At the same time, we heavily value YOUR experience. We believe that your feedback is exceptionally important both for us and for other entrepreneurs who need some guidance at their first business steps.
This is why we kindly ask you to fill in this tiny questionnaire.
All the data is strictly confidential, and is gathered for scientific purposes only.
Please, tick up to 3 answers in each question.
Question #1
Which of these niches would you like to choose for your drop shipping business?Other88 votesAccessories for iPhone and Apple Watch68 votesEnvironmentally friendly items60 votesDrone accessories51 voteIslamic clothes38 votesPins, patches, and stickers30 votesVR accessories28 votesVideo blogging accessories28 votesWeed smoking accessories23 votesDrinking games and partying16 votesVape accessories14 votesTotal Votes: 444Voters: 256July 7, 2017 – July 14, 2017Voting is closed
Question #2
What is the drop shipping niche you’re currently working in?Clothing83 votesJewelry and accessories72 votesOther57 votesElectronic devices38 votesSports and outdoor32 votesKids products29 votesHome decor24 votesPets products23 votesFan merch22 votesHousehold supplies8 votesTotal Votes: 388Voters: 252July 7, 2017 – July 14, 2017Voting is closed
This is it!
If none of the options is suitable, please write your answer in the comments section below.
We are really thankful for your help.
This questionnaire will be active for the whole week, so you can visit it from time to time to see how the results are changing.
We will publish the statistics in our blog and in our social networks accounts, so make sure you’re following us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
These awesome fellows deal with all the questions and requests that come from you and your fellow dropshippers!
Some of these questions are really unique, but of course, many of the questions are similar or even identical.
To deal with it, we have created a special knowledge base where you can find answers for the vast majority of the most common questions.
Still, we found it necessary to make several articles dedicated to the most popular questions. We are going to do it on a regular basis – this way, you will always be able to find something helpful.
Simply speaking, AliDropship plugin is an additional piece of technology that you can install on your WordPress website. It will work with WooCommerce as well!
With the help of this plugin, you can easily build your own drop shipping store.
What can you do after you’ve installed the plugin?
Filter and search products on AliExpress and import them to your website in a few clicks
Get the product info updated automatically
Quickly and easily set a price markup for your items
Automatically get in touch with AliExpress sellers to fulfill your clients’ orders
Track orders and automatically notify your clients about their current status
Customize your store and make it look unique and memorable
Get an access to all-in-one dashboard helping you manage the whole thing
See the live statistics about your store performance
With the plugin, you are fully independent with your business choices.
It’s up to you what products to sell, what markup percent to add, and how to run your store.
Basically, you’re your own boss now!
2. Can I start drop shipping business living in my country?
OF COURSE!
The whole model of drop shipping business means that you are free to do it from ANY point on the globe. AliDropship plugin has no limitations as well – you can use it in any country.
Speaking of the geography, it’s important to say you can use AliDropship plugin to customize your store if you’re targeting some specific country.
Maybe you just want to go global, and this is awesome.
But if you want to work with people from some exact country or region, you can easy make your store appealing for them.
How?
Well, first of all, you can set any currency you like. US dollars, euros, British pounds, etc. – you are free to choose any national currency to make your store visitors comfortable. They will see this currency in items’ price, and also on the checkout page when they are ready to make the payment.
Thanks to the plugin, you can automatically translate the reviews left in any foreign language. Or alternatively, import only the reviews left by a citizen of a specific country – the plugin can do this, too.
3. What is the difference between AliDropship plugin and AliPlugin?
Oh, we’re speaking of 2 really different things now, so be attentive!
AliPlugin is an affiliate plugin. You can’t build an independent store with it.
Yes, AliPlugin lets you import products from AliExpress, but your site will NOT be a marketplace. When your store visitors click on a product, they are redirected to AliExpress, and that’s where they make a purchase. With this type of business, your profit is the commission for every purchase that happened on AliExpress with your help.
At the same time, AliDropship plugin is the thing that helps you build your very own drop shipping store. You’re a full owner, and all the purchases happen in your store.
4. How many sites can I create with the Plugin?
When you buy AliDropship plugin, you get your own personal license key.
This key is valid for one website/domain name. But if you decide to create another webstore in future, you can transfer your license to it for free.
5. Is $89 a one-time payment?
Yes, it is!
You only need to pay ONCE.
When you buy AliDropship plugin, you get a lifetime license. You make only one payment to get the plugin, there are no regular payments or any hidden fees.
6. Can I use AliDropship plugin with WooCommerce?
Sure!
AliDropship plugin has 2 different versions: the original AliDropship, and AliDropship Woo.
So, if you need a plugin for WooCommerce, it is better to choose AliDropship Woo.
7. Can I switch to AliDropship Woo plugin in the future?
Yes, you can.
Please remember that all of your settings will be lost in this case.
The original AliDropship plugin and AliDropship Woo are not compatible with each other. So, you will need to reinstall your WordPress, and start your website from scratch.
On the bright side, you won’t have to buy another license key! Just let us know, and we will reset the license you already have.
These are payment gateways integrated with the original AliDropship plugin:
PayPal
2Checkout
Stripe
net
PayU
Payubiz
PayU Latam
PayPlug
DusuPay
Pin Payments
If your webstore is based on WooCommerce, there are tons of gateways to choose from! Please check out this guide to learn which payment gateways you can use.
Welcome to the second edition of our weekly drop shipping polls!
As you remember, last week we’ve asked you about the best drop shipping niches – the research is already over, so you can view the results here to learn something really curious.
This time, we would like to ask you about the promotion methods you most commonly use.
As you know, we treat marketing tips and tricks really carefully, and we are sure it will be interesting for you to learn what your fellow entrepreneurs think about it.
So, let the survey begin!
Question #1
How do you promote your drop shipping store? Tick ALL the suitable answers
Facebook – paid promotions124 votes
Instagram – free promotions91 vote
Facebook – free promotions85 votes
SEO69 votes
Instagram – shoutouts57 votes
E-mail marketing51 vote
Instagram – paid promotions47 votes
Pinterest39 votes
Twitter39 votes
YouTube – free promotions26 votes
Google Adwords25 votes
Offline marketing23 votes
YouTube – paid promotions14 votes
Guerrilla marketing9 votes
Total Votes: 699Voters: 181July 13, 2017 – July 21, 2017Voting is closed
Question #2
Which of these methods works the best for you? Tick ONE answer only
Facebook – paid promotions84 votes
Facebook – free promotions17 votes
Instagram – shoutouts17 votes
Instagram – free promotions16 votes
SEO15 votes
Google Adwords7 votes
Instagram – paid promotions5 votes
E-mail marketing3 votes
YouTube – paid promotions2 votes
Pinterest2 votes
Twitter2 votes
Offline marketing2 votes
YouTube – free promotions1 vote
Guerrilla marketing1 vote
Total Votes: 174July 13, 2017 – July 21, 2017Voting is closed
This is it!
If none of the options is suitable, please write your answer in the comments section below.
We are really thankful for your help.
This questionnaire will be active for the whole week, so you can visit it from time to time to see how the results are changing.
We will publish the statistics in our blog and in our social networks accounts, so make sure you’re following us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
So here it is, the third edition of our weekly drop shipping polls!
The hot question of the last week was promotion – being really interested in optimising marketing efforts, we asked you to share your experience in the field.
That study is already over, so feel free to take a look at the results and learn a tip or two for your own store!
As for this week, we had a couple of questions that are curious and insightful for the whole drop shipping community. Both the businessmen who already run a store and entrepreneurs who are just thinking of launching their very first one were invited to take a look.
Following the success of our previous Q&A session, we decided it’s a nice idea to keep it going!
This is why we present you the newest set of the most popular customers’ questions related to drop shipping marketing and promo.
Ready?
Steady?
Go!
1. How to drive traffic to the webstore?
Basically, to raise awareness about your drop shipping store, you can use:
Paid promotion methods such as Facebook Ads, advertisements on Instagram, Google AdWords, etc.;
Free promotion through SEO, e-mail marketing, video marketing, and social media marketing.
Each of these ways can work out brilliantly for your store!
Let’s look at them in more details.
Paid promotions are awesome if you know a bunch of things about your target audience: who are your customers, which social networks they prefer, what exactly they might like the most about your store offers, what are their interests, etc.
For example, while creating Facebook Ads, you will need to choose the target segment basing on users’ age and location.
At the same time, if you’re planning a campaign on Instagram, you need to define your viewers’ location (state, region, city, or country), demographic parameters (age, sex, and language), interests (apps they use, accounts they’re following, ads they’re clicking), and behavior (how exactly they use Instagram and Facebook).
Woah, seems pretty intense!
But actually, if you know (or at least can guess) a fact or two about your potential customers, you can handle this quite efficiently.
Sounds great, you might say, but what if the store has just opened?
What if there’s no data on potential customers and their behavior?
What if there is no money to spend on marketing?
No problems at all!
At the very first steps of your store operation you can easily go with a number of free drop shipping marketing tricks.
As you can see from our survey of the best promotional methods, free promotions on Instagram and Facebook are one of the most popular marketing instruments used in drop shipping community.
You probably remember our guide on promoting a store on Facebook – and if you don’t, you should definitely check it out! This strategy cost us nothing, but brought our store $4,587 in just 3 months.
And if you’re interested in promoting your store through search engine optimization, you will definitely like our basic guideline of best SEO practices.
All of these strategies work in a slightly different way. So, don’t be afraid to try all of them!
The more time you spend testing these techniques, the sooner you will find the perfect combination that boosts your store performance.
2. How to enhance conversion rate?
That’s a lovely question!
We’re working on a nice and long guide right now, so you will be able to read the detailed instructions soon – just keep an eye on our announcements.
In short, the areas you can improve are the following:
Technical part. Start with checking your website loading speed – if it is too slow, your visitors will get annoyed and leave your store. Also, make sure that all the links and buttons work as planned. Plus, look at the design elements you’re using – they shouldn’t be all bright, noisy and confusing.
Trust elements. Does your store have an SSL certificate that proves the website safety? Or your store visitors have no guarantees of their payments’ security? Don’t forget to write full details of payment and delivery terms, and of course, provide the social networks accounts of your store.
Product page. Follow our guideline and make a lovely product page that generates tons of sales!
Checkout procedure. It should be really simple for your store visitor to place an order and make a payment. Do you ask your potential client to register, or fill in too many forms and fields? Try to minimize your customer’s efforts!
3. How soon after setting up a webstore can I expect sales and profits?
It really depends on the intensity of your marketing efforts, and the strategies you’re using.
For example, if you only use SEO, you’ll have to wait for quite a long period of time – it will probably take 2-4 weeks until your website position changes.
And if you use paid promotions (if you treat them carefully, of course), it’s quite likely you’ll see the first sale on the very first day of your store operation.
Take a look at these success stories written by real dropshippers who share their own experience – all of them took various steps to generate sales, which is why their results are also quite different.
4. What should I do to make the website appear in the search results?
Well, first of all, you need to be really attentive when you choose a niche.
Read this article carefully to understand how to select a drop shipping niche that is perfect in terms of SEO.
Also, take a look at this article once again – here you will learn the basic rules of search engine optimization that will be the key to your drop shipping store success.
5. Could you please tell me more about your SEO packages?
First of all, we do the website audit – generally speaking, it’s a quick checkup that helps us see if there are any aspects that could slow down further search engine optimization.
Then, we work on Google indexing. Speaking in simple terms, we make your website content accessible to Google, and as the result, your website gets a higher ranking.
Also, we write a unique SEO article, as well as meta descriptions for the home page and categories’ pages. Since these unique texts contain the necessary keywords, it makes your webstore more SEO-friendly.
6. What promotional methods should I try first?
Oh, we would certainly say – TRY ALL OF THEM AT ONCE!
No, seriously.
If you have enough time and resources, it’s a wonderful idea to try everything at once – most likely, you will quickly find a unique combination of tools that suits YOUR store perfectly.
But unfortunately, we don’t live in the perfect world.
If you are pressed for time or money (or both), you can explore Facebook for a start. As you can see from our survey results, this is one of the most popular networks commonly used for promotional purposes. And, what’s even more important, our drop shipping community members also think it’s one of the most efficient marketing channels!
You don’t quite like social networks, or you think that you can’t use them to reach your target audience? How about email marketing, then? Address your customers through emails and monitor the results – this success story is a nice example of a successful email marketing strategy combined with other tools.
And of course, of course, please don’t ignore SEO!
Many people think it’s a ‘passive’ way of store promotion, but it’s working great!
This social network is perfect for building relationships with your target audience members, and for spreading word-of-mouth. As the result, your potential customers are encouraged during their decision-making process, and they are also supported after the purchase is already made.
The interaction they have both with you and with other clients of your store is essential for generating more sales, which makes Facebook the perfect place for establishing customer relations and generating more dynamic buying activity in the long term.
Also, Facebook is great if you need to target some narrow customers’ segment. The audience of this social network is huge, which is why you can be sure it is possible to select and reach the necessary people.
Instagram, in turn, is all about the pictures.
If your products are ‘visual’, it is a wonderful idea to showcase them on Instagram to get your audience interested. Proper work with this social network can do magic to your store.
Plus, it would be a great strategy to partner with so-called influencers – bloggers or well-known people who are somehow related to your business niche. A boost in the audience interest is the key to generating more sales in the nearest future!
Also, consider the demographics of your target audience. It is commonly thought that millennials, or younger people, are most likely to use and trust Instagram, while adults prefer Facebook.
But of course, you need to check it yourself – who knows, maybe your niche is really specific and it has a different pattern of consumers’ behavior.
So do your best to try all of the possible channels!
8. How to advertise on Facebook with success?
Being experienced dropshippers ourselves, we have developed our own efficient strategy of advertising on Facebook.
First, we do our best to increase the number of followers.
Then, when we agree that the number is fine already, we launch three types of campaigns on Facebook:
General campaigns that target our subscribers (we’ve already described them);
Remarketing campaigns;
Lookalike campaigns.
In short, Facebook remarketing means that your ads are shown to people who have previously visited your website. Seeing your ads on Facebook, these people will remember your offers, so it’s likely they will come back to the site to make a purchase.
And Facebook Lookalike audience is the segment of people who are somehow similar to your existing customers. Facebook uses some specific algorithm to find individuals who behave similarly to the people who already bought something from your store, and shows your ads to them as well.
Of course, that’s not the only possible way of planning your Facebook ads campaign. Take a look at this success story: that’s a really interesting way of working with Facebook that can be useful for you.
9. How to use Instagram to promote my webstore and drive sales?
But of course, this is not the only way of promoting a store through Instagram. Owners of business accounts can also try Instagram boosts. There’s a ‘Promote’ button, so tap it to choose the desired settings: the audience, the budget, and the period of promotion.
If you can’t devote long hours to manual Instagram promotion, try out automated solutions – that’s how you can do it.
10. How to use Google Adwords for drop shipping?
Google Adwords is a wonderful tool that will be really helpful throughout your whole drop shipping journey.
Basically, you will first use it at the very beginning of your work: this is how you will select the most relevant and promising keywords.
Later on, you will use Google Analytics to monitor your store performance and progress.
But most importantly, you will use it to plan and run advertising campaigns, so let’s take a closer look at them.
The ads you create with the help of Google Adwords can look like usual entries on Google search results page, or alternatively, they can be shown as Google Shopping ads.
The first category is really familiar – you surely saw such ads when you were looking for some item to buy online, or when you were simply browsing the web.
Such ads consist of the title where the product name is included, and some text description. These ads are the most efficient if we state the price and also mention the free shipping option. Try writing 3-4 different texts for each advertisement.
It is recommended to choose the best selling items for this type of advertisements – ideally, each ad should be devoted to a single item, and not to a group of products.
In 2-4 weeks, it’s time to track and analyze the results. The most important parameters will be ROI (return on investment), CPC (cost per click) and conversion cost.
Google Shopping ads are a bit different.
They are also shown on Google search results page, but they look like tiny announcements with a product picture, description, and price.
You can try out Google Shopping ads if you want to cut down your expenses – typically, such ads have a higher conversion rate, and at the same time, the cost of conversion is lower. These campaigns are considered to be a bit more efficient, but you will need to devote slightly more time to their prepararion.
These are the most commonly asked questions about marketing in drop shipping business. If you have something else to ask, feel free to leave your question in the comments section below!
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