One of the greatest things about dropshipping is that the risk you take and the investment for it is low, making it suitable for people who want to start making a business.
Dropshipping allows you to avoid the hassle of having an inventory because suppliers ship it directly to your customers. Another great thing about dropshipping is that your laptop (or computer) is basically your main money-making machine which is really amazing when you come to think of it.
However, the dropshipping industry is pretty saturated today. A few years back, building a dropshipping business was like playing checkers. However, if you’re just starting right now, building a dropshipping business is now a chess game.
Don’t worry; it’s never too late for you to become a successful dropshipper. You’re just starting out; you shouldn’t compare yourself to big dropshippers because you’re just at chapter one, and they’ve been reading this industry for years, so they might be at chapter 20.
Mistakes are inevitable; it’s an indication that you still have room for improvement, but there are so many unnecessary mistakes that you can avoid. A lot of people underestimate dropshipping, which makes them fail. There are five important reasons why most dropshippers can’t reach their goals, and these reasons may surprise you.
Focusing on the Wrong Goal
A car isn’t made to buy more gas, right? Well, the same goes with building a dropshipping business!
The purpose of a car is to bring you somewhere, and the purpose of your dropshipping business (or any business for that matter) should be to bring value to other people and to turn a vision into reality.
The problem why most dropshippers fail is because they think it’s easy, they’re given false hopes. Remember, anyone can do it if it’s easy, and (as you can see) not a lot of people can make a successful dropshipping business.
So if you’re planning to make a dropshipping business, think of an advocacy you want to bring in the marketplace, think of a product that can make other people happy, think of problems that you can solve with your products.
Money is just a by-product of your goals. If you focus on the right goals, the money will come naturally.
Having a Broad Niche in the Beginning
If you’re just starting out, avoid selling a lot of products. Why? It’s because people buy from businesses that they trust. If you’re given a chance to buy a watch, would you buy from a business that sells only watches, or would you buy from a business that sells a hundred products?
Don’t get me wrong, expanding your business by selling a variety of products is great. However, you should specialize in the beginning and generalize once your business is growing. You’ll have a hard time making a successful dropshipping business if you generalize in the beginning.
An example that I’d love to share with you is Amazon. Yes, Amazon sells different products right now, but do you know what they sold when they were just starting out? They only sold books, they waited for a couple of years of growth before they diversified.
If you can’t focus on a single product, how can you focus on a lot of products? Also, when you focus on a single product, you establish a brand for that specific industry. This brings us to the third reason why dropshippers fail, and that is…
Failing to Establish a Great Brand
Brands are one of the reasons why any type of business succeeds, but to establish a great brand, you need to have great quality products — so don’t settle for low-quality products! With dropshipping, the sky’s the limit if you’re looking for products you can sell. The difficulty of dropshipping then comes because you now have suppliers that make products that have great quality.
This first phase of your dropshipping really takes time and a lot of perseverance, but this is also the most crucial part because this will be the foundation of your dropshipping business. If you manage to find suppliers that create great products, your customers will be satisfied, and your dropshipping business will have a good facade for potential customers.
Don’t settle for less. Selling lower quality products can deteriorate your dropshipping business, and I guarantee you that it’s not worth the risk. If you sell great products, the customers will look for you and not the other way around.
Not Tracking Finances
“You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” – Peter Drucker
This is a quote that you should apply for your dropshipping business because progress will never occur if you don’t track it.
If you don’t track your sales, how will you know if you’re earning more revenue than last month? If you don’t track your ad budget, how will you know if you’re losing a lot of money in ads? If you don’t track your finances, how will you know if your dropshipping business still has the capability to keep going?
Tracking your finances can prevent your dropshipping business from having financial problems, and educating yourself about finances can let you strategize on how to prevent losing money or how to increase your dropshipping business’s revenue.
You can only see improvement if you compare your past to your present, but you can’t do that if you don’t have data. That’s why learning how to do accounting, knowing how to project sales, and understanding how money works is crucial for you to become a successful dropshipper — this is a skill that will make your little efforts turn into a massive success.
Thinking that Everything Will Work Out as Planned
This is a tough one, but your plan won’t always work.
Your winning products may not be winning as much as you thought right now, you may think that your ad budget went to waste, and you may think of throwing in the towel. Please don’t!
Change is often required if you want growth, and a lot of times, you need to change the process if you want to get to your dropshipping goals — (I repeat) change the process, but never the goals.
If your plan works, great! If it doesn’t, ask the right questions. If your winning products aren’t selling as much as you expected, it may be because your expectations were too unrealistic. If you still see potential in your products, then keep going! It may just need some more time for the sales to increase. Observe if there are improvements on the sales of the product because tracking can help you determine your improvements — just like reason number four, right?
When it comes to your ad budget, sometimes the problem of why your business isn’t getting a lot of traffic or sales isn’t about the ads. You have to ask yourself, “Should I increase my ad budget, or is there a marketing strategy that I can use without spending too much money on ads?”
In search engine optimization (SEO), there’s a lot of ways to improve the marketing of your dropshipping business. One of the things I learned is that SEO isn’t just SEO. Search engines like Google rank you higher if you have an established brand, emphasizing reason three on why most dropshippers fail.
Why Do Most Dropshippers Fail – Conclusion
If you’re looking to start a business that has low risk and low investment, dropshipping is perfect for you! With dropshipping, you don’t have to worry about the inventory because the suppliers send it directly to the consumers.
However, running a dropshipping business isn’t easy. A lot of people who tried dropshipping failed, but that shouldn’t stop you from trying. You should learn the industry first before trying it; that way, you can make a successful dropshipping business!
For you to avoid failure in dropshipping, you need to focus on the right goals, specialize first, then diversify once your dropshipping business starts to grow, establish a trustworthy brand, track your finances, and you need to know that your plans won’t always work.
Being proactive in dropshipping can make you survive the hardships of running one. Use this as an advantage, and you will stand out from a saturated market.
