After Dropshipping Tutorial for Beginners Part 1, here’s the part 2 of the tutorial. In this article we will discuss about how to setup shop for dropshipping.
How to setup shop
Now you’ve looked around, done some research, and decided what you want your shop to be and the type of items you want to sell, but what’s next? While it’s true you’re already ahead of others starting up, the work has just begun. You’re going to need to put as much thought and care into every step of the process as you did into the planning. If there’s one lesson I’ve learned in life, it’s that great plans gowrong quickly without a great execution.
First off, if you have an already active eBay account with positive feedback on it, this can help you greatly in the beginning, but it’s not necessary. In fact, if there’s any negative feedback at all or large gaps of time in between the feedback, then it’s almost always going to be more beneficial to start over and create a new account from scratch. Consistency is vital in all aspects of business. If it looks like you’re not a consistent shop that will always be available for them to purchase from, it can damage some customers trust for you.
Regardless of if you already have an account or not, you’re going to need to choose a name that sounds at least somewhat like a real business entity. One that pertains to the industry you’re targeting as well. Sadly, no matter how much I try, I can’t seem to explain how to be creative in a concise manner, so this step of the process is going to be up to you. Whatever you choose, just make sure it rolls off the tongue easily and that it’s memorable in one fashion or another.
Something people often overlook when starting up their eBay account is the profile picture as well as the cover picture. If you’re hoping to create returning customers who come to your shop for multiple things in the market you target, then you don’t want them to lose their confidence when they go onto your page and see a blank slate. It might not seem like a big deal, but appearing professional is one of those vital skills that is going to separate you from others in the industry and allow you to overtake them and stay ahead once you do.
So how do you go about making an appealing design? Well once again, the creativity aspect comes into play. There are a few different things you want to avoid and some others you want to keep in mind. First off, never pull a picture straight from the internet and call it good. It might work out in the beginning, but long term you want to create your own brand. Something you can do however, is take public domain images you can find all around the web and use those to edit together an appropriate cover and logo.
The possibilities you can create are endless, but so long as you put some thought into it and keep tweaking it to get better over time, then you’ll be fine.
Another often overlooked aspect of your shop page is the description. This is what every potential returning customer is going to be looking at to see if your shop fits their needs. Here more than ever, professionalism in your words and how you present the information to the reader is going to be of the utmost importance. You want to cover what industry you sell in and why you’re a much better option to buy from than the competitors. You’re going to want to cover your brand, what your goals are as a company, and what you offer to the customers. You can highlight other important aspects of your business as well such as key reviews from highly trusted buyers, or really anything else you think is important for your customers to know.
Social media presence outside of eBay is a great way to foster trust among your customers as well. On top of this it further creates awareness for your brand and allows you to communicate with customers even when they’re not actively on eBay looking to buy something. Creating and linking Facebook and Twitter accounts to your eBay can be a powerful way to stay in touch with customers and get them to buy items they weren’t even thinking about until they saw it in their feed.
It’s worth mentioning that creating this presence outside of eBay is going to take additional work both in the maintaining them with actual content and posts, and more so with creating an appealing page for these as well. Something I didn’t mention earlier is that if you don’t want to create the design yourself, you can always hire someone right here on HF or on a site like Fiverr to create it for you. In general, though, the work required is minimal compared to the financial gain, and you should therefore consider your time as an investment rather than choosing to invest money. The specifics of how you set up your page is going to be different for everyone. As is the continuous journey of slightly modifying aspects of the design to squeeze out that extra viewer to customer ratio, but overall the process is going to be the same. By keeping in mind the importance of appearing professional while keeping your shop visually appealing as well, you can hopefully establish yourself as a legitimate seller in the scene and prevent anyone from uprooting you in the future.
That’s all that you need to know about how to setup shop for dropshipping. In our next article we will publish about “Choosing Your Inventory”. Also, sorry for the delay for this post. We will try to publish new article as soon as possible.
