Drop Ship your way to Success!

What is Drop Shipping?

Drop Shipping is a simple business model where the manufacturer of a product ships the item purchased directly to the end consumer. Your job – as a retailer – is to offer those items to your customers and SELL! SELL! SELL!

A store front isn’t necessary – you can list the items directly on your online shop. We provide beautiful, full colour photography of items along with web-ready descriptions and specifications. All the information that you need to effectively sell that product. It’s low risk, low cost and easy to start up. You don’t need a place to store inventory because we, as the manufacturer and distributor, will ship products out directly from one of our warehouses.

You don’t need to bulk purchase items to receive discounted prices – you pay wholesale prices, and you’re eligible for ongoing promotions so you can pass on your savings directly to your consumers.

Processing orders is simple with our user-friendly, dealer portal where you can view live stock, updated pricing and add orders with one click. You can start selling on the same day that you sign up!

 

 

Keys to Drop Shipping Success – some tricks of the trade that may help you in setting up your Drop Shipping business:

 

1. Build up your website traffic

Because this business model depends on the virtual ‘foot traffic’ that is people browsing online for items they want to buy, getting people to visit your website is the equivalent of getting window shoppers to come into your store – if they come inside chances are higher that they will buy!

This is where SEO comes into play. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and refers to the virtual breadcrumbs that lead online consumers to your virtual store. Things like keywords in your product titles, categories and subcategories, as well as your page titles and meta descriptions. Many website builders offer tools to help you through this process but if you feel like you need more help, or if you would rather leave it up to the pros, investing in an SEO agency may be worthwhile to build up your traffic.

 

2. Write blogs

Don’t be intimidated – this can be as simple as picking one of your favourite products for the week and talking about its features. Online tools like Grammarly can help with spelling and grammar and in the end, you’ll have fresh new content for your website that will be informative for your potential customers and will help direct even more traffic to your site.

Try to write at least 3-4 blogs a month. Keep track of your website traffic analytics tools and you should start seeing a boost in traffic within the first couple of months.

 

3. Limit your inventory

When you list products, you want the best curated collection of items that are relevant to your site and your business model. You also want to present the best version of those products, which will motivate your customers to buy from you and not the next site they visit. This means tweaking or even rewriting product descriptions to make them your own and editing images to optimize their appearance on your site. Start by listing your favourite items and take them time to present them the best way that you can. You can continue adding more products as time goes on and your sales go up. This will also help you stay on top of all the latest new introductions from manufacturers like Worldwide Homefurnishings. We intro new products almost every quarter, so you want to be able to have the freshest and newest items to offer your customers.

 

4. Paid advertising

Working on refreshing the content on your site will work well for your site traffic but if you want to see immediate results and on a greater scale, you may want to consider investing in paid online marketing. There are many programs available like Google Adwords (with campaigns like pay-per-click sponsored search results or remarketing campaigns), Facebook Business Manager (which advertises with sponsored ads on Facebook and Instagram) and other Affiliate Marketing programs (where you work with other websites to piggy back off each others’ traffic).

You should also be tracking the traffic on your site with free tools like Google Analytics, so you can try and see the effects of these paid marketing strategies.

 

5. Rewards and Incentives

Leverage seasonal sales – people buy when it’s the buying season, so don’t be afraid to put your products on promo as well. Festive offerings, seasonal sales, BOGO deals, and “LAST CHANCE” clearance sales are just a few promotions that you can run to garner attention and website traffic.

Don’t underestimate reviews – when consumers are not sure about a product, especially big-ticket items like furniture, they will look to their peers for guidance. Ask your customers to write reviews after they have purchased an item. The more detailed the better! You can offer incentives to customers – “Post a review and receive a promo code for your next purchase!”

Take advantage of social media – encourage customers to share images of their purchases in social media and to tag you. You can offer prizes for the best picture of the week.

Keep on top of your inventory – the products you list are the best representation of your business and what you want it to look like. Do continued research and adjustments in pricing to stay competitive. Respond to feedback, both positive and negative.

 

Let us know if some of these tips were helpful for you in setting up your small business. Do you have any more tips for someone who might be starting out? Let us know in the comments below.

 

At Worldwide Homefurnishings Inc. we have over 30 years of experience. We are dedicated to you and your business because your success is our success! Check out our Drop Shipping program here. We look forward to hearing from you.