Dropshipping is a term associated with an eCommerce business and it is an order fulfillment method where the eCommerce merchant (seller) does not stock the products he wants to sell. Instead, the merchant purchases inventory(stock) from a wholesaler or a manufacturer (third-party supplier) and they fulfill the order plus complete the last-mile delivery for the buyer (customer). The differentiating highlight between dropshipping and the traditional retail model is that the merchant (seller) does not stock or own inventory, but only acts as a middleman.

Why Shopify for dropshipping?

Shopify is a comprehensive e-commerce platform that provides a range of tools and features to help you set up and manage a successful dropshipping business. There are several reasons why Shopify is a popular choice for dropshipping businesses, and one of the reasons is because Shopify App Store has many apps that allow Automatic Order Processing to place orders with your supplier when a customer makes a purchase.

Automated Dropshipping

If you’re in the dropshipping business, you know how important it is to stay competitive and successful. For merchants(sellers), Shopify tools can automate the process of placing orders with a wholesaler or a manufacturer (third-party supplier) when a customer makes a purchase. This saves time for the merchant (seller) and ensures that orders are processed accurately and efficiently delivered to the buyer (customer)

Here’s how you can automate the dropshipping process:

1. Choose a dropshipping app: Shopify has a range of dropshipping apps available in its app store. Some popular options include DSers, AliExpress, and Spocket. These apps allow you to import products from suppliers, process orders, and track inventory.

2. Set up your store: Once you’ve chosen a dropshipping app, you’ll need to set up your Shopify store. This includes designing your store’s look and feel, adding products and descriptions, setting up payment and shipping options, and configuring any additional features or apps you want to use.

3. Connect your store to your supplier: Your dropshipping app will allow you to connect your Shopify store to your supplier’s inventory. This will allow you to import products and automatically update your store with new products and pricing.

4. Process orders: When a customer places an order on your store, the dropshipping app will automatically send the order to your supplier for fulfillment. The supplier will then ship the product directly to the customer.

5. Track inventory: Many dropshipping apps include inventory tracking features that allow you to see which products are in stock and which are out of stock. This can help you avoid selling products that aren’t available, which can lead to disappointed customers.

Some of the apps/tools in the Shopify App Store to automate dropshipping:

Automizely – https://www.automizely.com/
Automizely offers a range of features that can help simplify and streamline your dropshipping business. It allows you to easily sync up your store with AliExpress—one of the largest online marketplaces—so you can find and source products quickly. Once you have found the perfect products for your store, Automizely will sync up all order information so it will be ready for fulfillment as soon as an order is placed. This helps reduce the manual labor associated with managing orders so you can focus on other aspects of running your business. Additionally, Automizely also provides detailed analytics reports so you can track key performance indicators such as customer lifetime value or customer acquisition cost. This data can then be used to optimize marketing campaigns or improve customer service processes.

Automizely Features:
With Automizely, you can use automated triggers to create custom workflows that are tailored to your eCommerce business. This means that you can schedule specific events such as sending emails or creating coupons based on customer behavior or other criteria. You can also track the success of each campaign by analyzing the results in real-time. With this data, you can quickly make changes to optimize your strategy and maximize conversion rates. Additionally, Automizely provides an intuitive user interface that makes it easy to set up, manage, and monitor automated processes with just a few clicks.

Automizely Integrations:
Automizely is designed to be integrated with popular platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento, Zapier, Mailchimp, Facebook Ads Manager, Google Ads Manager, and more. This means that you have access to all the features of these platforms while still being able to take advantage of automated triggers provided by Automizely. Plus, since there’s no need for coding skills when using this platform, setting up integrations between different services is a breeze!

Third-Party Connectors
Not only does Automizely provide integrations with popular eCommerce platforms but it also includes dozens of third-party connectors such as Google Analytics and Salesforce. This allows you to gain valuable insights into customer behavior and purchase trends so that you can optimize your marketing campaigns accordingly. Additionally, since these third-party connectors are hosted in the cloud they won’t require any additional hardware or software investments on your part which makes them even more cost-effective!

Dropified – https://www.dropified.com/

Dropified is a powerful platform designed specifically for dropshippers who want to make their businesses more successful. With its automated order fulfillment system and powerful product research tool, you can save time and money while finding profitable items quickly and easily for your store. The platform offers access to over 10 million products from over 100 different dropshipping suppliers, so you can easily find the products you need for your store. Once you have sourced your products, Dropified will help you fulfill them automatically – no manual order processing is required! This saves you time and makes it much easier to manage large volumes of orders efficiently.

Additionally, Dropified’s data analysis tools provide valuable insights into customer behavior and sales performance so you can adjust your strategies accordingly and maximize profits over time. If you’re serious about succeeding as a dropshipper, then Dropified is definitely worth checking out!

Product Research

Another great feature of Dropified is its product research tool, which allows users to find profitable products quickly and easily. With this tool, users can search through thousands of potential products from multiple suppliers so they can find the perfect items for their store without having to manually search through individual supplier websites. The product research tool also provides users with valuable information about each product, including pricing and availability so they can make educated decisions about which items to stock in their stores.

Data Analysis

Dropified also offers powerful data analysis tools that allow users to track sales performance over time and make informed decisions about future investments in their business. These tools provide users with insights into how well their products are selling as well as insights into customer behavior so that they can make adjustments accordingly and maximize profits. Furthermore, these web analytics tools provide users with access to real-time customer feedback so they can quickly identify any potential issues before they affect sales performance too significantly.

Additional Pointers to keep in mind –

Install Facebook Pixel

One of the often overlooked step but very important step in the process of automating dropshipping stores is to install Facebook Pixel on your store website. Log in your Facebook account to fetch the pixel ID and add that to your Shopify account. A tiny piece of code unique to your pixel ID greatly improve your marketing efforts by allowing you to retarget people on Facebook. It works by letting Facebook know which users visited the store’s web pages or blog but did not purchase or abandoned the cart, and shows specific ads to them to make them visit and purchase from the store.

Image Credit: Oberla.ca

Automate Tracking Details

“ When will my order be delivered? “ is one of the most common questions asked by customers. To manually check the status of order and update the customer about estimated time of delivery is a labour intensive process. Instead, create a dedicated tracking page that allows customers to see the status of their orders.

Image Credit: Oberla.ca

Create Price Multipliers

Price Multiplier Strategy helps to set global pricing rules that will automatically price the products for you instead of manually setting the prices for all your products. It’s not a fool proof method, and hence it’s advisable to exercise caution and recheck the automatically set prices for products, before submitting to the store. However, it works better if you create the pricing rules with smaller gaps. For example, instead of having price rules with a broad range such as “$1-$5”, set price rules with a narrow range such as “$1-$2” and think of products in your catalogue that will fit in this price range to set the retail price (selling) using the automatic feature. Automize and Dropified have automatic pricing feature.

For instance, if you have a women’s fashion store, the clothing may not be $2, but accessories and jewellery might be priced at $2. Hence, you’ll need to think about the average retail price of jewellery in your store, to create the price multiplier accurately.

A general rule to set price multiplier could be:
– $0.01 – $4.99 product price = $20 retail price
– $5 – $9.99 product price = $30 retail price
– $9.99 and beyond, it’s usually ideal to do a 3x mark up

Align Your Inventory and Set Auto Updates

To avoid running into bigger problems, it’s important to keep track of your stock/inventory with the vendor when your customer tries to place an order on your store website. The best practice is to automatically schedule updates when a product / variant runs out of inventory / stock so that the product quantity is mentioned as “0” or displays an “Out of Stock” message. You might also want to set “Notify Me” option so that you are always aware of changes on your website and decide if you want to find a new supplier for your product, especially if it’s a best-selling product.

Schedule Social Media posts

On top of automating all your core dropshipping tasks, you can also automate your social media posts. Being consistent with social media posts is another demanding task and most dropshippers hire a social media person or marketing agency to maintain social media accounts. But, you can also try to save time and money by doing it your yourself with instagram tools like Canva for design and Buffer for social media automation.

Set Facebook Messenger Auto Replies

A top-notch Customer Service and Support can become the differentiating factor for dropshippers. You don’t want to put yourself in a situation where your customers ping you, you reply to them late and they think that you are ignoring them. Within Facebook Messenger, you can set auto-replies which triggers a message instantly when a customer / prospect pings you on Facebook. You will have to still to respond to individual queries and messages you receive on Facebook Messenger, but the autoresponder gives you additional time to get back to them, while ensuring the customer/prospect is kept in the loop.

Conclusion
Running a successful dropshipping business requires time-consuming tasks like sourcing products from online marketplaces and fulfilling orders manually.  However, by using automation tools, you can save time and energy while still providing customers with high-quality products at competitive prices.

For a more complete coverage of dropshipping, together with how to do digital marketing for your eCommerce business, join our eCommerce course here!