If you want to get your dropshipping business up and running, you have to set up a website first. And it may sound intimidating, but you can build a successful dropshipping website using WordPress.

 

That said, we made a beginner-friendly dropshipping guide to help you get started.

 

What is Dropshipping?

Before we move on to building your WordPress website, let's first define what dropshipping is.

 

According to Shopify, dropshipping is a fulfillment method where an online seller doesn't keep his products in stock. Instead, the items are stored in a supplier or manufacturer's facility.

 

What happens is that when you receive orders from your customers, you forward them to your suppliers. They will be the ones who will pick, pack, and ship the product.

 

Within the ecommerce world, dropshipping has become a more popular way of starting an online business. That's because you don't have to keep an inventory. So, you don't have to spend on storage and be worried about shipping and logistics.

 

Now that you know what dropshipping is, it's time to figure out how to set up your dropshipping website in WordPress.

 

Choose a Profitable Niche

Before you get started on the website, you need first to figure out what your niche is. If you have your niche all figured out, then move on to the next steps. However, if you don't have one, then you need to start thinking of ideas.

 

There are a plethora of profitable niches out there, and they each have intricacies that you need to keep in mind.

 

For example, if you join a profitable but crowded niche, you're probably going to have to work much more to get attention in your shop. However, you're more sure that people will buy these products since they're in demand.

 

If you can, try and look for a niche that's popular enough. This means that you have to ensure that there is a demand for the products you want to sell while checking out that there is not much competition.

 

Find the Right Supplier

The secret to a successful dropshipping business has the right supplier to work with you.

 

You want to be selective with your suppliers, find a reliable one, and communicate clearly and openly with them. Many people who get started in dropshipping don't take the time to vet their suppliers, affecting your business.

 

You want to find a supplier that provides a warranty. You also want to double-check that the products' images they're sending you are as close as possible to the real-life product. After you find that product, ask them to send you a real-time photo of it with their smartphones to verify that it's real.

 

You also want to verify that your supplier has some semblance of quality control with their products. There should not be any harmful after-effects upon product use.

 

Select SEO Friendly Domain Name and Host Provider

Selecting the right ecommerce web hosting provider is vital for the success of your dropshipping business. That's because it affects the service uptime of your website and its loading speed.

 

Choosing an SEO-friendly domain name will make it easier for your website to pop up for your target audience. All of them together can help you get a good foundation for your website.

 

If you want to look for the best SEO-friendly domain names, you have to find what your target audience would look for in general. For example, if you're in the skincare niche, you might want to insert skincare into your domain name.

 

After you pick your domain name for your site, it's time to figure out the hosting provider to choose. There are many host providers out there, so you might want to shop around first.

 

Look for a hosting provider equipped to deal with a dropshipping business. That way, you can reap the benefits of dropshipping-ready plugins and features.

 

Install WordPress and WooCommerce

Once you've chosen your domain name and web hosting provider, it's time to set things up and install WordPress and WooCommerce. It would help if you had WooCommerce because it will help convert your site into an online shop interface.

 

Of course, many other plugins do the same, but WooCommerce is one of the best out there.

 

You have to install WordPress first through your web hosting account. Once you have that installed, you can start to install WooCommerce. Activate your installed plugin to get things started.

Choose the Design of Your Dropshipping Store

WooCommerce offers plenty of pre-made themes that you can install in your dropshipping store.

 

Leaving personal tastes aside for a moment, make sure that you choose a design that fits your products as well as the customers you want to attract. It would also be a good idea to be more careful about the design of your website and base it off on your branding early on. You will be a lot more memorable that way.

 

There are also Premium themes that you might need to pay for to use, but they might be closer to what you envisioned your site to be.

 

Import Products to Your Store

Once you've set everything up, you should start uploading the products you plan on dropshipping.

 

Depending on where you get your products from, you can install plugins to make this data entry work faster and easier. Although you can do it manually, these dropshipping plugins can help streamline your processes.

 

WooDropship and AliDropship are two top-rated dropshipping plugins that you might want to use.

 

Promote Your Dropshipping Store

After setting everything up, you still need to promote and market your dropshipping store. Otherwise, you won't be getting any clients or customers, and your business won't be profitable.

 

Since you have a newly-minted website, it's not like many people will come rolling in immediately to start buying from you.

 

Although organic search can be a huge help, it would still be good to invest in online ads and have a decent marketing strategy.

 

Make sure to stay active in promoting your store and check on your website every once in a while. This is to make sure everything's running smoothly. You can always upgrade or update it once you have had a solid run with your business.

 

For now, you should be able to entertain customers as soon as you want.