The 10 X-Factors That Will Make Or Break Your Dropshipping Business
The 10 X-Factors or 10-Step Checklist to a Successful Dropshipping Business has been created to help you follow the correct procedures from your start, through the end. This is not a mandatory checklist to use over and over; it’s just to make sure you don’t miss an essential phase for success.
The Ecommerce Checklist – An Overview
E-commerce checklists are divided according to their function. The first one is for eCommerce images (cart and product images, banners, buttons and background images, etc). The second set is for selling online (setting up a webshop and creating an online marketing strategy as both onsite and offsite SEO/SEM).
Checklist: Dropshipping
Here’s a dropshipping checklist you can follow as you start your business to make things easier:
Creating a Custom Domain
The first thing your potential customers will see is your domain name. It is the online equivalent of a shop front and should be attractive, memorable and easy for customers to find.
With a unique, memorable name, you will stand out from competitors and achieve brand awareness faster. Having a memorable name will help customers remember your business and return to you in the future.
Here are some tips on choosing the best domain name:
- Make it short and memorable–The ideal length for a domain name is less than 15 characters long–the shorter the better! You can use popular words or phrases that customers might search for (e.g. “Golf Clubs”).
- Be specific–A generic domain name like “golf clubs” won’t help you stand out from the crowd or convey any useful information to searchers. Instead, use keywords that shoppers may enter when searching for golf clubs (e.g. “Golf Clubs UK”)
- Make sure it’s available–Use a domain checker tool to ensure there are no spelling mistakes and confirm that it’s available before you pay for it
Get Your Business Pages Up and Running
A Privacy Policy is a contract between you and your visitors. It explains in clear terms how you will handle their information. The most important purpose of a privacy policy is to protect your visitors, who are giving you their personal information in order to do business with you. Your privacy policy should be easy to find on your website. If it’s not on the home page, make sure that you include links from your home page and any other pages where you collect visitor’s information, such as an order form.
It’s also essential that you provide standard pages that give relevant information about your business, such as:
Home Page – This is the first page seen by visitors when they go to your website. It should give a general idea of what your site offers and briefly explain how to locate specific products or services.
Contact Page – List all the ways customers can contact you if they have questions or concerns about their purchase or anything else related to your business. Make sure it includes an email address that you check regularly, as well as phone numbers and postal addresses.
About Us Page – A “Company Overview” or “About Us” page explains how long the company has been in business and its history in general terms. It can tell customers about company philosophy, management team, mission
Make Your Checkout Page More Organized
Abandoned carts are one of the biggest online shopping problems today. You may think of this as a technical issue, but it’s actually a human problem. Cart abandonment can be addressed with a few simple changes to your website.
The following tips will help increase the number of transactions you generate from a single customer visit:
1) The fewer steps on your checkout process, the more likely a customer is to complete their order
2) When possible, make sure your checkout page loads quickly
3) Offer numerous payment methods that customers can use
4) Make it easy for customers to change their orders
5) Offer a call-to-action button on your checkout page that encourages people to go ahead and buy
6) Repair any mistakes that occur during the checkout process
7) Use live chat software such as Olark or Soapbox to address questions and concerns before they become problems
Choose your sales channels carefully
There are a number of reasons why you might want to market your product on many online platforms. For example, you might want to boost your sales by increasing the number of places where buyers can purchase your products. Or, you might want to expand your reach into new geographic areas.
Make Your Store SEO-Friendly
SEO is one of the most important aspects of an ecommerce store. It is a process that requires an ongoing commitment, but the more time and effort you put into it, the better your chances at higher search engine rankings.
It will not be easy to achieve high organic search rankings in your niche, but if you follow these ten steps and never give up, you will be well on your way to seeing a significant boost in organic traffic to your ecommerce store.
Get Your Email Marketing Set Up
Email marketing is one of the most effective marketing strategies for ecommerce businesses.
Email is a cost effective, direct and measurable way for ecommerce businesses to interact with their customers.
For example, an online retailer selling toys might use email marketing to:
-Welcome new customers and give them tips on how to use and get the most out of their purchase.
-Warm up potential customers by sending them special offers and discounts via email.
-Keep existing customers happy with order and delivery confirmations, tracking updates, product arrival alerts and other related emails.
Over time, a company’s database can grow large enough that it is worth splitting into different segments. Each type of email can be sent only to a specific segment, so that you can target different types of customers with specific messages based on what would be most relevant to them.
Configure Your Analytics
There are quite a few ecommerce analytics tools available on the market, but Google Analytics is still the most used one. The free version of this software provides you with a wealth of information that can help you assess your website performance and make smart decisions.
Sharing your Analytics data with your team members is essential. With full transparency, everyone will be able to see what’s working and what’s not. Never keep your Analytics data to yourself — it’s like keeping a winning lottery ticket to yourself. Your team members will work harder if they know they have a piece of the pie, and sharing your data is the best way to motivate them.
Examine Your Shipping Prices
Shipping is a major cost for ecommerce businesses, and one that’s easy to overlook when you’re starting out. The problem is that it can be a significant drain on your profits if you don’t examine your shipping rates carefully. Remember, though, that the most important factor is choosing the right products in the first place. If you’re selling something that doesn’t fit into a flat-rate envelope or box, you’re probably going to have to charge extra for shipping, especially if it involves international shipments.
Before launching, add the relevant apps and test the site
In order to perform well on ecommerce search engines, you need to have your most important keywords in the title and headers of your site. It’s also important that they’re in your product descriptions and titles so that customers can find them easily. When customers are searching for something specific, they want to know that your product is exactly what they are looking for.
Endnote
We hope this guide has given you some additional insight into how to launch a brand new dropshipping business. The steps above may seem daunting and complex, but it is actually easier than it seems. Most of the work boils down to marketing your store, getting customers to place orders, and then shipping out those orders.
