Today’s businesses can enjoy the benefits of various automation tools. If you own an online retail store, you probably already use several popular devices, such as for CRM (customer relationship management), social media management, e-mail marketing, team communication, digital marketing, e-commerce platform, and customer support.
However, in addition to those popular automation helpers, one of the lesser known tools is dropshipping app. It’s particularly useful when you want to leverage your online presence by capitalizing the existing traffic or social media and newsletter following.
First things first, what’s a dropshipping app? Let’s begin by discussing what dropshipping is and why your business needs to expand with this business model. Next, we’ll explain how a dropshipping app can take your business automation to the next level.
What Dropshipping Is
Dropshipping or drop shipping is a business model in which the store owner doesn’t need to pre-purchase and keep inventory. The retailer doesn’t need to fulfill the orders either. It’s a pretty hands-off business approach, which is relatively new in the e-commerce business.
The items to sell will only be purchased by the store owner after they have been ordered and paid by a customer. This means there is no need for a warehouse and paying for stock in advance, which makes this business model very attractive due to low startup capital and convenience.
The suppliers will also be responsible for fulfilling and shipping orders after receiving them from your online store. Thus, the store owner is free from picking, packing, filling, and shipping orders. Instead, they can focus on marketing efforts.
The Benefits of Expansion with Dropshipping
If you already own an online presence, which can be an existing store or a blog, you can capitalize the traffic or strong social media following with a dropshipping store. Whether you’re a seller of handcrafted products or a business coach, it doesn’t matter. You can start selling all kinds of products that you might not have considered before.
With a turn-key e-commerce platform like Shopify (free for 14 days) and its native dropshipping app Oberlo (always free), you can start the store with almost zero capital.
The benefits are apparent: the dropshipping business model allows anyone to start an online retailer instantly. You can carry tens, hundreds, or thousands of products of various categories, as long as they’re suitable for the captive market to leverage. For instance, if you’re a pet lover and has a pet-related Instagram account, you can start selling the cat, dog, and bird products with dropshipping.
Dropshipping App Automation
Oberlo dropshipping app automation provides you with the ultra convenience that no other business models can provide. Without using this app, as a dropshipping retailer, you’d still need to perform these activities manually:
- Source and vet each supplier
- Take professional product photos
- Individually type each product’s specification
- individually price each product and make changes whenever necessary one by one
- Separately upload each product photo
- Individually remove the images of sold-out products
- Must keep close contact with the supplier to ensure the products are still available (not sold out)
- Make changes to the store design and theme manually every page
- Monitor order processing, delivery status, and shipment status
With a dropshipping app that automates the whole process from start to finish, you can be sure to enjoy:
- Automated e-commerce platform with professionally-designed storefront themes, templates, and designs, which are provided by Shopify
- Automated sourcing with pre-vetted dropshipping suppliersdirectlyfromOberlo dashboard
- Professional product photos that are editable with a native photo editor
- Automated transfer of each product’s specification
- Automated global pricing markup formula or individually-priced items
- Automated mass upload of product photos
- Automated removal of sold-out product photos
- No need to keep contact with suppliers about the amount of available stock
- Automated order processing, delivery status, and tracking of shipment
To make sure that your products are easy to sell, you can locate trending products by reviewing the lists of trending products, such as those on e-commerce giants Amazon and eBay. Oberlo also published a report on trending products for your convenience.
In conclusion, whether you’re just starting out as an online entrepreneur or someone with an existing presence, growing with dropshipping is worth considering. It’s cost-effective, easy to set up, and convenient to manage. The automated dropshipping app is a lifesaver that every business should utilize optimally.
About the Author
Jennifer Xue is an award-winning author, columnist, and serial entrepreneur based in Northern California. She is also a digital strategist for Oberlo. Her byline has appeared in Forbes, Fortune, Esquire, Cosmopolitan, Business.com, Business2Community, Addicted2Success, Good Men Project, Positively Positive, and others. Her blog is JenniferXue.com.