Starting the dropshipping business is not a cup of tea. You may need to face a lot of hurdles and learn from the dropshipping mistakes if you are not ready to do extensive research and learn from the experienced drop shippers about the dos and don’ts of this business.
No matter how confident you are, make sure to avoid these mistakes to keep everything going in a flowy manner. However, sometimes things do not go in the planned way, but seeking the experts’ help and making all the necessary arrangements will keep you at maximum ease.
Without further ado, let’s break each element down and discuss the common dropshipping mistakes and the ways to avoid them.
Common Dropshipping Mistakes
In the upcoming lines, you will read about the common dropshipping mistakes that beginners, as well as the newbies, do and ultimately fail to become successful in this business.
Choosing A Very Broad Niche
If you have selected the board niche or the niche in which you are least interested, you cannot make your mark in this business. Keep in mind that your success is not hidden in copying the large brands such as Walmart and Amazon that are going well with the board niches.
You are a small business owner and you can only rank well only if you have a micro-niche and you start your journey with low competition yet important products.
Let’s make it clear with an example.
If you choose the clothing or the electronics niche, you are going to opt for the border ones. However, if you choose only one thing out of the clothing niche, that is choose the sub-niche of clothing, you can get a lot of chances to excel.
So instead of going for clothing, you can opt for bikinis, costumes, and other such small niches. So, choosing only one kind of product out of the broad niche is the solution to this problem.
Remaining Confined To Only One Dropshipping Supplier
When you have connections and agreements with only one dropshipping supplier, you have very few chances to excel. It is like keeping all eggs in a single basket.
How?
First of all, with a single dropshipping supplier, you cannot face a problem when the products go out of stock or do not get delivered on time. For example, most drop shippers prefer Alibaba as the major dropshipping supplier, however, beginners do not know that this supplier does not guarantee fast shipping. Thus, in case the product delivers late, you cannot make them accountable for it.
But do not worry, you can always connect with more than one dropshipping supplier even for the same kind of products. In this way, you get a lot of exposure, and people come to know about your brand as the consistent and the most available one. There are two biggest advantages that you can get by connecting with more than one dropshipping supplier.
- Your store does not face a shortage of particular types of products. If a product is not available from one dropshipping supplier, you can easily get it from the other one. In this way, you no longer need to mention the “out of stock” tag on your dropshipping store.
- If you get connected with the suppliers from different locations, it will help you in processing the order fast. How? The reason is quite simple. When someone places the order, you choose the nearest supplier for the shipping of the product and thus can ensure the timely delivery of the products.
Not Focusing On Search Engine Optimization
After the pandemic, more and more people are adopting the dropshipping business and it is due to this reason, you should focus on search engine optimization more than ever. However, there is a misconception prevailing nowadays about the optimization of your website and that is you no longer need to follow the SEO techniques. Believe me, it can distract you a lot.
Keep in mind that even if you cannot beat the competition as a beginner, you can easily get ranked for the low competition keywords, and here comes the role of search engine optimization into the picture.
The algorithms of the search engines keep changing and you can excel only if you keep yourself updated with the latest trends.
Don’t think more!
You should fully dive into this field and do not hesitate to hire professionals to help you with SEO techniques.
Not Realistically Analyzing The Finances
Though this business model requires little or no investment in the purchase of the products, it does not mean that you can start this business without any kind of financial stability.
Initially, you have to pay for a lot of things such as for the website’s domain and hosting, advertisements, and Shopify refunds.
To put it in simple words, you need to be very vigilant about all the expenses and make realistic estimates.
It is easy to think that you can start this business with minimum investment, but it is practically much more difficult to handle. So do not get scammed by your own unrealistic perceptions.
And listen!
This business model needs your patience and determination. You may not start earning in the first few weeks, but once you get enough positive reviews and orders on your website, you will definitely enjoy more exposure.
Using Copyrighted Content
No search engine accepts plagiarised and copyrighted content. If you are not writing the unique products description and About us pages, you can get a lot of copyright infringements and all the problems that will badly impact your ranking.
The best solution to this problem is taking permission from the suppliers about whether or not you can use their products, videos, and images, etc.
However, you should never be copying the product description from any other site.
After extensive research, we have found that the popular drop shippers even take photos and videos using their personal cameras and do not rely on images from other websites.
Not Spending Free Time Smartly
As a drop-shipper, you have to become a very good marketer as well, but the sad fact is that not all drop-shippers are good marketers and this makes a huge difference. Many people who waste their time and do not make use of social media and other platforms to promote their business may end up with frustration and disappointment.
So, it is your own mistake if you are waiting for the orders for anything. Keep in mind that you are already enjoying a safe position and are not responsible for anything from manufacturing to supplying the products.
So, you should use your time wisely and polish your marketing skills.
When you market the products as a marketer, you always have a lot of room for experimentation. A good drop shipper never fears experimenting with ads and products. This is the only skill that is required to excel as the drop shipper.
Buying Dropshipping Courses
Believe me, the worst decision that you can ever make as a marketer is buying the dropshipping courses.
Do you know who creates the dropshipping courses and charges for the skills that no longer need to be learned via the courses?
Dropshipping course creators are the people who themselves fail to excel in the dropshipping business. But they find another way to make easy money and that is by delivering the dropshipping courses.
If you are still confused, just ask yourself:
Why should you be spending money on the course videos that are already available on youtube for free?
Well, if you still think that you should take some dropshipping courses to get authentic knowledge on the subject, we recommend you to go for Udemy where you can easily purchase the cost of $12-$15. It is a reliable platform that will help you in gaining some authentic knowledge on the subject.
We are strictly against the drop-shippers who are offering the courses at much higher rates and scamming the people with their so-called technique that did not work for them.
Final Verdict
More than 80% of the new drop shippers make any of these dropshipping mistakes and end up with disappointment. But the heart of the matter is to learn from the mistakes that you make as a beginner and then improve yourself accordingly.
But what happens in most cases is that people lose hope and think that this is not the right business plan. There is nothing wrong with the business model and its rising popularity and success in the pandemic has proved it.
However, it is right that there can be serious mistakes in your strategies and their implementation. Though there can be pros and cons of this business model, you should avoid these basic mistakes to see whether or not this business model works for you in the same way as you expect.
Well, if you think that there are some more serious dropshipping mistakes that the drop-shippers can make, you can comment in the comment section below and share your thoughts with us.