There are different ways and platforms to earn money online, one of them that has recently gained popularity is direct shipping through Amazon. Many people are making thousands of dollars from this business.
Direct shipping has its advantages over the conventional online store where you have to store the products in your store and send them when you receive an order.
Here are 5 easy steps to get started if you’ve considered venturing into a drop shipping business.
1. Open an Amazon account as a seller.
The most important action to take when starting a drop shipping business is to open an Amazon account as a seller. There are two types of accounts you can open: professional and individual accounts. If you are just starting out and you are not sure about selling more than 40 products in a month, it is recommended that you opt for the Individual account. However, it is important that you understand the benefits and drawbacks of any account you choose.
Here are the pros and cons that will guide you when making a decision about which account to sign up for:
For individual account:
You are not allowed to use third party services such as Repricers and Inventory Lab. You are not qualified to list your product in the Buy Box. You cannot apply to list your product in restricted Amazon store categories. There is a fee of $ 0.99 per item sold.
For professional account:
You can use a spreadsheet to upload multiple items at once using Seller Central. You will have access to more reports on the seller dashboard. You are qualified to list your product in the Buy Box. You can request the inclusion of your products in restricted categories. You will pay a monthly fee of $ 40 plus the fee of $ 0.99 per item sold. You can create new product pages for your products.
It is important to note that you can choose to update your account at any time.
2. Find the best low-cost drop shipping providers.
Most direct senders make good profits by using the best platform, Salehoo, to find perfect direct senders for the products they intend to sell.
To get started, sign up for Salehoo’s paid account to use its best tools and features. Find direct shippers near you who can ship faster with lower shipping costs.
The reason why it is advisable to use this platform is because most providers do not have a budget for social media marketing, but instead shift marketing expenses to reduce product costs. Therefore, they would rather subscribe to Salehoo than do Google marketing.
Also, it will require more effort on the part of vendors to be successful with PPC marketing, which is why they prefer a dedicated platform for it.
3. Look for low-cost but hot-selling products.
When you find a supplier that meets your specifications, search their catalog for items that are inexpensive but also sell very well. Make sure the price difference between what is being offered for that item on Amazon and what the vendor sells is significant enough to generate a profit for you.
Even if you decide to search for sellers outside of the Salehoo platform, the most important thing is that there are enough profits to cover the costs in time and money.
4. Write well-detailed and search engine-optimized titles and descriptions on Amazon.
Now that you are ready with your products, proceed to list them in your Amazon store. Make sure to write SEO product descriptions to allow your products to rank high in Amazon search results.
5. Go ahead and start marketing your products using a different digital marketing system.
You can outsource marketing to freelancers on a platform like Fiverr.
Trust me, drop shipping is not as difficult as it sounds. You only need to take one step!
