Dropshipping, The Perfect Business Model

When you are selling physical products online, your sales page plays a big role. You must write something compelling that will draw people in and make them really want to buy from you. You must write something that makes them really interested in your product. Just a great product will not sell itself.

Selling physical products online has a ton of advantages over selling digital ones. While digital products have their benefits and have their place, nothing quite beats the broad appeal of selling something tangible that people can actually hold in their hands and use.

The problem is that selling physical products online often requires a little more thought than going digital. In this post then, We’ll take a look at some surprisingly easy ways to start a business selling physical products online.

Build A Brand People Will Trust And Buy From

No matter what type of product you intend on selling online and whether or not that product is something you created yourself. It is always crucial that you have a strong brand in order to encourage sales. This is true even if you intend to selling physical products online.

The aim is not only to get people to want to buy a particular product but also to get them to want to buy that product from you. Why would they come to your site to buy what you are selling when they can buy the exact same thing from Amazon? How do you build the trust and familiarity that makes people want to buy from you?

What Is A Brand?

It starts by understanding precisely what a brand is and what it is not. A brand is much more than just a logo and a company name. Instead, your brand is the mission statement that holds your company together and drives you forward. It is the answer to the question:

Why Do You Do What You Do?

This is what a lot of businesses completely misunderstand that in turn is what prevents them from fulfilling their full potential. If the only objective of your brand is to sell products, then it will be uninspiring and uninteresting and no one will have any particular affiliation with you or interest in buying from you over another seller.

We have all been to sites like that: they are bland, plain and completely devoid of passion.

But now think, of the brand that you actually love. They will have a driving motivation behind them and an ethos that you agree with.

Perhaps you like an organic food brand that seems to really care about improving the health of its customers and avoiding that will damage their health. Perhaps they want to make the world a cleaner and more eco-friendly place?

And that makes you want to shop with them. It makes you excited to try out their product recommendations.

Perhaps the brand you love is a weight training brand that’s all about pushing yourself harder and that’s all about grit and determination. If that speaks to you, then you’ll want to wear that logo!

Communicating Your Brand

But it’s one thing to have a real mission statement and passion behind your brand, and it is another entirely thing to communicate that with your audience and to get them to believe you.

So how do you go about doing this and making sure that people really understand what you’re all about?

A good start is to have a logo and a company name that perfectly explains who you are and what you do. This should be designed specifically for a particular target audience. That is to say that you should never try to cater to everyone but rather locater strongly to a particular person.

The aim is that if someone sees just one of your products or blog posts, combined with your company name and your logo, that alone should be enough to tell them that they’ll love your brand and will want to follow it!

Create A Business Selling Physical Products Online

The problem here is that physical products mostly need a little bit more from you. It often requires a little more though than selling digital product.

Let’s Get Physical

• Selling Crafts – One option is to sell crafts. If you have the ability to paint, to make jewelry or to sculpt with clay, then you can turn your hobby into a money making business.
  Simply create your product, take some photos for eBay or Etsy, and then sell them. It really is that easy make  that the product you choose is something you can easily make in volume and that doesn’t have high CoGS (Cost of Goods Sold).
• Reselling – Reselling is the oldest business model in the book. All you’re doing here is ordering large volumes of something at a relatively low price (this is called wholesale) and then selling those items off individually at a profit. Reselling is a very effective way to make money but involves a small amount of risk because you have to buy inventory. If you start small though, you can reinvest your profit and thereby create a fairly reliable business model.
• Affiliate Marketing – Yes, you can sell physical products as an affiliate. And most people reading this will already know that that means getting commission on sales. The best place to find physical products to sell this way is to go to Amazon. Here you can sell pretty much anything you can think of and through a site that most shoppers will already trust.
• Dropshipping – Dropshipping is what many people consider to be the real business model here. This basically means you’re buying through wholesalers but you don’t have to put in bulk orders. Better yet, you don’t need to worry about fulfillment cause the company will do that for you. All you need to do is to sell the products and then pass the details onto the wholesaler that will sell the product. Best of all, some companies will even stay quiet and allow you to take credit for the manufacturing!
• Selling Your Own Product – Finally, you can sell your own mass produced product. For most people, this will mean coming up with an idea, creating a 3D model and then going to manufactures in order to get it made.
  There are different options today though. For example, how about creating your own book with POD (Print On Demand) publishing? Or you could use a 3D printer and print out simple plastic items this way.

Today, it’s easier than ever selling physical products online. So what are you waiting for?

The Big Benefit Of Dropshipping

Dropshipping has a huge number of benefits. Perhaps the most obvious is simply that it allows you to sell real, physical products online without having to worry about manufacturing, storage or delivery. It has the advantages of selling an affiliate product or a digital product in this way but you get access to a much bigger list of useful, tangible items.

But that’s not really the biggest benefit of dropshipping. Rather, there is an even bigger and more impressive advantage that comes from using this business model and it’s all to do with your branding.

Why Brands Matter

When you have a strong brand, it means that you have an ethos. A mission statement and a style. It means that when people buy from you, they’ll know what to expect and they’ll feel more confident to do so as a result. It you find a brand you like dealing with, then you’ll always pick them over other options.

Building your brand and reputation is incredibly important here. It will both help you to get repeat business while at the same time bringing more people into the fold. Eventually, a great brand will have loyal fans and this way, they can make money selling practically anything! Today more and more businesses understand this and this is why content marketing has quickly become the most popular form of internet marketing around.

Why You Are Diluting Your Brand

But if you’re currently selling an affiliate product, then you might be unintentionally diluting your brand and damaging your reputation. Right now, you’re encouraging people to buy products through an affiliate link. To do so, they must click the link, go to the site of a product creator, and then buy a product. The product creator will then send that product to the buyer.

The problem with this is firstly that they are leaving your site. It you have a store with multiple items, then it’s unlike they are going to come back to brows the rest of the store once they have bought the first product.

What’s more, is that the company they actually bought from will be far more memorable then the company that referred them. If they bough through Amazon, they they will remember they like dealing with Amazon and not you.

With dropshipping though, the vendor stays out of the way and they never have any dealing with them directly. They order from you and the product arrives.

This creates a strong psychological difference as they now feel as though they’ve really buying from you. And if they like the product and experience, they’ll want to buy from you again.

Some companies go even further than this by offering a white label service. This means that they will actually allow you to put your brand on the product. Printing it on a previously white labe so that you customers think the item belongs to you will do much for your brand. Some white label dropshippers will even let you choose what goes into the product if it’s a health supplement for instance!

Starting Your Dropshipping Business

Finding a dropshipping wholesaler is one of teh very best forms of business model fro those looking to make easy money.

Essentially, dropshipping means that you are selling products and then passing on the details of those sales to wholesalers. They then ship the items out to the people who bought them through you and you share the profit.

This is a nearly flawless system because it means you don’t need to worry about storing the products, about fulfilment or about manufacturing. There’s not even an upfront investment. At the same time though, the company you’re selling your items through will remain quiet and unseen and you’ll get all the credit for selling the items through your own store.

But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing that can go wrong. And it doesn’t mean you should abandon all caution.

Here are some tips that will help you ensure your new business ventures goes smoothly.

Be Vary Of Fake Dropshipping Businesses

There are some companies out there posing as dropshipping companies that aren’t the real deal. These companies will often buy the froduct from wholesalers and then dropship them to you. That means that you’re paying an inflated price which will hurt your bottom line as well as your turnover.

One thing to be careful of is companies that also sell to the general public. Another warning sign is that the company is asking for a recurring monthly fee. Real companies don’t do this.

Know What To Expect

That said, you ma still have to jump through some hoops when setting up a legitimate partner. One issue is that they might require proof that you’re relly a reseler. Otherwise they might be worried you’re just a commercial customer looking for the best possible deal.

Something else they might require is a minimum preorder before you can start selling physical products online. This is to avoid time wasting companies that will do a lot of talking but then never pass on any significant business. This isn’t great if you’re trying to aviod upfront investment but it may be necessary evil. To avoid having lots of inventory lying around though, ask them if they can use it to set up some credit with their store.

Check Quality

Never sell products from your site blind! Not only will your customers be unhappy but it can also damage your reputation and prevent tehm from buying from you again in future. Always ask to see at least one example of the product that you can check over and speak to a representative about what quality control measures they have in place to avoid problems.

Choose The Right Product

Of course it’s also rather important that youbuy the right stock. This will vay depending on your industry ov course but a good place to start is by looking for something that solves a smple and concise problem that you customers have. This will be easy for you to communicate and explain, which makes it an ideal place to start if you’re opening up a new store.

Wrapping Up

Selling physical products online is a great business model if you want your own online business. It is also a business model you can make great money from.

Dropshipping must be the most ideal business model if you dont want any storage and ship the products by yourself. Follow the tips in this blog post and you will be much closer to your own business. There are some things you should know and be ware of, especially fake dropshipping businesses. If they not are a real dropshipping company it will hurt your bottom line as well as your turnover.

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