In 2022, it’s easier than ever to start an online dropshipping business from the comfort of your couch. You don’t need any massive capital, expensive real estate, warehouses, storefronts or even big teams of employees.
Dropshipping has completely changed the game for ambitious entrepreneurs looking to start a lucrative business with the least investment possible, and yet…
Despite this ease, many drop shippers regularly make costly mistakes that impact their startups both in terms of how well they satisfy customers and how much profit they generate.
In this blogpost, I’ll break down the most common beginner mistakes that make new dropshippers fail, so you can learn how to avoid them altogether. Preventing these mistakes will allow you to take your business off the ground faster and more efficiently.
What Exactly Is Dropshipping?
Dropshipping is a low-cost, low-risk and low-stress way of dipping your feet into the E-commerce market potential with virtually no experience required.
In a nutshell, dropshipping involves setting up an eCommerce site, finding winning product that you want to sell and then advertising and selling that product on social media.
With dropshipping, You get to make your own brand, your own store, choose your own products, your own prices, your own sellers, your own marketing channel and the best part?
Unlike traditional E-commerce, you don’t have to keep any inventory or worry about packaging and shipping.
Since the purchases your customers make are shipped directly from the manufacturer, you don’t need to buy or carry inventory, maintain stores, or even have employees.
This helps you make a sweet profit for every item sold, right from the comfort of your home — all while eliminating the huge, huge capital required to store inventory, handle refunds, deal with shipping issues, delays and the nasty risks that dissuade a new entrepreneur from moving forward with their ambitions.
Dropshipping is the perfect business to eventually leave your 9-5 behind, or build up towards some extra cash on the side at the very least.
Thus, starting a Shopify dropshipping business and creating your first-ever store is an EXCELLENT first step toward entrepreneurship because it allows you to explore and experience the E-commerce world with very little to lose.ad
1. Expecting Quick & Easy Money
While dropshipping is simple to start and grow, it does come with its fair share of work and patience. Having a proper marketing plan, a good product and executing accordingly is the way to go, because people tend to have a natural bias and move towards the familiar, avoiding the new.
Most dropshippers think it’s a get rich quick scheme, and then when they don’t make many sales… they give up after a few months, angry at the whole business model itself.
Building a dropshipping business takes time, energy, and effort. Most people quit before they’ve even given themselves a chance to succeed. As shown below, business growth tends to be exponential — it takes a while to build momentum and “blow up”:
The first few years are always bumpy! So lower your expectations and understand that if you keep learning and pushing through, you will find success.
2. Ignoring Product Research
Data is always important, so always take your time and dive deep into the research when it comes to selecting amazing products.
Consider this when you’re looking for the best products:
- Is the product selling?
- Is there a good profit margin
- How much competition is there?
Lucky for you, Adserea offers all this data for over MILLIONS of winning products! For example, check out this great product we found for you on Adserea A.I product Analyzer tool:
Do you see that whopping $100+ profit margin? This is a SOLID product to dropship in your home, lifestyle or comfort niche store. It even has a fine opportunity score of 7/10, low competition of just about 24% and an average monthly revenue that seems pretty promising! Judging by all the data above, this product is perfect to start dropshipping in your store today!
In general, you’ll want to consider a product that’s interesting, practical, useful, has a good profit margin and average to low competition. If it has that, it’s likely selling good!
3. Not Having A Proper Niche
You know the saying, “The riches are in the niches”. This couldn’t be more true, as niche-specific stores tend to perform really well, and build up long-term brand loyalty as well.
Not everyone can be an Amazon or an Aliexpress. Infact, Amazon itself started as a simple online book seller before expanding wide (but this expansion was back in 1990’s and early 2000’s, when competition was next to none and Ecommerce was nothing but an infant).
Generally, it’s better to not be a jack of all trades in the dropshipping industry. Although you can always have multiple related niches like tech, games and home improvement.
4. Relying Too Much On One Media
Most dropshippers market products only on Facebook and nowhere else, which is a major beginner mistake you should avoid.
Before the company’s massive data breach back in September 2018 (that was shortly accompanied by Mark Zuckerberg’s congress trial), Facebook, now Meta, was a utopia for digital marketers. But not anymore…
Today, Facebook bans ad accounts for the slightest supposed violation of their ever-suffocating policies, terms and conditions, making it hell to run a proper, converting ad. This was made especially worse when people ran political campaigns, MLM schemes, scams and propaganda in their Facebook ads from 2016 – 2019; ultimately making FB that hyper paranoid, untrusting teacher that glares at you for breathing too loud in the classroom.
While it’s still good to market dropshipping products and carousel ads on Facebook, you probably shouldn’t rely on it. Focusing on more diverse video-based platforms like YouTube and Tiktok will give you a better edge in the long run.
Find out more about Tiktok Dropshipping and why you should start.
5. Bad Website, Period.
Oh boy. Do I really have to elaborate on this? It’s pretty self-explanatory, but in general…
- Don’t clutter your website
- Please optimize it for mobile
- Make it stupid-easy to checkout products
- Use a good theme, logo and color schemes
- Use some good website copy
- Make it easy to find stuff
With most Ecommerce platforms like shopify, most of this is already done for you. But somehow people still manage to use bad color schemes, logos and copy.
Don’t be that dropshipper. It’s not 2001, and a good looking, fast loading website is CRITICALLY important! Check out these two amazing examples below:
6. No Exciting Offers, Discounts, Deals Or Even Free Shipping
According to a recent study by INC, 80% of people said they feel confident to make a first-time purchase with a brand that is new to them, if they found an offer or discount. Furthermore, 74% of Americans say that offers are a top factor when deciding where and what to buy online. And four out of five (81%) Americans say finding a great offer or discount is on their mind throughout the entire purchase journey.
Are you seeing the pattern?
Discounts, coupons, deals, offers, bundles and especially free shipping… they ALL work wonders and are backed by psychology and science. And to think this is just one of the many sneaky tricks that pro dropshippers use to maximize their dropshipping profits.
You don’t have to offer all of these at once, but try offering at least two together: Free Shipping (essential) + any other of your choice (bundles, deals, coupons, discounts, etc.)
7. Ignoring Customer Feedback
As a dropshipper, you’re the middleman between the customer and the supplier. But the burden of marketing and customer support falls entirely on you, not your vendor.
Some dropshippers falsely assume they can ignore customer feedback and reviews. After all, a damaged or lost item is the shipper’s problem and not yours, right?
Not quite. While shipping problems do indeed lie with the supplier, YOU are the public-facing company the customer identifies with. The brand. As such, their mistakes affect you a lot more than you realize…
So always pay attention to feedback. If a customer has a problem, reach out to the supplier and help resolve it. Change suppliers if you need to, but ensure good customer service no matter what.
8. Not Having Proper Policies In Place
Shopify helps you set up policies for your store with ease, so don’t ignore them. Having good dropshipping policies in place for returns, TOS, Shipping and exchange can help build your brand integrity and trust. Basically, they help make the buyer feel more confident and at-ease when buying from you.
Look at returns as an opportunity. Customers who find retailers with painless return and refund processing are more likely to continue to shop with them in the future.
Having a reliable returns, exchange and refund system in place is actually a benefit for your dropshipping business!
If you don’t have a system set up for returns, things can get messy real fast. To avoid this, you and your supplier will need to establish a mutually agreed-upon return policy.
Customers will be waiting expectantly for their refund, and being unorganized on this front will not make them very happy. Not to mention, they may also need instructions explaining how and where to return the item. Organizing a system for this will save both you and the customer a lot of confusion and irritation. Talk to your suppliers in advance!
9. Refusing To Learn And Shadow
Dropshipping, like any other business on the planet, requires some effort and time to learn and grow. There are tons of free resources online for you to start learning instantly.
Learn from people that have been into dropshipping since many years now, mimic stores that have had great consistent numbers, take inspiration from niches that are performing well. Learning something every chance you get and then “shadowing” what you’ve learnt is a great way to come out on top.
Remember, you don’t have to be an exact copy cat of someone or something — but try to follow in similar footsteps and be inspired.
For example, Adserea’s store Analyzer tool allows you to spy on infinite online stores and see what kinds of shopify apps they have, where they’re running ads, their numbers, etc:
10. Making Things Complicated
This one’s pretty obvious too, but sometimes people still tend to overlook it. The thing is, you need to make your website a little minimalistic and easy to navigate.
Try to be straightforward and direct with your prospects, rather than unnecessarily fancy. Use common understood terms such as “Products” or “About Us” rather than “Explore” or “Our Journey”. Put your policies in the footer and have a side menu to easily browse dozens of items.
Avoiding the beginner dropshipping mistake of making things unnecessarily complicated will get you far.
Remember, always make it stupid easy, super fast and absurdly convenient for your customers to buy anything in a snap!
Today’s consumer won’t have the patience to stick around for a website to load, or for a product to reach them in half a month, and certainly not if they can’t find what they’re looking for within a few seconds. Purchase decisions are instant; you only have a moment to capture them.
11. Shipping Delays & Product Mishandling
When a customer experiences a problem with their order, they are already unsatisfied with you. You want to be prepared to offer them a quick and easy solution, not fuel the fire. Creating a process for managing and handling order problems will assist in making the customer feel accommodated.
Not to mention people often click the wrong button, order an item by mistake, or simply end up changing their mind.
When this occurs you want to be sure the customer is properly refunded or the adjustment is made accordingly. If you aren’t fast about it, the supplier may go ahead and ship the order and you will end up with a negative review (even if the customer’s to blame).
So be sure your dropshipping supplier(s) confirms they have made the arrangements with you before you confirm anything with the customer. While they are waiting for confirmation, let them know you have received their request and are working on making the changes for them. Additionally, you can set up some sort of timer, where the customer can cancel their order only before it’s been shipped. After its shipped, they can no longer cancel the order, but should be able to return the item in mint condition as it was delivered.
12. No Order Information Or Tracking
If you’re guaranteeing a quick and easy process for your customers, they’re going to want to see the proof for that. That bit of reassurance, you know? So set up some estimated ship dates based on location and get vendors to keep you updated on the order’s status, so you can keep the customer informed. Zapier is a great workflow tool worth looking into, that allows you to automate your everyday sales process; enabling you to scale up your business and reach hundreds of thousands of customers without any stress.
This way, you can monitor orders if you expect them to arrive later than planned and troubleshoot quickly. Sending out emails or SMS to update the customer is a plus.
Here’s another great Shopify tracking app to check out. To learn how to set up a brand new Shopify ecommerce dropshipping store from scratch, click right here.
13. Trying To Do It All By Themselves, And Then Giving Up Too Soon…
Last but not least, this is probably the most common and obvious pitfall that makes most new dropshippers fail miserably; trying to do it all by yourself (DIY, the bad kind). Of course, once they burn themselves out, they end up quitting altogether.
New Dropship entrepreneurs either save every last penny, or spend every last of their savings; both extremes are very unhealthy. You don’t need to get dozens of video ads created for hundreds of dollars, you don’t need to pay a digital marketer to setup your ads, you don’t need to create content, spend time on endless marketing research or even pay thousands for data; not when you can have it all, in ONE single place for the price of a quarter-pound cheese burger.
While dropshipping can create life-changing income streams for you, it isn’t the simple “set it and forget it” business online gurus will have you believe.
Dropshipping takes some work, time, and dedication. Like any other business, you’ll need to spend time learning new skills, figuring out plans, doing research, pivoting, improving and building your infrastructure from mistakes and mess ups. That’s life after all!
Remember that customers won’t start flooding into your fancy new website or crashing your server with orders. It rarely ever comes to that. Even if it does, it surely always takes a while.
Dropshipping is a marathon, not a race; it’s about consistent and sustained effort throughout.
Do yourself a favor and set manageable and realistic goals. Say, aim to make $100 a month. When you hit that, figure out how to make $1000 a month. Prepare yourself for the peaks and valleys. That’s how owning a business works.
Above all else, don’t give up at the first sign of difficulty. When those first few months don’t provide enough income to quit your day job — increase your ambitions ten folds and keep going at it!
Too many drop shippers get discouraged early on and give up easily; don’t be one of those, okay?
CONCLUSION:
There you have it! In order to fully reap the benefits of dropshipping, you will need to understand your responsibilities and what Dropship mistakes usually cause people to fail.
Here are some quick honorable mentions of some other common dropshipping mistakes which new entrepreneurs make:
- Not having PayPal as a payment gateway
- Not offering much product variety and colors
- Blowing off big bucks on influencer marketing from the get-go
- Paying $100 or more for a single video ad
- Ignoring special occasions and events
- Not catching emails with a pop-up offer
- Not paying attention to creative design
- Not having a plan or strategy to follow
- Not having a proper logo and color scheme
- False advertising
- Using bad copywriting on your website and ads
Apart from that, here’s one of the key takeaways: The more you give, the more you get. If you make it about the customers, the customers will make it about you in return. Keep in mind that creativity and flexibility is something you’ll need to exercise yourself. Those are soft skills that you develop only by doing, so don’t stress out if a thing or two doesn’t go as well as planned.
And now that you know how to prevent these dropshipping mistakes that tend to make new dropshippers fail, here’s a little surprise for you to start and grow your Ecommerce store to the skies, giving you all the time in the world to enjoy the seasons with your friends, family and everything you love to do.
Here’s the quickest and easiest way to find top winning products and import them to your dropshipping store in one click, all thanks to Adserea!
Adserea.com is the one-stop solution for all your dropshipping needs. Designed to save time, effort and money, our handy software has made it VERY easy for the average joe to start, scale and maintain a fruitful dropshipping store from absolutely anywhere in the world.
How so? Well, we offer over 1000+ winning products in dozens of niches that you can add to your store with the click of a button. But not only that, you also enjoy ad content (engaging video ads, ad copies, descriptions) and targeting suggestions for every single product and loads of authentic data to analyze and witness the potential for your own eyes.
We also add 2 FRESH brand new winning products daily in various niches!
Adserea even offers you some amazing Spy tools and A.I Analyzers that you can use to copy or take inspiration from the best, most popular stores across the web. This gives you a proper roadmap to follow in order to scale and sustain your business by simply mimicking what works. In a nutshell, you won’t have to beat around the bush and waste time figuring things out all by yourself.
This is the secret platform that the top dropshippers in the world don’t want you to know about, but we’re spilling all their secrets for you to start benefiting today. So what do you say?
No risk, no sweat.
You can try Adserea now for FREE by clicking right here, and start selling the best, most sought-after products this holiday season as soon as today — at just the click of a button!
Summary: 7 Big Mistakes That Make New Dropshippers Fail
(And How To Avoid Them In 2022)
Tip #1: Offer Interesting Products
Tip #2: Offer “FOMO” Discounts
Tip #3: Promote Coupon Codes
Tip #4: Offer Free Shipping
Tip #5: Choose The Right Suppliers
Tip #6: Leverage Digital Marketing
Tip #7: Strategize In Advance
Tip #8: Launching An Email Campaign
Tip #9: Automate Your Tasks
Tip #10: Tell A Story
