A dropshipping business can be a good way to make money with an online store. You don’t need to worry about packing and shipping the products, and also, there is no need for storage space.

But how to build a dropshipping website with WordPress?

Why build a Dropshipping site with WordPress?

WordPress is an open-source platform that makes it easy for developers to create plugins for all types of tasks. It is often the first choice for people who want to build an e-commerce store.

With WordPress, you get full control over your site, and you can customize and automate your dropshipping business. There are also many cheap hosting providers compared to their extremely expensive counterparts.

The WordPress platform is relatively easy to use and can run a store or almost anything you can be implemented via plugins. For example, the Alidropship plugin that you can use to power your dropshipping store with all of the necessary features.

In combination with WooCommerce, your work is already half done because all the pages like My Account, Shop, Cart, and Checkout are automatically created with a single click. There are also multiple payment gateways supported to sell you products worldwide.

You don’t need to design everything from scratch there are many beautiful themes that support both Woocommce and dropshipping. If you want full customizing control, you can use different drag & drop builders like Elementor or Visual Composer.

WordPress has a large community of developers and people to make it better and refine the previous version. You can find a lot of support if you encounter any problem via the WordPress forum or with a simple Google search.

How to build a Dropshipping Website with WordPress?

To create a dropshipping store with WordPress, you need to keep some steps in mind.

1. Finding your niche

One of the most important things you need to think about is deciding what niche you want to pick. Research ideas you have and products you are interested in. Look for google trends or popular marketplaces like Amazon and Aliexpress, what products people are interested in, and the demand and competition.

Make a list of your research and identify your targeted audience. Then pick the niche you are most interested in and has a potential audience of customers who buy from your store.

2. Choose a Hosting provider and Domain Name

Decide your domain name mainly, the .com endings are used for domains, but you can also use other endings like .shop, or if you target a specific country, use it as a domain ending (.us .uk .de).

To find a name for your domain name, try to integrate keywords of what you sell into the domain so customers get an idea of what they can buy from your business by looking at your domain.

It is also possible to make up names that are easy to remember and not longer than 15 characters. Use the name generator Namemesh, where you see what names are available and have different options to choose from.

Now you need a domain hosting platform where you can buy your domain name and host your WordPress website. Some options would be Wealthy Affiliate, which gives very fast and secure hosting and 24/7 backup and service, marketing tools, courses, and a big community to help with your online business journey. Or select a hosting platform like Bluehost.

3. Install WordPress

The Installation of WordPress is pretty easy on most providers it is just a one-click installation. You need to set a username, password, and email for your administrator account and decide your site title.

Then you need just to wait until the installation is finished, and you can start building your site on WordPress.

4. Selecting the Themes and installing Plugins

Depending on if you want to use Woocommerce for dropshipping or not, you need to select a theme that supports Woocommerce. There are many free and premium themes you can choose to build your dropshipping store.

If you want to use the Alidropship plugin without Woocommerce, you should look at themesite and select one of the themes made specifically for the plugin.

With the alidropship plugin, you can integrate unlimited products from Aliexpress to automate almost all processes, and you only need to pay once.

This should be one of the first plugins you need to buy and install to build your dropshipping store.

You can integrate some other helpful plugins into your site, like the SEO plugin Rankmath to get free search traffic from Google and Bing and track keywords and rank organically. A good idea is also to install an image optimization plugin, so your site loads faster and images don’t use as much space.

Another plugin, for example, would be contact form 7, where users can send you emails you then answer.

If you want to create a newsletter, you can buy an email service like Sendfox to automate your newsletter.

5. Setting up Woocommerce and the alidropship plugin

If you install Woocommerce, you will get an on-screen setup wizard you need to follow step by step. Here is a tutorial video on how to set it up for the Woo alidropship plugin.

But the alidropship plugin can be the better option for beginners because almost all options are integrated into the plugin. To install and setup the plugin, you can watch this video:

6. Finding and importing Products

When you do drop shipping, you don’t have the stock, so you need to find suppliers and quality products to import. If you want to import Aliexpress products, search for offers that are high quality and have good reviews.

Also, think about what country you sell because there are different rules for taxes and products. These fees and shipping cost greatly impact your business and customers. So if you target a country and ship products from, e.g., China to a European country, your customers may encounter problems with customs and long shipping time.

To fix this problem, select products that are already in the country. Use the AliDropship Google Chrome Extension to import your products to your WordPress store. You can edit the product title, description, and shipping options before you click import.

7. Design your theme and customize your settings

For an online store, one of the most important things is that it is visually appealing to your potential customers. So design your menus, product & checkout pages, and categories to offer a good user experience.

Customize your settings so that visitors can easily access your product and have a fluent checkout process with different secure payment options.

8. Marketing

You need to acquire paying customers. So think about how you want to promote your dropshipping store. One of the first steps should be SEO with a plugin like Rankmath to rank your products on the Google and Bing search engines.

You can also put your products in the merchant center of Google and Bing, so they appear on the Shopping pages.

Think about if you want to do advertising with social media or search engine ads through Google and Bing. Of course, if you already have a following, you should share your store with your followers.

You can also build and grow a social media and blog following by posting relevant content to your niche. In such posts, you can share product links and your store pages.

9. Fulfilling orders

If you get your orders, you need to fulfill them on Alixepres. The AliDropship plugin makes the process easy. You can click “place order automatically,” and the plugin redirects you to AliEpresss all the shipping details for your customer will be placed automatically.

Check that the process works, and if there is a problem, you can place an order manually. You can check your order status either through the plugin or Woocommerce.

10. Building Trust

If your customer experience any problems, try to answer as soon as possible and come up with a solution. You need to connect with suppliers to find a solution. Professional customer support is important to building a long-term dropshipping business.

Also, make sure to get reviews from customers and social proof, so potential customers trust you and buy from your store. Building trust is key to earning long-term revenue and royalty.

11. Analyze and measure your results

No matter what you do, you should analyze the process to find out what works and whatnot. This way, you can improve your process and maximize your profit and get more happy and loyal customers.

This means you might need to change your targeted audience or modify your pricing strategy. Or you need to delete and add new products.

When you want to sell physical products online, you often need large capital and a warehouse. However, if you start a dropshipping business, you don’t need much money or a depot. But what is a dropshipping business, and how to does it work?

What is a Dropshipping business?

With a dropshipping business, the store owner never physically holds the products to sell. Instead, the retailer sells a product on their website they bought from a third-party supplier who usually ships the item directly to the customers.

The online seller never actually holds or ships the item. Their main focus is to effectively advertise it to the suppliers and mark up the price to make a profit. So you can sell products without holding any inventory or paying for the products upfront.

Dropshipping is a great opportunity for entrepreneurs to build a sustainable source of income.

How does dropshipping work?

In a dropshipping business, there are three parties involved the retailer(you), the customer, and the supplier/manufacturer.

The dropshipping process works like this:

• You “stock” the products on your website or marketplace
• The products held by the supplier/wholesalers could be anywhere in the world. So let’s say the product costs $20 per unit from the supplier. Then a drop shipper can list the item at $25( it makes you 5$ profit for each sale).
• When a customer buys from your website, you as the merchant receive a notification. Then you need to forward the orders to the supplier either manually or automatically.
• The supplier then fulfills the order by shipping the product directly to the customer.

What are the Pros and Cons of a dropshipping business?

Every business model has its pros and cons. You just need to weigh them up and decide whether they are right for your circumstances and needs.

Advantages:

It is relatively easy to start a dropshipping business because you don’t need as much budget, research, or planning before you can sell. Dropshipping doesn’t require the initial resources needed to build a conventional online store where you need capital, a warehouse and office space, etc.

Your biggest concern is to find a dropshipping supplier and choose a marketplace or build an e-commerce website.

Another advantage is you don’t need to purchase and hold the stock you want to sell, So you only buy a stock when you make a sale, and the customer has paid you. The good thing is you don’t need capital for stock, and if products aren’t selling, you can just remove them from your store.

A dropshipping business can be accessed anywhere you have a stable internet connection which gives you a lot of flexibility. So you can even start it from home without having to quit your job, and it can be balanced around current commitments.

You can offer a large variety of products almost anything that a supplier sells.

It is far easier to grow a dropshipping business than a traditional online store. When you make more sales, the work falls to the supplier rather than you. This allows you to grow your business without hiring extra staff. So you can scale easier and quicker the traditional online shops.

Disadvantages:

The key to successful dropshipping is to make a profit on the difference between the selling price and supplier price of products.

While it is great, you don’t have to bulk buy products; you also don’t get bulk pricing. It means you probably end up paying more for each individual item, so your prices won’t be as competitive.

You can react and adapt to consumer trends. However, it can lead to sudden stock shortages with not enough products. So popular product is a blessing for traditional retailers who stocked up products but a curse for drop shippers.

The problem is dropshipping is a highly competitive space as a lot of people are doing it.

You often don’t know in which circumstances the product are made so sometimes you sell low-quality products from the wrong businesses.

Low margins are probably the biggest disadvantage. It is very difficult to compete in the paid advertising space, so you need to make an effort to build SEO content and deliver excellent service.

How to start a dropshipping business?

If you decide to start a dropshipping business, you need to keep the following steps in mind:

1. Figure out the business license

To set up your business, you need to know what licenses and permits are required to start a dropshipping business. First, select a name and a business structure that is best for your needs (sole proprietorship, LLC). Then you need to acquire an employer identification number (EIN) for tax purposes.

Also, make sure to find out if you need any other business license, or a seller permits to sell your products. It is a good idea to consult local government agencies in your country to ensure you meet the proper guidelines.

2. Find a market and choose a niche

Narrow down the specifics of your dropshipping business idea. To do this, you need to identify a targeted audience you want to reach with your product. Remember, you and your competitor all have access to the same product and can work with suppliers that have a similar level of service. So to differentiate yourself from your competition, you need to put time into your marketing efforts.

Start by searching for a niche. It has to be something that interests you because it will make your efforts a lot easier. Identify a specific market for a smaller group of people. For example, you want to sell hockey sticks, so you need to find the people that play hockey.

What is also helpful is doing keyword research and looking into google trends to see how high the demand and competition are. Find on major e-commerce marketplaces like Amazon and eBay or Oberlo what products are the best selling. It is also possible to discover popular products and social media sites like Instagram, Youtube, or Pinterest.

In a similar way to the keyword and product research, you can also look into your competition. So use platforms like Google, Amazon, eBay, and social media again to see how good a product is selling. Ideally, you find a niche with buyer demand so you can make a profit but isn’t too competitive to stand out.

Evaluate if the chosen niche and product can be profitable because dropshipping margins are often low, so you want to ensure you can earn money. It is a good idea to sell a non-seasonal product that is cheap to ship and retails for at least $15.

It takes time to figure out the right niche, but it is necessary to start a successfully dropshipping business.

What you also can do is find gaps in the market. It means you need to look deeper into where the real money-making opportunities are. To get this insight, you can review sold items through eBay’s advanced search feature.

Compare the result with products that are being searched for to identify market gaps. It helps you find products that have high search volumes but don’t have much competition or aren’t sold at the right price.

No matter how you search for products, keywords and competitions, always make a list and save the links you find interesting.

3. Searching for the right supplier

The next very important step you need to do is to find the right suppliers. The Supplier is key to starting your dropshipping business. Use the following criteria to determine if you discovered a good supplier:

• Experience: You want a supplier that is already in the dropshipping business and provides great customer service. Look for their Net Promoter Score and find reviews on sites like Trustpilot and Better Business Bureau.
• Fees: Research if there are any fees, for example, a small monthly fee for working with them. You should not pay more than 5$ per item for stocking packaging and shipping.
• Fast shipping: Customers want their products fast, so the shipping shouldn’t take longer than one or two weeks.
• Product samples: It is a good idea to order/request product samples from the supplier you choose. This way, you can see if the products are not low quality.
• Referrals: The right supplier can refer to other businesses they work with. If they refuse to do you probably shouldn’t work with them.

Dropshipping marketplaces

The easiest way to get started is to use dropshipping marketplaces. These businesses work with eCommerce drop shippers. You can find millions of different products on marketplaces that suppliers purchase from manufacturers and importers, so drop shippers can sell them at a markup.

There are many special tools and plugins which make integrating products into your eCommerce website easier. Some of the dropshipping marketplaces are

• Aliexpress: Has free service and offers one of the largest drop ship product marketplaces
• Dropship Direct: Has also free service and offers over 100,000 products
• Oberlo: Free service and integrates with Shopify
• Wholesale2B: Cost $24.99/month and can be directly integrated with Shopify and BigCommerce
• Doba: Cost $29/month and directly integrated with Shopify and Volusion

While these are some popular marketplaces, it is important to do your own research. Also, keep in mind the supplier criteria to find a reliable partner for your dropshipping business.

Manufacturers and importers

When you work with manufacturers and importers directly, you can earn a lot more money. The reason is you can cut out the middle man( the marketplace) and buy directly from the source.

But manufacturers typically have an average order volume that dropship newbies might not be able to sell. The integration with an e-commerce site isn’t as seamless, so you need to put in a lot of work to add and manage your inventory.

It is better to wait until you have an established dropshipping business before selling source products and working with manufacturers like Alibaba or IndiaMarkt.

No matter what option you choose, it is important to do enough research and make a list of options to find the right suppliers for your business.

4. Building your e-commerce website

After you find your niche and supplier, you need to create an e-commerce store. You can choose between an e-commerce marketplace like Amazon or eBay or build your own website from scratch.

An eCommerce marketplace is a lot easier to set up, and users find it more trustworthy.

But a marketplace limits your independence as a merchant, and you don’t get full control over the branding design and marketing of your store. There are also fees for every sale you make, and you must follow their guidelines.

So it is better to build your own eCommerce website because you get a lot more functionality and customization. This will help you set yourself apart from your competitors.

There are many good e-commerce builder platform providers like Shopify or Gambio. Depending on what supplier and which platform you choose, some offer direct integration with Shopify. These platforms make it easy to build an online store and integrate your products. But you have to pay monthly to get most of the important functions.

If you want to build an e-commerce store that is more content-focused, you should consider using Woocommerce, a plugin for WordPress, to build your own store. With WordPress, you have the biggest customizing options and can choose between thousands of Plugins and many very beautiful themes.

Whatever you choose, remember to test your site and purchase path, so everything works. Also, try to make your website user-friendly, fast, easy to navigate, and integrate fitting graphics and pictures.

5. Marketing of your dropshipping business.

When you created and launch your dropshipping website, there is one important point left in marketing. You want to get customers, so you need to make efforts to get traffic to your store.

To do this, you can use online advertising where you pay to get clicks to your site.

Another option is to build a following on social media to attract a specific audience that could be interested in your products.

What you should definitely do is make use of SEO so you can rank in Search engines like Google and Bing. It helps you to get free organic traffic, especially when you create engaging content. You also need to ensure to search for the right keywords.

You can utilize email marketing to get more leads and attract more customers. When people sign up for your email list, send them new offers, coupon codes, and valuable insights to get them to buy from your site.

There are also many more online marketing methods like giveaways or creating a referral program where people advertise for your store in return for a small provision.

If you think marketing is too hard for you, you can also hire a freelancer that has the experience.

6. Analyze and improve your offers

After you do marketing and manage your dropshipping business, you should look for results. It means when you made a number of sales, analyze your product and marketing efforts.

Find out what product is selling best and which marketing channel is performing well and which isn’t. Do you have more desktop or mobile users? And where is the conversion rate better?

You can answer a lot of these questions by looking into your website analytics. Depending on how you build your dropshipping business, you can also research your Google Analytics if you have it set up.

It is important to compare the marketing platforms where you advertise to find out what you can improve and what doesn’t work.

When you consistently analyze over time and improve your dropshipping business, it helps you make smarter decisions to grow your eCommerce store and offer more best-selling products.

Nevertheless, you need to invest the time and money and get the know-how to make your dropshipping business successful.

Dropshipping tips you should know

Ther are some tips that help to become more successful with your dropshipping business

1. Provide customer support

When a customer complains about a product, it is very important to answer professionally and friendly. Try to find a solution and, if necessary, contact the supplier. When the supplier can’t or won’t fix your problem, you might want to give a refund of a part of the full price.

Also, for a bigger mistake, make it up to the customer by giving a coupon code or refunding the shipping cost, for example.

While every drop ship supplier can make mistakes but if this happens often, it will hurt your business reputation. In that case, you should stop working with that supplier

2. Have a FAQ

With a FAQ, you can answer the questions about return and delivery policies, your products, account settings, etc.

3. Order Fulfillment

Depending on what tools you use and how you fulfill an order, you need to keep some things in mind. Try to fulfill orders as fast as possible. When an order is too large for your budget, wait for the payment and then fulfill the order

If you work with different suppliers directly, you can route the order to one location where they will be intelligent packed and fulfilled.

4. Fraud and security prevention

Don’t store the payment information on your website. It is better to use third-party payment options like Stripe or Paypal.

To prevent fraud orders when you are unsure, do an address verification. Fraudsters tend to follow patterns like different billing and shipping addresses/names. An unusual email address like fjghfhj@gmail.com is a sign of fraud. Or they choose the most expensive and fastest delivery method.

If you see signs of fraud, first contact the customer and try to legitimate the order. When there is no answer in a few days, cancel the order and issue a refund to avoid problems.

5. Have effective return policies

With a return policy, you let customers know what time window they have to return a product. When you have different suppliers, look at their policies and integrate/merge that information into your website.

Don’t have a restocking fee as part of your return policy because it is outdated and unfriendly towards your customers. Even if you might have to pay a fee here and there.

Compensate your customers for return shipping fees. But it doesn’t make sense to pay a $10 return for an item that is worth $12. At the start, you don’t need to pay such a fee unless you have enough budget and want to stand out.

Depending on the product, you can also ship the new product without getting a return from the customer if you trust your customer’s complaint.

Some suppliers maybe pay for returning shipping products.

It is fairly reasonable to be to give a customer a refund for a non-defective product.

6. Use simple shipping rules and keep policies and taxes in mind

Shipping rates are often a big mess for a dropping business owner. So at the start, it is a good idea to choose for example only one region like Europe or the US. This makes things a lot easier because not only need to keep shipping costs in mind but also taxes, fees, and policies of different regions.

You can implement three shipping rates:

Real-time rates: A method your shopping cat will use the collective weight of all time purchase and the shipping destination and calculates a real-time quote. It is very accurate but difficult if it has various supplies.

Per-type rates: You set a flat shipping rate based on the type of products ordered. So smaller ones cost 5$, and bigger ones cost $10 to ship.

Flat rate shipping: You charge one flat rate for all shipments, no matter what type. This could also be free shipping on all orders. It is an easier method to implement but isn’t accurate in reflecting actual shipping costs. An idea is to integrate the average shipping costs into the product margin, so you don’t lose money.

Also, choose a reliable carrier that is right for your dropshipping business that doesn’t have high fees and offers fast and secure shipping

7. Products you shouldn’t ship

Some product choices can complicate things, and you have to deal with many problems. So do your research and look that the product isn’t copyrighted or knock-offs which can give you serious legal issues.

A product shouldn’t be too fragile where it can be easily damaged or is too heavy to be lifted. When it is technically too complex, it’s better to avoid a product that requires careful check-up before the purchase.

Creating an ecommerce store can be a lot of work, and finding customers and making sales isn’t easy. But with the following top ecommerce tips and tricks, you can learn how to get and maintain customers and grow your online store long-term.

1. Get Reviews

The opinion of customers is always important, whether negative or positive. When there are no reviews on your page, people will look for other shops that offer this visibility.

Positive reviews or testimonials show that you have an open, honest, and qualified online store. You can find a lot of plugins to integrate and manage reviews on your website.

While you should control what is being said, you will likely encounter at least one unhappy ex-customer. But even those reviews you should keep no matter if good or bad on your site. It shows customers that you have nothing to hide.

If a customer has an issue, try to solve it with your customer service, even on your social media sites. When you can professionally soothe a disappointment and solve their problem, it earns you more respect and trust from potential customers

2. Build Trust

People look before buying in a new shop for signs of credibility like trust badges, secure checkouts, testimonials, reviews, etc. There are many studies that show trust logos affect a customer’s sense of trust in a website and the buying decision. So when your site lacks trust badges, many consumers most likely won’t purchase from your site.

So integrate trust badges and security seals like Norton, reviews badges from Trustpilot and g2, and an SSL certificate on your website and checkout.

3. Pricing and Quality

The right quality and price can make a huge difference whether a customer buys or not. You need a good pricing strategy that matches the quality of the product/service you sell. While competitive pricing can be useful, it mostly depends if the customer finds your product first. So don’t force yourself to give up profit rather, invest it in good marketing and customer experience.

The better the quality and the more feature you offer, the higher you can make the prices. A price also depends on your targeted audience and product/service. If your product is expensive and you want to sell it to people in their twenties, you most likely won’t sell much. But if you sell a service to a business, you can up the cost depending on what you do.

4. Customer Benefits

To ensure that customers want to buy from your store, offer benefits like free shipping and free return. While shipping costs might not seem much, it is often the reason why customers choose another store. So if possible, make the shipping free of cost unless you offer worldwide shipping, then a fee might be necessary if you don’t want loos money.

Showcase the estimated delivery time so people know when they can expect your product.

Integrate different payment gateways depending on the audience, region, and product. Before deciding what payment methods you use, look for the different fees, safety, and how you can incorporate them into your online store.

Also, offer guarantees for your products and money-back guarantees, so potential customers feel safer in buying your product.

5. Loyalty and Affiliate program

If you create a loyalty program for your online store, it can retain your customers. While you should never stop looking for new customers, it is more affordable and rewarding when you keep the customers you already have. The more customers you can keep, the more you will save and make.

With a Loyalty Program, you can reward your customers with points or cash back after a money value or order number that they can collect and redeem for their next purchase. It not only increases your conversion, but you can also see who your best customers are and maybe offer them even more value.

Integrate an Affiliate program so customers can recommend your product to their friends, on social media, or on their blog. If someone makes a purchase through their Affialtie link, give a reward, e.g., a percentage of the purchase price.

Affiliates can market your product for you, and you don’t have extra marketing costs and still can get many conversions.

6. Build a brand and sell an experience

If you build a brand, it can help people to recognize and remember it. For a brand, you not only need a creative logo and an easy-to-remember name. You also should determine the image, messages, and values you want to represent.

When you sell an experience and make an impact on your customer, they can become loyal consumers who even recommend other people your product. Build long-term relationships with your customer by creating remarkable and delightful experiences where you connect through customer service, mission, and values.

The more memorable, emotional, and powerful the moments you provide your customers, the more they will stay loyal and remember your brand.

7. A clean, simple, and visually appealing shopping experience

The shopping experience needs to be easy and exciting for customers, so they buy again.

Make sure your store design is easy to navigate with fitting categories and has a simple and working checkout. Also, provide a responsive mobile site so customers can buy on their phones. Every part of your website must load fast because you will lose a lot of conversions when your site is slow.

Your product page should have different product images and detailed product features, and unique value propositions. If you have a Landing page, write an engaging copy and have a visually appealing sales funnel.

Place on your website attention trapping banners with new deals. If you write blog posts, also integrate different graphics, pictures, and videos.

It is essential that your shop appears in search engines like Google; you don’t want to miss out on free organic traffic. Do keyword research and SEO so your website can rank in search engines.

If you expect a large amount of traffic through a marketing campaign on a day like Black Friday, make sure that your website can handle the traffic. Nothing is more frustrating when many potential customers want to visit your online store, but your site crashes.

8. Finding the right Marketing strategy

Without the right marketing strategies, you won’t get any customers. You should plan how you want to attract potential customers with advertising, social media marketing, working with influencers, email marketing, or content marketing.

Also, think about how you get leads by offering coupons and creating a sense of urgency and scarcity for specific products. A countdown or limited time can bring you a lot more customers.

Integrate promotion flash sales, coupons, bestseller lists, and limited offers on your online store to bring customers to buy more.

Email marketing is probably the most important strategy you should use. Collect email addresses not only through sales but also through calls to action. Have an email automation system where you filter people if they are already customers or only signed up for the newsletter etc.

Through email, you can send all types of promotions, make upsell, give product updates, news, helpful guides, and much more. Also, thank customers after purchase and try to get a review from them. And if a customer doesn’t buy and abundance their cart, send them an email after 6 hours and maybe give an additional coupon code so they might convert now.

9. Experiment and Improve

No matter if you try out a new ad platform or make special sales, track your campaigns with special links. When you experiment with new methods, it will help you know which campaign brings conversions and which does not. This gives you a chance to improve your efforts.

Use analytics to see where users stay the longest and which page has the biggest bounce rate. Also, A/B test buttons, banners, and campaigns to understand how your customer behaves and what clicks best.

10. Outsource

Nothing costs more time and money than when you want to do it all by yourself. So outsource and automate tasks that could others do better. It can save you a lot of trouble when you hire the right freelancer and find automation tools to make your life easier.