Why Most Dropshipping Businesses Fail
Most People Don’t Treat Drop Shipping Like a REAL Business
The number one reason most dropshipping businesses fail is because people don’t treat it like a real business. Whatever drop shipping “niche” you’re getting into, take it seriously. Think about how you can help add value to that particular market place. Don’t try to drop ship some fidget spinners from Ali Express and then wonder why it didn’t work out.
Whether you like it or not, you’re building a real business. You’re going to have real customers with real problems that need solving. This is how you build trust and build a business. In the end, this is what you want to do because it will lead to the most value for yourself. Your job as an eCommerce entrepreneur or “drop shipper” is to provide value to your customers. You are providing a trustworthy platform where customers can find answers to their problems and safely purchase a product or service.
Most Drop Shippers Don’t Solve a Problem
Businesses are about one thing and one thing only, solving problems. More specifically, solving other peoples problems, not about solving your problem about how to make thousands of dollars online so you can travel the world. Look at your product and service and ask if you are actually solving a problem and providing value.
As an eCommerce entrepreneur or drop shipper your job is to solve problems. Your customers have problems, you have solutions. Let’s take the example of Andrew Youderian at Ecommerce Fuil who created and sold TrollingMotors.net for over 100k. Andrew created a drop shipping store where he sold trolling motors. This is not hard to do and anyone can build a site, contact suppliers and start drop shipping trolling motors. The thing that set him apart from his competition was that he also put together an in depth website that answered peoples questions about the different trolling motors. By doing this he created a valuable resource for his customers which in turn built trust and lead to more profits.
If you’re considering drop shipping or Ecommerce, then do yourself and your potential customers a favor. Start a real business. You can still drop ship and in many cases should drop ship. Just realize that you’re starting a real business and any temporary arbitrage opportunity between eBay and Amazon or aliexpress and Shopify are going to be over saturated and undervalued.
Great points! I’m glad you identified that one glaring issue. I never thought of that as the way drop shippers fail, but it is true. In my case, I do try to provide value with my drop shipping stores, and I’ve still seen some failures. My sites are with higher priced niche items and are authorized to sell from the original manufacturers. Drop-shipping is increasingly becoming saturated and it really takes a lot of work and time to build and maintain the drop shipping model long term. That’s also why you see so many selling their sites as soon as they reach some level of profitability. But you won’t hear many of the drop ship prophets talk about that. Thanks for the insights, and best of luck to you.
Thanks for the comment Brian. You’re right, drop shipping is incredibly saturated and I think adding value is the only way to last. Good luck to you too!
Another reason why most dropshippers fail is that they are not good managers of the dropshipping stores. Dropshipping doesn’t end when the customer’s product is dispatched. You will still have to reply to their queries and stay connected with them until they are satisfied with their products.
That’s a great point, Corpely.com. It seems like a lot of dropshippers are just after “passive” income when in reality they are running a real business and delivering real products to real customers that will have questions, returns, etc.