Key to a successful drop shipping business is minimizing costly mistakes. In this article, we suggest 5 dropshipping mistakes that you should avoid.

Check out my previous article on where to look for dropshipping business opportunities.

1. Selling Wide Range of Products From Different Categories

General stores might work in a small town in the good old Wild West. However, in the realm of e-commerce, there are tons of ‘general stores’ customers go to. As a small retailer, you need to focus on specific niche products. Then, commit to them for at least two months before you jump from niche to niche desperately. Patience, commitment, and hard work often pay off while pursuing dropshipping business opportunities.

You Will not Get to Know Your Audience 

Focusing on specific products comes with a lot of advantages. First and foremost, you will gain expertise in your audience much more easily. Everybody knows the importance of knowing your audience. If you are selling anything and everything, it means you are trying to attract anybody and everybody. This is an impossible task. You need to have a clear target audience.

You Cannot Add Value

Second, you can turn your business into a passion project. If you are selling specific products that you are passionate about, you can create engaging content about the products on your website. This will certainly add value to your online store. It will interest other people, who might be passionate about the products you are selling. Not only can you drive traffic to your online store with SEO optimized content, but you can also attract loyal costumers that will give you repeat business.

2. Lack of Branding 

This can be a real challenge in dropshipping. This is because you are not in charge of packing and shipping. Order fulfillment may not be your responsibility but you can take things into your own hands. Branding is harder when you are selling through a third party e-commerce marketplace such as Amazon or eBay. On the other hand, if you are selling through Shopify, you can design your website however you like. Besides, you can insert your logo into your online store, as well. Now that your brand is apparent on your website, you can focus on making it appear in your customer orders. This can be achieved by instructing your supplier(s) to add your information, your store name, and your logo during the delivery cycle to increase your brand visibility.

3. Poor Supplier Choices

Shipping and Order Fulfillment

To simply put it, `shipping` is half of `dropshipping`. And, shipping is entirely your supplier`s responsibility. That`s why it is important for your suppliers to offer short transportation lead time. You are likely to receive time sensitive orders. You don`t want to end up with disappointed customers, which will cost you repeat business.

So, it is important to choose a supplier that can prepare your customer`s quickly as well as shipping them fast. If they have more than one warehouses in the country, that is a definite advantage. It goes without saying that they should be using blind shipping. This allows end costumers to see your information on the package, instead of your dropshipping wholesaler.Additionally, make sure that you can provide order visibility to your customers, working with your drop ship wholesale company. Consumers want to be able to track their orders and find out what to expect.

Data Availability

The most important data you should expect from your supplier is up-to-date inventory data. Before you decide what to list in your online store, you must know what your wholesalers have in-stock. Not stocking your products is a huge weight off your shoulders. However, you really need to be able to keep track of your supplier`s inventory. If you fail to do so, you can oversell some items. As a result, you may lose your customer`s trust in you. So, before you choose a drop shipping supplier, make sure they can provide you with up-to-date inventory data as well as high-resolution product image data (so that you can upload them in your product information on your online store)

4. Handling Returns Poorly

There are certain categories with very low return rates such as natural, organic brand-name products. Even in such categories, returns may still happen for whichever reason the customer may have. How you handle the returns will directly affect the success of your online store.

Handling returns for your drop shipping business can get really messy. What should the return address be? Your drop shipping wholesaler is the one to ship your products to your customers. However, it is blind shipping. So, your customer simply does not know the product is coming from them, which they really should not know. You must have a well-defined plan for returns and provide your customers with a clear return policy unless you want a bunch of frustrated customers, who will never order from you again.

We suggest that you instruct your customers to return products directly to you. Once you receive the product, you can follow the steps to return the product to your wholesalers, which you must discuss in advance.

Lack of Good Customer Support

It is all about making your customers happy, isn`t it? You must be able to help them with their questions and concerns. When they have those, you need to make sure they can hear from you in a timely fashion. When your business starts to grow, you may find it harder and harder to provide good customer support.