Oberlo dropshipping is the most popular dropshipping method today. With hundreds of positive reviews, tens of thousands of users, and millions of products to choose from, dropshipping with Oberlo is a great way to start your entrepreneurial journey.
Oberlo provides new and passionate entrepreneurs a safer way to start a business. From the elimination of bulk inventory to the ability to run a business on your own, there are loads of the awesome perks to Oberlo dropshipping.
In this post, we discuss the pros and cons of dropshipping with Oberlo, as well as give you tips on how to get started.
What is Dropshipping?
Dropshipping is a business model where a manufacturer creates, stores, packages, and ships products to a customer on behalf of a business.
Traditionally, manufacturers sold products to businesses in bulk at wholesale prices. And while that deal worked out pretty well for manufacturers, it often resulted in catastrophe for business owners. From unsold inventory to high shipping costs, entrepreneurs sought a better solution.
→ Click Here to Launch Your Online Business with Shopify
Enter dropshipping.
With dropshipping, you pay slightly above wholesale prices, but there’s a lot less risk involved. You can buy products from manufacturers individually. What does that mean? That means if a customer buys a pair of sunglasses from your store, you can buy that one pair of sunglasses from the manufacturer instead of a shipment of them. So hasta la vista boxes of unsold inventory. I’ll be back to buy another pair of sunglasses when my customers do. Plus, you can leave the logistics headaches to the manufacturer and work on marketing to grow your business.
What is Oberlo Dropshipping?
When building an online store, the biggest challenge is figuring out what to sell.
Oberlo is a platform where you’ll find millions of products that you can start selling today. All you need to do is install Oberlo from the Shopify App Store to find products in popular niches like women’s and men’s fashion, beauty, jewelry, home and garden, sports, and more.
Helpful resources:
- Dropshipping Niches That Are Profitable, Not Trendy
- 25 Hot Dropshipping Niches with Big Potential
- 21 Winning Niches To Start Selling for 2021
Is Oberlo Good For Dropshipping?
Oberlo dropshipping has exploded in popularity in recent years. Here are a few reasons why:
Low risk
You only buy products from a manufacturer after a customer has placed an order on your store. You can test products via Facebook, Instagram, or Google Ads without feeling pressured to sell inventory (since you won’t have any).
Sell winning products faster
Say you hit the jackpot on that winning product. If you buy bulk inventory, you might run out of it and be unable to meet demand fast enough. However, if you dropship, you can sell a higher quantity. Even if your supplier runs out, there are usually other suppliers selling the same high potential product so you always have back-up.
Low costs
We’re not saying starting a business is cheap; we’re just saying that compared to other methods of starting a business, dropshipping has lower startup costs. First, you save a ton of money from not buying bulk inventory: storing fees and unsold inventory. Second, manufacturers have worked out better shipping rates than the average entrepreneur can, making shipping cost-effective too. Plus, you save money on the number of hires you’d have to make to run your business as it grows. Most of the work can be outsourced to a freelancer instead of needing a full-time employee.
Save Time
With product creation, packaging, and shipping out of the way, you have more time to focus on the two things that matter most: your customers and marketing. By focusing on those two things, you increase your odds of achieving success with your online store.
Automate your business
With Oberlo dropshipping, the most tedious tasks are automated for you. Store owners can browse and add products with good profit potential to their store with a click of a button. Plus, when placing customer orders for manufacturers, a simple click of a button fills in the product details so you don’t have to. And with manufacturers doing the heavy lifting with storing and shipping out products, you have one less thing to worry about.
Sell More
While some dropshipping brands add caps on the number of products you can sell, Oberlo allows you to sell an unlimited quantity of products – even on the Explorer plan. As your business starts booming and your team starts growing, you’ll be able to sell a higher volume of products. Take a look at the product collections of some of the biggest brands like Amazon or Walmart: the reason why they make so much money is because they sell so much stuff. It’s basically a volume game and Oberlo dropshipping gives you the competitive advantage top brands have.
How to Start an Oberlo Dropshipping Business
There are a few steps involved to help you build a successful Oberlo dropshipping empire. Here are a few things to help you get started:
Pick a Niche
There are thousands of niches that you can start a store in, from fashion to beauty to home decor to sports. If you’re indecisive, you can also create an online general store that sells a little bit of everything, but keep in mind you’ll still want to choose a niche for that too.
For example, you might choose to create an impulse buy product general store or a general store that focuses on products for women. To choose the right dropshipping niche, you need to have a clear cut audience in mind to improve your marketing efforts.
- Women’s fashion
- Men’s fashion
- Beauty
- Home decor
- Beauty
- Jewelry
- Watches
- General Store
- Sports
- Home Improvement
- Novelty
- Maternity
- Babies and Kids
- Lighting
Sign Up for Your Store
Now that you’ve decided on a niche, you need to pick a business name to start your store. Keep in mind that it’s best to pick a name that has an available .com domain name. You can choose a name that describes what you sell (FashionNova.com) or a unique name (Oberlo). The key is to pick something memorable, catchy, and easy to spell. Feel free to bounce back ideas with a friend or compile a list of random ideas.
Once you’ve landed on a business name for your store, the next step is to get familiar with Shopify. Shopify is the platform your website lives on. You’ll find countless Shopify apps, website themes, free stock photos, Shopify tools, and more that’ll help you build a successful, long-term business.
After signing up to build a store, you can install Oberlo to help you start your Oberlo dropshipping business. On the platform, you’ll find products that you can start selling the same day.
Find Products to Sell
Oberlo has millions of products that you can add and sell on your store the same day. You can choose to sort products by order volume and customer reviews to help you determine their popularity. Oberlo also regularly puts out product lists of the most popular items so if you aren’t sure which products are trending upwards, we do all the work for you. Here are a few for you to check out:
- 100+ Best Products to Sell in 2021
- 30+ Business Ideas That’ll Make You Money in 2021
- 8 Easiest Ways to Find Winning Products
How to Market Your Oberlo Dropshipping Business
Here are the three most popular ways to help you get your first sale with Oberlo dropshipping.
Work With Influencers on Instagram
Sending a Direct Message (DM) to relevant influencers, fanpages, and potential customers can help you land your first sale. Use hashtags to find a relevant person or business to reach out to. If you reach out to influencers or fan pages, you’ll pay a small fee to have them post a picture with your product, post it on their page, and give you a shoutout — Instagram shoutouts help generate sales.
Hashtags can also help you find a potential customer. Say you’re in the bridal niche, you can use keywords like #engaged to find potential customers. You can send them a DM asking them to check out your store to help them prepare for their big day.
Promote Products via Facebook
The biggest mistake people make with Facebook ads is that they create an ad on day one without helping Facebook know who their audience is. A simple trick to bypass this is to create a blog post on your topic.
When I was in the yoga niche, I created separate blog posts for yoga quotes by different niche influencers. I then posted them on Twitter (free traffic), tagged the influencer, and some of them retweeted it or shared on other social platforms.
Since I had set up a Facebook Pixel on my store and created a retargeting ad just before posting on Twitter, I was able to retarget the free traffic that I got from influencers. That way, Facebook now knew who my ideal customer was since it had data from those first sales.
Leverage Google to Drive Traffic to Your Store
You can approach Google two ways: free SEO traffic or Google Ads. If you’re trying to get SEO traffic to your store, your best bet is to build out your blog. On your blog, focus on creating relevant, niche-focused content to help you bring the right type of traffic to your website..
When it comes to Google Ads, make sure to follow the standard best practices like writing enticing headlines, matching the ad’s copy to the copy on your product page, and using sitelink extensions to send people to relevant pages on your website.
Conclusion
Oberlo’s marketplace allows you to find and sell millions of products the same day. By dropshipping on Oberlo, you’ll be able to import as many products onto your store as you want. You’ll also save a ton of time with automated one click product imports and order processing. Oberlo has one of the best customer support teams in the ecommerce space with trained experts able to answer any of your questions while you build and grow your store. Looking to start Oberlo dropshipping? Start your dropshipping store today.
Want to Learn More?
