Shopify Dropshipping: Complete Guide For Beginners

Shopify is an eCommerce platform like WooCommerce, Bigcommerce, Opencart, Magento, etc. However, Shopify provides many outstanding advantages and advanced applications to support Dropshipping compared to other competitors. As a result, Shopify Dropshipping is favorably used by many people. In this blog, we are pleased to discuss how to dropship on Shopify.

What is Shopify Dropshipping?

Shopify Dropshipping is a business model where the operator does not keep the goods in stock. When receiving orders from customers, you will go through the supplier (third-party) to make a request order and ship directly to the customer.

To conduct the Dropshipping business model, start a Shopify Store known as a virtual eCommerce. You would use that online store as an intermediary to buy and sell products from suppliers. Within that concept, Shopify is one of the tools you can use to leverage your Dropshipping business; because it provides outstanding supporting features.

Shopify Dropshipping profits may not be high, but this business model requires little upfront capital. The only thing that sellers need to focus on is different Dropship strategies such as product marketing, order tracking, and customer care, and they can do these jobs completely online through trendy tools like buying ads on Facebook.

Affected by the global Covid epidemic, the demand for online shopping has grown, and the trend of promoting the development of cross-border eCommerce commerce is increasing. Thus, the Dropshipping market is predicted to have more growth chances.

According to the Market Analysis Report, the global dropshipping market size reached 102.2 billion USD in 2018. From 2019 to 2025, the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is expected to increase by 28.8%.

What is Shopify, and is It Good for Dropshipping?

Regarding the history of Shopify, in 2004, Tobias Lütke and Scott Lake wanted to find a platform to build a ski equipment business website, but they couldn’t find a suitable platform at an affordable price. They decided to develop their solution called Shopify, which became a global billion-dollar business.

At present, Shopify is an eCommerce platform that uses cloud storage technology to optimize online business and transactions. This platform helps you build a comprehensive sales website that integrates and synchronizes all online business support features such as payment, shipping, warehousing, social networking, offline point of sale connection, etc. Visit this resource to learn more about Shopify Reviews.

In Shopify’s business results for the first quarter of 2022, we can find amazing numbers such as:

• • Total revenue in the first quarter was $988.6 million, with a growth rate of up to 110% over the same period last year.

• • User subscription revenue was $320.7 million, with a 71% year-over-year growth, mainly due to more merchants joining the platform.

• • Shopify is used as the world’s 3rd largest retail channel after Amazon and eBay, their most premium product is Shopify Plus which famous big corporations like Pepsi, Heinz, Tesla, and celebrities like Lady Gaga.

Although there are many similar platforms nowadays, the search term “Shopify” always tends to be higher, like Bigcommerce or WooCommerce and Magento on Google Trends. The following chart illustrates the search interests worldwide among four eCommerce platforms.

Especially Shopify is quite famous for its Dropshipping business support. Many people may have known Shopify because of its convenience and guarantee of Dropshipping before recognizing it as a global eCommerce platform.

Shopify Dropshipping is a comprehensive solution to the Dropshipping model; that is considered safe and less risky for those who want to start doing business. It is a business model that allows all subjects to try without spending a lot of initial investment costs. If you want to have a better understanding of how Shopify Dropshipping works, this article belongs to you.

How Much Does It Cost to Start Dropshipping?

Below is a breakdown of the initial cost of starting dropshipping. This cost is not completely accurate, depending on the choice and needs of each business.

How Does Shopify Work?

Easy to Set up

To dropship on Shopify, you need to create an online store, as we mentioned above. Shopify is not only known as a global eCommerce platform, but it is also famous for its built-in eCommerce website. With the founders’ philosophy: Shopify is an eCommerce solution for everyone. In other words, you will not require any professional programming knowledge to create a website since Shopify supports this feature for non-programmers with the dropship theme Shopify. 

Good Price and Scalability

Many people think that Shopify seems to be more expensive than other website creation platforms. However, with the package of $29 per month, you will be empowered by a range of features, such as: 

• • Create a booth quickly and without outsourcing costs

• • No need for senior IT personnel to manage data

• • Unlimited products posts

• • Linking other sales channels such as eBay, Amazon, Etsy…

• • Link with shipping units

• • Connect with offline points of sale (Shopify POS)

• • Unlimited installation of supported apps in Shopify’s app store

• • Flexible monthly payment so you can stop or temporarily close at any time

• • 24/7 support

In addition, if your business grows faster and requires an upgrade, you can contact Shopify for further advice and renewal to advanced packages. The process will proceed quickly with just a few clicks. 

Able to Use Free Functions 

First, you will get 14 trial days to create and experience your web store. This amount of time is good enough to complete the creation and practice with your online business booth. One great thing about Shopify is that if you haven’t completed the store in 14 days, you can email the support team to get the next 14 trial days.

In addition, there are other resources that you get for free such as Theme Stores, App Store, and Design tools such as Logo, Slogan, Brand Name, etc.

Currently, there are no other platforms that offer as diverse application features as Shopify. Shopify can be considered an ecosystem in the technology of designing eCommerce sales pages; therefore, you could optimize all in one system. 

High Speed and Safety Protection

Website loading speed is an essential part of increasing customers’ experience and staying longer with the brand. In contrast to Shopify, if using Woocommerce, you need to use Hosting services to achieve the fastest page loading speed. With Shopify’s cloud storage technology, your website always runs sleekly on both computers and mobile devices.

When operating the Dropshipping model, we can see that the Website is considered a business asset. Therefore, the Website needs to have high security, and Shopify can guarantee for you. 

Security features are even more necessary, especially for startups or small and medium-sized businesses with no economic conditions to worry about protection.

In addition, when the website is not well secured, it leads to the loss of advertising money. For customers to know about your products, you must make ads on Google and Facebook. Therefore, when the website is lost for reasons of being well-secured, the customer clicks on the advertising link and will not see anything. That disrupts the buying journey and reduces sales.

Therefore, the Website needs to have high security, and Shopify can guarantee for you. 

Free SEO Optimization and Marketing Tools

Designing a web store is the first thing you would do in several steps. However, getting an SEO score with Shopify Dropshipping or effective Dropshipping business operations requires more Marketing activities.

Shopify has an application store supporting online marketing features. Regardless of your need, the Shopify store can offer functionalities such as Facebook ads, Google, Email marketing, social networking links, etc. 

Recently Shopify has partnered with Google to make it easier for your products to be displayed on this search engine. Search engine optimization (SEO) will help your sales page easily to the top of Google search, from which you will have many converting customers. Not everyone understands and optimizes their sales page according to SEO standards. 

Choosing Shopify to do Dropshipping, your sales page itself is partly optimized. Also, you can install and use additional applications to support search optimization on Shopify to make your store more Google-friendly. 

Highly Recommended by Dropshippers 

Shopify is a very suitable platform for building a drop shipping sales page. We have gone through business forums and collected some common reasons that demonstrate why many drop shippers trust and choose Shopify: 

• • The speed of creating a sales page is fast

• • Multiple vendors’ applications

• • Many applications support Dropshipping

• • Links to many international payments gateways.

• • Choosing the appropriate Dropshipping Supplier for Shopify.

• You can learn about the Dropshipping model on Shopify.

7 Simple Steps to Start Dropshipping on Shopify

You already know the potential of the Dropshipping industry and information about Shopify. How to set up Dropshipping on Shopify 2021? The Shopify Dropshipping guide that we indicate below will provide all the information you need.

Shopify greatly supports the dropshipping business model. Consider the best Shopify Dropshipping apps that can help you connect with third parties that fulfill orders on your behalf. Overall most people agree that dropshipping with Shopify is the easiest to do.

Step 1: Creating a Shopify Account

First, you need to set up an account with Shopify. Creating an account is very simple; you just need to visit Shopify’s website and fill out the available form (including store name, business address, email, and other basic information) to create the booth.

Once done, you get 14 days of free use, and you can access your online store dashboard to set up and manage your business.

Step 2: Optimizing the Settings for Your Shopify Account

After completing the designing step (create website themes, set up domain names, update store information, etc.), you will start selecting and adding your Shopify dropshipping products for selling. How to select and add products will be shown in the next section. In this step, we will show you how to add dropship products to Shopify or optimize product information in the store.

You need to edit the title and add the product description as well as the corresponding photos. Optimizing your products’ information increases the chances for customers to reach your site through relevant searches.

In addition, another step you need to keep in mind to make your best Shopify DropShipping products is adding tags to the product. For example, if you are selling baby clothes, you can tag baby dresses, baby pants, etc. This will make it easier for you to categorize and control your items. To add product tags, you can manually add them to each product, or you can bulk add tags to items in your product list. 

Step 3: Launching Your Shopify Dropshipping Store

After successfully setting up your store, you can launch your Shopify Dropshipping store. Through the “Sales Channel” on your Shopify settings, you can easily launch and have an online store up and running.

Step 4: Set Up Your Shopify Dropshipping Store

To make your store look more attractive, you can visit the “Customize theme” to customize your store’s layout and color scheme. Besides, you could choose your Shopify Dropship themes from different suppliers.

Next, adding a payment option to your Shopify Dropshipping store is an integral step. 

• • To install, click on Settings, select the “Payments” tab and fill in the information.

In addition, other settings such as policy, shipping, or delivery are also important. In general, do as Shopify asks, and your store will look more perfect.

Step 5: Adding Products

To start selling, you must add products to your Shopify Dropshipping store. You can add products in two ways: manual and automatic. If you want to save time and effort, you can choose the manual method by using another application.

Step 6: Designing Your Shopify Dropshipping Store

Next to creating an account, you should take the time to design your website according to your business philosophy. Because a beautiful and professional website will increase the credibility of customers as well as stimulate their buying needs of customers. After you’ve selected, edited, and published all of your products, it’s time to focus on designing your store. 

• • Select themes

Shopify will allow you to create an online store with free themes. If you want to personalize according to your own needs and preferences, you can choose the options of charging or talking with designers recommended on Shopify’s theme marketplace. Just click on the tab, Online Store, located on the left sidebar, and a bunch of Website themes will appear. You can choose a dropship theme Shopify both free and paid.

Once you’ve chosen your favorite theme, go back to Shopify’s dashboard and select “Customize”. This will automatically direct you to the Website design functions. Through it, you can design and make any edits you want.

• • Add more photos to layers

To make your Website professional and eye-catching, you can add images to each website section.

You can choose to upload images directly from your computer or whatever device you’re using). Or, you can take photos from Burst – Shopify’s free library of stock images designed to help you store and easily find the images that best suit your needs.

You can preview the image before publishing the complete website when you find a photo you like.

• • Others

There are many other general settings around your Shopify theme that you can modify. For example, you can play with the following:

• • The layout of web pages

• • The color scheme of your website

• • The Typography of your website

• • The social media icons you use and the accounts you link to

• •  Add more Subtitle Pages

The good point of Shopify is that you can keep editing until you are fully satisfied with the finished product; then ‘Save’ to get the result. 

Step 7: Making Your First Sale

Once you have completed the above steps to have a complete online store, it is time to bring your products to introduce to your target customers. Creating an online business model is the first fundamental step of Dropshipping. Furthermore, you should combine it with Shopify Dropshipping marketing campaigns. Promote your online store and products on many different channels to let more people know about your store and products on Shopify.

It would help if you remembered an essential keyword in online business: Traffic. Traffic is the number of times your target customers visit your website and view products. If the product is attractive, there is the right demand, the store has enough trust, and they will buy your product.

We will divide into two traffic sources to attract target customers:

• • Free traffic: 

You will build free social media channels to attract customers. This costs no or very little money, but in return, you have to invest a lot of time and effort before receiving the first orders. For example, Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, Tiktok…

• • Paid traffic: 

This solution is the fastest way for you to sell and sell in large quantities in a short period. You will pay to buy ads from Facebook, Youtube, and Google … to reach your target customers. However, you also need to understand that it will depend on your advertising skills and advertising budget.

Pros and Cons of Shopify Dropshipping

What are the benefits of dropshipping on Shopify? Shopify Dropshipping gives you a wide range of sales benefits; however, it still has limitations. Here are the main pros and cons we listed for you to compare easily:

Is dropshipping really profitable?

Today, there are thousands of e-commerce platforms on the market. However, Shopify is the top choice for any business considering dropshipping. This platform fully converges features such as connecting with hundreds of suppliers to stock, pack, and ship products. Especially the upfront cost is very little or free.

Shopify’s outstanding feature offers is that it connects to more than 100 dropship applications. That way, you can launch and manage your store more simply and efficiently.

Final Words

“Failure is the mother of success” try to come up with the best solution for your business. Depending on a specific industry, you will have your marketing strategy.

To sum up, Shopify has many featured advantages, such as cost, scalability, speed, security, and fast customer support. It is suitable for a small store to a large business corporation without complicated management and setup resources. 

After reading this article, you may have more confidence to start a Dropshipping business on Shopify. We hope you will succeed, and if you need further support, do not hesitate to contact us!