The attractions of dropshipping for e-commerce apprentices
When you look from a distance dropshipping, it is true that this mode of marketing is quite attractive for trainees e-merchants. In my opinion, there are two main criteria that interest Internet users who are looking to start e-commerce: financial attractiveness and lack of logistics.
Financial attractiveness, criterion n ° 1
The dropshipping has this huge appeal that it is possible to market products without having to pay a penny to have them in stock. Indeed, in dropshipping, the supplier remains the owner of his stock and takes care of all the logistics (delivery). The e-trader, meanwhile, earns a commission when he makes a sale from his online store.
This way of selling allows entrepreneurs who do not have big means to be able to start at a lower cost. Because, between the price of creating an e-commerce site and the acquisition budget of the first customers, it is quickly necessary to invest a few thousand or tens of thousands of euros.
The dropshipping allows some entrepreneurs to keep their cash for the site and the first campaigns Adwords or Facebook Ads.
The absence of logisitic
The second advantage of opening an online store dropshipping will be related to the lack of logistics.
Indeed, selling the Internet involves managing product stocks from your garage or logistics center and all the tasks and costs that entails:
Cost of purchase of the stock
Cost of delivery from stock to storage
Cost of the place of storage if external
Cost of parcel preparation, if external
Logistics return management cost
We are not going to lie to each other, logistics in e-commerce is a real job and when we see what Amazon has been doing in optimizing its supply chain, we can understand that this is scary for e-commerce apprentices.
And as in dropshipping the logistics is totally managed by the supplier, this removes an additional complex task for entrepreneurs: fewer headaches and less initial investment.
But are these benefits enough to make dropshipping a good idea to start e-commerce.
But is it enough to start e-commerce?
The problem is that behind these benefits, herbal entrepreneurs forget / sometimes ignore the very basics of e-commerce and the key factors that will make the success of their business. Worse, they are not aware of the issues related to a marketing dropshipping.
The choice of the supplier dropshipping baclé
On the internet, it is easy to find lists of suppliers in dropshipping. Some sites even push the vice by charging access to this list. All of the providers in these lists represent hundreds of thousands of products, which is attractive to a novice.
The problem is that these lists are already overexploited and we do not count the number of small sites of auto-entrepreneur who market the same products, all at about the same price.
However, to succeed in launching e-commerce dropshipping site, it is necessary to choose his or her suppliers to create partnerships to bring a complete shopping experience to its customers: user experience on and off-site .
In my opinion, the main mistake made by e-merchants who create their site dropshipping is that they do not take enough time and do not pay enough attention to the choice of their supplier (s) ).
For me, the best solution to find the rare pearl is to contact the various existing suppliers in the market and ask them if they offer the mode of marketing in dropshipping. This makes it possible to create a first approach with suppliers while being able to negotiate a real partnership: commission rate, distribution of responsibilities concerning the management of the after-sales service, etc.
The strategy of non-existent differentiation
Another mistake made by many e-commerce apprentices is not to define a competitive differentiation strategy already in place. Yes, because we must not fool ourselves, to be the only one to sell its products in 2018, must be present on a micro-micro niche or sell ultra innovative products: which is hardly compatible with a strategy of dropshipping.
Most e-commerce dropshipping is fighting the price. However, when the competition is already well established, it is almost impossible to stand out in this way. It is therefore essential to think and set up a real differentiation strategy that will encourage users to buy on your site even if the price is higher: additional services and / or guarantees, more efficient user experience ... etc.
There are many e-commerce sites (in dropshipping or not) that are more expensive than the competition but who manage to sell their products en masse (one of which I'm currently accompanying), by their marketing positioning or thanks to a strategy well thought out differentiation. All this is to take the time to define this key success factor and implement it.
The lack of knowledge about SEO
Last mistake made by many e-merchants, regardless of their degree of maturity in e-commerce: the lack of knowledge of SEO.
Who says dropshipping, standardized product catalog and thus texts of presentations common to all sellers. However, to exist in e-commerce, it is necessary to exist on Google (95% of market share in France) which requires unique texts. It is therefore not enough to simply put an online catalog to exist, it is necessary to re-write to please the California search engine.
The site tree can also quickly be a real SEO problem for dropshipping sites. Because the catalogs of suppliers are not always the most effective in terms of natural referencing. It is therefore necessary, in most cases, to rework the catalog tree so that it sticks more to Internet searches. But novices in e-commerce forget almost all the time to do.
And so, good idea or not?
In my opinion, opening an online store dropshipping can be a good idea from the moment the e-merchant is well aware of the issues related to this mode of marketing.
Now, and for many years now, it's no longer enough to open an e-commerce and plug a catalog of products on it to make sales.
Internet users are more and more demanding and no longer hesitate to compare prices and services associated with products sold. It is therefore necessary to have a real marketing and commercial strategy to get to live from an e-commerce site in dropshipping.
In addition, the savings associated with the lack of stocks and logistics should not be an end but rather a real way to increase the visibility of the site in search engines.
One thing is certain, in dropshipping, some sectors of activity are clogged. It will therefore be necessary to find the supplier (s) to have differentiated products that, combined with an e-marketing strategy, will allow the site to stand out from the competition already in place.
So, this may be a good idea but it will take a solid and experienced e-commerce to successfully develop a site solely composed of dropshipping products. Novices in online commerce, do a real dedicated training or surround yourself with e-commerce experts!
