What is Dropshipping?
Dropshipping is the latest online business model that has become quite popular in India. Young entrepreneurs are trying to start dropshipping business with various innovative products. With the help of my 10-Step Guide below you can easily learn how to start dropshipping business in India without major investment and from the comfort of your home.
Dropshipping is an online business model in which you do not need to keep your own inventory. When a customer places an order from your store, your partner supplier or vendor directly ships the ordered products to the customer. In this way, you can earn a lot of money online without keeping stock of any product.
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Why Dropshipping is a Great Business Model in the current Indian Market?
Dropshipping is a new concept in India where as in USA it already has an established market and has come to a saturation peak. Hence India seems to be a better market compared to USA if you are thinking to start a dropshipping business. Now the question arises why dropshipping in India can be quite profitable?
The initial capital investment is low because you do not need to buy an inventory unlike a regular offline business model. Secondly, India being a vast market of different cultures, you can easily sell a variety of products considering regional preferences. And in current scenario, we have many options for easy digital payment and fast shipping services which makes it quite easy to scale the dropshipping business in India.
How to Start Dropshipping in India: 10-Step Guide
Step 1: Choose a Niche
Before stepping into the dropshipping world, it is very important that you do a proper market & product research and choose a profitable niche. Dropshipping business is now at its peak and it is important that your products should be unique and different from the common online businesses that have already captured the market. You can stand out from the crowd by identifying a niche that is:
- Unique
- Sellable
- Profitable &
- Scalable
To understand more about niche, please check out this detailed blog. A niche with a low competition but high in demand will be considered as a profitable niche. Your chances of getting success are higher if you pass the niche test.
There are many popular niches in India for eg: Baby Products, Creative Gadgets, Home décor with Indian traditional touch, Fitness, fashion and eco-friendly products. There are many ways by which you can do product and market research for eg: you can use Google trends, social medial, Spy tools, Ads library etc. I will be covering the research part in another blog in detail.
Step 2: Research Your Target Market
It is very vital to know your target market and how is your ideal customer. It can be either youth who are interested to buy fashion products & gadgets or it can be parents who are interested to buy baby products. You can understand your customers’ preference by using tools like:
- Google trends
- Facebook and Instagram Insights
- Research sponsored posts on social media
- Studying UGC based Instagram Themed pages
- Popular hashtags, competitor pages on social media
- Ad spy tools, spying on your competitors
- Researching online marketplaces such as Amazon, Flipkart etc.
Regional preference is also an important factor in India that will help you to market your products to the target consumers. I will be covering the research method in my upcoming blog in detail. Let us move to the next step.
Step 3: Find a reliable Dropshipping Supplier/Vendor
You need to search for reliable suppliers who can provide you best quality products at best price and fast shipping.
If you are looking for integrated Shopify or WooCommerce suppliers online, you can try RoposoClout, DeoDap, Qikink, Source Infi (recently launched) (Note: The suppliers listed here are all India based). You can also find dropshipping suppliers on Indiamart, one of the largest supplier and vendor marketplace where you can compare products – prices, reviews and quality.
To start with, I would not suggest to partner with any local supplier, but once your store is set up and you have a revenue cycle on place, you can search for local suppliers who can help you save some profits. Make sure you do not compromise with the quality of the product, packaging or shipping time.
Always try to find a supplier by checking the following criteria:
- Customer reviews
- Shipping or Delivery time
- Product Quality
- Product price
Suppliers who fulfil the above criteria are more trustworthy and you can work with them for a longer term. Such suppliers may help you scale by giving you more business via networking.
Step 4: Choose the Right e-commerce Platform
Now you are all set to set up your online store by selecting a suitable e-commerce platform. The most preferred ecommerce platforms for dropshipping are Shopify and WooCommerce. You get readymade templates and themes with integrated apps on Shopify. My personal suggestion will be to use Shopify if you are a beginner and have no website building knowledge. But if you are a pro in WordPress and love flexibility and customization, you can try using WooCommerce platform.
You can easily upload products, activate necessary apps and tools to make your ecommerce store functional. You will also find Supplier apps on these platforms and you just need to integrate them with your store to start working with them. These platforms charge a nominal fee on a yearly or monthly basis. You need to keep your budget in mind before selecting an ecommerce platform.
Step 5: Set up your Online Dropshipping Store
You do not need any coding knowledge to set up your online store. It is a simple drag and drop process that helps you design your store. You need to first finalize a theme and have a clear UI-UX visual in your mind before designing your store. Make sure, your store looks appealing, user-friendly and professional to your consumers, this will help retention rate and conversions.
It is important to integrate necessary apps such as WhatsApp, payment gateways like Razorpay, Cashfree, PayU etc. for easy online payments, product reviews app, live chat, customer testimonials etc. You also need to clearly mention your contact details (For eg Email, Landline, Mobile Phone) and operational address to gain the trust of your consumers.
Remember, you will have to give the best customer experience and value to whatever they are looking for. Your online store must be mobile optimized as 90% of the consumers will be accessing your store from their mobile devices.
Step 6: Add Products to your Store
Adding Products to your online store is little tricky. If you are partner with an integrated supplier like Roposo clout or Qikink, you can directly import the product from supplier portal. But if you are sourcing products from a local supplier or from Indiamart supplier, you will have to upload each product manually. Make sure to mention these points on your product page:
- High resolution products images and/or videos
- Category (if any)
- Size charts (if any)
- Color variants (if any)
- SEO Optimized Title and Product description. Do not overcomplicate it, keep it simple and precise. Keywords are important so that you can rank on search engines
- Shipping duration (Try to keep max 3-4 days for better results in Indian market)
- Exchange and returns policy hyperlink
- Product Rating & Reviews (Try to keep genuine rating and reviews for better trust)
If you add the products following the above criteria, you may see improved conversion rates for your products.
Step 7: Optimize your Store for SEO
Genuinely speaking Search Engine Optimization (SEO) doesn’t play much role if you have a shopify store. But this doesn’t mean that you will ignore SEO. SEO is one of the most important factors in the success of your dropshipping business. If you have a WooCommerce WordPress store, SEO can be of greater help to you as it will help you rank your store on top in the search engines.
Follow these points to make your store SEO Optimized:
- Write Blogs on a weekly or a biweekly basis that will drive traffic to your store. Use Keywords like “how to start dropshipping in India”; “dropshipping business ideas in india” etc in the blogs that you publish. Remember blog should be an integral part of your store.
- Use SEO optimized Title and Product Descriptions
- Product URLs should have dropshipping related keywords
- Meta description should be SEO optimized with relevant keywords
- Ensure that your online store loading time is fast and is mobile responsive
- If you have a local store dealing with the same dropshipping products, make sure to complete local SEO too
This will help you gain from traffic from your local region as well as Pan India.
Step 8: Plan your Marketing Strategy
Organic Marketing (Content Strategy and Storytelling)
If you are a beginner, you may wish to search for a freelancer who would help you build your content around the products on your social media pages. This will help you gain genuine followers who like your products and build an organic traffic. This process usually takes time, around 6 months to 1 year.
If you are good story teller, try creating a story around your business and build curiosity in your followers. This can attract organic traffic either via your content or by word of mouth. It is very important you plan a themed page with innovative and creative content mostly reels, stories and engagement with users. Product reviews is one of the most important weapons to help you gain popularity on social media.
Paid Marketing (Meta and Google Ads)
If you want to start getting instant sales in the Dropshhipping business model, you will have to keep a budget allocated to paid marketing. You need to run social media ads on Facebook, Instagram and/or Youtube. Organic marketing or SEO may not get you sales initially, as it takes time to drive traffic organically.
Most of the dropshipping stores have products related to youth or mid-aged users who are mostly active on social media. You can reach your target audience by testing your products via Meta-Ads Campaign. It may take 2 to 3 months for you to understand the response from consumers, and based on the analytics, you can adapt either switching or replacing or products or may be focusing on a winning product that is giving you the highest revenue and repeat orders.
Email marketing is also one of the smart strategies to promote your products and reviews to get repeat sales without worrying much about overspending your budget.
Step 9: Collaborate with Influencers
This is a part of Influencer marketing which is becoming quite popular in India. You can find local influencers on Facebook and Instagram and offer collaboration to promote your products on their social media pages. Initially it may not give you direct sales, but it will help you build brand awareness and drive traffic to your online store.
Influencer marketing if done with a well-planned strategy, may cost you less then paid social media marketing.
Step 10: Provide Best Customer Service & Scale your Business
You need to make sure from Day 1 that you do not compromise with the Customer Service, as this is the foundation on which your dropshipping business stands. In India there are two main factors that makes a small business successful – affordable pricing and unbeatable customer service.
Use tools like WhatsApp business chat, Live chat, Direct calls or Emails to provide effective customer support. If you are doing it alone, you will have to keep an eye on handling FAQs, refund policies and shipping, return or replacement queries. Make sure that your customer is satisfied with the product quality as well as your post sales services.
To get repeat sales, you may directly connect with the customer and ask for feedback on improving the services and offer them discounts on next purchase. Positive reviews on your store can give you assured conversions ultimately resulting in increased sales.
Once your business is established in the market, you need to start analyzing the statistics of your store to find out best performing products. Tools like Shopify, google or Meta analytics can help you analyze your store’s traffic, conversion rates, add to carts, prospective customers, customer’s behavior, demographics, overall sales, monthly-quarterly-yearly growths, etc. It is very important to understand and study these analytics as it will help you make decision to scale your business.
You need to keep testing new products and scale the winning product to grow your dropshipping business. Taking consumer feedback seriously can help you take strategic marketing and business decisions.
Common Mistakes to Avoid in Dropshipping
These are the common mistakes that mostly beginners should avoid while starting a dropshipping business:
- Choosing the wrong supplier (Supplier who compromised with the quality of the products, or lack in communication or doesn’t have fast shipping service is considered as a wrong supplier)
- Avoid overspending on social media Paid marketing (Meta Ads). It is very important you understand how Meta ads algorithm works and how is targeting done to get better sales with less marketing spend. If you have nil knowledge about paid marketing, please hire a freelancer. Please note, I would not recommend hiring a digital marketing agency as it will shoot up your capital budget.
- Lack of product and market research. Product, Market and Competitor research is one of the most critical steps before you start dropshipping business in India.
- Do not over spend on store building. You can easily learn setting up an online store from many free YouTube videos. There is no need to hire website builders. It is very important to save as much capital as you can.
- Lack of customer service will definitely bring your business down. If you want to be profitable, customer satisfaction should be your primary focus.
- Lack of Organic promotion. This is one of the biggest mistakes beginners do. You will have to keep your social media pages up to the mark, as it will help you drive genuine traffic to your store. Regular posts and engagement are a must for a dropshipping business in India specially.
I am sure this guide will help you understand how to start a dropshipping business in India and become profitable from the comfort of your home. If executed with right strategies and well-planned approach, you can easily scale your dropshipping business and create a great brand. Its time to take action and start your own dropshipping business today.
If you are interested to open a Shopify store, you may check out this link and get discounts for first 3 months. Or if you are looking for freelancers to build a Shopify store for you, run meta ads or manage your social media pages, please check out my services page and contact me for further discussion.
Yes, Dropshipping can be a profitable and scalable business in India. You need to start with a well-planned strategy and focus on one niche initially to set up your business in the market. Calculated marketing and branding strategies may help you grow a dropshipping business into a successful brand.
Starting a Dropshipping business in India has now become easy. You need to set up your online store on any authorized e-commerce platform and partner with a supplier. Whenever a customer places order on your store, the product is directly shipped to the customer by your supplier, on behalf of your brand. You need not have to purchase any inventory of products in this business model.
You can start a Dropshipping business in India with a very minimal investment of 1.5-2 Lakhs INR. Most of your budget will be spent on paid marketing and acquiring customers initially.
- Fashion & Accessories
- Gadgets
- Fitness equipment
- Home Décor
- Innovative Home Appliances
- Eco-friendly products
- Car Accessories
Yes, Dropshipping is absolutely allowed and legal in India as long as your follow tax laws and regulations set by Indian Government.
If you have knowledge about ecommerce platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce, you can easily set up an online dropshipping store with a very less investment. Product sourcing can be done from the integrated suppliers or India Mart who will ship the products directly to the customers. Major part of the capital will be used in paid marketing to drive customers to your online store. You can use free apps initially to cut down on investment. You can easily start a dropshipping business in India with a least investment of 30-40k INR.