Dropshipping belongs to the eCommerce line of business, and Statista forecasts that the market size in 2026 will hit a whopping $476.1 billion. This comes very quickly with emerging technologies, especially data tracking software. Here’s a detailed look into how to start dropshipping for free!
The dropshipping business has become very competitive because of the ease of starting the business, based on the fact that you can sell products without even bothering yourself with inventories, but it’s not everybody that can readily do so. Dropshipping is a business you can start without any money; that’s absolutely free.
While there are dropshipping agencies that can allow you to use their facilities for free, you must try to find out if that will suffice. According to HyperSKU on uDroppy review, the organization has a free plan that allows only five orders a week. You must critically look at that and decide if that will give you what you want, considering that the industry average margin profit for drop shipping should be between 15%- 20%.
If you want to make any headway in the dropshipping business without investing any money, you must seek out how to start dropshipping for free. The pertinent question is, how to start dropshipping for free?
While you may not wholly say you can start dropshipping for free since you must possess a computer or source for one, and you must have internet services, especially where it’s not free. These are insignificant when you compare them to the resources you need to start most other types of businesses.
These are rudimentary necessities for starting dropshipping for free that will make you relevant in the market.
Table of Contents
Get a website for Your Dropshipping business
The very first thing you need apart from your computer and internet access is a website; this is your store. Incidentally, you don’t actually need the best-looking website to dropship.
An organization like Amazon may not have the best website globally, but it’s one of the top-ranking eCommerce stores. Hosting a website comes with a cost, but you can start on a free website hosting such as WordPress.com and upgrade whenever you want to get a paid website.
A good-looking website may attract potential customers, but you must focus more on conversion. Time is of high essence here because you must expend veritable time to improve conversion rate using less time on aesthetic aspects such as colors and fonts and concentrate more on conversion-focused design.
See Also: Build a successful eCommerce Website
Dropshipping business – Possess Fundamental Graphic Design skills
Graphic design can indeed be a bit complex, but you need fundamental experience in graphic design to forge ahead with your dropshipping business. You can easily leverage free graphic-designing tools to create good-looking and aesthetically pleasing graphics of the products you want to dropship.
While your graphics may not have the professional touch, they must try to pass the skim test and inspire trust.
Luckily there are free logo maker websites that make this easier for beginners.
See also: Logo and Brand Maker – DesignBro
Acquisition of Customer Support skills to improve Dropshipping Business
As you will have to interact with your customers regularly, you must learn the necessary skills to ensure your customers are happy with you. They will want to understand how things are going on. Hence they will ask questions, and you must be ready to answer their questions.
A happy customer will give good reviews about your services, and this is an excellent way to convert new customers. You must not ignore any review, even when it’s negative.
Once you have acquired the above necessities, you can then proceed with the following steps on how to start dropshipping for free.
You may outsource customer support to virtual assistants, but make sure to create SOP (standard operating procedure) to ensure your support team delivers the right message and excellent service.
See also: 10 ways to post free Classified ads in India
Carve out a niche about the Dropshipping market
You cannot just plunge headlong into dropshipping; you must study the market to discover profitable niches and then pick the one you feel very comfortable with. As you start dropshipping without any money, you must not expect to begin making significant returns quickly.
If you don’t pick a niche that you are comfortable with, you can easily get fed up or bored and decide to abandon the whole project. If this happens, all the time and effort you have put in are a waste.
Products like groceries may not be the best for you to dropship. You need to focus on lightweight products that will not break easily. Some niches worth considering are painting, fishing, golf, beauty products, and gardening.
While you must be wary of niches such as furniture, automobiles, photography, and video games. Also, things like competition and traffic are vital to your decision in the end. Hence you must put in the time to research all the niches before proceeding.
Pick the actual product within the niche to Dropship
There must be many products within your niche, and you may not want to sell them all; you can check websites such as AliExpress or Banggod that can offer you products within your niche. However, your best odds for rapid success is to find local manufacturers for the products you have decided to dropship.
Once these products are of high quality, it will be easier for you to ship them in lesser time; customer satisfaction must be prioritized. Google search operators will enable you to find local manufacturers for the products you want to dropship.
See also: Best Google Gravity Tricks
Get a platform where you want to Dropship and sell your products
To enable you on “how to start dropshipping for free,” you need a platform where you will sell your products. Platforms such as Amazon and eBay can come in handy here since they are free and easy to sell on, but you must also think about the competition.
For this reason, your best bet may be to go with your own website. A free hosting website may not give you all you want in terms of support and security at the initial time, but with time you can always opt for a paid website.
If you are just interested in the 14-day trial before you start paying, you can set up with Shopify. After all, you won’t pay for the initial 14 days.
Set up your store for Dropshipping
If you are using WordPress.com, you can also use WooCommerce, a free eCommerce platform for WordPress. The software enables you to host all your pictures, receive payments, and run other different aspects of your store.
The most popular method of receiving payments globally are PayPal and Stripe, but if any of them do not work out in your country, you can seek alternative means.
See also: 7 productivity tips for Small Business Owners
List your Dropshipping products with unique descriptions
After setting up your store using the WooCommerce software, it’s time to showcase your products. There are free services you can leverage to enhance backgrounds and add filters. If it’s necessary, you can still modify the photos you got from the manufacturer.
You need to do some work on the product description; you will need to come up with something more convincing. Customers don’t basically purchase products because they just want to spend money; they do so because they want to solve problems.
Your description must tell your customers how your products will ease the stress in their daily activities. For this reason, your description must be unique. You must research your target audience to know the type of description you send across.
Conclusion
The most important thing is to sell your products, and that boils down to marketing; if customers don’t know about you and your products, they can’t come to your store. Fortunately, you can use social media platforms to launch marketing campaigns.
Your whole focus must be on how to start dropshipping for free. How to start dropshipping for free largely depends on how you can analyze your data to ensure customer satisfaction.