How to Dropship on Shopify in 2024 – Guide to Shopify Dropshipping

When you begin to think about the different ways you can start an ecommerce business online, you cannot ignore the importance of having a digital presence for your ecommerce store.

An ecommerce website is the first thing that should come to your mind as it can serve as an online product catalog that you can have for your customers.

If you have decided to start your online business, I recommend you use Shopify. I do not want you to worry about coding or logistics and since you might or might not know programming or website development, I wouldn’t want you to start elsewhere.

You can still set up your ecommerce store without needing to pay anything upfront, or investing in stock (inventory) if you don’t have the capital to have a warehouse for your products, without knowing if they will sell or not.

When I found out how easy it was to set up an online Shopify store, it exposed me to tons of available apps and tools to optimize any online store, find and add trending products (for e.g. DSers and Spocket), manage inventory, automate order fulfillment, and 24/7 customer support from Shopify.

I figured it was the right ecommerce platform for any new small online business owner.

Hence, in this blog, I want to teach you how to set up your dropshipping store on Shopify in 2024.

I will first introduce you to what dropshipping is, and then I will teach you how to dropship on Shopify to start, run, and grow your online business.

What is Dropshipping?

In simple words, dropshipping is a business model where you can sell already warehoused and manufactured products from a third-party supplier. You only have to pay for the product when you make a sale.

It is a great business model for first time entrepreneurs who have just begun their ecommerce store and want a low-risk way to earn revenue.

Dropshipping on Shopify will allow you to create a storefront fast and easy and you can experiment with different product lines without having to invest anything.

Why I Recommend Shopify for Dropshipping?

If you are wondering why I recommend Shopify to build your ecommerce storefront, the reason is simply its ease of use for new entrepreneurs, extensive list of online store customization features, and 24/7 Shopify customer support.

It will be extremely convenient for you to create a beautiful storefront, and dropship online globally, because of the multiple language and currency features available in Shopify.

You can also understand your store performance through analytics by accessing Shopify’s beautiful and simple dashboard.

With Shopify, you can choose from a great list of reliable suppliers, and compare the prices easily to get the highest profit margin for the same products by choosing the lowest cost product options.

You will be able to fulfill and ship orders in just a few clicks all over the world as many suppliers offer worldwide warehousing and fulfillment.

All in all, I recommend Shopify for dropshipping because it is a robust ecommerce platform that would allow small businesses to experiment with new suppliers, products, and sales channels. Shopify is also extremely easy to scale in case you want to expand my ecommerce store in the future.

How to Dropship on Shopify

All You Need to Know From Preparing for a Dropshipping Business to Setting It Up and Launching a Store on Shopify

Now that you know you want to create a beautiful ecommerce storefront, I advise you start making a dropshipping business plan.

As you know, anything without proper planning is already set for failure, so I need you to have a proper business plan before launching your dropshipping business on Shopify.

Here is how you should start..

Create a Product Line By Finding a Dropshipping Niche

I can assure you that you are set to compete with a lot of dropshippers, and therefore, you have to differentiate your business offerings in a marketplace that is already so crowded.

Most of the dropshipping catalogs have products that are also being sold in other Shopify stores, so there is rarely anything different that they are offering.

However, some dropshippers sell unique print-on-demand and private label products that set them apart.

And like them, I want you to find an underserved niche to cater to unique customers, their needs, interests, and preferences.

By identifying a profitable niche, I can assure you that you will be able to ditch competition and have a unique customer base.

How Can You Find a Profitable Dropshipping Business Niche?

Keyword research. Look for search terms and queries on both search engines and different social media platforms. Evaluate their keyword difficulty to assess competitiveness in order to identify opportunities. It is a demand vs. supply thing.

In order to spot an underserved demand that you can meet with your choice of products, you need to see where the demand is high and supply is less.

Here are the top tools that I recommend you use to identify a lucrative niche:

• Google Keyword Planner (To discover patterns and opportunities in searches on Google)
• Facebook Audience Insights (To see insights about a particular audience, their interests, online activity, and demographics. For instance, if there is a trending product, what kind of audience is interested in that product, what’s the demographic of that audience, and more.)
• Google Trends (To look at graphical representation of the most trending search term over a period of time, the rise and fall in demand for a particular product, and identifying seasonal spike in demand, or spike in demand because of a latest tiktok trend for example)
• Semrush or Ahrefs (To analyze keywords and their potential in detail – also important for your Shopify store’s SEO. By looking at the search volume of a particular keyword and how difficult or easy it is to rank for it, you will know the highly searched for products that your Shopify store can rank for easily)
• Buzzsumo (To look at different mentions of the products, again to assess the demand and to understand what people are saying about it online to understand their feedback)
• Hootsuite (To look at Twitter search streams. This is called social listening. You will be able to gather a lot of insights from Twitter. For e.g. what are people saying about a particular product that is trending among Tiktok influencers.)

What Can You Do If You Can’t Decide On a Product Niche?

If the process of creating a product line is not something you want to spend time on, then you can choose to go with selling print-on-demand products.

These are custom products so you can differentiate your offering from other dropshippers. With print-on-demand dropshipping, you can still benefit from the no-inventory business model by just finding the right suppliers ready to do the printing, warehousing, and order fulfillment for you.

How does it work?

You just need to add custom designs to products. Some product ideas are tote bags, notebooks, cushions, keychains, calligraphy etc.

You can also dive into adult apparel like t-shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts, tank tops, baby clothing like onesies and bodysuits, home decor like wall arts or wallpapers, drinkware like mugs and water bottles, and stationary like calendars and cards.

These are only a few of the several business ideas and opportunities you have with print-on-demand.

Once you finish your market research online and have enough validation to proceed with the product line you choose to create, I advise you delve in deeper to understand your target audience.

Gain some primary insight into your target audience through the Facebook Audience Insights tool and build upon that finding for a more concrete view of the people who will be your potential customers.

How to Understand Your Target Audience?

I emphasize on understanding your target audience better so that you are able to speak to them in a way that will connect you instantly with their needs – to create content that will drive them towards your ecommerce dropshipping store.

This is important if you want a better idea of which marketing channels will be the best for you to reach out to your prospects.

Whether it will be through paid or organic channels – email marketing, direct-mail marketing, paid ads, social media marketing, affiliate marketing, SMS, content marketing, SEO, paid search (SEM), events marketing, PR, partnership marketing, or referral marketing.

You should know that your target market is the lifeline of your business. They are the people who will buy a product from your dropshipping ecommerce store, and refer it to their friends.

I suggest you show your target audience that you exist and convince them to make their first purchase. For this to happen, you need to know who they are.

Conduct competitor research, and also host focus groups to answer the following set of questions in detail to have a thorough understanding of your target audience:

• What products and product features are my target audience interested in?
• What businesses are successfully fulfilling the needs of my target audience?
• What brands does my target audience prefer?
• Where does my target audience spend the most time?
• What kind of marketing or content excites my target audience to take action?

Having the answers to the questions above will help you offer the right products to the right target market. It will help you position your offerings with effective messaging on the right channels to drive in new customers to your dropshipping store.

After selecting the products and determining your target audience, you need to choose a dropshipping supplier that manufactures and warehouses the products you intend to sell online.

How to Choose a Dropshipping Supplier?

There are some dropshipping suppliers that will have online platforms where you can create a seller account. You can search their catalogs for products.

However, there are some with whom you can strike a custom deal to manufacture, warehouse, and supply the products you want, and when you want it.

I recommend you use the Shopify dropshipping app, Dsers, from the Shopify app store, to automate sending orders to your supplier.

This will be helpful as information about your order will go in directly to your third-party supplier. They will then mark the order as complete and also assign a tracking number for that order to your customer.

You need to research reputable suppliers after deciding on your niche product line. You can do so by comparing product quality, pricing, and shipping times.

You should also evaluate supplier reliability and customer service and learn how to negotiate supplier terms (minimum order quantities, and discounts).

Some of the most popular dropshipping suppliers are:

• AliExpress
• Alibaba
• Spocket
• Modalyst
• SaleHoo
• CJDropshipping
• Wholesale2b
• Amazon

Spocket, DSers, and Modalyst, are dropshipping apps that are the most popular for helping you find a plethora of dropshipping suppliers all over the world and dropshipping products within your niche. These are also one of the top print-on-demand dropshipping supplier apps.

Using these dropshipping apps, you can also check the product samples from different dependable suppliers before adding them to your online store.

You will also benefit from the automation features available in these apps that will automatically update your online store’s inventory count for you.

Dropshipping supplier apps like DSers can help you in searching, importing, and editing data from AliExpress suppliers.

You can easily find the most competitive prices because of a feature that provides the ability to compare the prices set by different AliExpress dropshippers selling the same products.

If you don’t mind putting in some extra cost, you can opt for epacket shipping if you are selecting Aliexpress suppliers or any other supplier from China.

This will ensure that your customers don’t have to wait months for their products to arrive, rather they will only have to wait for up to 2 weeks if they are based in countries like the US, UK, and Canada. Otherwise, you can choose AliExpress alternatives for dropshipping.

Let’s Start Building Your Online Dropshipping Ecommerce Store On Shopify in Just 6 Steps

After doing all the homework, now is the time to create your Shopify store. Here are the six steps you need to take to create a beautiful storefront to start dropshipping and start earning!

1. Choosing a Shopify Dropshipping Store Name and Domain

When you are choosing a name for your dropshipping Shopify store, you want to ensure it is simple, catchy, fun, and most importantly, memorable.

I recommend you generate a creative name for your dropshipping store by using Shopify’s store name generator. It is completely free to use and will save you a lot of time as well. It will also help you claim your domain in seconds.

Just enter a word you want your business name to include and click on “Generate Names” to see the results.

You will have the option of picking from a list of Shopify dropshipping store names curated for your online business.

After shortlisting a few options from the list, I advise you to check if they are available for you to use. Use Google search to see if there is a .com domain already attached to the name.

The domain name is unique as it is used to identify a website. So for instance, in the url www.nike.com, nike is the second-level domain name, and .com is the TLD that follows it.

You have to register a domain name to create your Shopify store. Here are a few tips I have curated for you to help you select a domain name:

• Check availability
• Keep it short and simple
• Make sure it matches a popular search query related to your product
• If you are 100% sure and convinced about a name but it’s taken, you can experiment with choosing a unique TLD like .shop or .store
• Alternatively, you can also choose a unique brand name for yourself to stand out

2. Creating a Shopify Account for Your Dropshipping Store

This part is the easiest. You just have to click on “Start Free Trial” on Shopify’s homepage to create your Shopify account. Then, you need to enter your email address, your ecommerce business name, and create a password.

You also have to answer a few basic questions and some personal details, and your store is ready to launch. But before that, I recommend you configure a few settings.

3. Configuring or Optimizing Your Shopify Dropshipping Store Settings

I want to tell you how crucial it is to optimize your store settings when you are creating your Shopify dropshipping store.

Hence, in this section of my Shopify dropshipping guide, I will discuss how you can do your own store optimization in detail.

I am emphasizing on this step because it is where you create your store policies, set up payments to receive money from your customers, and establish your shipping rates by deciding on/implementing shipping strategies for dropshipping.

Store Policies

Every store has a refund policy, terms and conditions, and privacy policy. The best part is, when you are launching your Shopify dropshipping store, you don’t have to create these from scratch on your own. There are helpful tools on Shopify that will let you generate standardized, sample policies.

You just have to go to Shopify’s settings, click on the Checkout tab and scroll down to find the relevant fields. Then, click on the generate button, and you will get ready-made store policies for your Shopify dropshipping store in an instant.

Payment Information

In order to receive payments from your Shopify dropshipping store customers, you need to add payment information. Go on to Shopify’s settings page, select the Payments tab on the left, and add your payment information.

I recommend you create a Paypal account, and add that. You can easily create one in a few minutes.

Shipping Rates and Shipping Strategies for Dropshipping on Shopify

Once you make a sale after launching your Shopify dropshipping store, your suppliers will charge you for the shipping fees.

I want you to choose a shipping strategy to deal with these shipping fees.

Here are some of the shipping strategies that you can choose to implement:

• To offer free shipping to my customers but increase the price of my product
• To offer free shipping and pay the shipping fee from my profit
• To pass on the shipping fee to my customers
• To slightly increase the cost of my products and charge a low flat shipping rate (low shipping rate if the package box size is below a pre-set limit)
• To charge my customers a flat shipping rate (i.e. single fixed rate based on the package/box size)
• To charge my customers per-item shipping rate

Choosing the best shipping strategy can increase the likelihood of a customer placing an order. For instance, some stores offer free shipping if a customer’s order surpasses a set amount in US dollars.

This can help in offsetting your shipping costs.

You should make sure your shipping rates are clear. I suggest you opt to offer free shipping if you want to sell globally.

This is because setting up different shipping rates and strategies for different regions will become confusing for you as you are just beginning your dropshipping journey.

How to cover the shipping cost? Make shipping fee a part of your product price and make shipping free for your store customers.

So, for instance, if you want to sell your product for $35, you should now sell it for $40, and make shipping free. Make sure to use this in your marketing strategy because ‘Free Shipping’ works as a great promotion.

To set up free shipping on your Shopify dropshipping store, just go to your Shopify settings, access the Shipping tab, and set free shipping on your store.

You can start by deleting all the domestic shipping zones. Then, you can add ‘Free International Shipping’ into the ‘Rest of World’ section.

Once done, select Rate: Free Shipping Rate, and that’s all that you need to do to set up shipping on your Shopify store.

4. Launch Your Shopify Dropshipping Store and Beautify Your Store’s Design

After optimizing all the settings, go to your Shopify admin dashboard and click on the Sales Channels tab. Then, select the ‘Add an online store’ option, and launch your Shopify store.

It is now time to think about how your store will look like to your customers. But first, I want to ask you a question.

Would you enter a physical brick-and-mortar shop if it is not aesthetically pleasing to you? If the display on the shop window is unimpressive? I assume your answer will be a no.

The store’s display is the first impression that any brand has on its customers. This is why the design of your store holds great importance.

Therefore, in this Shopify dropshipping guide, I’m going to discuss two important aspects of designing a Shopify dropshipping store in detail.

Picking a theme on Shopify

There is a wide variety of themes on the Shopify theme store with both free and premium options. I advise you to go with a free theme.

However, I also want you to consider the following factors while picking up the right theme for your dropshipping store:

Customer experience

Great designs feel personal, so while selecting a theme for your store, start with your customers in mind. For e.g. think about their age, the kind of jobs they have, where do they live, their interests.

This will really help you in deciding what kind of service or feeling you want to give to your customers while they are browsing your store.

For e.g. if you are selling toys, maybe you would want your customers to think along playful lines, whereas, if you want to sell sports equipment, you perhaps want your customers to feel motivated.

Whatever emotion you would want your customers to feel, make sure it is communicated throughout your entire Shopify website by choosing the appropriate layout, font, and color.

Create a cohesive, organized, and intuitive layout that minimizes the anxiety or fear of your visitors who are visiting your store for the first time and are wary of spending their money on a product available in your store.

Theme functionality

I also recommend thinking about the features you want to have on your website. Maybe you want to feature a product video, or plenty of customer reviews, or maybe you want to tell your brand story, or maybe you want to attract attention to your low prices and discounts.

Moreover, you need to decide how many products you want to sell. Some themes are suitable for selling one or two products, while others are optimized for entire catalogs.

Knowing who you are designing your store for, what kind of experience you want to give to your customers, and the website features you want to use to give that sort of experience to them, will help you choose the right free Shopify theme for your dropshipping store and customize that theme perfectly for your customers.

Tip: It is important to ensure you are working with high-quality product images and videos, especially if it is a new product you are trying to sell online. Make sure to include detailed product descriptions and optimize your product titles.

5. Creating a Logo for Your Shopify Dropshipping Store

Your logo should fit well with the rest of the store’s design and you should want your customers to remember your brand by recalling the design of your logo.

I recommend you create your store’s logo by using the free Shopify logo maker. All you have to do is play with icons, fonts, colors, and positioning to create a perfect logo for your Shopify dropshipping store.

You can also use graphic design tools like Canva or Photoshop to create a logo, or hire a freelancer from Upwork or Fiverr to do the job for you. Make sure you only work with high-quality images for your logo, and same goes for your products.

Once you are done with your store’s design, theme, and logo, you should start adding products to your store. I recommend you use the Shopify dropshipping supplier app named DSers to do that. Let me explain why in the next step.

6. Adding Products to Your Store with DSers and Start Selling

In order to begin adding products to your Shopify dropshipping store, first install the Dsers app from the Shopify app store.

The best part is, DSers and AliExpress are integrated really well, so you can start importing products to your store immediately from AliExpress’ product listing.

After installing DSers, create a category on your Shopify store. You can name it in line with the products you intend to sell within that category.

After creating a category, you should begin searching for products on AliExpress. Click on the Import button to import any product you want to sell directly into your Shopify dropshipping store.

Bonus: How to Sell Your First Product on Your Shopify Dropshipping Store

Now that you have a fully functional store and are ready to dropship on Shopify, I want you to run marketing campaigns to start making sales and earning revenue from your small business.

You need to draw in your target audience, so research to find the marketing channels through which you can best reach out to your potential customers.

I suggest you try Instagram, Tiktok, and Facebook ads, and make both organic and paid efforts to just test out which marketing strategy would play out and work best to drive traffic to your Shopify dropshipping store.

Only through testing and trying out different marketing channels will you be able to have an email list to expand your efforts to email marketing as well.

Conclusion

I have tried my best to create a Shopify dropshipping guide that will teach you how to dropship on Shopify. I advise you to get your hands dirty and experiment with as much as you can.

Dropshipping on Shopify is extremely easy, given the different Shopify and third-party tools that you can use to immediately start making sales and earning money.

To help you out further, I also have a post on how to buy a pre-built dropshipping business which will show you another way of starting your online dropshipping business in 2024.

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