Due to Covid-19, this year, Black Friday will likely be even bigger than usual because social distancing has encouraged people to shop online rather than go to their local stores. So, if you’re in dropshipping, this is your time to shine!

When is Black Friday in 2020?

First, let’s get down with the basics. Black Friday is the Friday after Thanksgiving. This year, Black Friday is going to happen on November 27th. It’s also more than a one-day event.

Black Friday goes together with Cyber Monday, another sales day that happens on the Monday after Thanksgiving. You may have already seen such an abbreviation: BFCM – it stands for “Black Friday Cyber Monday.”

Below are the most important days to remember when getting ready for your 2020 Black Friday campaign.

Thanksgiving: November 26
Black Friday: November 27
Cyber Monday: November 30

To give you a head start, we gathered 4 tips on how to get ready for Black Friday and attract as many customers as possible. Let’s dig in!

1. Review your most important product pages

If you’re going to put a lot of effort into bringing traffic to your store, make sure your shop’s visitors are happy with what they see. So, before you even start planning your Black Friday advertising strategy, you need to review your most important product pages. To do that, you should put yourself into your potential customer’s shoes.

Ask yourself these questions when evaluating your product pages:

• Are my product pages easy to navigate? 
• Is it quick to find more information about the items I’m selling? 
• Is my internal site search optimized?
• Are my call-to-action buttons (“buy here”, “add to cart”) visible and clear?
• Are my product descriptions interesting and catchy? Do they convince my potential buyers that the products in question will make their lives better?
• Do my product photos look professional and nice?
• Do I have any negative product reviews I should take care of?

Images of your products and their descriptions are the key elements of your product page. Here are a few extra tips on how to improve them.

Improve your product images

Not always do the images of the products your dropshipping suppliers provide look great. Also, your competitors may dropship the same or very similar items. So, if you want to beat your competitors during Black Friday and convince shoppers to buy from you, you need to stand out with the way you present the products you’re selling.

The best thing to do is take professional photos of the products yourself. This way, you can show your product in action, in a real environment. You can even have a thematic Black Friday photoshoot for your product bundles.

However, if you don’t have enough time to take real photos of your most sold items, try to make the best with the images you already have. For example, you could hire a freelancer to edit your product photos with a photo editor like Photoshop for the best look.

Resource: find more information on how to make your product images generate sales here.

3 tips on writing great product descriptions

Black Friday shoppers tend to be impulse buyers. They may not be looking for something, but if they catch an enticing headline, they’ll probably be interested. So, review your product descriptions to see if they “sell.” 

1. Speak to a person

You’re probably not selling to everyone. Your different products have different types of customers. Think of who would benefit the most from your product, why they should buy from you instead of your competitor.

2. Sell a dream

Instead of describing the amazing features of the product you want to sell, focus on what can be achieved with it. In other words, don’t just sell a watch, sell the idea of never being late to important meetings again. A good idea would be to adapt to the new lifestyle we all live in (“Never be late to a Zoom meeting again”).

3. Cause urgency

Use phrases like limited time only, sold out soon, in high demand to urge shoppers to press the “add to cart” button. It’s a classic move, yet it still works! 

Once you have your main product pages polished, it’s time to move on to your Black Friday advertising plans.

TIP: If you want to go the extra mile and rank on Google for your Black Friday campaign, 1) look at what people are searching for with Google’s Keyword Planner, and 2) optimize your product descriptions for the main keywords you want to be found for. 

2. Invest more in your best-selling channels

Don’t just straight up jump into doubling your spending on Facebook ads just because everyone is doing so during Black Friday. Before you get your wallet out, first check which channels bring you the most value for your dropshipping business.

Research by sixads of more than 60,000 stores has shown that website traffic and revenue sources are not the same among different store categories. What works for apparel & accessories store owners may not necessarily work for merchants who are selling pet supplies. 

First, we advise you to check which channels (Facebook, Google, email, or other) bring the most traffic and customers in your product category. Then, compare the findings with what you see in your store. For example, if you have a Shopify store, you can see where you get your money from in your Shopify analytics.

Another way to check how you’re doing is to look at your Google Analytics. If you don’t have this tool installed yet, we strongly recommend you do so. It can help you to see in detail where your customers come from, what actions they take on your online store, how much time they spend looking at your products, where they drop out, and so on.

Once you find the channels that give you the most value, you can be confident about doubling your ad spend on them for your Black Friday campaign. If your Google ads perform well on a regular day, they sure will on Black Friday!

3. Monitor your competitors

You don’t want to copy-paste everything your competitors do. But it’s a good idea to know what they’re up to so you could make sure you’re not left behind (and get some inspiration for your own Black Friday campaign). 

Below are some tips on how to keep an eye on your competitors.

Subscribe to their newsletters

Businesses tend to start warming up their customers to an upcoming Black Friday campaign beforehand. By being on your competitors’ email list, you’ll be one of the first to know what they are planning to do and when. 

Check their social media

Gather the list of your main competitors’ social media handles and add them to a social media planning and monitoring tool like Hootsuite (they have a free plan available). This way, you won’t have to manually scroll through your competitors’ social media to see what they’re up to. Instead, you’ll see their feeds in one place and be able to see how they promote their Black Friday deals.

Track their ads

It’s also a good idea to be aware of what kind of ads your competitors are running. You will have a clear idea of how they advertise their Black Friday campaign. This information will help you to build even better campaigns for your products. There are plenty of tools that can help you check what kind of ads your competitors are running. One of such tools is BigSpy (there’s a free plan available).

4. Warm-up your customers 

Don’t just start your Black Friday campaign on the actual Black Friday. The key to success is to get people excited about the upcoming discounts for your products upfront. Here are some ideas on how to warm-up your customers for your Black Friday campaign.

Set a countdown timer on your store

Countdown timers are a great way to add urgency when you have a big sale coming. They are also very visual, and animation makes them even more effective.

Image source: yourcountdown.to

Use SMS marketing to boost your subscribers’ list 

SMS marketing is a great channel to increase the number of potential buyers in your database before your Black Friday campaign. For example, you can use an SMS marketing keyword campaign. It’s a very straightforward approach, and that’s the beauty of it. Simply decide on your keyword, e.g. BlackFriday2020, and spread the word across your channels about an exclusive opportunity to receive special Black Friday deals. Ask people to text you that keyword to your business number, and you’ll start gathering contact info of a warmed-up audience.

Send Black Friday email campaigns early

Emails are a great way to build buzz around your upcoming Black Friday campaign. It’s a good idea to start sending them a few weeks before the start of your Black Friday sale. It’s also a good channel to send exclusive offers. For example, you could make your email subscribers feel special by letting them know that they’ll be the first ones to be able to use your special discounts before everyone else can. Chances are, they will do just that!

Resource: Want to up your game with email campaigns? Check this blog post and learn how to dominate email marketing.

Retarget your store’s visitors

If you have a Facebook pixel set up on your dropshipping store, you can use it to inform your past visitors or customers about the upcoming Black Friday campaign. If someone has bought from you already or thought of buying, they’re likely to return for a big discount if you remind them of yourself.

To wrap it up

Though it may seem a lot at first, preparing for a Black Friday campaign boils down to these four simple steps:

1. Know what you want to sell and present those products nicely.
2. Find the channels that drive you the biggest profit and use them.
3. Keep an eye on your competitors so they wouldn’t leave you behind.
4. Let your customers know of your upcoming Black Friday campaign in advance so they would be waiting for it.

In the end, it’s all pretty easy to achieve as long as you divide those four steps into smaller tasks. Most important of them being – make sure your store looks trustworthy and your products are well-presented. Otherwise, what’s the point of driving all that traffic with your Black Friday advertising campaign if your visitors don’t make a purchase? Take care of your customer experience, and you’ll be just fine!

We're all familiar with the saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover”. But the hard truth is that, in today's digital world, consumers tend to act based on their first impressions with an e-commerce store's look.

It's hard to say we haven't visited a website and then leave it in a few seconds because it just looks… ugly. Not to mention millions of distractions in life that can drive visitors away from an uninteresting website.

As an e-commerce business owner, you need to capture customers' attention right from the start. And your website design plays a vital role in it.

That's why it is important to pick the best theme for your online store. The theme will influence the layout and overall look and feel of your store, as well as sending a positive message to make visitors purchase.

We will look at things to consider when picking the best theme for your e-commerce store and also some websites to find that perfect match – so your business and products can shine in a well-deserved light.

What is a theme

A theme for an e-commerce store is a pre-designed template that brands can install on their sites to deliver the best user experience possible for their customers.

This is different from building a store in the traditional way, which is done from scratch and often involves designers, web developers, or more. A theme can let you create a store's foundation within minutes, which you can build and change by yourself later.

Using e-commerce themes can be an affordable option for online stores as you can avoid web design and development costs. If you are looking for a way to create a beautiful, user-friendly website without extensive coding or hiring a developing agency, a theme is a great option for you.

The benefits of having the best theme

That said, you still might be wondering why you even have to pay for a theme. Why does it matter what colors your website has?

The fact is that your online store's theme is what encapsulates your brand, products, and services. By having an excellent visual presentation of your business and everything you stand for, your store immediately leaves a better impression with visitors.

Plus, the best theme can significantly affect your store's performance in terms of trustworthiness, conversion rates, retention rates, and more. Based on research, 38% of visitors will stop browsing a website if the layout is unattractive. And you have only about 5 seconds to leave an impression and tell what you have to offer before a visitor leaves your site.

Created by professional website designers, themes often have different research to support how they are styled.

For example, Internet users often scan a website in an F shaped pattern. This means websites with a strong header and a left sidebar are more intuitive for visitors. If you design your website from the beginning, you may not know which elements to include or not to optimize the site's performance.

Not to mention, theme options are endless, with many marketplaces and styles to choose from. You also get automatic updates and support to stay on top of best practices for modern design standards, technology, conversion, and SEO without even spending time checking.

How to pick the best theme for an e-commerce store

When picking the best theme for your e-commerce store, here are the steps that you should follow to check off every section of a suitable layout for your website.

1. Decide the essential features

A beautiful website doesn't equal conversions. Consumers today expect enhanced UX features when they shop online. They want a good shopping experience out of your store, not just flashy pictures or videos. So, take a step back and brainstorm. What essential features does your online store absolutely need to have?

Here are some of the features that the best theme designs should include:

• Simple checkout process
• Mobile-responsive design
• Full-width design
• Cross-sell and upsell features (best-selling products, catalog, recommended items, etc.)
• Fast loading times – less than 3 seconds on any device
• Clean code building
• Compatibility with e-commerce apps and plug-ins
• Product detail variation features
• Navigation and guided search (mega menu).

If you have anything to add, make a list to keep by your side in the next steps while you browse different types of themes to select the best option based on your requirements.

2. Research competitors' stores

Do you want to stand out among your competitors? Then at this step, do some research to see what they have out there. By researching your competitors' online stores, you will have two insights. First, you will get some idea of what features to expect in your industry. Second, you can learn what to avoid from bad-designed stores.

Use this knowledge of your competitor to choose a theme that allows you to create an outstanding and unique user experience for your brand. There are some tools that you can use to detect a theme used by a website on a specific platform, for example:

• Shopify: Shopify Theme Detector 
• WordPress: WordPress Theme Detector
• Other platforms: BuiltWith

3. Think of the content strategy

At this step, you'll need to think about how to approach your content. You may be thinking, why is content important to my website design?

Knowing what type of content your website will display can help your business determine which themes will best support it. After all, you are aiming for great user experience, and content is what visitors will consume the most out of your site.

Here are some content materials to consider:

• User-Generated Content (UGC).
• Blog posts.
• Product images and videos.
• Social media.
• Featured image.

The key is to understand your preferred content. What you're going to add pictures and text to your website, and will your theme support those with available spots and look good?

If your theme focuses on huge beautiful photos with text overlays and you don't have anything of that sort, you may want to move on to a simpler option. Testing and experimenting are essential to get things right.

4. View your products on the theme

As you browse through different themes, you should also test how your product looks on each template. Theme designers often insert premium product images into their themes, which will look beautiful and perfectly match their style.

You can try to recreate this using images of your own products, but if you are not familiar with the design, the result may not be the same as what you see in the theme preview. For example, the templates often have products with white background and high resolution, which may be limited due to your resources.

If you currently don't have high-quality product images, it's best to avoid templates with large sections of the product image. It is not about picking the best-looking theme; it is about finding the best theme for your product and brand.

5. Make sure all brand elements look good

Your website should be self-explanatory so that potential customers can understand your product quickly and take action faster. This leads us to another important task: during the shopping experience, customers should have a clear sense of your brand. There are a few things to note about brand elements, such as:

• Your logo should look clear with the shape fitting the theme's layout
• The theme's color palette should match your brand guidelines
• Call-to-action buttons are really important, make sure your prospects can't miss them
• Other social media profiles should be accessible with the theme layout
• Call or message buttons are a good feature, but they should match your design as well

6. Check the theme support

Support is another important factor that you need to consider when deciding on your best theme. Free or paid, your theme needs to have direct support from the developing team. So if you end up with any problems, you can contact their teams and ask for help.

There are many e-commerce platforms available nowadays, so you should be able to find theme marketplaces and pick the most suitable options. Here are some websites you can check out:

• Shopify Theme Store: With over 70 beautifully-designed free and paid themes, Shopify Theme Store is a great place for store owners to kick start their businesses. The support is great too.
• WooCommerce Theme Store: Built on WordPress, WooCommerce has much flexibility for stores to design the sites with 20 free and paid themes available.
• BigCommerce Theme Store: As another easy-to-use e-commerce platform, BigCommerce offers all kinds of themes that can make an attractive e-commerce store.
• ThemeForest: Having thousands of website templates and themes, ThemeForest has themes for many platforms to choose from and suit many types of e-commerce industries.
• Template Monster: Same as Theme Forest, Template Monster is a general theme marketplace with over 16 thousand templates for many e-commerce platforms.

Final advice

Building an e-commerce store isn't a simple process; you may face many obstacles to create a truly great customer experience. But having a beautiful and functional template can be a good starting point. With this article on how to pick the best theme for your e-commerce store, you can create an amazing-looking website that is enjoyable and profitable.

Thanks for reading, and let me know if you have any questions in the comments section!

This is especially true if one thinks how easily Facebook ads can lead conversion dreams into fruition:

(Source)

Social media platforms are the first thing a consumer checks out before purchasing something or even before they decide what they’d like to purchase in any given situation.

This means that you’ll need a very strong digital presence when it comes to e-commerce. You’ll manage to craft that by using all tools at your disposal, from social media marketing tools to free email marketing services.

But before you jump into studying all about Facebook ad analytics, perhaps you need to steal some e-commerce ads inspiration for Facebook for 2020.

First Things First

You need to know a thing or two about Facebook ads in general, before going forth with creating your own set of Facebook ads for your e-commerce endeavors.

Facebook’s got a network of apps where one can advertise a business. You can run an ad for your e-commerce store for Instagram and Facebook Messenger as well, but you’ll need to check a few things first:

1. How is your audience using each platform? Know how to test audiences on Facebook.
2. Where does the majority of your audience’s activity take place?
3. What type of content does your audience seem to interact with, more?

In order to answer those questions, you’ll need to make sure you understand your data and your competitors’ moves.

Study their ads first and make sure to identify the key components that make a difference-and make those ads convert, potentially. It could be the copy, it could be the visuals or, it could be the fact that your video ad is lacking something.

There is a general consensus though, that you should keep in mind:

• Facebook ads need to be very well-written with very clear visuals that pop and aren’t “too much”. The principle for 2020 is that less is more when it comes to ads.
• “Popping”, intense colors work best for brands that have a younger audience. Make sure to use hot pinks and neons but bold, simple typography at the same time.
• Investing in social media management tools will be of great help further down the line, as they’ll help you discover relevant content, schedule posts and build your brand-and therefore your brand’s tone, the types of content and ads you want and all that jazz.
• UGC works for anyone and everyone. Using influencer marketing to your advantage may come at a price, but social networks and their users love it. This type of content seems natural, it feels native and it just fits. Not to mention that it seems like anyone can do it.
• Facebook ads are engaging, so long as you use them correctly. Users can interact with your ad, either by liking and commenting on your post or by sharing your ad, allowing you to delve into referral marketing as well.

Pro tip: Top your referral marketing strategy off with a landing page and a discount code and check out more referral program examples for more inspiration!

• Your videos need to have two things: optimal length according to medium and consumer age and, most importantly, subtitles. Most people view videos on mute nowadays, so you’ll need subtitles and visuals that indicate sound wherever needed-if, for example, the video is starring an animal or a small child.

But enough with those. Let’s go see the best Facebook e-commerce ads and check why they converted.

For the Carousel Ads Category: Pura Vida

A carousel ad is one that contains a lot of images and sometimes a video or a GIF will be perfectly and cleverly placed just to keep the ad itself from being monotonous.

A carousel ad is there to demonstrate multiple products as a replacement for an actual video ad, like those one would watch on the television.

Pura Vida Bracelets decided to go with this format on their Facebook ads campaign and they couldn’t have made a better choice. Just take a look:

(Source)

According to Facebook itself, this carousel ad was so successful that the brand sold 20 times as many products. But why did this work?

As you can see for yourself, there is nothing “too much” with this carousel ad format. The pictures are simple, the prices are there and everything is clickable. However, what binds it all together is the copy.

It’s socially conscious and it bakes in the brand’s main goal-to do good and to support artisans globally, allowing the user to understand the difference they can make when buying one of their products.

Oh, and of course, I should mention the emojis. Emojis work perfectly for Facebook ads, as posts with emojis generally perform better.

Carousel ads are perfect for all types of e-commerce stores-and, frankly, they’re my favorite out of the Facebook ad category. 

They’re great for UGC, great for customer testimonials, and even greater for showing off the wide variety of your products. Thus increasing the likelihood of the consumer finding something they actually love.

For the Plain Image Category: Dollar Shave Club

Single image ads for Facebook e-commerce ads are more or less the oldest trick in the book. They’ve been around forever and sometimes they’re the ones that convert, provided they’re used correctly.

Use them if you’re unsure of how to get started with advertising your e-commerce store on Facebook.

Now, here’s one of the best examples of plain image (aka single image) ads for e-commerce I’ve seen on Facebook:

(Source)

All the way from 2016, this is an oldie but goldie, just like Dollar Shave Club’s viral landing page video, released in 2012.

Dollar Shave Club sells razors-a product that is mainly marketed “for men”. But in this ad, we can see something rare that transcends gender marketing and aims towards a more gender-neutral approach, thus doubling the purchasing opportunities.

The fantastic thing about this ad is its simplicity. Moreover, the lack of gender-specific colors is a direct “bashing” at Gillette, whose “Venus” pink razor is marketed as a women-specific product.

The copy, combined with the image, creates a pretty powerful message. Being so inclusive can only work to a brand’s advantage while approaching a slice of the audience’s pie that didn’t seem to be important at first glance.

Studying your data is of utmost importance for this type of ad, as well as creating up-to-date buyer personas.

For the Facebook Messenger Category: Sephora

Facebook Messenger ads are fairly new and pretty effective when it comes to conversion. They come in three categories: 

Ads that are on your app’s home screen, ads that are in your inbox as a sponsored message, and lastly, ads on your Facebook homepage that link to a Facebook Messenger chat.

The one I’ve bumped into the most and the one that feels less intrusive is the Click-to-Messenger one. This type of ad is the one found on your Facebook’s homepage. Its CTA is not “See More” or “Buy Now”, as in most cases.

For Click-to-Messenger ads, the CTA you’ll see will be “Send us a Message”, in most cases. And now, let’s talk about my favorite case: Sephora.

(Source)

The beauty part of e-commerce is always one step ahead, and that is no lie. Sephora was one of the first ones to utilize Click-to-Messenger ads.

As you can see, the image is simple, the CTA is clear and, to make sure that there is no confusion, the Messenger icon is right there where everyone can see it.

By clicking on the “Book Now” CTA, the prospect was presented with the following message:

You can see that there are three options available. That way, the prospect won’t think twice about what they need. It’s right in front of them, after all!

In this case, this ad worked because of two main reasons: 

• The clear copy. No ifs, no buts, book now for a full face. There is no hidden catch.
• The message on Facebook messenger. Very simple, goes straight to the point, and doesn’t tire the prospect with more questions than necessary.

According to Forbes’ interview with Deborah Yeh, SVP of Marketing and Brand at Sephora, this practice brought an 11% increase in bookings-and thus, more conversion.

For the Video Ads Category: MeUndies

Video ads are almost too common nowadays on Facebook and its partner companies-Instagram and Messenger, that is.

Video keeps rising exponentially as a medium and with good reason. Videos are way more likely to capture the actual use, look, and feel of a product. This is why e-commerce product videos are so common and sought after as a tactic.

Facebook allows more long-form videos, while Instagram’s best-performing feature, Instagram Stories, allows 12 seconds, that are more than enough to demonstrate all of the reasons for someone to buy your product.

MeUndies is one of those e-commerce brands that decided to use video to their advantage. Needless to say that they did not regret it.

(Source)

This tagline is one of those that can stick around for ages and actually goes well with an ad that shows rapid changes of clothes in a youthful environment. There are products on display right beneath the video for anyone that wants to look into the brand further.

In general, Facebook video ads are perfect for e-commerce, because they can display variety. Whether we’re talking about products or uses, even testimonials for said products. And videos engage, attracting more attention than plain posts and photos.

But back to the point. Apart from being fun and creative while demonstrating the products in the best way possible, MeUndies’ video itself was fast loading and optimized for mobile, converting both mobile and desktop buyers alike-by 40%, no less.

The Takeaway

While creative marketing is fairly easy to happen when it comes to Facebook ads, especially for something as diverse as e-commerce, it’s important to not overdo it.

You’ll need to have some creative but concise copy that your audience can understand. Dynamic CTAs with actionable verbs that pinpoint exactly what the user has to do. Visuals that won’t feel overbearing. Fast-loading ads and videos that won’t tire anyone out.

But the most important thing of all would be to always A/B test and study your data vigorously, ideally using an AI tool. That way, you’ll be able to create personas on a one-on-one basis: one for each customer.

This will allow you to re-evaluate your customer base, your personas and, eventually, create more ads that sell to more people.

Why is dropshipping products from the US a viable alternative to dropshipping products from overseas (ie AliExpress)? 

Using our experience at Dropified, we’ve narrowed down 3 key issues dropshippers face when adding products to their online store:

• Unpredictable Shipping Times
• Product Quality (Hit or Miss)
• Unknown Supplier Trust & Reliability

1. Dropshipping Products From The US = Faster Shipping Times

Let’s be honest, customers want their products in their hands as soon as possible. Most dropshippers would agree that keeping customers happy and assured is one of the biggest challenges to overcome when dropshipping products from overseas. 

When dropshipping products are shipped from popular suppliers in China through AliExpress, it is not uncommon for a package to take 10-21 days (or more) to be delivered to a customer.

Now although there are ways to bandaid ‘longer shipping times’, customers do get impatient as they wait for their order to arrive. Without proper communication, not only are there higher risks of chargebacks, but buyers are quickly primed into becoming unhappy customers who leave negative reviews.

This is why dropshipping products from the US is a perfect opportunity to overcome the ongoing challenges of 

• eliminating longer shipping times, 
• creating more reliable tracking options, and 
• creating happier customers. 

A happy customer’s review, afterall, is the one of the most effective elements you can use in your marketing strategy. 

2. US Manufacturers Have A Reputation For Producing Higher Quality Products

According to Consumer Reports, 80% of Americans prefer products that are “Made in the USA”. Not only that, but 60% said they would be willing to pay 10% more for a product that is made in the USA.

Why is this? 

One of the reasons is product quality. In fact, 66% of Americans said they associate “Made in the USA” with higher quality.

Prove Product Quality By Testing Your Dropshipping Products

In order to properly test dropshipping products, it’s important to place an order, and see the product quality yourself. 

If you’re ordering a test product from overseas, prepare for it to be weeks before you know if the product matches your supplier’s description of quality, photos and shipping timelines.

However, if you are sourcing products from the US, you have the opportunity to condense that timeline, and not only test, but also list the product on your store in a matter of days.

Prove Product Quality By Testing The Manufacturing Process

Being in closer proximity to your manufacturer has a greater impact on the overall quality of the entire process. This is because, issues that may arise are caught and corrected quicker – saving you more time and money in the long run.

3. Supplier Trust & Reliability Can Make Or Break Your Business

Establishing clear communication with your supplier is key to developing trust and reliability. It’s both trust & reliability in your supplier that greatly impacts the level of success you will have in your dropshipping business. 

If you’re unsure of whether or not a supplier is trustworthy and reliable, you will overcome this challenge simply by knowing how to ask the right questions.

Verify Supplier Background

• How long have they been in business?                  
• Can they provide you with some references?
• Can they provide a company registration number? 
• Do they have feedback and/or ratings available to review online?
• Have you searched online for feedback on their company and/or products?
• How quickly do they respond to questions/inquiries, etc?
• How do you feel about their responsiveness in terms of time to get a response and the quality of their responses?

Supplier Shipping Options

• Do they offer blind branding (blind product brand and shipping boxes and labels) so that your buyers don’t know who is fulfilling the order?
• Do they offer tracking so that you can provide that information to your customers?
• Do they accept refunds directly from your customers?
• How do they handle product quality issues and questions you may have?

Supplier Payment Terms

• Do they have a minimum order and/or sales amounts to continue working with them? If so, how much do they require to be sold and in what specific amount of time?
• How do they require payments to be made and when?
• Can you pay as you place each order or do you pay one bill each month or on some other time frame? 
• Can you pay via credit card or do they require bank wires?

Supplier Inventory

• How much inventory do they have on hand?                         
• How many other sellers are selling these same products? 
• How long will it take them to replenish stock? 
• Will they alert you if they are near to selling out and/or when they sell out?
• Do they have safety measures in place to ensure they never run out of inventory, no matter how quickly the products sell?
• How quickly do they ship products out once you place your order?
• What are their shipping times?

Additional trust-boosters for working with suppliers in the US is that they are often held to a higher standard when it comes to important issues like:

• Manufacturing Emission Policies, 
• Shipping, Warranty & Return Policies, and
• Quality Control.

This kind of information is valuable to pass on to your customers too!

One final thought on reliability is this. 

When dropshipping products from the US, reliability is boosted when your supplier is in (or close to) your own timezone. As mentioned earlier, this is because you have the advantage of collectively addressing and resolving issues with your trusted supplier within hours, instead of days or weeks. 

In Conclusion

If you’re looking to source dropshipping products from the US, we have a number of additional resources to help you in your quest for creating happier customers by eliminating longer shipping times, and offering higher quality products from trusted and reliable US suppliers.

Resources

• How To Find US Based Dropshipping Suppliers
• How To Start A Supplement Business in 7 Proven Steps
• Comparing The Top 5 Private Label Supplement Manufacturers 
• What Are The Alternatives To AliExpress For Dropshipping

That is why having great search engine optimization is important. In this blog post I’ll go over all of the ins and outs of Shopify SEO and how you can get it to start working for you in your Shopify store using tools built into every theme and store you make.

What is SEO?

SEO or search engine optimization is almost exactly what it sounds like. It is optimizing your website with keywords so you can start ranking in search engine results. The higher you score with keywords and phrases, the higher you get pushed up the rankings. 

How Does This Work?

Search engines index and scrape data from websites so that when a user searches for a particular word or phrase, the search engine can return a list of relevant search results.

When a user seeks out a product or website by themselves without directly interacting with an advertisement, this is called organic traffic.

How Are Websites Ranked?

There are a few different ways websites are ranked, but below are a few of the major ones.

Number Of Links On Other Sites That Direct Back To Your Store Naturally, Not Paid For

• These can be shoutouts or publicity or reviews. Pretty much anything that points back to your site that is not paid for is in this category and is called a backlink.
• Whether good or bad, it just needs to be directly linked.

Authority Of Website Based On Engagement And Other Factors

If people are on your site, buying products, commenting on articles, sharing your page, pretty much interacting and using your site in any way, you are gaining authority.

Age of Domain Name

New domain names can be tough to build authority around at first because there won’t be backlinks or equity that come with them brand new. A new domain is basically starting from scratch.

If you buy an old domain name with lots of equity and links pointing to it from external sources, you can get more authority right off the bat

However, buying an old, abandoned domain name does not guarantee huge traffic right off the bat, it is just another factor.

You also might pay more for a domain name with a lot of equity attached to it, it really depends on what you are willing to pay and how much it will help you.

Content Optimized For Search Engines

There really isn’t much you can do about most of the search ranking factors at first, but you have tons of control over the content you produce and make public on your site/store (this is the bulk of what we will be covering in this blog post).

Improving SEO

In order to make SEO work for you, you need to get inside the head of users and think about the keywords and phrases they would be searching for in order to find you.

To be effective, take time and write down keywords. Do research about trending keywords and phrases that are not yet taken advantage of that are also well-related to your site.

Think about the products you sell and get specific describing them

Take an example as simple as paper, and think of the keywords that go along with it:

Type:

• Craft
  • Color
    • Brown
    • White  
    • cream
  • Amount
    • 50 lbs.
    • 100 lbs.
  • Use-case
    • Water-resistant
    • Painting
    • For working with clay on
• Printer (for)
  • Inkjet printer paper
  • Laser printer paper
  • HP printers
  • Canon printers
• Photo
  • glossy 
  • matte
• Construction
  • Color
    • Assorted
    • blue 
    • Green
    • Red
    • pink
• Cardstock
  • Thicknesses
    • How many grams?

With the example above, you can see how granular you can start getting when you are trying to consider very specific details about things as simple as paper.

After you brainstorm and figure out great keywords and phrases to use, you need to implement them into product listings in the form of titles, descriptions, alternate text for product photos and filenames for the photos you upload.

• Remember to keep all of your keywords relevant and to make your descriptions and titles concise, accurate and coherent. You want to pack them with keywords and phrases, but you don’t want your text to look like a jumbled mess.
  
  Overloading inaccurate keywords can make your customer question whether or not the product is actually what it says it is.

• Photos you upload should have accurate file names instead of random strings of characters.
• Alternate text for photos should explain what is displayed in the photo in a descriptive manner.
• Another way to get keywords into your product listing is through making a custom URL for each product listing with the title or specific keywords in it.

SEO Tools Built Into Shopify

Shopify automatically generates a sitemap that you can submit to search engines to index and crawl your site for relevant keywords.

Shopify automatically generates robots.txt that tells search engines which of your sites to crawl and which ones are hidden from indexing (you can specifically hide certain URLs).

Themes have a lot of functions built into them that help your SEO by default.

• Social media support is built in so you can link your accounts as well as add buttons for easy sharing when customers are on your site
• Themes will generate keywords for all headers and store names.

Shopify lets you easily edit the search title and meta description for your store home as well as all products and pages you have.

Submitting Your Sitemap To Google Search Console

Submitting your sitemap to the Google Search Console lets you index your site for keywords and phrases. It basically makes Google aware of the content of your site so that you can start getting traffic.

NOTE: Before this will work, you need to remove the password from your store. To do this:

• Log into Dropified
• On the dashboard, choose “Online Store” from the left-hand-side menu.
• Choose “Preferences” from the menu, and scroll down to where you find the “Password Protection” section.
• Make sure the box that enables it is unchecked.

How to submit your website to the Google Search Console:

• Log into Shopify and go to the theme section on the left-hand-side menu under the Online Store tab.
• Go to your active theme, and under the “Actions” tab, press “Edit code”
• Once the code editor opens, go to “theme.liquid” section under “Layout” (here you will need to paste some code from Google).
• Go to the Google Search Console by going to “https://search.google.com/search-console/welcome”
  
• Enter your primary domain name under the option “URL Prefix”
  
  You will be prompted that the website needs to be verified before you can upload your sitemap and will be taken to a variety of options that tell you how to verify.
  
• Scroll to the option that says “HTML Tag.”
  
  Here you will get a unique code you need to copy and paste into your theme.liquid file we had opened from before.

• Copy the code and paste it right below the <head> tag in the theme.liquid file

• Press save to save the code in your store and leave the theme.
• Go back to Google Search Console and press the “Verify” button to confirm that you own your store.
• Once you get the green confirmation screen, press “Go to Property” at the bottom of the pop-up window.

• On the console dashboard, select “Sitemaps” from the menu on the left.
• In the blank spot next to your domain, type “sitemap.xml” and press “Submit.”

• Beneath that area, where it says “Submitted Sitemaps,” your sitemap should appear. If it worked, you should see “Success” under the “Status screen.”

If the idea of dropship bundles is foreign to you then you’re in for a real treat as the rest of this article will focus on ideas for how you can use them to raise your AOV and maximize profits on every sale!

What are Dropship Bundles? 

The concept of bundling products is nothing new and retailers have been doing it for decades. In its most basic form a bundle is simply the act of combining 2 or more products that would normally be sold separately together as a package deal in an effort to get the customer to spend more than if he/she was to just purchase one item. 

The idea of dropship bundles is super simple, yet it can be a challenge sometimes to find the right combination of items to create a compelling enough offer that people actually see the value in it and want to purchase the bundle rather than just simply getting the one item they initially came for. 

So let’s take a look at some specific ideas for creating dropship bundles that should help you craft a winning product combination that your customers will get excited about. 

Dropship Bundle Ideas

Multiples of the same

The easiest way to get started creating dropship bundles is to just offer them more of the same product. It’s amazing how many people miss this concept. We entrepreneurs and marketers tend to complicate things, but the truth is many times it’s the simple ideas and concepts that have the greatest impact. 

That said, in order to apply this idea I suggest you make a quick list of all the top selling or popular items on your store. Then simply create a new bundle offer that seeks to give them more than one but at a discounted price. 

You may have to get creative to entice them to choose the bundle offer over just getting one, but I’ll cover a few ideas to help get your creative juices flowing a little further down the page so be sure to keep reading. 

Complimentary items

Of course there are more ways to create compelling dropship bundles than just offering the same product to them. In some cases depending on what you are selling that wouldn’t be the best course of action anyways. 

The second and most obvious way to bundle products to boost sales is to pair products that are related together. Think hamburger and fries, a razor with shaving cream, a pillow case with matching bedspread or sheets. I think you get the idea. 

Just like in the first example above you should look through your site and take note of your best selling and most popular products and ask yourself do any of these go together to make a good bundle? 

If you’re struggling with ideas head over to Amazon and look for products like yours or similar. Then pay close attention to that little section Amazon always displays on their product listing pages called “Frequently Bought Together” 

That section alone is a goldmine of information that will give you a pretty good idea of what other products people buy at the same time. Use this info to build your dropship bundles and start increasing that AOV. 

How to Present Your Bundle Offer

Now that we’ve covered how to come up with some great bundle ideas let’s take a look at some strategies that can help you market them and get your customers more excited about taking the bundle offer instead. 

Position it as a Buy One Get One (BOGO) type of offer. 

• Buy 1 Get 1 Free
• Buy 1 Get 2nd at half price
• Buy 2 Get 1 Free
• etc…

This strategy is particularly effective when you are trying to sell more of the same product. There’s so many options with a pricing strategy like this too. In fact here’s a real life story to illustrate just how powerful it can be. 

One day when I was in Nashville, Tennessee with my wife and some friends we decided to do some sightseeing and window shopping. While walking around we stumbled upon a store selling boots that had an unbelievable “Buy 1 Get 2 Free” deal. It seemed like such an unbelievable good deal that we were all taken in by it. 

I remember thinking that I wasn’t even looking for boots, but I felt compelled that I should take advantage of this deal. I resisted, much to the delight of my bank account, but a few other friends we were with took the bait and purchased some boots. 

What I discovered in watching them go through the process of selecting their 3 pairs of boots however was that this business had a very interesting pricing strategy going on. You see, there wasn’t a single pair of boots that was less than $100 in the place. What they had actually done was raised prices to a point that they could cover selling 3 pairs and still make a small profit, but they called it “Buy 1 Get 2 Free”. 

I have to admit, at the time I thought it was rather genius. Even though I was on to what they were really doing I still felt like it was a pretty good deal and so did the countless others that were in the store that day taking advantage of the offer. 

Offer additional items as an upsell or order bump

Another way to increase your AOV is to present an order bump either on the cart or checkout pages. Most e-commerce platforms like Shopify for example have apps and/or features that make implementing this a breeze. 

This can be an extremely effective way to present your bundle because it brings it to your customers attention at a point when they are more committed to making a purchase. Someone who has made it to your cart or checkout page has already shown intent that they want what you are selling. 

The closer someone is to making that final purchase decision the higher the chance they can be sold on additional goods. 

Use email post purchase to get them back

The last strategy you may want to consider is sending a post purchase email to people who just made a purchase. If it’s the kind of product that would make a good gift idea, encourage them to purchase more and give them to friends and family. If it’s a complimentary product, spend some time explaining the benefits of it and how it truly will enhance the experience or outcome desired of the first product they already purchased. 

Whatever it is, be sure to give them a special time sensitive deal that makes them feel like it’s exclusive to them. 

Conclusion

I hope you’ve found the ideas I’ve shared with you here about dropship bundles of value. I encourage you to start putting them into practice right away and begin focusing on how you can use them to increase your store’s average order value and maximize your profits. 

They also make it very easy to not only do business with their vendors, but they also integrate with numerous e-commerce platforms and automation programs that make product imports and sales setup simple and easy.

If you’re not that familiar with AliExpress yet, let’s take a look at some things you should know about using AliExpress for your dropshipping business.

1. AliExpress Is Great For Testing Products

One of the biggest advantages to running a dropshipping business is that it doesn’t require you to make any investments into products or inventory out of pocket. Yes, your eCom platform and any other automation software, hosting, apps, email system, etc will need to be covered, but you won’t need to spend any money on products until after your customers pay you. 

That makes it really easy to stock your store full of pretty much any product you want to because it won’t cost you anything to do so. That means you can test as many products you like to see if they will sell or not.

Now, while you can test as many products as you want, it would be smart to have a testing plan in place. After all, while there might not be a hard monetary cost with physical inventory, there is an opportunity cost for potentially testing carelessly.

So be sure to do your product research so that you can narrow down your products intelligently and you maximize your product testing time. We’ll get more into product research in the next section.

2. Proper Product Research Is Key To Your Success

As was mentioned in the previous section, proper product research is critical to the success of your business.

Let’s assume that you know the types or themes of products that you’d like to sell.

(If you’re stuck trying to figure out what niche you want to be in, check out the list of blog posts at the end of this post for more help.)

Now, once you know the types of products you want to sell, it’s time to locate the specific products you want to try selling.

While you can certainly go to AliExpress and manually search through all of their product listings, there is a much faster way.

There are a lot of software programs that will help you “power search” AliExpress results to help you sort through thousands of products in just minutes and even seconds.

If you’re a Dropified user, you already have access to one of these power tools, which is our AliExtractor software that’s included with your membership. 

When you open up AliExpress and run a product search and then run AliExtractor, the software will display the results of all the products from that page and will show you at a glance what each products is, how much it costs form AliExpress, including final costs with all fees associated, total profit (based on the total margin you select), then vendor and vendor ratings and much more.

That means in just seconds, you see everything you need to quickly locate products that could be perfect to test in your store. Even better, you can set your own personal filters, so only the products that meet your criteria are returned.

A software like AliExtractor will save you dozens and even hundreds of hours in research time and is a must-have in your product research arsenal.

3. Vet And Verify Trading Partners

While this should go without saying, many new dropshippers learn this one the hard way.

Yes, you may think that you’ve found the perfect product to sell, the price is right and you’re chomping at the bit to sell it and make a ton of money.

So you add it to your store and start selling it.

Then disaster strikes!

The product quality is terrible.

Or the shipping is extra late.

Or the product is out of stock.

Then you go back to the vendor and they don’t respond.

Now you’re stuck having to refund your angry customers and your out of pocket a lot of money because you paid the vendor. Now you have to try to work with AliExpress to see what you can do from here.

But…

All of this could have been avoided had you really read through the vendor reviews that AliExpress provides. 

Or had you personally reached out to the vendor prior to selling the products to see how responsive they were… or if they offered Seller Protection… and a number of other potential areas that red flags might have shown up.

So, don’t let this happen to you. Spend a lot of time digging through each vendors ratings, their reviews and communicating with them.

And order product samples for yourself so you can see the actual product quality for yourself.

Yes, even after great research, things can happen. But you greatly reduce this potential with solid, proactive vendor and product research. 

4. Avoid Products That Do Or May Infringe On Copyrights

While it can be really tempting to jump in and cash in on the Star Wars Baby Yoda craze… it’s also the quickest way to get you store shut down, your merchant processor to ban you and for the deep pocket lawyers of Disney to sue you.

And trust me, there are no shortage of vendors on AliExpress willing to sell you counterfeit Baby Yoda products.

Even if it’s an artist rendering, I’d run far away in the opposite direction.

When it comes to ANY established brand, unless you are working directly with the brand or their official licensing, do not attempt to sell them, no matter how small you think you are. They will Liam Neeson on you and they find you and they will deal with you.

At the end of the day, if you DO really want to sell products from an actual brand, then you must go through their official licensing programs and you must be licensed. 

If not, steer clear.

5. Be Clear And Honest About Shipping Times

This is another area where many dropshippers learn the hard way.

You MUST be clear and upfront with your customers on the realistic shipping times for your products.

However, many sellers think that by being honest, they won’t get any sales, so they either omit shipping times, bury it, or outright lie about the true shipping times.

They quickly find out that was the wrong move.

Whether it’s angry emails and calls, or refund requests to even chargebacks, not being straightforward will bite them in the end pretty quickly.

And high refunds and chargebacks are the quickest way to lose your merchant accounts.

Instead, you need to be clear and upfront about how long it will take for them to receive their orders.

It needs to be in your listings, order forms, terms and conditions, and even on your receipt emails.

In fact, the more places you place it, the more likely you are to win any chargeback ruling if they claim that you didn’t tell them how long it would take.

So, how do you combat any negative sales impact that long shipping times may have?

People will be willing to wait for a known longer shipping time for a number of reasons, including:

• Your marketing gets them excited to make an impulse buy and they aren’t shipping around…
• They don’t want to miss out on a special deal that you’re offering…
• Your item is unique and it’s hard to find elsewhere…
• After they buy, you stay in good communication with them about the status of their order and provide them with tracking…

Basically, just good, solid customer support will win and preserve sales for you and will overcome any shipping resistance you may encounter.

If you’re just getting started with dropshipping and AliExpress, hopefully this quick overview will help you get started a little easier.

We also have a number of other blog posts we’ve put together that you’ll probably want to check out to help you cut down on your learning curve:

How Can I Find The Best Products To Sell In My Store From AliExpress?

AliExtractor, The #1 Tool For AliExpress Product Research, Now Free For Dropified Users!

Why Will Consumers Buy From My Dropshipping Store When They Can Buy The Same Product Cheaper?

What Do I Need To Know About ePacket Shipping and Delivery?

What entrepreneurs mean when they say this is that having an email list of prospects and customers that are easily contactable to sell things to is really valuable.

For example, let’s say you had a really profitable e-commerce store, but one day day you lost the store and all the data, but you still had your list of prospects and customers, you could be back in business fast by emailing them offers again.

On the other hand, if you had your store, but all of your prospect’s and customer’s information got deleted, it would be a lot harder and slow going to rebuild the success of your store.

While these are generalized statements, you can still see that having your own list or database of buyers and prospects is extremely valuable to the ongoing success of your business.

Now, with that said, most businesses do NOT treat their customer database as if it were a valuable asset capable of producing repeat and ongoing sales.

How do I know?

Well, let’s do a simple exercise.

Think about how any businesses you’ve bought from in the past few months, businesses like:

• Grocery stores
• Gas stations
• Clothing stores
• Spa’s
• Doctors office
• Dentist office
• Restaurants
• Recreational activities
• Pet store
• Pool company
• Online stores

…and the list goes on.

Now that you’re thinking about those businesses you’ve recently spent money with, how many have sent you an email with a thank you, a discount or coupon to come back, asked for a referral, etc?

Some may have, but I’m guessing most have not sent regular, ongoing communications with you outside of your initial transaction.

However, how many may have gotten more business from you had they followed up, stayed top of mind in your awareness, and gave you see kind of incentive to do more business with them?

The most successful companies out there are staying in regular contact with their customer and prospect database, letting their people know about sales, coupons, special events and more, and getting repeat and referral business as a result.

So how about you? 

Are you actively building your own list of prospects and customers?

If so, are you mailing them regularly to see them more products and services? Are you sending them coupons, inviting them to special events, and staying top of mind in their awareness?

If not, then let’s look at some ways to start building your own lists through your e-commerce store.

Let’s start with taking a look at a few ways to start building your prospect list.

1. Add A Coupon Pop-up To Your eCom Store

One of the fastest ways to build a targeted list of prospects is to add a pop up that gives your site visitors a first-time customer discount by giving you their name and email address. That popup then pushes the name of that prospect to your email service where it triggers an email to the email address provided containing the coupon code.

If you are using a platform like Shopify to power your eCom store, there are dozens of pop-up apps, both free and paid, that can help you get this up and running really fast.

You'll want to make sure and test when to display the pop up in an effort to get the best results. For example you might not want the pop up to appear immediately when a person lands on your site for the first time. A popular method that many people choose is to use what is called an exit intent popup. An exit popup displays the message right as the person is about to leave your site.

2. Offer A Lead Magnet To Get Optins

A really great way to get more high-quality prospects on your list is to offer a valuable lead magnet that your prospects would like to have.

So, what is a lead magnet?

A lead magnet is an incentive offer to potential buyers in exchange for their email address or other contact information. Lead magnets usually offer downloadable content, such as a free PDF checklist, report, eBook, whitepaper, video, etc.

For example, let’s say your eCom store sells drones and related accessories.

A good lead magnet could be a PDF and/ or video guide on how to make money with your drone by offering aerial photo and video services. Another lead magnet could be the best tips and tricks for getting the most out of your drone. 

In order to get the lead magnet, your site visitors would need to enter their name and email address at a minimum to get access to it, and it would be delivered to them via your email system, just like the coupon popup above.

Again, platforms like Shopify have dozens of apps that make adding a lead magnet / optin easy to set up quickly.

3. Adding All Customers To Your Email List

Once someone makes a purchase from you, be sure to add them onto the email list for your buyers. This seems obvious, but way too many store owners do not do this, they simply have a database of buyers, but do not push them to an email list for regular followup and promotions. 

Do NOT be that eCom owner. Instead, maximize your sales and your long term success by adding them to your email list and sending them regular promotions and educational content that they look forward to.

Platforms like Shopify will be able to add your customer info into your email list, so this is a simple process to set up. 

And email systems like Klaviyo are great to use because they were designed to work specifically with e-commerce stores and they make this process really easy.

What To Email Your Customers And Prospects

Now that you know some easy ways to capture your stores' prospects and customers and push them onto your email lists…

…what kinds of emails do you send them?

That’s a great question, and that is the subject of a recent blog post I wrote titled “7 Easy E-commerce Email Marketing Tactics You Should Be Using In Your Business”. In that post, you’ll learn several ways to start monetizing your email list quickly such as sending:

• A Welcome Series that builds a relationship…
• A Flash Sales Series to quickly monetize your prospects…
• An Abandoned Cart Email Series that monetizes visitors that came close to purchasing and may just need a small push to get their business…

…and more, so be sure to read that post next.

The Bottom Line

At the end of the day, if you want to maximize the success of your e-commerce business, you must build a list of customers and prospects and you must send regular education and promotion content to build a relations and to build ongoing sales. 

If you take these simple steps and implement them, you will quickly become unstoppable in your business.      

On one hand, dropshipping is getting harder and harder every single day. With increasing competition rising daily, the world of dropshipping is getting more and more crowded. And even then, I have read that anywhere between 90% and 99% of new dropshipping stores fail within the first few months.

On the other hand, plenty of stores (the best dropshipping stores) have figured out how to crack the code and become profitable. The people who run these stores are working hard to adapt with the times and are trying to constantly learn how to get better.

So in that sense, if you are trying to start an online store to get rich quickly dropshipping might not be for you. But if you are willing to put in the work, get better and are open to new ideas that will help you adapt to increasing competition, there still might be an opportunity for you to build a successful store.

In this post we are going to take a look at what the top Shopify stores are doing to keep themselves ahead of the competition.

What Are Shopify's Best Dropshipping Stores Doing To Succeed?

Finding A Niche

Remember when I said competition is growing every single day? With so much competition, running a general store of products that span from sportswear to video games might not be as feasible as it once was. While there are examples of good general stores, finding a specific niche of customers to market to can be beneficial in the long run.

Instead of being known as a store with a wide reach, but shallow offering, offering a deep inventory of products for that niche can help establish you as a brand known for being the one-stop-shop for all things in your niche.

Example: Dog Pawty

Dog Pawty is a dropshipping store that focuses on all things “dogs.”

From celebrating dogs with dog-themed jewelry to dog toys, Dog Pawty has it. This site taps into the dog lovers and gives customers a single place to shop for all of their puppy needs.

Making Custom Product Photos

Product photos control your customer’s first impressions of products when browsing a store. In that sense, they better be good and eye-catching.

While AliExpress product photos might get the job done at first, taking your own product photos can help you get an edge over your competitors.

Taking your own product photos helps you make a unified look and feel of your store, whether it be uniform backgrounds, lighting, etc.

You can also get the product in your hands, use it, and take photos of the product in use so you can give the customer an idea of what they will be using it for.

Example: 18 Karat Wholesale

18 Karat Wholesale has an amazing list of products with even better product photos. The photos are not only eye-catching, but also give you an idea of what the products look like and how much space they will take up in your home.

Advertising Effectively

What’s the point of having a niche if you aren’t targeting them well? Luckily advertising has gotten a lot easier with services like Facebook Advertisements. Using customer interests, you can pay Facebook to specifically target certain audiences with ads that suit them.

Just targeting a certain audience might not be enough. The best dropshipping stores use an advertisement that grabs customers’ attention and hooks them in, whether it be a beautiful product photo or a video showing the product in action.

Example: “The Facebook Ad That Generated $253K in Sales”

Not only does this link talk about the ad, they give you the step-by-step instructions on how the ad became a huge hit.

It shows you how to best showcase your products while finding the perfect audience to advertise to.

Being Open And Honest With Customers About Return Policy, Shipping Times And Customer Service

The best dropshipping stores have a transparent return policy is important for customers to understand what the process of returning items is.

Whether you have a zero-return policy, a defectives-only return policy or 30-days with no questions asked; having a place on your site for customers to see it is mandatory. That way you can ensure there is no confusion when your customers order products.

Not having a return policy in an easy-to-find place can lead to bad feedback from customers.

Customers want to trust the company they are buying products from. That is why it is of the utmost importance that you are open and honest about the time it takes to ship when you are shipping from AliExpress or suppliers overseas. A product can take weeks to ship, especially if they do not support ePacket shipping. That is why you want to let customers know up front that shipping times can take a while. 

In this day and age where some companies offer free two-day shipping for products, customers might have high expectations for shipping speed. That is why it is so important for you to make it abundantly clear that your customers might be waiting a few weeks for their product to get to them.

If a customer has a question, they need somewhere to turn to get it answered. That is why having a phone number, email or chat client is important. If a customer can’t get questions answered, they might leave bad feedback.

Examples: Well…finding an example of stores missing some of these features is hard…because many have gone out of business. So that should show you how important transparency is with customers.

While all stores are different, the best dropshipping stores are all starting with finding their niches, creating the best product photos, effectively advertising to their main audiences and being transparent with customers about returns, shipping times and customer service.

In a previous blog post, we covered how to find US-based dropship suppliers, as dropship entrepreneurs in the US are looking to avoid the long shipping times from China.

In the same way, we’ve heard from a lot of Canadian entrepreneurs that are either running or are looking to run their own dropshipping stores, and would love to know how to find Canadian-based suppliers that they can work with as well.

Why Dropship From Canada?

For those dropshippers that are based in Canada and want to sell products to fellow Canadians, they want fast shipping, cheaper shipping costs, high-quality products and to avoid Goods and Services Taxes on products shipped to Canada from other countries. We’ll touch more on each of these below.

Shipping Times

While dropshipping products through AliExpress and other large Chinese vendors has made up the majority of all dropshipping sales, there is a big emphasis lately on finding more local, country-based vendors to work with because the shipping times from China to Canada can take several weeks to reach customers. 

With the success of Amazon Prime and 2-day shipping, our customers now not only expect quick shipping, they demand it. So while they may give some leeway to smaller e-commerce vendors, they no longer have the patience to wait for weeks to receive their order.

Not only that, but companies like Facebook factor shipping times highly either for or against their e-commerce advertisers. Their algorithm knows when long shipping times are being complained about, and they raise the cost to run ads to penalize long shipping times. The bottom line is that customer satisfaction is a top priority for Facebook, and anything that negatively impacts that experience will get penalized in higher ads costs.

Product Quality

Another growing factor in trying to find non-Chinese vendors is finding vendors that produce high-quality products. This is not to say that there are not a lot of Chinese vendors that produce great products, but there are a lot of vendors that sell poorly made items. 

When working with a local or country-based vendor, it’s much easier to quickly determine product quality and much easier to get ahold of someone in your own country, at least in theory.

Canadian Made

There is also a lot to be said about wanting to support and do business with those from your own country, not to mention that your customers love to support more local vendors and companies. There is an intangible element and a certain amount of price that comes from buying from and supporting local businesses. It’s a real factor that must be carefully factored in, even if it costs a bit more. However, while it may cost more to produce, in many cases, you can increase your margins if your customers are aware of and embrace “buying Canadian.”

Customer Satisfaction

When you buy and sell locally within your country, there can also be an increased amount of customer satisfaction, because they believe the product quality will be better, shipping times are faster, the products are cheaper to ship and there is a certain amount of pride knowing it’s coming from fellow Canadians. 

Higher Retail Prices

As we touched on briefly above, while the cost of the products from your vendors may cost more to dropship, products “Made in Canada” might command higher prices due to country pride, buying local and a feeling that the products produced in-country will be of much higher quality than “cheaply made product from China”. 

International Politics

With the political climate in the world these days, things can change quickly. So while shipping costs from China are really low right now, any disruptions in international agreements on shipping prices, shipping methods, ports of entry, taxes and more could quickly wipe out any profit margins in a flash. 

However, when you buy, sell and ship within your country, you largely avoid these issues and potential disruptions.

Inventory Supply And Manufacturing Turn Times

Regardless of what dropship vendors you choose, you must know that they can handle your expected sales volume, along with the sales volume of any other sellers that may be using them for those same products.  

So, as you review your vendors, how quickly can they respond to a sharp spike in sales? How long does it take them to produce new products, and what kind of turn-times do they have?

Bottom line, no matter how much you sell, you want peace of mind that they’ll never run out and can always meet your demand with no inventory downtimes.

Finding The Best Canadian Suppliers

Just as with any supplier, you need to do your due diligence and research. The regular factors you need to review should be the same for all potential suppliers, regardless of where they are located:

Trust / Feedback:  

• What kinds of feedback have you found in your searches? 
• Are they listed on the Better Business Bureau, Yelp or any other review sites?                                                                             
• Are they part of any professional associations that list feedback or that can be reached to get feedback?

Communication: 

• When you reach out to them (and you must reach out to every supplier prior to doing business), do they respond promptly and professionally? 
• Are they able to answer your questions accurately and thoroughly? 

Shipping Cost and Time:

• Do they have the ability to dropship on your behalf, with your company info? 
• Do they make it clear and easy to include accurate shipping costs? 
• Do they ship out items quickly once an order is placed? 
• Do they offer tracking? Does their system integrate with your dropshipping automation app so everything can be handled automatically?      

Inventory Turn Time: 

• How much inventory do they carry at any given time?
• How quickly can they replenish their inventory should you start selling their products fast?
• How much demand can they truly handle without ever running out of inventory?

Additional Fees: 

• Do they require any additional fees to work with them?
• Do they require minimum sales amounts to do business with them?
• Do they charge extra for any dropshipping services, such as packing, labeling and inventory?

Returns, Refunds and Defects:

• How do they handle product returns?
• How do they handle refund requests?
• How do they handle product defeats and / or product quality concerns?

Canadian-Based Dropshipping Suppliers

There are many Canadian-based dropshipping suppliers to choose from, and we’ll list some of the more popular ones below.  

However, YOU are the one responsible for doing your research and due diligence to make sure these companies meet your needs, are trustworthy and worth doing business with. This is also not a complete or comprehensive list, and these are NOT in any particular order. 

They are also not necessarily direct suppliers – rather they act like AliExpress and offer a directory of suppliers according to their own criteria:

Sprocket.co

Sprocket is a Vancouver, British Columbia-based dropshipping marketplace that serves dropshippers in Canada and around the world.

Their marketplace boasts over 30,000 thousand vendors, with thousands of them based on Canada, so there are a lot of choices for Canadian drop shippers to ship from Canada.

WorldwideBrands.com

While they are based in the US, Worldwide Brands has tens of thousands of vendors to choose from around the world, including thousands of Canadian-based vendors to allow inter-Canadian shipping.

AliExpress.com*

This one gets an asterisk, as they do not currently have many vendors within Canada to ship from within Canada, but they have announced their intention of opening some Canadian shipping facilities in the near future.

AliExpress offers US-based vendors that can ship quickly to Canadian customers, but you will have to factor in shipping and Goods and Services Taxes.

The easiest way to find US-based vendors is to use the US Supplier Database inside the Dropified app. 

CTIDirectory.com

For individual vendors, wholesalers and more, the Canadian Trade Index is a great place to start your research for Canadian-based companies to work with.

You will need to contact the specific vendors to see if they will work with dropshippers, so due diligence will be required to find vendors to partner with your store. 

The Bottom Line

The better and faster you can serve your customers, the better you will do long term.

As a result, it’s a smart thing to begin to source, develop and begin to work with US-based products suppliers, because your customers are demanding faster delivery and better quality.

At the end of the day, you need to work hard to research and find solid suppliers that offer you high-quality products with dependable inventory and fast shipping times.

After all, the writing is on the wall that the pricing advantage that Chinese suppliers enjoy may quickly be coming to an end, and if you only offer Chinese goods, you’ll end up with higher cost products with long shipping times, and be left scrambling to find local suppliers.