When you decide to start a Shopify dropshipping store, it’s important to learn about the whole ecosystem.

You must know how to start it, how much capital it will require, what resources you will need, and also the efforts that it demands.

Good news, dropshipping is no rocket science.

With the right information (like this Shopify dropshipping guide!), you will widely improve your odds of becoming one of the successful dropshipping businesses.

Before we begin with how to do Shopify dropshipping, let’s see what it is.

What is Dropshipping?

If you are reading this article, you should already be aware about dropshipping. However, we wanted to define it in the most simple terms: Dropshipping is a fulfillment method where a store doesn’t keep the products it sells in stock. In other words, you don’t need a stock to start dropshipping. Instead, once you sell a product, you purchase the item from a supplier that has it shipped directly to the customer.

In this dropshipping guide, we will show you how to buy products from third-party suppliers and have them shipped directly to the customers with the help of dropshipping apps.

Your role, as a dropshipper, is to be the bridge between the supplier & the customer by providing a great user experience. Customers will not buy directly from suppliers because they want to buy from brands backed by communities. Thus, your main goal is to build the marketing and branding around a particular product.

You will not need to manufacture the products, purchase a big stock, or maintain the inventory. Instead, you will build your Shopify store, branding, and community. Later, with more capital, you can buy stock and private label your products to turn this dropshipping business into a long term brand that delivers tons of value to the world! To be frank, it takes a lot of effort, efficient strategies, and correct resources but Mark is here to help! We will let you know about everything you need to succeed dropshipping via Shopify.

Is Shopify best for dropshipping?

When you start dropshipping it is absolutely necessary to work with an e-commerce builder such as Shopify. An e-commerce builder will let you easily manage all aspects of your store: website, suppliers, marketing etc.

When it comes to e-commerce builders, there is Shopify, Wix, BigCommerce, Squarespace, WooCommerce, and many more.

There are certain aspects that you need to study before choosing the right e-commerce builder.

Ease of Use for Dropshippers

Shopify has a straightforward and easy-to-use interface.

Even if you are new to the software, it won’t take much time to learn the application. Moreover, Shopify’s user-interface is so easy to use that you won’t struggle to learn the required features.

Low Cost to Start Your Dropshipping Business

Shopify pricing triumph here.

You only need $29/month to start your dropshipping business. On top of that, Shopify charges a minimal transaction fees of 2%, which is quite lower than other e-commerce builders.

When you switch to advanced plans such as Shopify Plus, the transaction fees decrease to 0.5%.

App Store with the Best Dropshipping Apps

Do you expect to run a dropshipping business without apps? That’s possible, but your store will lack many important components such as reviews, upsells, popup etc.

That’s why it is necessary to choose an e-commerce builder that keeps minimal features on the interface and allows adding many more through add-ons.

These add-ons are available in the app store of the different e-commerce builders. Thankfully, Shopify has an app store with a tremendous number of applications.

Payment Methods

The last thing you would want is your dropshipping customers to abandon their cart because of a lack of payment options.

A great rule of thumb is to let many payment options to your customers. If a customer want to pay via Paypal rather than with credit card, let it be!

Choosing Shopify would solve this issue because you can integrate a great amount of payment options such as Paypal or Stripe.

In other words, Shopify is an easy to use application for dropshipping, owning multiple payment method options. Also, it has a vast app store containing exclusive tools for dropshipping. Its cost is low and justified for small businesses. Moreover, you will get remarkable website visibility with optimized SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and great customer service.

To summarize, use Shopify! There are much more reasons why Shopify and dropshipping is the best combination. For more, you can check the amazing e-commerce builder comparison by websitebuilderexpert.com.

Now, let’s get into our step by step dropshipping guide with Shopify and how can you rank amongst the top Shopify dropshipping stores.

Step 1: Defining your Shopify Store’s Brand Identity

You cannot randomly start building your Shopify dropshipping store.

First, you must define the “guidelines” of your brand. If you start adding multiple products without a long term vision, it won’t make sense to the customers. At Mark, we recommend you picking a niche that you are passionate about because it will be reflected in your store that you love what you do.

Each element of your dropshipping store, such as the name, logo, targeted audience, etc., define your brand. However, these are only the basic elements, and there is much more to define. For example, the color of your brand are very important. Do you want black colors that are synonym of power or do you want light colors that reflects joy and well being? It all depends on your vision.

Creating a brand that’s unique is very hard. It requires a lot of marketing skills, but we can assure you that it will compounds over the years. For example, Gymshark started as a dropshipping business but because of the long-term vision and branding of its founder, it recently became a billion dollars e-commerce brand that is well-known all over the world.

In simple terms, the brand is the identity you hold in front of your customers, prospects, and the general public. Let’s check out seven easy steps you need to follow to build your own brand.

Step 1: Dropshipping niche and competitor research

If you are starting your dropshipping business from scratch. Then, you probably have not decided on your niche yet. For that reason, you need to study the market: what are the current trends, what are people currently buying online, what are the potential profits.

Besides the niche’s performance, you need to study the competitors as well because if your niche is too competitive or if the products you are trying to sell is saturated, you will have a hard time to build an online presence. Let’s see which tools to use in order to conduct all those researches.

Google keyword planner

Google keyword planner is an inbuilt tool on Google Ads.

With keyword planner, you can check how many people are searching for specific terms on Google.

You can type the name of niches such as “Men Watches,” “Sports items,” etc., and find which one got demand. Obviously, many of the people who are searching these terms are not your customers but it will help you to develops an idea of the competition and demand of any market.

Conducting Surveys

Surveys are the best way to know your prospects. After selecting your niche, you can frame relevant questions to define your target audience.

Let’s suppose that you go forward with “Men watches” for your Shopify dropshipping business, you can frame questions such as:

1. How much would you like to spend on a watch?
2. What type of watches do you like?
3. How many watches do you have at the moment?

The goal of those questions is to provide you with useful insight into your potential customers. That will help you tremendously because you will be able to market your products with empathy (which leads to more sales).

For survey purposes, we recommend you to use TypeForm. It’s an app that let you create interactive surveys to know more about your audiences and get more responses. Once you are done building your survey, you can go to your personal network and Facebook groups to send it and get answers.

You can also use applications such as SurveyPlanet and LimeSurvey to build surveys.

Social Listening

Social listening usually includes what users are stating about the brand, competitors, products,  etc. As you don’t have a business yet, it only includes the competitors and products.

You can check and conclude what’s working for competitors and what’s not. Similarly, you can check the popular Shopify dropshipping products. The basic method of social listening is following hashtags on different platforms. However, you can also use the tools such as Brand24 and Buzzsumo.

All these methods will help you choose the niches that are easy to sell, popular amongst many people, and provide you with a reasonable profit.

Step 2 : Defining the brand personality

You cannot focus on everyone. If you try to target everyone, then you will reach no one. You need to craft your marketing with a specific audience in mind.

Your brand’s personality depends on your prospects and how you will add value to them.

You can create a positioning statement to define the base of your audience. Every dropshipping business should run a position statement that is unique. Trust us, your marketing will be truly smoother if you know exactly what’s is your target audience and if you have empathy for them.

Shopify dropshipping websites with Characteristics

Your brand’s characteristics depend on how you want to appear in front of your customers. Do you want to be classy, professional, humorous, helpful? There are many more characteristics but you will need to pick one. Consider your brand as a person. Most of the time, your brand will be a reflection of yourself (much easier to build).

Usually, these characteristics appear on your store pages and social media accounts. Pick them wisely depending on yourself, the brand you want to build, and your products. Also, keep into consideration that your main goal is to attract and engage customers so try to be a minimum entertaining.

Choosing the ideal metaphor for the selected characteristics

If your dropshipping business is selling child care products, it requires a figure associated with childrens.

For instance, you can choose a motherly figure. The metaphor must have selected attributes with the target market.

At Mark, we want to build a fully automated advertising platform (like a self-driving vehicle). Thus, our figure is a robot because it reminds automation and human/machine interaction.

Choosing the dropshipping store’s name

Your brand name is tremendously important. Along with all the efforts you make, the dropshipping business name can bring many customers to you.

The name that you choose should describe your niche and what you are selling. Popular brands understand this concept very well. They are picking catchy, unique and short name that you can easily remember.

The best scenario is to have a name that is catchy and appealing enough to raise the curiosity of your potential customers which should results in more visits and more sales to your Shopify dropshipping website.

Step 3: Finding an interesting slogan for your dropshipping store

Slogans are especially used in advertising, and they can be a very powerful asset for your brand.

For example, Just Do It is one of the core components of Nike’s brand. It appeals to people to be motivated and also to take actions which is the message that Nike want to spread to the world.

Many successful dropshipping businesses keep changing their slogans so it’s not necessary to have the best one from the start. However, it will act as an additional branding element for your business if you will have one.

While writing a slogan, you can make a claim, use a metaphor, talk about customers’ POV, etc. Overall, the slogan should be catchy and suitable enough to be used on different platforms.

Step 4: Choose your dropshipping store’s appearance

Here, we are talking about the visual “appearance,” which is a very important aspect.

Visual appearance, including font and colors, is the integrated part of your entire branding.You need to select those elements carefully because they are defining your brand.

Visual appearance signifies your uniqueness and makes you different from your competitors. Also, it must align with your brand personality’s characteristics.

Step 5: Creating a logo

We see many dropshipping stores on Shopify that don’t put the time to create a great logo. Most of the time, dropshippers ask us why should they get a logo as a dropshipping company?

Well, the logo is a great asset for your brand. People will remember it, and it’s also a great sign of trust. Because if a visitor comes to your store and doesn’t see a logo or if the logo is not great, then they will probably not buy from you as they will think your store is a scam.

Remember, you have to make every effort that helps you stand out. Amazing logo designs are widely shared and appreciated by customers and even other businesses.

Now, after you’re done with the branding, you must state some guidelines accordingly. For instance, what’s the mission of your brand, personality, appearance, etc. While creating online assets such as Shopify stores and social media profiles, it is necessary to follow these guidelines.

That way, you will be able to leep your dropshipping business brand identity the same across various platforms.

If you need help to design your logo, you can go to: https://looka.com/ to design a catchy logo in 5 minutes.

Step 2: Setting a Shopify Dropshipping Store Account

To setup your online store, we recommend that you use Shopify. Again, it’s a great builder that will let you build your e-commerce store easily and fast. Also, its app store contains a lot of apps that will enhance your store.

Step 1: Selecting the plan for your Shopify dropshipping store

Before you get started with your business, you need to select a plan.

You can choose to move forward with a 14 days free trial and select the plan later. We recommend you to start with the $29 dollars plan.

For your knowledge, you can check the brief about all the plans below or visit the Shopify pricing page.

Basic Shopify

If you want to go forward with a plan before signing up, Basic Shopify Plan is the best one because, at a minimal price of $29, it lets you use all the necessary Shopify features and tools. That makes starting a Shopify dropshipping business less stressful, and you will not require a lot of capital to start. With the basic plan, you will not have the advanced report and reporting systems but you don’t really need them when starting.

Shopify

Besides reporting features, there are two more major differences between Shopify and Basic Shopify. The Basic Shopify only allows adding two staff members. However, the Shopify plan lets you add up to five members. When you are just starting a new dropshipping store, two accounts are enough.

Another difference is the transaction fees. It’s 2% for the Basic one, but for the Shopify plan, it’s only 1%. It may not appear like a huge difference but, when you sell a lot of products then transaction fees can severely hurt your earning, and you might want to consider the Shopify plan.

Advanced Shopify

The Basic Shopify plan and Shopify Plan are $29 and $79 per month, respectively. It’s not a significant amount when you are becoming an entrepreneur.

However, $299 for the Advanced Shopify plan could be a big deal.

You should only choose the plan if you need advanced-level reporting and third-party calculated shipping rates.

The transaction fees decrease to 0.5%. The difference between the Shopify plan and the Advanced Shopify plan is $220. Therefore, if your dropshipping business reaches a point where the business’s 0.5% earning is more than $220, it would be more profitable to switch to the Advanced Shopify plan.

Shopify plus

This plan’s not for a brand new dropshipping business as it starts from $2000. However, if your business becomes large-scaled, you can move to it. The features such as faster payment, better conversion, 3D media, and localized shopping experience, allows a grown business to have stability and further expansion.

Step 2: Adding the Basic Information

Starting free trial

When you click on “Start Free Trial,” A window will appear asking you to add your email address, password, and store name.

When you will buy your domain name later, Shopify will also give you email addresses for your store such as contact@namestore.com and support@namestore.com etc. But to begin with, you can use your personal email address.

Keep your password strong!

You should already got your dropshipping business name while deciding your brand identity. Now, you will need to add the name to your Shopify dropshipping website. Remember, the name appears on every attribute of your store: keep it unique, engaging, and precise.

Tell us a little more about yourself

You can choose to skip this section. However, adding a little information would not hurt. If you let Shopify know what kind of store you’re planning to start it might give them reassurance as sometimes they can ban your store for lack of informations.

You can also let Shopify know what aspects you need help with (there are free online webinar available).

Adding information about your location and phone number is essential. Without that, Shopify won’t let you go forward.

After adding the information, Shopify will lead you to its dashboard with a brief introduction that will helps you to start and run the business.

As you scroll down, you will find multiple steps to follow. The first one is product research.

We will discuss how to find the best Shopify dropshipping products, matching your niche and brand. We will also have a look at different dropshipping apps you can use for this purpose.

Step 3: Product Research

There are two ways of adding products to your Shopify store.

If you find suppliers outside Shopify and there is no possibility to transfer the products directly, you can choose to add products manually. Otherwise, you can find great suppliers for Shopify and integrat them directly.

Let’s check both methods one-by-one, how much effort they demand, and how effective both methods are.

Adding Products Manually

Title, Description, and SEO

For a dropshipping business, it is necessary to have high visibility and engagement. For high visibility, you must write SEO optimized titles and descriptions for your dropshipping product.

By SEO, we mean search engine optimization. When you add a product to your Shopify dropshipping store, people must find it. That’s why you will have to write the title and description in such a way that Google or any search engine shows it on the first page.

SEO demands a tons of work and energy and it’s a long-term game. When you start your dropshipping store, the quickest way to drive traffic to it is paid advertising with Facebook ads, Google ads or another advertising platform (such as Tiktok ads).

For writing SEO optimized title and description, you need to add keywords. These keywords should match the query users look for on Google. For instance, if users are searching for “Red Cotton T-shirt,” and your title is the same, then there are chances that your product page get good ranking.

Similarly, you need to add these keywords to the product description too. That will help search engines to understand that the products are relevant to users.

Product Features

• You can add media files- images and videos for each product. Either choose to add the images/videos from your local drive or add them from an URL.
• You can add the cost price and define the selling price too. The application will instantly show you the margin and profit percentage.
• For better inventory tracking, you can define the unit, add the barcode information and quantity.
• If your Shopify dropshipping products are shipped internationally, you need to provide country details and HS code too.
• Shopify allows segmenting dropshipping products into collections. We will see how to create collections later. You can add the product to a suitable collection with a catchy name that reflects your brand.

Defining Variants

The cotton t-shirt we mentioned in the previous example is available in blue, green, and pink colors. Also, there are size variants such as small, medium, and large.

If we calculate the total number of variants, they would be twelve. You can choose to write a common title and description for all variants.

Now, you only need to mention the variant types such as sizes available and colors available. Shopify will automatically generate twelve different products for your dropshipping store.

It saves you time by adding all variants at once instead of adding each variant product one-by-one.

Finding Shopify dropshipping Products

When doing Shopify dropshipping, people usually don’t go for manually added products. Instead, they find great suppliers for Shopify with the help of Shopify dropshipping apps.

These are dropshipping apps that integrate your store with the supplier’s database. You can add the best products for Shopify dropshipping in a few simple steps. Also, when a customer orders a product from your dropshipping store, it let you order from the supplier easily.

The supplier directly ships the order from their warehouse to the customer. Such an arrangement helps you to avoid building and maintaining inventory. This saves your purchasing cost and additional warehousing requirements.

Let’s check out the tools you can use for finding dropshipping suppliers for Shopify. Shopify has numerous applications for that and we have selected the top ones and presented how you can use them for your dropshipping store.

Dsers

Dsers will let you find the best suppliers from Aliexpress. Aliexpress is a Chinese online retail service that offer products to international buyers. Dsers will help you to find the best suppliers from aliexpress and also let you order from Aliexpress very easily once you get an order from one of your customer.

Even if we will show you alternative to Dsers, we highly recommend you to pick this app if you’re planning to sell products from Alibaba.

Dsers Alternatives

Oberlo

Did you hear about Oberlo? If not, it’s also one of the primary application that you will use to find the best products for Shopify dropshipping store.

Oberlo is developed by Shopify to make it straightforward for dropshipping store owners to find and add Shopify dropshipping products.

Also, if you find Oberlo suppliers, you won’t need to manage the shipping. The supplier gets the alert about customers making purchases from your store. Then, the Oberlo products gets directly shipped from the customers. That’s how Oberlo dropshipping via Shopify can help you to easily grow your store.

As there are numerous Oberlo products, you can curate them based on your brand identity. The application displays the information about the performance of each product, i.e., demand and sales. The Oberlo Chrome extension is also available to easily find products.

Spocket

Like Oberlo, Spocket is also a product sourcing application. However, it’s limited to the United States and European suppliers.

The benefit you get is the vast product catalog and fast shipping. Therefore, it helps you have all the necessary products to your store, and it also helps in delivering customer satisfaction.

Another major advantage is the profit margin. These are the best suppliers for Shopify who provide the products at the wholesale price. That’s why the cost is 30-60% lower than the maximum retail price.

Even if you include the shipping cost, you will still have huge profit margins.

Syncee

When you are starting a new dropshipping business, you start with minimum capital. However, one of the heavy expenses is customer support.

Therefore, you need to move forward with reliable suppliers who have an excellent track record. You can easily find such Shopify suppliers from Syncee.

However, it only offers the free version for 14 days. After that, you can move forward with $19 per month.

Modalyst

The application is one of the best free dropshipping apps to find the best suppliers for Shopify. However, it charges 5% on every transaction made through it.

Therefore, you can only target Shopify dropshipping products that offer a profit margin of more than 7% (5% for Modalyst + 2% for Shopify). Also, it would be best if you considered the shipping charges.

Though profit margin is a disadvantage, you can still make a reasonable earning by adequately setting the selling price.

The positive aspect of using this application is the fast shipping time. This way, you can at least build a good reputation for your brand. In addition to dropshipping suppliers, the applications also help you connect with independent brands.

MEXD

MEXD is exclusive to pop culture merchandise. Here, you directly connect with the licensor and even negotiate on the pricing.

Moreover, for premium customer service, MEXD owns a 3-day shipping policy. You can find products related to Marvel, DC Comics, popular anime shows, and much more.

Like MEXD, many applications are exclusive to categories. Check out the top examples:

1. Dripshipper: With the help of Dripshipper, you can sell fresh coffee beans under your brand’s name through white labeling features.
2. Creative Hub: Even if you can’t create art, you can still sell it by connecting your Shopify dropshipping store with Creative Hub.
3. My Online Fashion Store: Women’s apparel and accessories show evergreen sales. You can select particular products from this store and create a unique brand identity.

Dropshipping Shopify with AliExpress

AliExpress is the heaven for dropshippers. There are an immense number of products from numerous niches.

You can go through all the dropshipping products and select the ones that go along with your niche. You can curate them further as per the brand identity.

While selecting a product, take care of the following aspects:

1. The supplier must offer free shipping for the selected product.
2. Choose the products for which you can keep a significant profit margin to cover customer support and marketing expenses.
3. The supplier must offer ePacket delivery as it is the quickest option to deliver products to the customers.
4. Select products that show great amount of sales. It explains that the product is in high demand and there could be repeated sales too.
5. Selecting products above 4.5 ratings will reduce your hassle with customer service. It shows the product is of good quality and fulfills customer satisfaction.
6. You must Google search the images to make sure that the supplier is displaying the product’s true representation. You can also check and verify it by viewing the customer’s photos.

Using Oberlo for adding products from AliExpress to your Shopify Dropshipping Store

As we discussed in the previous section, you can manually add AliExpress products to the Shopify Dropshipping website.

However, if you use Oberlo, it will automate most of the processes. The application makes it easy to find the best suppliers for Shopify. You can further filter them and check the worthy products.

After you receive a customer order, you only need to do a single click to place an order from AliExpress. Clicking on “Order Product” from Oberlo will provide customer details to the supplier and all you will have to do is placing the order.

Oberlo even tracks the change in pricing on AliExpress and provides you the alert. You can alter your selling price accordingly to keep the same profit margin.

Your customers will be automatically notified about the order placements: they will be provided with the delivery time details and tracking number.

In summary, not only adding products but also managing them becomes easy with Oberlo. Similarly, you can find dropshipping supplies from other websites too such as eBay and Amazon.

Step 4: Customizing the Dropshipping Store based on your Brand Identity

To add/edit your Shopify dropshipping store’s theme, go to the sales channel and click on “Themes.”

It will show you the default theme set for your Shopify dropshipping store. You can either choose to customize it or choose another one from the theme library.

Choosing and adding a theme for your dropshipping Shopify store

You have two options- either go with a free theme or a paid one.

There are nine free themes available, which are all suitable for dropshipping businesses. However, as there are many stores who choose these themes, your Shopify dropshipping business won’t stand out.

You can still select the free theme and edit the code but it will require hiring a website developer.

Alternatively, you can select one from the paid themes.

There are multiple filter options allowing you to select the best-suited theme. You can choose one based on:

• Design
• Layout Style
• Product page features requirement
• Home page attributes
• Niche industry
• Navigation options

The benefit of choosing a premium theme is reduced time expenditure in customization and add-ons. Also, it helps your store appear unique. It even owns more features and sections in comparison to free themes.

However, even after going through these themes, you can upload a theme if you don’t find the suitable one (which is unlikely).

Now, as the theme selection is complete, you can move to edit its code and language. There is an immense number of customization options available that you can access through the “Customize” button.

Customizing your Shopify dropshipping website theme

The customization tools vary with the themes. There are predefined sections added to a theme. You can choose to edit the current sections and even add the new sections.

Shopify allows editing each element of your store. Therefore, you won’t require professional help for creating a dropshipping store design. That’s where you save the cost.

This a list of sections you can add to your Shopify home page:

1. Sidebar Menu
2. Announcement Bar
3. Header
4. Slideshow
5. Action Bar
6. Subscription Box
7. Rich Text
8. Blog Section
9. Collection List
10. Features Collection
11. Image with Text Section
12. Map
13. Video

After you add a section, it is not necessary to keep them in the same order. You can shuffle them based on the design that you find suitable.

When you click on the section, the edit window opens up. There, you get the chance to edit each attribute of the section.

Similarly, you can edit different pages such as the blog page, the about us page, and the catalog page and personalize them in accordance with your brand.

Step 5: Setting up All Payment Methods

Shopify allows you to add all the well-known payment methods. You can activate PayPal, third-party payment gateways, credit cards, debit cards, and even allow cash on delivery.

To activate payment methods, you need to click on the “Settings” icon present in the bottom-left corner. Then go to the “Payment” option.

You will find several options available.

To activate PayPal, you need to click on “Activate PayPal Express Checkout.” Then you need to add the details of your PayPal account.

Suppose you need to add a third-party payment method. You can choose as many as you want to add amongst the list of providers.

Besides that, there are manual payment options that allow payment through selected debit cards and credit cards.

Moreover, you can add money order and cash on delivery. There is advanced cash on delivery options available, which allows you to add selected areas for cash on delivery, weight limit, and additional payment amount.

Step 6: Selecting Dropshipping Shopify Add-ons

We have already checked product research in one of the previous sections.

However, there are many more aspects such as management, customer support, advertising, research, analytics, and much more.

For a successful dropshipping business, you need to focus on all aspects. For that reason, you need the right apps for dropshipping via Shopify.

Shopify has not included these tools in the core user interface. That’s because the more tools, the more complex the interface.

However, you can choose the tools which you want to include. Also, it keeps a tool’s interface separate. It helps to find the required features and data, quickly and easily.

Searching the best dropshipping apps for Shopify on its App Store

You can choose to shop products according to different categories. Shopify has divided the applications based on the business aspects. These are even exclusive subcategories accommodating Shopify dropshipping products.

You can check the list of categories in the following screenshot.

These categories contain hundreds of products for each of your business aspects.

As you can see, next to categories comes the collections tab. The collections tab contains the applications based on your specific dropshipping business needs.

Check the following screenshot to learn what the collections section contains.

Besides that, the app store is organized in such a way that you can find the best dropshipping apps for Shopify.

On the top, it will show you the trending apps for dropshipping which can help you to get your first dropshipping sales.

As you move down, you will find a link to personalized tools based on your geographical location.

Moreover, there is an exclusive section for Shopify’s in-house apps.

Best Shopify Add-ons for the dropshipping business that you need to know

We have already checked the product research tools.

Besides that, we bring all the primary and lesser-known Shopify apps for dropshipping to the table. Out of these, you can pick up the ones that you find suitable based on your dropshipping business.

Free Shipping Bar

It is one of the free dropshipping apps we would suggest you add after you finish setting up your Shopify dropshipping store. The tool allows a customer to keep track of the amount he needs to add to qualify for free shipping. Therefore, it significantly increase your average order value.

Nudgify

Nudgify is one of the best engagement tools for the Shopify dropshipping business. Its state-of-the-art technology keeps track of your inventory and sales. Based on that, it sends a notification to your customers to earn attention. It’s highly beneficial for sales.

Product Review

By default, your dropshipping customers can’t add product reviews. However, it’s a necessary addition. With this Shopify dropshipping app for product reviews, a section will be added on the product pages. There customers can leave their reviews. Thankfully, it’s one of the free dropshipping apps.

Product Filter and Search

If you are going to add many products to your application, you must not miss this plugin. The “Product Filter and Search” plugin makes it easy for customers to find the required item. Without it, people won’t find the required item and leave the website.

Locksmith

That’s another engagement application which dropshipping businesses use to attract people. They can keep special benefits for the registered users. When they are prospects, it is possible to keep some content hidden. You can display the information once they engage with your business.

Infinite Options

If your dropshipping business requires high personalization of product pages, Infinite Options is the right tool to pick. It allows presenting in the options as checkboxes and buttons.

Store Locator

It is possible that in addition to your Shopify Dropshipping store, you have a physical store too. You can market that store along with the dropshipping one using Store Locator. It gives the option to the person to buy through your online store or from the physical store.

Edit Order

It is a tiny yet powerful implementation that allows the customer to edit an order even after the placement but before shipping. It improves the customer experience and even saves the dropshipper’s time.

Candy Rack

Do you want to include upselling in your dropshipping store? If yes, then Candy Rack is for you. The application automatically creates attractive pop-ups showing suggested products to customers. The product suggestions appear according to artificial intelligence and user behavior.

Cookie Bar

You must be aware of the cookie bar that appears on the bottom to ask your permission for cookies. If you don’t include the bar on your Shopify dropshipping website and install cookies on the user’s system, you might face high compliance penalties. It’s anyway free of cost. Therefore, implement it right away after creating your store.

Trusted Site by McAfee

This Shopify dropshipping app provides a minute addition, which we would recommend. The Trusted Site delivers a “secure badge” to your website. It shows that your website is trustworthy, letting the customer browse and buy products with a free mind.

PageSpeed Monitor

You can check the loading speed from Shopify’s backend. However, when you need to monitor a specific page’s speed continuously, you can use it. The benefit is its integrity with mobile devices. When the page speed drops, it gives you an alert. In this way, the application helps you keeps 100% uptime.

Aftership

The product is best suited when you wish to improve the customer experience by letting them track the product. They will know when they are going to receive the product. Also, when it’s about to arrive, they get informed through a notification.

Stocksync

Stocksync is one of the best Shopify dropshipping apps. You will be connected with multiple Shopify suppliers, and you won’t be able to manage them all. That’s why you should choose Stocksync. The application is a management savior that automates the pricing by the rules you set. Moreover, it brings multiple data feeds in one place.

Pre-order Now

After choosing products, you can’t keep track of each one. Sometimes, the product might go out of stock in the supplier’s inventory, and then you need to stop the sales. By adding the “Pre-order Now” plugin, your customers can even make orders for out of the stock product.

Step 7: Optimizing Shopify Dropshipping Store for Better Visibility

Up to now, you have set up your Shopify dropshipping store, added products, customized it, and implemented the useful add-ons. Now, it’s time to bring customers to your platform.

There are many ways how you can bring customers to your Shopify dropshipping store.

1. Search engine optimization
2. Running Google Ads Campaign
3. Social media marketing

Let’s keep running paid advertisements on hold for now as you are getting started. It would be better to focus on search engine optimization.

SEO allows dropshipping stores to grow organically. Therefore, once you earn the visibility, all you need is to maintain it.

Let’s go to a step-by-step process to let you know the entire process for working on SEO.

Step 1: Optimize the structure of your Shopify dropshipping store

You must define an unambiguous navigation system for your dropshipping Shopify store.

It is not only necessary for the users, but also the search engines.

When a user visits your dropshipping Shopify store and can’t find the required product, he will leave the website.

It’s similar to a search engine crawler. When the crawler finds the store structure complex, it won’t be able to crawl each page. Therefore, not all pages of the website will be detected by Google. Hence, they won’t be useful.

Keep the categories and subcategories well arranged. Also, make sure that it’s easy for the user to reach the required product.

Step 2: Ensure that your Shopify dropshipping store provides an excellent user experience

Step 1 is one of the ways to improve customer experience. However, there are a lot many efforts you can make to improve the user experience.

Dropshipping store loading speed

Loading speed plays an important factor not only for user experience. It’s an important part of Google’s search engine optimization algorithm.

Think this way; if the pages take time to load, the user won’t stay on your website for long. Also, Google won’t allow finding it friendly for the users.

Creating a Shopify dropshipping store with responsive design

There are several templates on Shopify. All successful dropshipping stores chose their respective templates that have responsive designs.

A significant number of dropshipping store visitors are mobile users. That’s why your website must be optimized for different screen sizes. The user must be able to use each functioning of the store irrespective of its device’s screen size.

Domain and Security while dropshipping via Shopify

Having efficient cybersecurity is essential not only for user experience but SEO too. That’s why you must purchase an SSL Certificate for your Shopify dropshipping store. It usually depends upon your domain name provider. You can get an SSL certificate directly from Shopify as well.

Optimizing the images of Shopify dropshipping products

In e-commerce, it is necessary to have high definition images. That will let users have a better idea about your product. Thus, it will make you appear credible in front of the users. However, make sure that the image size doesn’t affect the loading speed.

Internal linking different pages

Internal linking adds direct benefit to SEO and user experience. With the internal linking, your customers can move from one product to other related products with just a click. It would help them to explore your dropshipping product range quickly and extensively.

Including product schema

It’s a bit technical part where you need to optimize the website for the search engine. How it makes the user experience better? When the user inputs a query similar to your product description, the product appears on the right side. Therefore, a user won’t even need to find your store to find the product.

Step 3: Keyword targeting while writing titles and description

While writing the product description, you need to add keywords related to the product description.

Keywords are the terms that you add in the content to explain to the search engine what’s the product. For example, if you are selling a “round neck plain red t-shirt,” round neck t-shirt, plain red t-shirt, red t-shirt, etc., are the keywords explaining what’s your product is all about.

Adding keywords help your website to improve ranking. Eventually, it will help your website to have more traffic. You can use Google Keywords Planner for keyword research purposes.

Step 4: Optimizing product pages by fulfilling SEO parameters

Besides keywords in titles and descriptions, you need to fulfill a few more SEO parameters.

1. Add keywords in the meta description. The meta description appears below the title when the product page appears on the search engine’s results page.
2. Add alt text on the image. Alt-text is similar to the keyword. It explains to a search engine what’s the image wishes to convey.
3. Adding a slug, which means the end part of the URL, is also an important SEO factor. You need to include keywords in that too. It is necessary to make sure that the slug exactly defines the product.

Step 5: Creating Backlinks and off-page SEO techniques

You know how to optimize your content using keywords and on-page SEO techniques. However, there’s a lot you can do off-page. These techniques don’t improve the quality of your website. However, provides multiple points for your customers to engage with your dropshipping store.

Backlinks

Creating backlinks for a dropshipping business is straightforward. You need to find websites that allow you to provide their business information to their websites.

These websites are nothing but online directories such as Google My Business and Yelp.

You can provide your Shopify dropshipping website link on these websites. It allows people to visit your store through these links.

Guest Posting

Guest posting is nothing but another way to generate backlinks. However, here, in addition to your business’s information, you need to provide them with a blog post.

The blog post must be relevant to your business and written according to the guest posting website’s guidelines.

If the guest posting website finds your content relevant and up to the mark, they post the blog. That’s how readers come to know about your dropshipping business

Press Release

The press release is another way of getting a backlink. However, it is comparatively easier than guest posting if done on websites with average domain authority.

Whenever you add a new product, product categories, expand your Shopify suppliers’ range, etc., you can post a press release on different websites. In short, it keeps people updated about your business’s information that you want to share in the public domain.

Step 6: Content marketing through blogs

After you write descriptions, fulfill SEO parameters, start creating backlinks, and get substantial visibility, it’s the time for content marketing.

If you start writing blogs relevant to your business niche, you answer your prospects’ questions.

That’s how they come to know about your business. As they engage with blogs, they can also move to products and consider buying them.

Along with visibility, content marketing also helps in branding and building a trustworthy relationship with customers.

Step 7: Using Shopify add-ons to improve SEO

There are multiple add-ons and application which can help you improve SEO. However, we won’t flood you with the information. We have already selected the best ones. You only need to integrate your Shopify dropshipping store. Then, the work starts with it.

Plugin SEO

It goes through the content & website structures and displays the SEO issues. As it provides you with the details about the problems, you only need to fix them. It saves time in research and helps you optimize the website in every way.

Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO has a free version available. The main objective of the application is to optimize the content. It helps you fulfill SEO parameters such as keyword density, keyword distribution, meta title, and meta description. Besides that, you can also edit the content to make it easy-to-read.

SEO Image Optimizer

That’s one of the major tools which no dropshipping business should skip. It helps you to increase the traffic from image search. There are a lot of customers who directly search for the image when buying a product. When the visitor searches for images of similar products on Google, your product will appear on the top. It makes it easy for the user to access the product page.

SEMrush

Suppose you start a new dropshipping business & don’t have a large capital, we won’t suggest using SEMrush. However, you will eventually need to buy a full-fledged SEO optimization tool. SEM rush can help you in a lot many from keyword research to competitor research. It’s a complete solution for all your SEO practices. Besides SEMrush, you can also try Moz and Ahref.

Step 8: Checking analytics for making data-driven decisions

Optimization is a continuous process where you need to keep tracking the progress. Apart from that, it’s also important to find out what’s working the best for your Shopify dropshipping store.

You can connect your Shopify dropshipping store with Google Search Console and Google Analytics.

Google search console could be used to find out your website’s performance on Google search engine results pages. Whereas you can use Google Analytics to learn about user behavior. You will know how much time your visitors are spending on your website, what’s the bounce rate, and much more.

You can even use the Hotjar application to learn about a user’s journey on your website. Moreover, it helps you to learn how your customers are interacting with your users.

Using analytics tools, you will know where your dropshipping business is lacking in terms of visibility. 

Step 8: Advertising and Retargeting Shopify Dropshipping Store on Facebook Using Mark AI

What’s retargeting?

Retargeting is tracking down your visitors on different platforms and displaying advertisements of products they viewed on your website.

If we specifically explain e-commerce websites, it can take place at multiple levels.

You can target them according to the product category. Moreover, if they go forward and check out specific products, you can target them for those specific products.

However, where retargeting works the most is cart abandonment. When your visitors add the cart but do not purchase them for some reason, it’s easy to retarget them. With retargeting you can convert them into customers.

Retargeting and Advertising on Facebook

The easiest way to retarget the customers is to connect your Shopify dropshipping business to Facebook.

For that purpose, we got Facebook Pixel. You can check out our blog to know more about how to install Facebook Pixel for Shopify.

The social media website will know when your visitor sign in to Facebook. That time the advertisement appears on the prospect’s Facebook wall.

Besides retargeting, you can also perform advertising on Facebook. For that, you simply need to target users who have interests similar to your dropshipping store’s niche.

How can Mark AI help you advertise your products?

Mark AI owns state-of-the-art technology, which makes advertising on social media efficient, quick, and easy.

With Mark AI on your side, you will never need to expend hours in advertising. The application has its inbuilt proprietary process for creating ads on Facebook and Instagram.

Moreover, the advanced automation techniques of Mark AI allow a user to make the least possible efforts in creating ads.

You can also create highly personalized campaigns that target the correct prospects. It helps you to increase the conversion rate and decrease the advertising costs. In this way, Mark AI can bring a lot of sales for your dropshipping business.

Step 9: Managing the Store for Stability and Growth

There is no secret to earning stability and growth.

You need to grow your website continuously. That’s the way how you can earn more customers.

There can be a saturation to niches. You have selected particular product types, and it’s recommended to stick with them as they define your brand.

You can keep researching for rare, high-quality, cost-effective products. Whenever you find a suitable product, you can add it to your website.

Please take care not to add low-quality products for the sake of quantity. Believe in adding lesser products, but the ones which have a high rating. It will help you to have minimal cost for customer support.

Besides that, you need to keep working on search engine optimization. Your website might earn visibility, but there’s no end to it. If you wish all your products to appear on the first page, you will have to keep adding blogs and perform off-page SEO activities.

You can learn about your Shopify dropshipping business’s growth through analytics.

Alongside SEO, you can always run advertisements on social media platforms. For that, you will always have Mark AI’s support.

As your business grows, you can run Google ads too. However, make sure you bid the right amount. Conduct marketing only for products that seem to provide you with sufficient profit after cutting down the Google Ads amount.

Final Words

Dropshipping with the help of Shopify is straightforward and requires the least technical knowledge. You don’t need to be a coder, a designer, or a marketing expert to run your dropshipping business.

With this guide, you will always know where you need to shift your efforts. If you follow the entire given process, no one can stop you from achieving your dropshipping business goals.