Dropshipping

‘It’s The Same Old Importing From China’: 7 Dropshipping Stereotypes

Dropshipping is a relatively young business model, which is why not everyone is well-informed about its benefits yet. Quite remarkably, some of the newcomers even think that this venture is identical to traditional importing from China! So, in order to fulfill our educational mission, we will investigate the most common dropshipping stereotypes – and help YOU change your life to the better thanks to this incredible venture.

Okay, here’s the axiom: if you have a low opinion of dropshipping, you don’t know much about dropshipping.

Yes, this is one hundred percent true.

The better you understand the mechanics and the distinctive features of this business, the more excited you get about the benefits of this awesome type of ecommerce enterprise.

Shall we begin uncovering the truth about this business model?

Myth #1 Dropshipping is an ordinary importing from China, but with a fancy name

Some people think that the whole existence of dropshipping is just a ‘marketing’ trick. In their opinion, it’s like using a ‘cleaning service manager’ job title instead of a simple ‘janitor’ word: the smarter the term, the easier it is to deceive the unsuspecting public, right?…

In reality, dropshipping is strikingly different from the traditional scheme of buying Chinese items upfront and reselling them for a higher price. Watch this video to see the differences:

Summing it up, if you are dropshipping, you:

Buy no items

You don’t spend a single cent on buying any products from your suppliers, and you don’t deal with things like customs clearance, customs tax payment, etc. So, you can basically start this business at any point of your life: your start-up expenses are really low, and you don’t need extra savings. Besides, you don’t have any risks of going bankrupt even if you accidentally choose wrong items to show in your dropshipping store. As you haven’t really bought these undemanded items, you have no headache over getting your money back – and you can easily change the product offer in your store with no financial or reputational losses.

Keep no physical stock

Since you’re not buying any items, you’re not having any troubles with keeping them safe and secure. This means, there is no need for you to rent a warehouse, or to hire staff to keep an eye on the stock. So, your product-related costs amount to zero!

Arrange no shippings

If your client buys an item that you physically possess, you have to deliver it to the buyer. But, if your customer purchases a product through your dropshipping store, you have absolutely nothing to worry about: the product is located at the original supplier’s place. So, all you need to do is transfer the order details and the buyer’s address to the supplier: all the rest is beyond your responsibility.

As you can see, even though this business model means that (roughly speaking) you’re selling Chinese-made items to your buyers, it is quite far from the traditional direct import from the original supplier. You’ve noticed how huge your financial savings are, right?

Myth #2 Even if you’re dropshipping instead of importing from China directly, you still deal with locally manufactured low quality products

Not necessarily.

I mean, yes, the most convenient place to source your dropshipping products is AliExpress, so technically, you’ll be selling Chinese items in your store. But, who says they will definitely have a poor quality?…

Thanks to our own broad experience in dropshipping, we have learned the most efficient ways to modify AliExpress search bar settings while sorting out the goods on offer. Besides, we have mastered the skill of analysing the product prospects, and shared the gained knowledge in a super extensive manual on choosing the best AliExpress items for your business. Following these simple recommendations, you will stay away from shady sellers and shabby products, and will only offer carefully handpicked items to your potential customers.

Myth #3 Dropshipping profits are so small and irregular that they aren’t even worth all the effort

That’s probably one of the most popular ‘urban legends’ about dropshipping business. This misconception is based on the following thought: in order to get a sufficient profit from every sale, you need to put a considerable markup on each product price – and it will scare off the potential buyers.

But, this is exactly one of the reasons why we recommend using AliExpress as your product source! As the majority of the items are low-priced, you can safely make them cost more – but even with a good markup, the final price will still be acceptable for your customers.

And speaking of the ‘small’ profit… well, look at Mousslim from France who made $3,500 in his first 45 days of doing dropshipping. Or, make yourself familiar with the experience of Martin from the Netherlands who made over €4,100 in 30 days of running his dropshipping store. Or, get inspired with the feedback of Rahul from Indiawho went from 0 to $12,000 in 5 months of managing this business. Both our success stories blog section and dedicated forum thread are filled with real-life stories of actual people who did their best and succeeded with their dropshipping ventures; what makes you think you can’t do the same?

Myth #4 On the package label, your buyer will see you’re importing from China – and it will ruin your reputation

To me, this is one of the funniest arguments against starting a dropshipping business.

Indeed, let’s assume that your buyer receives the package, examines the wrapping paper carefully, and notices Chinese characters, or a Chinese shipper’s name/address.

Now what?

There’s nothing suspicious about it, given that an impressive number of warehouses and manufacturing facilities of the largest global corporations are physically located in China. Plus, the majority of AliExpress sellers are extremely kind to dropshippers (for both sides, it’s a mutually beneficial partnership), so it’s more than acceptable to contact your seller and ask to remove all the promotional leaflets and other irrelevant materials from the package.

If you want to play safe, you can even write it plain and clear on every product page: “The item is kept in our warehouse in China, which is why its average delivery time is 28-35 days depending on the buyer’s location”. With a phrase like this one, you will basically kill two birds with one stone: read what I’m talking about below.

Myth #5 Long delivery time will make the store visitors abandon their shopping carts

If this particular idea bothers you, think of the following: 95% of actions taken in a dropshipping store are driven by emotions. In fact, the whole success of your venture mostly depends on your ability to create a sense of urgency: an in-store atmosphere that promotes impulse purchases.

This is the main reason why a long delivery time won’t be a major negative factor for your clients: they don’t buy your products because it’s a life-critical necessity. They don’t need these items to be delivered immediately; they just want to own them because these products are cute and lovely! Plus, with a smart tech solution at hand, you can always get in touch with the abandoned cart owners, and persuade them to complete the purchase.

Myth #6 Contrary to usual importing from China, dropshipping requires you to be an IT person

When it comes to automated solutions that make a dropshipper’s life 10 times easier, some people get confused, and start worrying a bit. They assume that it’s strictly necessary to deal with coding, to possess advanced tech skills, and to have a website development background.

In reality, the only obligatory piece of knowledge here is the understanding of dropshipping process itself. To help you out with this, we put all our experience and recommendations in this single monumental guide. Read it carefully, and it will be much easier for you to manage your dropshipping business with a healthy profit.

And, with regard to the tech part, we also have something to offer you: here is the easiest way to get your own independent dropshipping business with no technical efforts whatsoever! The lack of IT skills can never stop you from launching and keeping your own fruitful venture because you can simply order a customised store that is fully ready for operation and is assembled by a professional team of developers and designers. That’s a too hot opportunity to miss!

Myth #7 If you keep promoting dropshipping so hard, everyone will start doing it, the bubble will burst, and the industry will collapse

And why on Earth would that happen, I wonder?

As long as you promote your dropshipping store carefully and update its product range on a regular basis, you will always have enough buyers. For many reasons, your store will seem even more appealing to the clients than AliExpress or Amazon!

Plus, the future of dropshipping industry looks brighter than ever: we have collected and analysed some market-related stats in this article, and I strongly recommend you to read it if you have any doubts over the long-term prospects of dropshipping business.

Did I manage to convince you that plain and boring importing from China stands no chance against dropshipping? It’s the adventure time!

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Dropshipping

Pros And Cons Of 7 Top Online Business Ideas For College Students

Today, we are evaluating several business ideas for college students; university freshmen, high school graduates, and other ecommerce newbies might get interested in these findings, too!

For a student, running a self-owned (and a physically existing) venture might seem to be quite a daunting task, given all the challenges of combining full-time studies with entrepreneurial efforts. This is why online business gets considered by this audience so often; still, even this type of moneymaking activity certainly has some limitations.

What are the criteria for picking the best online business ideas for college students?

Obviously, not every kind of online business is suitable for a student or high-schooler. Ideally, the perfect venture should be:

Affordable to launch
Flexible enough to be run at any time or from any location
Not related to crafting, manufacturing, buying, stocking, and shipping physical products

All of these limitations are obvious: it’s not entirely possible to combine your studies with solving the numerous product issues (especially the ones related to actual manufacturing), and it’s not always easy to cope with the timing pressure, to say nothing about getting through overly high startup costs.

So, what are the options of launching a student-friendly online business that requires no inventory?

Knowledge-specific online business ideas for college students

Detailed knowledge of a demanded subject and well-developed academic skills can serve you well if you use them wisely.

#1 Temporary freelance job

Thanks to the platforms like Fiverr, you can offer paid help to the people looking for assistance in the fields of programming, graphic design, video creation, copywriting and translation, and other matters that even include specific business and legal tasks.

Pros: Everyone can sign up on Fiverr and register their account for free, so your startup costs amount to zero.

You can choose the client queries that match your personal skills and interests, and also suit the equipment you currently have (if you don’t own a sophisticated PC, skip the video montaging and graphic design sections – a tablet or even a smartphone will be enough to do proofreading, or to leave paid reviews on social networks, or perform any similar tasks).

Most likely, you will be dealing with short-term project that don’t require much personal emotional engagement or thorough background research. It means that you can take an undemanding project any time you’re free from finals and essays, and complete it without making a long-term commitment.

Cons: Sadly, undemanding jobs are not paid generously. To make a considerable profit from this activity, you need to take lots and lots of small projects, and gradually build up your reputation to be trusted with more fundamental offers. Obviously, it might interfere with your studying schedule.

#2 Online tutoring

Your studies, as well as your hobbies, provide you with unique and valuable knowledge that you might as well share with others – and make money from it.

Pros: Since you already know this particular field pretty well, you don’t need to spend your time on learning it from scratch, which means that you can start working right away.

Plus, since you’re providing a distance learning service, you can set flexible working hours that are convenient for you personally.

What is more, you don’t necessarily have to buy any professional software: basic Skype lessons are a suitable option for the majority of learners.

Cons: If your area of special knowledge is quite narrow, it might be difficult to identify and reach your potential clients, and to promote yourself as an expert in this area. Moreover, even if you won’t develop a full-scale educational course, you will still need to spend some time to prepare for every lesson, and to check your clients’ homework.

Also, it’s crucial to estimate your own soft skills: if you don’t feel you can always be empathic and patient enough with your own students, you might experience a professional burnout really soon.

Entertainment-related business ideas for college students

Strictly speaking, this type of online business still requires you to produce some kind of a product – more specifically, content. But, in this case you’re making an intangible, virtual product, which means that you, at least, are free from the stocking and shipping issues – and you’re anyway making money without creating and keeping an inventory.

#3 Game streaming

Much like professional gamers, streamers make serious money from a seemingly non-serious activity: their income is mostly generated through the paid subscriptions or donations from the viewers who enjoy watching a charismatic or unusually skilled person playing a popular game.

Pros: Basically, you’re just making money from playing a game: instead of an office job or coal mining, you simply so what you like, relax, and get paid for this. You can register on a streaming platform like Twitch for free, and therefore, get a broadcasting channel for your engaging content with zero costs.

Cons: To begin with, online gaming and a higher education is, um, a very tricky mix to manage, so your priorities must be set straight.

Plus, you will have to make some startup investments: this activity requires at least a powerful laptop or PC, headphones and a microphone of a decent quality, and a stable Internet connection, so you must take care about these spendings in advance.

And, most importantly, you need to figure out what’s so distinctive or unusual about your channel, and differentiate yourself from thousands of similar players. If there is nothing special about your gaming technique or personal presentation, the whole venture simply won’t pay off.

#4 Video blogging

From ASMR artists to exotic cat owners, from popularizers of science to astronauts, video bloggers across the globe witness a growing interest towards the product they’re making – and benefit from it heavily.

Pros: For the videos distrubution, you can choose a free and insanely popular platform like YouTube; quite surprisingly, social networks like Facebook and Instagram are also used for this purpose widely and successfully.

Since YouTube belongs to Google, the videos placed on the platform are indexed and ranked by search engines. This way, you can drive free traffic to your videos through the appropriate SEO efforts, such as writing optimised titles and descriptions, integrating subtitles, etc.

Cons: It takes long hours to plan, film, and edit a video in a way that would be demanded by the viewers. Also, the startup investments are quite high: you need a wide range of top quality filming equipment (camera, microphone, lighting devices, stands, etc.)

Obviously, much like game streamers, video bloggers can only succeed if their channels have some clearly distinctive features: a unique content relating to an untapped niche, or an exceptionally charismatic and likeable presenter.

#5 Blogging

For many people, a personal blog written in a smart and witty way has turned into a starting point for something much bigger: a column in a popular magazine, a self-published book, or even a self-owned business.

Pros: For the purpose of posting your texts, you can choose any free blogging platform, or even simply create a dedicated Facebook page to share your writings with the wider audience. At the first stages of your blog existence, you can also promote it for free through the relevant traffic channels and well-thought-out SEO strategies.

Don’t forget that writing itself is quite a flexible activity, which means that you can put aside a half-finished article when your studying schedule gets harsh, and return to it later.

Contrary to video blogging and game streaming, text blogging doesn’t necessarily require you to reveal your identity, which is great for your personal safety: unfortunately, the cases of haters stalking and threatening video bloggers are not that uncommon.

Cons: A captivating blog should be dedicated to the topics that are warmly welcomed by the readers’ audience. If you’re writing about the minor issues that are only interesting to a narrow circle of your friends, relatives, or hobby comrades, you have a low chance of succeeding in the blog monetization.

Ecommerce business ideas for college students

When it comes to a full-scale ecommerce business that doesn’t require the owner to manufacture goods or keep product stock, two options are considered most often: affiliate business and drop shipping business.

#6 Affiliate business

We have already covered both the most favorable and the least promising examples of running an affiliate business, so, now it’s time to go through their benefits and disadvantages once again.

Pros: Affiliate programs are free to join, which is why the startup costs in this case amount to zero.

Plus, since you’re not the business owner, you are free from all the managerial problems: all you need to do is comply with the program terms, and provide your PayPal details to receive the earned commissions.

Also, many program owners give the participants an access to the pre-developed promotional materials: if you don’t quite know how to market the program carefully, you can count on the professional guidance.

Finally, for many people, the affiliate business is a some sort of ‘introduction’ into ecommerce in general: after gaining the necessary experience, they move on to more ambitious ventures.

Cons: Since (again) you’re not the business owner, your affiliate income solely depends on the provider’s actions. If the program terms get changed with no prior notification, or if the provider doesn’t approve your promotional methods, you can easily get banned for the ‘non-compliance’.

Plus, in the majority of the affiliate programs, you don’t have an immediate access to money, and you need to wait up to 60 days to finally receive the commissions you’ve earned.

#7 Drop shipping business

History knows enough examples of drop shipping stores transforming into large ecommerce empires; but, before you finally graduate and get the opportunity to devote all your time to such huge projects, it’s a good idea to start with a smaller venture.

Pros: Drop shipping business works best when you’re passionate about the niche you’ve chosen; this way, you literally can make money from the things you love and cherish deeply.

With the carefully picked automated solutions, you can forget about handling the daily management routine manually. In fact, you can comfortably combine your full-time studies with running your very own store; even for a medical student this task turned out to be easily achievable.

Cons: You will have to learn a lot – from the specific features of the market and products you’ve chosen to the most suitable marketing tips. Still, there is good news: there exist enough guides, video manuals, and industry-specific libraries to help you gain the necessary knowledge conveniently.

What else to consider during your search for the best business ideas for college students?

Before you finally commit to a certain online business model, ask yourself the following questions:

What is the real purpose of launching the business? Do you simply want to get a supporting income, or you also wish to gain a future-oriented experience and develop your personal brand?
Is it legal for you, as a student, to run the business you’ve chosen? (Even though the listed business types don’t necessarily require you to register officially, it’s still a good idea to play it safe and discuss this matter with your university/college administrators).
What is the average amount of time that you can safely dedicate to your newborn business without compromising your studies?
What are the startup resources (skills, experience, money, gadgets, etc.) that you currently possess, and what can you easily acquire in addition?

The answers to these questions will help you get your priorities straight, and choose the online business model that totally suits your personality and possibilities. We wish you the best of luck with your venture, whatever direction you choose!

Dropshipping

5 Reasons To Sign Up For Our Dropshipping Course Today

AliDropship team has recently developed and launched its own signature dropshipping course; let’s find out what makes it so special and why you should start taking it right now!

We take education seriously.

For us, it is really important to provide entrepreneurs-to-be all over the globe not only with the automated solutions that simplify the daily business routine, but also with the dropshipping knowledge and experience we’ve gathered over these years.

This is why we are now happily introducing a full-scale email dropshipping course – read below why your business will benefit from it heavily!

What’s so great about our dropshipping course?

Free access

AliDropship email course is provided for free: all you need to do is sign up here, and all the dropshipping wisdom of our experts will be directed straight to your inbox.

No fees are charged for the access to our course materials, and you can freely return to them at any point of time.

Convenient form

Contrary to the data of webinars and live Q&A sessions, these educational materials won’t disappear after the end of the course.

Also, you can read them at any time and from any gadget that is convenient for you: the text form allows you to research the materials in a flexible and relaxed mode.

Experience-based approach

The course is built on the combined experience of AliDropship team members, from designers and developers to marketing specialists and dropshipping store supervisors.

The diverse background of the course authors and a wide range of tips and case studies covered makes it possible for you to get the in-depth knowledge of dropshipping business in general and the rules of your store management in particular.

Consistency

The course is designed in a way that is comfortable even for the first-time entrepreneurs. It lasts for 7 days, and every day, the subscribers one email covering some particular dropshipping area.

The topics are arranged in the general-to-specific way: the course starts with the explanation of the meaning and the benefits of dropshipping business, and then goes on to elaborate how to choose the perfect dropshipping niche, how to pick the best products, how to set up the technical side of the store, and how to promote it to get your first sales.

Practical focus

Thanks to the course consistency, the subscribers gradually become aware of the essence of dropshipping business, and the lifehacks of managing it with the highest efficiency possible.

And, the course doesn’t simply explain the theoretical business aspects: with every new topic, it shows how to complete this or that specific task, and gives practical guidelines to progress with your own dropshipping store launch.

So, in the 7 days of reading the course materials, you will not just learn the necessary basics of running this rewarding business. You will become confident and skilled enough to launch your own dropshipping store that is optimized to bring you the profits you’ve always dreamed of.

Aren’t you curious to see how this dropshipping course will give the start to a fascinating adventure and turn your whole life around?

Dropshipping

How To Make Money As An Affiliate: Jitendra Vaswani’s Story

Where will your affiliate journey take you? Today, we are talking to Jitendra Vaswani, an incredibly successful blogger, author, and online influencer. Let’s see what he does to make money as an affiliate!

Hi, please introduce yourself!

Hey guys I am Jitendra Vaswani, founder of BloggersIdeas internet marketing blog which talks blogging, SEO, make money online and experts interview. In this blog, I share lots of stuff related to digital marketing which helps budding marketers to get more grasp on practical marketing.

The blog became an instant success and I went on to establish my own Digital Marketing Agency called DigiExe. Based on my core principles of living on my own turns, working on what I love and making the maximum effort every time, DigiExe has leaped forward and helped major online brands generate increased worth.

Through my first book “Inside A Hustler’s Brain: In Pursuit of Financial Freedom”, I want to help people take actions in their life and bring change in people mindset. To have an entrepreneur mindset is everything.

Have you previously tried to make money as an affiliate or e-commerce marketer?

I started my full time blogging journey at the age of 25 and till now I am successfully running this business. I love this laptop lifestyle of mine – you can see more of it here.

I am currently the Brand Ambassador of Payoneer (International Payment Solution Company) and a strong online influence over popular social media channels. I also take initiative to share my experience with young aspirants and budding entrepreneurs at blogging and start-up events.

I got into affiliate marketing by reading lot of blogs online which were sharing knowledge on making money on affiliate marketing. I read lot of blogs but some of my favorite blogs are:

Quicksprout.com
Johnchow.com
Backlinko.com
Zacjohnson.com
Nichehacks.com

These blogs share immense knowledge on affiliate marketing and how to make money online. I started very small like buying domain and hosting from Godaddy. I was working at that time but I saved some money and bought the domain BloggersIdeas.com and from here, my journey of affiliate marketing started. I started promoting hosting offers and made some good money. This blog has given me house, cars and lot of freedom in my life.

How did you learn about AliDropship product and AliDropship Affiliate Program?

I learned about AliDropship when the CEO reached me out for doing the review for the WordPress plugin, and I was very happy to see that this plugin is really helpful for ecommerce geeks who wants to make money with dropshipping through WordPress. I did the review and I started making sales from my affiliate link here.

Then I ranked my review on top page of Google and started making some good sales for Alidropship and I made around 1,800$ as an affiliate with Alidropship. I plan to promote it more and make money with Alidropship.

Do you participate in other affiliate programs?

Yes I do other affiliate programs too, I have joined top affiliate networks like CJ.com & sharesale.com. From these affiliate platform I try to join lot of other programs to make money from my blogs.

I have used jVzoo to promote some products which I know pretty well, and I am pretty happy to be a Jvzoo affiliate. I made some good sales in Jvzoo as an affiliate, also I launched my own product on Jvzoo Schemaninja.com. This product was my first launch and I manage to get 300 sales. This was like big deal for me because it was my first launch and I was totally a newbie in this market. So I learned lot of things in this process.

What are the most difficult challenges of making money as an affiliate? How do you deal with them?

I have been in affiliate marketing business for 3.5 yrs and I am living laptop lifestyle due to my firm dedication. See, to do online business, you need to have firm set of rules to get success. You need the right mindset, lot of people start online business just to see other people are making money, but they don’t see hard work and patience of that person. They think they will get success overnight but that it not true. Success take lot of determination, patience & sacrifices. Don’t fall into quick rich money schemes, there is no thing like getting rich overnight.

I deal with some issues like tracking with inhouse affiliate programs, I prefer to work with companies who have trusted affiliate platforms like CJ.com, Shareasale & Avangate. These platforms are best for tracking till now.

How do you promote the affiliate programs you’re participating in?

Currently I have a team of 10 people online and I handle them through Slack. I dedicate tasks to my team and keep track on them.

I promote offers through coupon codes blog and nowadays I am learning Google Adwords and trying to make sales from PPC.

You need to innovate yourself, otherwise you will die. As technology is changing everyday, you cannot depend on single source of income, you need to try different sources of traffic to make money.

I choose niche which have low competition and I try to PPC bidding on these keywords. I play my game on this expertise level.

Give users a valuable content, then they will surely buy from your affiliate link. Trust is major thing when people click on your affiliate link.

How has your life changed? What do your friends and family think about your business?

My biggest achievement was, when I was chosen the Payoneer brand ambassador in 2015 – this was biggest game changer of my career as this give my initial wings to set my foot into digital marketing space. Payoneer is international company and they were in India to look for brand ambassador , they choose me and my friend as brand ambassador. This was biggest achievement in my life and I lived the the best days of my life while travelling India with Payoneer. Thanks to Payoneer.

I need to overcome lot of obstacles as when I start my business my family didn’t supported me and they want me to work for my whole life. I cannot do it for my whole life. So I started this business being a loner and I used to work like crazy 14-16 hrs a day and I tried to make deal with companies so I can make stable money.

I started hanging out with top notch entrepreneurs and try to learn from them, you need to have intellectual social circle in order to get success. What you do on weekends matters a lot, you have equal amount of time like everyone, use time as the biggest assest.

What are your plans for the future?

I will be doing more in paid marketing and scale my business with Google Adwords. As Adwords is very big and I want to go deep dive into it as I have made some good money with Adwords and so I want to hit that massive figures and make more money. I love freedom more than money. Also I believe that if you don’t have good family and friends then money is useless, I have seen lot of millionaires who are broke as hell in terms of relationships and family. Make money but keep healthy balance between personal and professional life.

What can you advise our readers – those who already make money as affiliate and those who haven’t started yet?

I would say work on that niche which you have some knowledge about, as you will be able to share your personal experience on that topic, working on niche which you don’t have any idea it will not give you any money. Trust me, it’s true.

I work in those niches which I have some experience and I know that if I give value to users then they will buy from my affiliate link, make sure that you user engagement is high on your website. User should feel trust on your website you want user to click on your affiliate link.

Here are my contact details if users want to reach me out:

Email : Jitendra@bloggersideas.com

Twitter: Jitendrablogger
Facebook: JitendraVaswaniOfficial
Instagram: JitendraVaswani
Google+: +JitendraVaswani
Youtube: Jitendravaswani
Subscribe: http://www.bloggersideas.com/subscribe

That’s the spirit! Now, you see how rewarding it feels to make money as an affiliate. We are thrilled with the passion and dedication of our today’s guest, and we are really thankful to him for his time and for his kind feedback on our affiliate program.

Dropshipping

5 Reasons To Choose WordPress For eCommerce Websites

When you start your online venture, the thing which is worth paying most of your attention is choosing a suitable platform to build your eсommerce website. Your choice defines the future of your business. If you make a wrong decision, you’ll spend your time and money in vain and have to start everything from scratch. Meanwhile, creating a WordPress ecommerce website is the most popular solution with entrepreneurs to ensure their presence on the Internet. About 30% of all websites around the globe work on WordPress.

Indeed, before getting started with any ecommerce venture, no matter whether it’s going to be a drop shipping store or any other type of online business, the most important thing that you need is a website.

Of course, you will take some actions on external online resources such as various social media, Google Ads,Google Shopping, and other promotion-related or analytics-aimed websites. Still, the major part of your work, such as orders processing and payments’ acceptance, will take place on the specially built online store.

Therefore, you need to clearly understand your needs and carry out a research which will show the best ecommerce platform for setting up your online shop.

What the best online platform for eCommerce websites looks like

As a small business owner, you need a website which would look professional and appealing for your customers, and be suitable and convenient to use for commercial activity. At the same time, its building and maintenance shouldn’t cost you much money. Thus, it is important to put your store on a solid and reliable platform that:

Is free to use or, at least, has a great free functionality (so you don’t necessarily have to upgrade to a paid version);
Lets you perform both the basic and the more advanced eCommerce business functions;
Provides you with the 100% ownership of the website;
Is flexible enough to allow you customize your eCommerce website as you’d like it to ensure the best conditions to run the business;
Makes it possible to create a visually appealing website with a user-friendly interface and easy navigation;
Can securely store and keep the transactional details and all the other types of classified data;
Has a proven efficiency and a satisfying history of its successful usage in commercial purposes.

For most of the ecommerce platforms this list of requirements seems to be quite extensive – but, there is one solution that ticks all the boxes!

5 Reasons to choose WordPress for eCommerce websites

In our personal experience, WordPress is the best technical platform to launch a drop shipping store or start any other type of eCommerce venture. Why do we appreciate it so much?

Please note: there are some differences between WordPress.com and WordPress.org. People often mix them up, whereas they are two absolutely different ecommerce platforms. This confusion may result in the wrong choice for your future website, so let’s find out which one we need.

WordPress.com is actually a hosting service which free version allows you to create websites for blogging. You don’t need to worry about searching for a hosting provider – using WordPress.com includes it. But it’s totally unsuitable to use for commercial purposes. You can’t upload plugins and themes to customize your site unless you pay a considerable sum of money to upgrade your user plan to Business or VIP plans. Apart from that, while using the free version, you can’t use Google Analytics or any other tracking tool. And to top the whole thing off, WordPress.com doesn’t contain payment gateways and other things which could help you organize your business process.

The thing we need is WordPress.org (“the real WordPress” or self-hosted version of WordPress). It is a website which contains software which is a free open-source content management system that allows you to gain a 100% ownership of your site. Before using it, you need to choose a domain name and hosting provider. Then you should download the software on your server and you are good to go. Since you’ve done it, you can easily and fast create a unique online shop worth visiting. Why? We’re going to explain below.

#1 WordPress eCommerce websites are free

This is probably the main reason why this platform is so widely used all over the world – especially by eCommerce newcomers!

It costs you nothing to download WordPress and use it as a basis for your future business website. In fact, you can later upgrade to a more sophisticated website version, but this is not strictly necessary: even the core WordPress functions are enough for you to build a powerful and appealing eCommerce site.

So, you are the boss of your own finances, and it’s only up to you to decide whether to spend anything extra on the website management!

#2 WordPress is awesome for eCommerce

In this article, I have mentioned it several times already that WordPress is preferred, chosen, and loved by countless users worldwide.

It’s not my personal opinion – this fact is proven by the most recent industry stats As you can see, WordPress has a 50%-60% market share which means that more than a half of Internet users choose it as the platform for their websites.

What’s even more exciting, hundreds of renowned global brands use WordPress to power their websites – without any doubts, you can conclude that this platform has already proven its efficiency for businesses and commercial enterprises of all sorts.

This is exactly the reason why not only big bosses, but regular Internet users as well use WordPress. Over 500 new WordPress sites appear every day, and surely, lots of their owners are average middle-class people – just like me and you.

#3 WordPress is user-friendly

One of the most common drop shipping fears that haunt the eCommerce newcomers is that it will be hard to manage the business from the technical point of view. But, if you build your website on WordPress, you won’t see any of these ‘spooky’ challenges.

Initially, WordPress was designed as a blog creation platform: it was exclusively developed for the people who want to run their own blogs and, potentially, benefit from blogging.

The developers were keeping that in mind that mostly, bloggers have a limited technical background, which is why they did their best to create an undemanding solution that is easy to understand and simple to use on a daily basis.

These days, WordPress has a slightly altered functionality, which is why it is widely used across the globe as the platform supporting various commercial websites, business blogs, and other sites – but, even now, it is still a very understandable platform with clear guidelines and tutorials.

#4 WordPress is well-documented

Speaking of guidelines and tutorials, I want to mention that WordPress has an absolutely amazing Codex that covers all the aspects of WordPress installation, setup, and use.

What’s more, not only the internal WordPress developers take their time to describe and explain various platform functions and features in detail – many regular WordPress users also create step-by-step guides and other types of illustrative content to help each other.

So, if you ever have any issue related to the use of WordPress, look it up on YouTube or on a dedicated forum – most likely, you’ll find a good answer to your query in just a couple of minutes.

#5 WordPress has tons of free themes and plugins for eCommerce websites

Do you want to spice up your website appearance, or enhance its performance by adding some exciting new features?

Nothing can be simpler: on WordPress, you can find an unlimited amount of beautiful free themes that are designed to attract the public attention to your website and help you develop your business brand.

And, you can also look through thousands of WordPress plugins that are created to make your entrepreneurial life easier, and pick an appropriate solution that helps you run your business in a semi-automated manner. These plugins, for example, can help you manage your daily business routine, or let you efficiently promote your venture across multiple social media channels. Again, you, as the ultimate website owner, are 100% free to choose ANY complementing solutions to boost your business performance!

One of such solutions is WooCommerce plugin. Actually, this free WordPress plugin is an excellent ecommerce platform for building online shops.

The number one goal in ecommerce is standing out from your competitors. WooCommerce contains dozens of plugins and themes to customize your store and streamline your business process, which allows you to create appealing product pages, set up different payment gateways, etc. In other words, you can build a unique WordPress ecommerce website different from plenty of cookie-cutter web-stores created on different chargeable platforms.

Such a tool as AliDropship Woo plugin is going to help you wrap up the creation of your online shop. It will let you:

automate order fulfilment,
effortlessly add products from AliExpress right to your website with their descriptions, pictures and customer reviews,
track orders,
etc.

To sum it up, your business process seems to be a smooth sailing if you decide to build your ecommerce website with WordPress!

Now, you know what makes WordPress such a thrilling solution for eCommerce websites. I hope that you will use this guidance while choosing the perfect platform to launch your own business!