuring the checkout section.
For example, we can disable the option to create an account for each customer. This will allow them to check out as guests and decrease the chance of cart abandonment.
The smoother our checkout process, the higher the chance for the buyer to go through with the checkout process.
Shopify’s shipping zone settings allow us to select which countries to ship to and set different rates for each country. From the Shopify admin, go to Settings and choose Shipping and delivery. Click on Manage rates next to the shipping profile.
Next, click on ‘Create shipping zone’ beside the group of locations. Then, we can enter a name for the shipping zone and select the countries and regions in which we want to be. You can add the rates that you want for the zone. Finally, click Save.
For example, if we want to dropship with Shopify in the US, we need to put in a valid address in the US to get a location for our shipping zone. Simply choose one from our list of US Addresses and fill in the shipping zone. For other countries, we can choose valid addresses in those countries to use for our warehouse location. We can search on Google to find out valid addresses.
XIV. Go Live With Your Shopify Store!
Now that our store is optimized, it’s time to go live and open our Shopify store to the world.
Go to Shopify settings, click on ‘Plan’ and select Shopify subscription. Although we can choose any Shopify plan, an essential subscription is enough for beginners.
Once we have a Shopify subscription plan, we can disable our store password. Disabling the password allows everyone to visit and purchase from our store. Click on ‘Online Store,’ select ‘Themes,’ and click on ‘Disable Password’ under the Sales channel.
Congratulations, now you have a fully working professional Shopify store! But our work is still ongoing. Now, we will learn how to promote our Shopify store because customers need to learn that our store exists.
3. Promote Your Products: Online Marketing
While we successfully built a professional Shopify store with well-researched products, it has yet to be discovered. So, let’s learn how to market our products for Shopify dropshipping.
With that in mind, here are some examples of top marketing methods when dropshipping on Shopify:
- PPC Ads (e.g., Facebook Ads)
- Influencer Marketing
- Content Marketing
- Viral Social Media Posts
- Email Marketing
For instance, Facebook Ads are one of the best marketing tools to turn our dropshipping store profitable. That’s why learning how to create a Facebook ad and launch it is essential.
Create & Launch Facebook Ads
Facebook ads are a powerful marketing tool for businesses as they allow us to reach our customers even on a budget. The advertising campaigns on Facebook are easy to run, enabling us to market our products to the right audience pool.
Furthermore, Facebook has a database of millions of people to reach with our ads. If we target the right audience and create engaging content, we can quickly drive traffic to our website and make sales.
To help you go from beginner to pro and not waste your budget, our ebook, ‘The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Ads For eCommerce Stores In 8 Simple Steps’, will guide you to leverage Facebook ads to market our products.
By completing the workbook, we will be able to:
- Learn to set up our Shopify dropshipping Facebook page and start generating traffic.
- Understand Facebook Pixel and learn to utilize it on our Shopify store.
- Receive the best tips to improve our ad’s success rate by perfecting our audience research and targeting.
- Create or source engaging Facebook video ads for our products.
- Run Facebook ad campaigns from scratch with optimal configuration for outstanding results.
- Analyze and optimize our ads to scale our success.
- Save money and time on courses that AutoDS teaches for free.
Essentially, video ads are proven ways to increase conversions but creating dynamic, and eye-catching videos are more complicated. If your dropshipping business needs help promoting products, we suggest using Waving Pandas. With their help, we can create engaging videos for our products and drive traffic to our stores.
4. Fulfill Customer Orders On Shopify
Satisfying our customers and building long-lasting relationships with them helps increase customer loyalty. To do so, we need to fulfill orders promptly. In general, there are multiple ways of processing orders when dropshipping on Shopify: Manual order fulfillment, automatic order fulfillment, and Fulfilled By AutoDS.
To clarify, manual fulfillment means we must go to the supplier’s website for each order, fill in customer details, and place the order.
In contrast, automatic order fulfillment saves a lot of time in performing this tedious process by automating orders, tracking updates, and more. This method uses our buyer accounts with our suppliers to fulfill our orders.
On the other hand, the Fulfilled by AutoDS service provides additional automatic fulfillment services using AutoDS’ buyer accounts for order fulfillment, tracking information updates, one-click returns, and more.
Therefore, we don’t have to use our credit line at the banks or worry about buyer account suspensions. Overall, Fulfilled by AutoDS is an efficient method for automatic order fulfillment.
5. Managing Returns & Refunds
When our Shopify dropshipping stores are up and running with increased orders and sales, we also have to handle returns and refunds at some point.
Nonetheless, as long as we do our product research properly, there is no need to worry about returns and refunds. So, we should be able to handle our customers’ requests when they wish to return or replace products.
When handling returns, check the store/supplier’s policy to see whether the customer is eligible for a return. For manual orders, reach out to your supplier and ask for a return label. Once you get it, send it to your buyer and track the return progress using the tracking number provided on the return label.
Once the product is returned, send a refund to your customer, and make sure that your supplier also sent you a refund. For Fulfilled By AutoDS orders, we need to change the order status to ‘Request Return.’ Then, AutoDS will provide you with a return label to send to your buyer.
All return labels have a tracking number on them so that you can track the status of your return. Once the buyer returns the product with the return label, we can send a refund to our buyer, and AutoDS will send a refund to our managed balance.
6. Provide Excellent Customer Support
Managing refunds and returns with care is vital. Hence, we need to look after our customers. In short, good customer service means a strong foundation for a successful business. Therefore, we can build a loyal customer base by providing quality customer service and support.
With that in mind, here are some essential tips to provide excellent customer service:
- Handle customer queries and complaints instantly
- Process returns and refunds swiftly
- Send personalized messages
- Include a FAQ page and live chat options
For instance, we can see our customer’s messages from the Shopify dashboard or email inbox. After receiving the message, we must ensure that we provide adequate information and resolve issues swiftly.
7. Scale Your Shopify Dropshipping Success
Once we reach this stage, our stores are up, running, and making sales. It’s now time to scale our business to rake in substantial profits. As such, scaling our dropshipping business is possible with the help of AutoDS dropshipping automation software.
So the question remains: How to scale our Shopify dropshipping business? To start scaling, we should analyze our bestsellers through the AutoDS platform and add more similar products. In addition, we should replace slow movers with new trending products.
Similarly, we should scale the ads that bring in customers and turn off those that aren’t performing well. Combine that with automation software, and we have a perfect formula for scaling & success. When we repeat these processes consistently, we can start our network of successful Shopify stores.
Overall, this is how to dropship on Shopify successfully. With these seven steps, we can start a booming Shopify dropshipping business.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Shopify Good For Dropshipping in 2023?
Shopify is a great choice for dropshipping in 2023, as we can customize our dropshipping stores to optimize the customer experience. Also, Shopify has no selling limits, which allows us to sell as many products as possible. Furthermore, dropshipping automation tools like AutoDS enable efficient management of our Shopify dropshipping business.
Can You Make Money With Shopify Dropshipping?
Yes. We can make money on Shopify dropshipping. Moreover, its profitability depends upon how we handle our business operations like marketing, customer service, etc.
How To Start A Dropshipping Business on Shopify?
We can start a Shopify dropshipping business with the following 5 steps:
- Find trending products
- Set up a Shopify store
- Market products
- Fulfill customers’ orders
- Provide excellent customer service
How much does it cost to dropship on Shopify?
Shopify’s monthly subscription and marketing budget are the two main costs of Shopify dropshipping. Shopify’s basic plan costs $29 per month, whereas the marketing budget depends on our selling channel and audience reach.
What Are Shopify Dropshipping Advantages Over eBay?
One of the main advantages of Shopify over eBay is the selling limit. If we have a Shopify store, we can sell as many products as we want, whereas eBay has a selling limit. Moreover, Shopify is a customizable platform where we can build our brand. This way, we can increase brand awareness and build customer loyalty.
What Are Shopify Dropshipping Disadvantages Compared To eBay?
As Shopify is not a marketplace, it does not have readily available traffic like eBay. As such, we cannot generate free organic traffic on Shopify stores as we do on eBay. Therefore, we need a separate budget for marketing. However, marketing is crucial if we want to achieve long-term success.
How To Automate Shopify Dropshipping?
We can automate Shopify Dropshipping with dropshipping software like AutoDS. With AutoDS dropshipping software, we can automate operations like product research, product importing, and order fulfillment for our Shopify Dropshipping stores.
Conclusion
If owning and running a scalable dropshipping business excites you, then Shopify dropshipping is the best way to do it. And now, we have all the knowledge on how to start a successful Shopify dropshipping store.
The next step is to enrich our knowledge with a step-by-step tutorial on how to do it right. AutoDS’ Shopify dropshipping course is an in-depth guide on everything this article teaches. At the end of this course, we will be able to run a profitable store and be an expert Shopify dropshipper in no time.
Our articles and dropshipping courses are always there to support us along our journey to the top. So, if we have the desire to learn more, here are some resources to take our dropshipping business to the next level:
