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.
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!
Our readers greatly enjoy this format of our blog articles.
So do we!
This is why it’s time for another Q&A session. This one is for absolute beginners who have no experience in drop shipping at all.
We’re really happy that our solutions are motivating and encouraging even for people who have no idea how it all works. This is why we will do our best to help you out!
When someone visits your webstore and places your order, you buy this item from the supplier, but ask him to deliver the product on your client’s address
You get the profit from EVERY purchase – your profit is the difference between the seller’s price and your own price
As you can see, it’s not difficult at all. This business model has tons of benefits:
You don’t need to have anything ‘physical’ – products, office, warehouse, etc. All the deals happen in virtual sphere
You don’t need to buy items in advance, this is why you don’t have the risk of not selling them
You don’t need to rent an actual office and warehouse, and you don’t need to hire people to manage these facilities
You can start the business with the minimal financial investments, only spending money on the webstore development
You can run the business from any point of the globe – all you need is PC or laptop, and a stable Internet connection
You can increase the sellers’ prices any way you like, and no one limits your profit
You’re your own boss – the business fully belongs to you
2. How does the buying and selling process work?
So, you have a ready webstore with product images and descriptions.
A store visitor likes some of your offers, and places an order.
You accept the payment and ask for the client’s name and address.
As soon as you receive the money from the buyer, you transmit the same order to the original AliExpress seller. AliDropship plugin does this automatically, so you won’t get confused with all the orders, sellers, items, countries, addresses, etc.
The seller gets money and customer details from you, makes the package, dispatches it to your buyer, and gives you the tracking code.
You, in turn, send this tracking code to the client, and keep an eye on this order to see how everything’s going.
Nothing extraordinary, in fact!
3. Can I do drop shipping without AliDropship plugin?
Well, yes.
The reason why people all over the globe use this plugin for WordPress-based online stores is that the plugin does the biggest part of the job automatically. Still, the plugin is quite young, even though this business model exists for a long time already. So, several years ago people were just doing drop shipping without any technical help.
And this is exactly the reason why we created the plugin!
You see, as your business grows bigger, you find it more and more difficult to manage all the processes. To save your time and nerves, and to deal with the most common drop shipping challenges, it is better to go for automatic solutions.
4. What is WordPress?
Speaking in VERY simple terms, it’s a piece of web publishing software.
It’s the most popular solution globally used for building websites and blogs – around 28% of ALL the existing websites are created and managed with the help of WordPress.
You download it from the official provider, install it on your site – and here it is! Now you can easily and conveniently manage your website.
WordPress is free, user-friendly, and super flexible. There exist thousands of plugins, extensions, and themes compatible with it. You can download (or buy) any of them to boost the functionality of your website and make it totally unique.
5. What is hosting?
Again, let’s talk in VERY simple terms.
Hosting is a service provided by experienced companies (you can try doing it yourself, but it will be really challenging to manage).
What do these providers do?
Basically, by giving you hosting, they help you upload all your website information to the Internet.
As soon as you get hosting, everything that you’ve added to your website (texts, pictures, videos, etc.) becomes accessible to Internet users. Therefore, people can find your website, browse it, and view it.
6. How can I make profit using AliDropship plugin?
Considering the constant demand for AliDropship custom stores, we decided to devote a whole separate Q&A session to it. Enjoy!
1. What’s a custom drop shipping store?
It’s a ready-made drop shipping store that is created for you exclusively. The store is developed by the team of highly skilled designers, programmers, and other technical specialists who make it all from scratch.
This is a wonderful solution for people who don’t know how to make their own store (or don’t want to waste their time on this). That’s why a huge part of AliDropship clients prefer buying a ready store.
2. What does the whole process look like?
First of all, you place an order and make a payment.
PLEASE NOTE: you only make ONE payment. There are no regular (monthly, yearly, etc.) fees!
After that, a dedicated member of our project management team gets in touch with you. We assign a personal project manager who will guide you through all the steps of the work.
He or she gives you an access to Basecamp – the special platform where you can monitor the progress and leave your feedback. We will also ask you to fill in our questionnaire – this way, we will learn your requests and preferences.
When the development process is over, you get a customized webstore adapted for your needs and wishes. The store fully belongs to you: you get 100% ownership, and you are free to do ANYTHING with the site.
This store has a number of unique features you won’t find anywhere else:
Professionally designed theme optimized for high conversions
Unique design elements (logo, header, icons, favicon, etc.)
Integrated promotional tools: discount coupons, emails for abandoned carts recovery, and subscribers lists for further interactions
All-in-one dashboard to monitor your sales, orders, stats and activities
Integrated Google Analytics
Integrated payment gateways (2Checkout, Stripe, PayU, etc). to accept payments with both PayPal and credit cards
On-site SEO and social networks accounts
Up to 12% AliExpress cashback
For the Ultimate package, you will also be provided with our special social media promo tool. We install and set up the Social Rabbit plugin that will automatically promote your business on 4 top social networks: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.
4. In the custom stores options, you mention that there is a niche research which is brilliant. However, can I choose my own niche?
Basically, you can choose ANY niche you like. It’s recommended to work in a niche you’re passionate about (or at least know quite well).
You will then need to evaluate the niche from the point of view of:
You can take a look at our exclusive ‘Niches and products’ blog section. There, we systematically post the results of our regular market research, and give you ideas of the most promising product types and categories that you can try in the upcoming season.
5. If I want to create a webstore with branded/copyrighted products, will I have any legal issues?
Yes, it is likely.
Every country has its own laws and legal requirements in terms of selling branded products, and every holder of intellectual property right has their own policy of dealing with such cases. You need to be really careful about your niche and products choice!
6. How do you choose and edit products for the website?
In short, we evaluate the items from the point of view of:
Product rating
Number of orders
Sellers rating
The option of e-Packet shipping or free delivery
If you want us to import products of a particular type or style, please, let us know before we start uploading products. You can attach some examples of products for each category.
8. Can you integrate a special payment gateway for my country?
Generally, we integrate PayPal and credit cards payment options into our drop shipping stores. Here you can find the list of all the options available.
Sometimes, clients ask us to include some other additional systems. We always notify our developers team about these requests, but the development process is not easy. The developers might agree to try a certain additional system if it is requested often, but it will be considered to be a ‘non-typical amendment to a website’, and it will cost you extra money.
9. If I only have enough money to buy the Basic Package, can I upgrade it later?
Of course! If you can’t afford the desired package right now, just start with getting the Basic one. Later on, as soon as your finances are fine, you can upgrade your store to the Advanced or the Ultimate level.
For all these packages, we do the same work, but on a different scale. For example, the number of the items we add to a store is 50 for the Basic package, 100 for the Advanced package, and 200 for the Ultimate package. But it’s not the limit! The numbers can be increased if necessary.
The same goes for all the extra services that only are available on the higher levels. Even if they are not included in the package you’re buying, you surely can ask us to add the necessary ones for an extra cost (or you can do it yourself if you wish).
Please note that the store theme choice doesn’t depend on the package you’re ordering! It doesn’t matter if you’re buying a Basic or an Ultimate store – you can anyway choose one theme out of the four options we offer.
10. If I buy your Ultimate Package, when I can start making money? The description says “This package is perfect for those who want a 100% hassle-free start and immediate profits”, so what do you mean by immediate profits?
What do we mean by immediate profits?
The day you receive your store is the day you can make your first sale.
Everything is set up already, so you can accept payments and process orders IMMEDIATELY after getting the site from us. From the technical point of view, your webstore is fully ready for operation when we hand it over to you.
We gladly share our marketing experience and knowledge with you – we provide tons of educational materials(check out the question #7). Still, we can’t predict how soon you will start getting income – it all depends on your own promotional efforts.
Did we cover everything you wanted to know about buying a custom store? Feel free to leave your questions in the comments section below!
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