One of the primary aspects of running a dropshipping business is finding high-quality dropshipping images of the products you’re selling. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words, and that proverb couldn’t be more true regarding e-commerce.

However, this can be tricky, since many suppliers don’t provide images suitable for use on an e-commerce website. 

“When we sell a product without branding and there are competing similar or same products, all that you can compete on is price, and that is a race to the bottom. Brand is everything. When products don’t have packaging or product images need to show the product, not the packaging. Smart brands will bring in distinctive and unique brand elements that create differentiation and stand out for consumers. If you do that effectively, then you can raise your price and compete on a different level than competitors that simply show a product without packaging.”

Michael Keplinger – SmashBrand.com

This complete guide will show you how to find great dropshipping images for your dropshipping business in unique ways that help you stand out from the competition and increase conversions.

Ask the Supplier for Images

If you want your dropshipping store to stand out, it’s essential to have high-quality, original product images, similar to Shopify dropshipping images and Amazon dropshipping images. So the first step is to contact your supplier and request high-resolution photos. 

However, the unfortunate truth is that your competitors will have these same images as well. When you’re just starting, using images from your supplier as they come is understandable. After all, this is the easiest way to get product photos for dropshipping.

As you grow, it would be best to ensure that the images you use are better looking and somewhat different from your competitors. Here are some tips:

Change the Background

You can use Adobe Photoshop to change the background or any photo editor that will help improve the image’s quality.

Provide Images With Better Angles

Choosing an angle that showcases the product’s features would also be best.

Add a Zoom Effect

Adding a zoom effect on the images will also give potential customers a better view of the products on your selling list.

Include Product Image and Details

You may include the product price and name below or next to the images.

Make the Images Universal

It’s imperative to ensure that customers can view the images you add to your dropshipping website on any device. After all, you don’t know what device a potential customer may use.

You’ll have a much higher chance of beating your dropshipping competition by improving the images.

Get Sample Products and Take Your Photos

If you’re looking for high-quality dropshipping images, there’s no need to look any further than your camera. 

Ordering a product sample from your supplier is the best way to get unique, quality photos to make your products stand out from the competition. With a sample in hand, you can take advantage of many photo opportunities, such as different angles and backgrounds.

You could also create an unboxing video that will showcase your product in all its glory. So don’t settle for second-rate images—with a little effort, you can create photos that are truly worthy of your products.

If you don’t have a photography thumb, seek the services of a photographer and learn a few tips from their work. Online photography tutorials could also teach how to learn to take high quality photos.

Work With Influencers

Working with influencers is another excellent method for getting a high-quality product image for your dropshipping. Many influencers in the affiliate marketing industry have experience in product photography and have state-of-the-art cameras and related equipment.

Many influencers are happy to take photos of the products for a commission or free sample products.

Besides getting a better product image, working with your influencer will help you build a good relationship. As a result, you could benefit from affiliate marketing services.

Crowdsource the Images

Another great way of getting quality images is to crowdsource them. For this idea, you can reward your first few customers to provide photo reviews of their purchases. This is a creative way to get images while also increasing your conversions.

You can encourage customers to take a product photo and leave a review by offering a discount or some other incentive. This will give you high-quality images that potential customers can relate to. In addition, it will help to build trust with potential customers, as they will see that you will go the extra mile to ensure their satisfaction.

Poach Images From Customer Reviews

One great way to find quality images is to look for customer reviews of your product on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Many customers have great camera equipment and take beautiful product photos to enhance your store’s credibility.

Besides, their unbiased photos give your site some of the most credible images. Plus, you can gain a customer review along the way—a great bonus for everyone involved.

Get Pictures From Google Images

Google has everything an eCommerce business needs to thrive. This includes free and payable images you can use to style your dropshipping business.

While there are many paid image websites, plenty of free options can provide high-quality images for your store. Here are some recommended websites where you can find free photos to use in your store design or ads:

• Unsplash offers a wide range of beautiful, high-resolution photos.
• Pexels is another excellent source for free stock photos.
• Pixabay is a popular site for free illustrations and videos.
• FreeImages provides a wide selection of both stock photos and user-generated content.
• Shutterstock offers an extensive library of premium and free stock photos.
• iStockphoto is another popular site offering millions of royalty-free images at reasonable prices.

So there you have five sources for quality, free images you can use in your dropshipping business. How you use them is up to you. However, it’s advisable to use free images when beginning your dropshipping business. Then, you may move on to high-quality images when ready to pay the required fees.

Try Product Videos

Taking videos can give you that next step you need to sell your products. You can do it yourself or hire a videographer to showcase your products. Video ads provide trust, and they allow your customers to see them from all angles. 

When creating your videos, make sure to use music that your potential buyers may like. And if you choose to use AliExpress videos to show your products, keep in mind that they may use music that is in a different language. Therefore, it’s best to make your own videos and select your own music. 

A Snapshot Summary 

Quality dropshipping images are essential for any product, but are especially important for dropshipping. After all, customers can’t physically see or touch the product before making a purchase, so wonderful photos are essential for building trust and making sales in your dropshipping business. 

As a dropshipper, one of the most important things you can do is ensure your product photos are of high quality. This can be challenging, especially if you’re on a tight budget. When running this business, the key is finding high-quality images to give them a vivid glimpse of what you are offering.

Start Dropshipping Today

Want to become the next dropshipping success story? Dropified makes it easy for you to connect popular products with your ecommerce website. Get started today with a free trial and see why thousands of customers depend on Dropified for their dropshipping business.

Known for their seamless integration with e-commerce websites, the fastest growing social media platform is one of the best places to market your dropshipping business. What makes TikTok marketing so special is how effective both organic and paid advertising is on this platform. Unlike Facebook and Instagram, you can build brand awareness and generate revenues from impulse purchases with TikTok Dropshipping.

Dropshipping On TikTok

While dropshipping with TikTok is “user friendly” it certainly isn’t a free lunch. The greatest benefit of this business model is that a dropshipper can learn and integrate TikTok marketing strategies that business operators lack the time or energy for. Like affiliate marketing, in dropshipping, you dedicate most of your time to driving traffic to your products or website.

In any form of social media marketing, there will be a learning curve required. Success requires an upfront time and focus commitment, but once we lay the foundation, dropship marketing on TikTok becomes an automated process.

Creating Your TikTok Dropshipping Strategy

There are several considerations you need to walk through before you can find winning products to sell through TikTok.

TikTok User base

The most dominant age bracket for a TikTok user is between 20-29 years old. Understanding this statistic helps to determine which category of products to stay within.

Your Area of Expertise

While experienced marketers may sell any product they wish, newer marketers should focus on a product category that they understand. Finding your niche means looking for products that attract the TikTok user base but are distinct enough to stand out from the competition. Your expertise can help you accomplish both needs.

Finding Your Target Audience

While you may have expertise in a field, that doesn’t mean you exemplify the target audience. If you are a 40-year-old fitness influencer, your target audience might be 25-year-old females. Understanding your target audience will help you choose the right product (s) to promote.

Identifying Current Trends in Your Niche

Even if you are aiming for a pattern interrupt marketing approach that stimulates intrigue and interest, you still need to understand the trends in your niche. Returning to the fitness influencer example, they may notice how people are looking for weight loss tips where they can still consume alcohol. This type of information could lead to promoting a pre and post alcohol consumption supplement, mitigating the impact alcoholic calories have on the body.

You can use a tool such as Google trends to determine what is trending. Also, use your intuition by browsing through popular TikTok videos or search hashtags and find out what people are saying.

Where to Find A Winning Dropshipping Product

Dropified, of course! Our Shopify integration makes it easy to find the perfect product for your TIkTok dropshipping initiative. We give you access to platforms such as AliExpress, eBay, Etsy, and more! Finding the right product to promote with Dropified is as easy as click-connect.

Setting Up Your TikTok Dropshipping Store

For those not using TikTok, here’s how to get started with this social media platform.

1. Download the TikTok App on your phone.
2. Set up a TikTok Account with your email, password, and personal information.
3. Hit the edit profile button.
4. Walk through each step to fill out your company information.
5. Once finished, hit the three dots in the top right corner.
6. Then switch your personal account to a business account.
7. Choose your business category and hit save.

Once you have your account set up, it’s time to integrate your ecommerce platform. For this, you will need a Shopify store.

1. Sign up for a Shopify account.
2. Choose a name for your store.
3. Add your company information.
4. Choose a theme for your store.
5. Adjust the theme as needed.
6. Choose your official website URL.
7. Determine the payment methods you will accept.

Now you will need to add your first product to your Shopify online store. Here’s how to do that.

1. Click the add a product button.
2. Enter the complete product name.
3. Create a compelling product description.
4. Upload stock and custom images of the product name.
5. Set your price and, if applicable, a starting inventory.
6. Enter the weight of the product.
7. Add any variants, such as sizes and flavors.

That’s it! You’re now ready to receive customer orders on your website. But wait, there’s one more step. We need to connect your Shopify store to your TikTok account.

1. Type TikTok into the search bar in the Shopify App Store.
2. Install App.
3. Connect your TikTok for Business Account.
4. Connect your Ad Account.
5. Ensure Pixel is Active in TikTok Ads.

Organic Dropshipping On TikTok

Organic TikTok marketing isn’t just good for those starting with a limited marketing budget, every dropshipping business should use TikTok to communicate with users naturally. Social media gives brands the opportunity to create a more human relationship. This is especially true when talking about TikTok users.

Organic TikTok marketing gives you the ability to gain followers through video content. When your TikTok content is interesting, you can earn them as a follower. Then, over time, you can build a strategy to nurture the relationship to the point of earning their business.

Not all organic marketing is free. Once your brand is big enough, you can pay social media influencers to be in your TikTok videos and leverage their followers for a viral effect.

Running TikTok Ads For Dropshipping Products

Creating a TikTok ad isn’t just for established marketers with thousands of followers. The way they set TikTok up, new brands can use TikTok advertising to gain traction with their content.

You can manage ad campaigns within the TikTok ads manager. All you have to do is open the TikTok app on your phone and click the ads manager tab. From within the app, you can upload your content and segment your TikTok dropshipping ads to target an ideal group of TikTok users.

Here is a look at the options you have for TikTok advertising.

Brand Takeover Ads

They traditionally reserved brand Takeovers for brands with big budgets and lots of followers. While you may not be ready for this type of campaign, it is good to know about how they work.

Branded Hashtag Challenge

The Branded Hashtag Challenge is a feature built for TikTok that you can find on the discovery page. You can have both organic and sponsored Hashtag Challenges. These are great for getting a viral impact on your marketing efforts to fuel your TikTok dropshipping store.

In-Feed Ads

These in-feed ads resemble what you find on Instagram and Facebook stories. You can include a CTA making it perfect for promoting your dropshipping product. The videos are up to 15 seconds, which is just enough time to showcase your product.

Branded Effects

Marketing shouldn’t be boring and branded effects understand this truth. With TikTok branded effects, you can include stickers, filters, and effects on posts to promote a product or brand. This isn’t helpful for new companies, but once you get some traction, it can take your brand recognition further-faster.

TopView Ads

TopView ads are there to catch the attention of a TikTok user before they become distracted. The TopView ads display after 3-seconds from opening the app as an in-feed post. They display them at the top of the “for you to view” page.

While advertising on this platform is outperforming both Facebook and Instagram, not every ad will be a winner. Andrya Allen from The Nine, a TikTok ecommerce agency, has these tips for your dropshipping campaign.

1. Be a human with a face
2. Rely on captions
3. Reverse engineer trends
4. Show a slice of life
5. Use “user” generated content
6. Experiment with sounds
7. Surprise us

TikTok Dropshipping With Dropified

Ready to build your ecommerce dropshipping website? Dropified makes it easy for you to connect popular products with your Shopify website. Get started today with a free trial and see why thousands of customers depend on Dropified for their dropshipping business.

With all of this accomplished, you’re now searching for ways to find potential customers and increase website traffic. This search led to the question “what if I looked into dropshipping SEO strategies? Maybe I can find tips to increase my search engine ranking for keywords related to my best-selling products?”

If this is you, you are heading in the right direction. SEO for dropshipping stores is an important aspect of your website’s digital marketing strategy. Fortunately for you, most dropshipping sites pay little attention to search engine optimization. These dropshippers are missing out on an opportunity that serves the whole point of their website; to make money online.

A great place to look for an example of an industry that thrives off of SEO is affiliate marketing websites. Dropshippers may have a more profitable opportunity since the average affiliate program payout is between 5-30%. Your dropshipping website has the potential to make a greater profit margin from each new customer you gain.

Oh, and you get the benefit of continuing to market the new products down the road.

Ok, we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. Some of you may have heard of SEO but are not sure what it is, so let’s give you a brief definition.

What is SEO?

SEO stands for search engine optimization. It is a form of online marketing requiring many actions that together earn you the top spot in the search results. Search engine optimization includes optimizing keywords, developing a technically sound website, building backlinks to your business, and producing quality content on your website.

We will discuss all of this throughout the article, so buckle up because we are about to put the SEO peddle to the metal.

What is SEO for a Dropshipping Business?

A dropshipping store is a unique website offering e-commerce products but without the hassle of inventory management. This means you can spend more time building out SEO-friendly website pages. This list includes product descriptions, category descriptions, and blog content that gets people to nearby pages to where you can earn a transaction.

The definition of “SEO dropshipping” is not all that much different from traditional SEO but includes strategies that take the best ideas from affiliate marketing SEO and e-commerce SEO. It is when these two types blend into one beautiful SEO strategy that leads to rewards.

Exactly what we plan to accomplish with this article and by the time we finish this topic. When you finish reading, you become a master of Google search ready to take on the internet and drive revenues to your online store.

OK, that may be ambitious, but we have high hopes for what you will learn and the actions you will then feel confident enough to take.

Google SEO vs Google Ads

If there is anything holding you back from starting your SEO campaign, it’s deciding whether to spend time on organic search marketing or Google ads. There really isn’t a debate since both complement each other very well.

You will find inexpensive search terms where it is worth the pennies each PPC ad click costs. Also, there will be very expensive keywords requiring only 3-6 months of SEO effort to reach the first page. Big win here!

Alternatively, it may be extremely difficult to rank for keywords that are important to your dropshipping business. Here, paying the money for the ads while you continue working on SEO is the best strategy.

Should a Dropshipping Business Invest in SEO?

Yes. If you want your dropshipping business to benefit from the most cost-effective form of website traffic, then invest in SEO. With that said, we use the word “invest” loosely. You are not required to spend large amounts of money right out of the gate.

Like many things in business, start with the fundamentals. If you are new to dropshipping or SEO, follow a crawl-walk-run strategy.

An investment is not only about money but also about time. The big question to ask is: will you learn SEO yourself or hire SEO agencies to handle the work? Let’s look at the pros and cons of each.

Learn SEO Yourself

Reiterating the benefit of having a dropshipping store; you are free from managing inventory and managing personnel who manage the inventory (that’s a tongue twister). However, you may run your dropshipping business on the side and be busy working your 9-5 or school schedule. So, deciding to learn SEO yourself is a question you need to consider.

If you do not have time, let us exercise a word of caution. Do not cease learning because you lack the required time to study and implement SEO fundamentals. You will need to have an education about the subject of SEO in order to be sure the SEO expert you hire will correctly handle the job.

Hire an SEO Agency

While you can hire a single freelancer to work on your SEO, we strongly advise you to look for a reputable SEO agency to perform the work. The reason is, in the beginning, you need more than SEO action, you need SEO strategy in advance so you start off in the right direction.

Also, you will rarely find a freelancer with the skill set and knowledge to handle everything it needs for a website to rank high in the search engines. The SEO services an agency offers will often include all aspects into a single package. Laying out the strategy sets your SEO efforts on the correct course so that you do not end up in a place where you never intended to be.

SEO Steps For a Dropshipping Website

By now you understand SEO has a lot of moving parts. You recognize it isn’t as simple as 1-2-3 rank. You have a practical understanding of SEO for dropshipping websites.

Now, let’s dig into the details about what steps you or a team of SEO specialists need to take for your dropshipping website to succeed online.

Keyword Research

Hopefully, you did product research before deciding on both your dropshipping website name and catalog. Keyword research requires an equal, if not greater, commitment than you gave to finding dropship opportunities in a specific niche.

There are endless options for doing keyword research but to start, but to begin, we suggest using Google keyword planner. There are better keyword planning tools (we will get to those) but looking under Google’s hood is always a good idea.

You will find thousands of articles suggesting you start with easy long-tail keywords, but this isn’t always good advice. With Google leaning more on-topic authority, your website needs to cover those widely discussed conversations, building an authoritative position on the topic.

Ultimately, the keywords you look for depending on the Google dropshipping SEO strategy you put in place.

Website Development

Once you have a strategy in place and the keywords you want to target, it’s time to move on to your dropshipping website. The first step is choosing the right e-commerce platform that’s equipped with what’s needed for SEO success. We’ve reserved a section of this article specifically for Shopify, but other SEO-friendly e-commerce platforms including WordPress and BigCommerce make SEO seamless.

Whichever e-commerce platform you choose, be sure it has the technical SEO components recommended for maximum visibility. Here’s a list of what to look for.

Meta Tags: The platform you choose should include customization for all page meta titles and meta descriptions.

Website Speed: Make sure that your website starts with and maintains fast loading times for all pages. You can do this by setting up a CDN and optimizing images to the smallest size without affecting the quality.

Custom URLs: Your website should be able to have specific URLs where you can have keywords within the title.

Easy Blog Integration: Content should be easy to publish and allow you to upload images and other forms of media that improve the page experience.

Content Marketing

Your dropshipping website‘s content marketing strategy is critical to the success of your category and product pages. The more quality content you produce around the products you offer, the more Google sees you as an authority on that subject. This strategy is a great way to compete against large e-commerce retailers who have more domain authority than your brand.

Content marketing is more than publishing a blog post. Essentially, we should consider content to be any page on your website. This includes your home page, categories, and every product description on your site.

Most websites make the mistake of going wide with their content, focusing too much on being a thought leader. It’s important to remember that when people search Google, they look for answers, not followers. Keep most of your thought leadership content on social media and with your email marketing campaigns.

Link Building

Link Building is when someone creates text with a hyperlink back to your website and is a very important SEO ranking factor. There are endless opportunities for a dropshipping site to earn backlinks on their website.

QUICK TIP: One of the best dropship hacks is finding other blog articles that discuss the “best, top, or product ideas” about your product type. Reach out to the creator of the blog, letting them know about your website, the product you offer, and what makes you special.

Ask them if your product would be a good fit for their article? If they say yes, you will get more leads and a backlink to that page. Win-win!

Social Signals

If you started a social media marketing campaign but are not getting the results you are hoping for, here’s a reason to keep going. SEO experts consider social signals to be necessary for your search rankings. Social signals show Google that your website is relevant in real-time with brand mentions and, hopefully, website traffic.

Being alive on social media is more important than just likes and followers. It’s a place for your customers (and the search engines) to understand your brand through a visual lens.

QUICK TIP: Include social media into your content marketing by grabbing snippets from blog articles to create social media posts. Then integrate social media images into your product descriptions and blog content to create a more rich experience.

SEO Tips for Beginners

We’ve covered a lot, but here are a few more SEO tips to keep us going.

1. Website Links: Google understands a lot about your website through its Internal and external links. The anchor text and where you tell a person to go next help Google better recognize patterns about your business. Make sure you are creating diverse but on-topic internal and external links.
2. Setup Reporting For Real Feedback: It is said that you cannot measure it, you cannot manage it. Thankfully, even without spending a penny, you can get a world of insight from Google analytics and Google search console. All you need to do is submit your sitemaps and Google will do the rest. Get this done!
3. Eliminate All Thin Content: Make sure that every indexed page on your website has at least 300 words. For articles, the general recommendation is no less than 1000 words, but we find that most articles need to be 1500-2500 words. Category and product descriptions may be less, but always give your best effort to creating rich details on every page you publish.
4. Create a User Experience: Build for the Search Engines but optimize for the human. Use schema markup to make sure the search engine easily understands what the page is about. Use titles and tags that engage the searcher to click on ads, then make the articles a joy to read by including images, easy-to-read font sizes, and brief paragraphs.
5. Don’t Forget About Image SEO: Google's lens keeps getting better and better. SEO is no longer just about words but also about images. You could miss out on a ton of traffic if your product, category, and article pages do not have images.
6. Prevent Duplicate Content: Ecommerce websites are notorious for duplicate content creating what we understand as content cannibalization. Make sure your website isn’t fighting against itself for search positions. Optimize each page for a primary topic and focus only on that. If duplicate content is unavoidable, use canonical links for the pages that rank.

How to Improve SEO on Shopify?

Is Shopify Good for SEO? Yes, and Shopify’s search engine optimization tools are getting better all the time. How to do SEO on Shopify once required a custom process, but since the pandemic, you no longer have to figure out how to set up SEO on Shopify. Now, you can integrate plug-ins just like WordPress (such as Yoast SEO) that take care of many previously very time-consuming steps.

Instead, When you are on this platform, you need to focus on how to optimize SEO for Shopify. What plugins are best? What is new inside the Shopify store? Shopify answers many of these questions in the Shopify SEO guide.

SEO Tools For Your Dropshipping Store

The SEO industry has more tools than you could ever use. But for starting your SEO efforts on the right food and gaining traction quickly, the right tools will save you a lot of time and energy.

Keyword Research Tool

Companies like Ahrefs have keyword tools that go well beyond Google Keyword Planner. These tools help you identify keyword gaps where the competition is missing out, long-tail keywords with each rank-ability, and questions that people ask.

Content Writing Tools

The development of content writing tools is one of the greatest things to happen to on-page SEO optimization. These tools make writing content far easier and ensure we cover topics in full. Content writing tools provide you with the important topics for a product description or blog article should cover.

These tools fix one of the biggest SEO challenges. Writing tools like Surfer.io let you create content briefs. We can pass along these content briefs to other writers so that we set expectations for the tone of voice and important article details for external writers to follow.

AI Writing Assistants

AI content writing tools are all the buzz in content marketing, but there’s often a misunderstanding about what these tools can do. Many believe these tools write an article or product description for you, which you can then publish. Like it or not, they will not create content that outperforms a great SEO writer.

However, you can use writing assistants to keep the digital pen moving and prevent writer’s block. AI writing assistants like Jasper.ai generate thousands of words on a topic that you can review, edit, and organize in a way that makes your writing job easier.

Dropified Dropshipping Integration

We hope you enjoyed this article about SEO for dropshipping websites. Sign up for our newsletter to get more dropshipping tips. Better yet, sign up for a free trial to see for yourself how seamless Dropified makes the process of integrating your dropshipping website with hundreds of thousands of products.

Both have their similarities and benefits, but at the same time, there are some notable differences that you should be aware of. In this article, we will break down dropshipping vs affiliate marketing so that you know which one works best for you.

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

For those of you who don't know, affiliate marketing had its heyday in the early 2000s. As people started to sell more and more products online, they would recruit others to do the selling on their behalf. You would be given an affiliate link to share with your audience and for everyone who purchased through your link, you would earn a commission on the seller's sales. 

Fast forward to 2019 and this is essentially what influencer marketers are doing.

So, if you're an affiliate, you can enjoy the following affiliate marketing pros.

• Don't need to hold inventory
• Don't need to process payments
• Could generate traffic through your social accounts without even having a website
• Get paid a fixed commission on someone else's product

Sounds great, right?

But there's one problem…

You're just the middleman! You're driving customers to someone else's product, growing their business and you are paid a commission that they set. Below are just a few affiliate marketing cons:

• The customers are not growing your business
• You won't get repeat business
• Your passive income is dependent on the seller paying you your commission
• You compete with all other affiliates for sales

The question is… Do you want to be one influencer or the seller who has hundreds of influencers sending visitors to their site, advertising their products?

The Concept of Dropshipping

While affiliate marketing only slightly involves you with a company or manufacturer, dropshipping brings you deeper into the commerce industry. With dropshipping, you own the store. You are not just a marketer, but a business owner. That's a far more advantageous position for long-term success.

Dropshipping allows you to create your own prices. Your profit will be the amount of money that remains once you subtract the wholesale price from the sale price. However, with dropshipping, you will be the one responsible for handling the marketing and customer support. 

Once an order is made, you need to forward it to the dropshipping supplier and make the payment to them. The supplier will then pack up your order and send it to your customer on behalf of your store. This business model is a great choice for those who want to own a store but do not have the storage space to do so.

Here are several advantages that make dropshipping a potentially beneficial option: 

• Relatively low risk, since you pay for products after the order is made
• The price setting is under your control, which means that you can also control the profit
• You have the opportunity to build your brand
• The profit margin has the potential to be high
• You can later expand to sell your own products
• You may retarget the customers through advertising

Dropshipping gives you the same advantages of owning your own store without the associated risks. Still, it's not all just rainbows and sunshine. There are a couple of drawbacks that you need to keep in mind: 

• The dropshipping market is becoming rather saturated nowadays
• You have no control over the quality of the product or the packaging
• You need to be in charge of the service and customer support for the products, even if you didn't manufacture them

While there are some challenges to being a dropshipper, you can minimize the risks. The most important is that you do your research so that the products you provide are as qualitative as possible. You can learn what your users are looking for by interacting with them.

When I started my first dropshipping store and I spoke to our users, there was only one overwhelming reason for it. We're on this journey to create a sustainable business for our families to have the lives we all want.

Which One Is Best for You?

If affiliate marketing is the “get rich quick” way to make money online, then dropshipping is the “steady investment”.

With dropshipping, you:

• Create and design your store
• Find and add products, regularly updating them
• Control your profit margin
• Process payments from customers
• Handle customer support and returns
• Promote your store or hire others to do so (such as influencers/affiliates)

This gives you the same benefits without the downsides:

• You don't need to hold inventory (the supplier dispatches all items)
• You don’t need to process payments directly (your e-commerce Platform does that)
• Your e-commerce platform hosts the store so there's nothing technical to worry about
• You can still generate traffic through your social accounts

Rather than being paid a commission which is a fraction of the profit on the item, you take the whole profit: selling price – cost of goods.

Affiliate marketing has been the dominant way to start making money online in the past decade. That’s because only until very recently was it possible to handle all these elements of a business yourself.

Three years ago, you would have needed a team to manage a Shopify business. Today, you can do this with a few clicks by following the steps that have been laid out for you by people who have successfully traveled the journey.

Shopify aims to automate the entire technical process of running a store, from hosting to processing payments. On the other hand, Dropified aims to automate the entire process of sourcing products and ordering them from suppliers who will then dropship the items.

This means you can benefit from:

• Setting your own profits on the products you sell
• Any advertising draws more and more visitors to your site
• Customers can become repeat customers
• You build a business that can support you for the future.

If you're looking for a hands-off approach, then try the affiliate marketing route. If you're looking to control the products that you're selling and have more influence over how you sell them, then dropshipping might be for you.

To make it easier to see the differences, I created this table to help you weigh up the pros and cons of each:

Comparing Affiliate Marketing vs. Dropshipping

Now that you have a basic understanding of how affiliate programs and dropshipping work, it is time for you to take a deeper dive into the features they both provide. This will make it easier for you to understand which option works best for you as an online business. 

Ease of Running

The first thing that most people want to know when making money online is “Which option is easier?” This will depend on various aspects. None of these models are easy to go through, and they both have some challenges that you need to overcome. 

For instance, if you are looking at an affiliate program, then building a loyal audience is very important. No one will be willing to purchase your recommended product if they cannot take your word for it. And if no one buys the items that you recommend, then you will not get that commission. 

As an affiliate marketer, you need to spend a lot of time and effort creating high-quality content and interacting with your audience. You can't just start a blog and hope to make a sale from the first post. For some affiliate marketers, it may take years until they are able to make some decent passive income out of this. 

Dropshipping brings different difficulties to the table. You need to handle various tasks by yourself, including customer service, setting the prices, and managing the inventory. You are responsible for each sale, which can take a lot of effort. You also have to put together a good marketing strategy, as you need plenty of sales if you want to make any profit. 

No matter the option you go for, you need to go through some initial effort. Your business has to gain momentum; otherwise, it will not be found by your clients. You should also make sure you hang onto that momentum and keep working on your business, lest you see a decrease in profits.

Time Commitment 

When comparing affiliate marketing vs dropshipping, many business owners have one more thing that they care about: how much time will this take out of their busy schedule? I find this is a relevant concern for many people, as some are only doing it for passive income. They already have a day job, so they're simply hoping to increase their earnings with a little side business.

With an affiliate program, you need to create the content necessary to promote the affiliate product. If you are just starting out, then this might take some time. For search engines to notice you, you must post consistent high-quality content, so Google chooses you among the masses.

There is also the time it takes to find companies who are willing to let you be an affiliate. Sure you can use an affiliate marketing service but those come with lower profits. The big affiliates understand that direct relationships are best. Unfortunately finding the right person may be harder than you'd expect, so you willl need a tool to help you find an email address for the right contact.

Once you have passed the Google search test and have earned the trust of your readers and have a network of companies with higher payouts, passive income can come your way while you sleep. Every time someone stumbles across one of your links and makes a purchase, you will receive a payment for it. Depending on how many products you have listed and how persuasive you are, you can earn money even from your old blogs. 

Dropshipping asks for a little more involvement. Not only do you need to set it up, but you also have to handle all the logistics of the business yourself. You must find the suppliers, send out the orders when they appear, negotiate the terms, and talk with the customers when potential issues arise. Automation can often take care of this for you, but this also depends on the platform or provider that you are using. 

Startup Costs

If you want to become successful as a business owner, then you need to make an initial investment. The greater the investment, the more challenging it may be for you to get some profit, especially in the early stages. 

When it comes to dropshipping, you may have to pay quite a bit in startup costs. Not only do you need to set up the shipping logistics, but you also have to subscribe to a reliable e-commerce platform. Depending on where you choose to hold your online store, the fees can be different. Some ask for yearly fees, whereas others require monthly payments. 

Becoming an Amazon associate is often less expensive, as you just need a blog. Some website platforms require payment, but you can go for the completely free ones as well. As far as everyone is concerned, you can even be an affiliate marketer through social media posts. If people click and buy through the links you've provided, then the platform that you are using is not that important.

However, you may need to pay for your marketing campaigns. After all, your whole revenue relies on the fact that you have enough traffic coming your way. If your target audience cannot find your content, then you will not make any sales either. If you don't have a large following base, then you may need to pay for things such as pay-per-click ads or other types of sponsored content. Depending on your writing skills, you may also have to hire someone to handle your search engine optimization (SEO), which helps Google see you. 

Risks Involved

If you want to gain a higher profit margin, then it's normal that you will also be concerned about the risks. When it comes to dropshipping, the risk is fairly low, as you don't have to hold the inventory yourself. Everything that has to do with inventory management is to be handled by the suppliers themselves. 

However, your risks are mainly tied to customer satisfaction. As far as your clients are concerned, you are the one in charge of the product. Therefore, if the supplier you chose does not focus on quality, all the heat will fall on you. The supplier may also fail to deliver the product on time, which may lead to customer dissatisfaction and cancellations. Your digital marketing for the shop may be top-notch, but if the third party doesn’t offer quality, you'll be the one suffering the image hit. 

When you’re making earnings through an affiliate marketing program, the risk is relatively low, with some exceptions. For one, you don't have to commit to just one affiliate partner, which means a bad batch will have a lower chance of permanently damaging your reputation. Moreover, since you don't have to pay any money upfront, the risk of losing your capital is low. Even if something goes bad, it's not like you had anything to lose (aside from the time you spent).

Still, some risks can affect just how much money you get with affiliate marketing. If you use an affiliate network, you may have a fluctuating income. First, the product quality provided by third parties may not be good enough, causing the readers to be reluctant when purchasing. A drop in traffic can also lead to lower earnings, which may be caused by poor SEO or market saturation. 

Customer Support

Customer support is handled differently, depending on whether you are into dropshipping or affiliate sales. Customer service is very important for every business, especially when you want to create an image as a reliable provider. The happier your clients are, the more sales you should be able to make. 

With dropshipping, even if you are not the supplier, you will be the one dealing with customer support. It's your responsibility to ensure people receive the item in good time. If they are not happy with it, you'll be the one receiving the complaints. If this happens, you need to go back and forth between the supplier and the customer. To protect your reputation, you must find a way to solve that problem. 

Things are different if your business involves an affiliate website. In this case, you are merely recommending the product. You're not in charge, as you are simply an addition to the provider's marketing efforts. Every issue will be sent to the third-party consumer, which means that customer support bypasses you entirely in this case.

Skill Set Required

If you want to survive in the e-commerce world, you need to possess the necessary marketing skills to draw customers your way. No matter if you are providing Shopify dropshipping or have an affiliate marketing business, you must understand your target audience. This is the only way for you to cater to their needs and preferences. 

Whether your income comes from an affiliate commission or an online shop sale, there is one skill you should master – online marketing content creation. Things such as search engine optimization (SEO) can put you in Google's eyes and drive traffic your way. In this case, you need to learn how to format your texts, how to use the right keywords, and how to make it so search engines see your content as qualitative. There are plenty of platforms out there that are equipping entrepreneurs through online courses if you want to hone your skills. 

If you prefer working through an affiliate program, then you have to write content that is persuasive and engaging. As your readers are browsing through your content, you need to convince them that they need the product you are recommending. If you persuade them on the spot, then they will likely use the affiliate link, which will earn you a commission.

As a dropshipper, you need to be convincing, but you should also make sure you are descriptive and consistent. Aside from that, you must have great research skills so that you only sell the best products. You have to be quick in picking up trends if you want to succeed. 

The Bottom Line

Whether you go for an affiliate program or dropshipping as your preferred business model, both options have their pros and cons. It's up to you to choose which one works best with your style of business management.