 If you clicked on this video, then chances are that you probably want to start a drop shipping business, but you don't know exactly where to start. Or maybe you did start and you got stuck at some point, or you already started, you added some products to your store, but you're not getting any sales. So if that's the case, then make sure you check out this video all the way through because this video was specifically made to help you get started drop shipping. So without wasting any time, let's go ahead and run that intro and let's get started. What's going on everyone, Mario here with AutoDS back with another video to help you get started drop shipping. And if you haven't done so already, if you like these kinds of videos, if you like videos that have to do with the drop shipping business tips and tricks and some of the best products to sell, then make sure you hit that subscribe button as well as ring that little bell notification so you don't miss out on any future videos to go along with this video. We also have a cheat sheet if you want access to that, all you have to do is go ahead and comment down below hashtag drop shipping along with your takeaway from this video. And once I see that you commented that I'll go ahead and reply back with a link to the cheat sheet. But in that sheet, I'm going to have everything that I'm going to be talking about in this video along with all of the different links and some additional resources for you. First things first, what exactly is drop shipping drop shipping is a business model that allows you to source your products directly from a manufacturer or a supplier and have them shipped directly to your customer. So you just purchase from your supplier and send it to your customer. That means that you don't have to handle any inventory. You don't have to worry about storing any products in a warehouse in your garage or wherever it may be. All you have to worry about is finding good products, finding good suppliers and providing the best possible customer service for your customers. Now here's the fun part. How do you actually start drop shipping? Well, all of the other tutorials that you find on YouTube are going to be focused primarily on Shopify, but not this video. So the first thing that you want to do is figure out what platform you want to start selling on. Now, when it comes to the different types of platforms, you have two different options. You can either sell on your own website or you can sell on a dedicated selling platform. And what's the difference between the two? So when you're looking to sell on your own website, you're going to be making your own website. So you're going to need a platform that allows you to add all of your different products and customize your site, as well as add your own link like www.mystore.com. Now when you're looking at these types of websites, the main three that you're going to be using are going to be Shopify, Wix and WooCommerce. Now if you want to sell on a marketplace, then you're going to be looking at either eBay, Etsy, Amazon or Facebook Marketplace. Now there's a few key differences between selling on your own website and a marketplace. For one, a marketplace has organic traffic. So people are going to that particular website like let's say Etsy or eBay specifically to make a purchase. So they're already ready to spend money and buy something. Whereas with your own website, people don't even know that it's there. So then you're going to have to start bringing in traffic yourself. There's a few different ways to do that. For one, you can do things like social media marketing or you can run things like paid Facebook ads. So now that you've decided where you want to start selling, you have to figure out what kind of store you want to open up. Do you want to open up a generic store that sells a little bit of everything or do you want to open up a niche store and sell a specific category of items? Now, when starting off, it is sometimes recommended to start off with a generic store so you can test out different products to see which ones work for you. Now, when you do open up your generic store, it is very important to note that each product page, you want them to be unique and visually eye catching. You also want to structure them in a way where it's fairly simple for the customer to be able to see all of the different details of the item itself so they can make a quick decision. You don't want to have everything super cluttered or messy. You want the product page to be clean and easy to navigate. Now, when you're starting up a niche store, then you're going to be focusing on a particular category of items. So you can open up a store for a season or for a particular holiday or just a particular category. So you can start up a store for sunglasses or for Halloween items. Now, one thing that I want you to keep in mind when starting up a niche store is that it's going to have some ups and downs, especially if it's seasonal items. So let's say you're doing a Halloween store throughout the year. It might not be doing too good, but in the months leading up to Halloween, it's going to be doing fantastic as another option. Sunglasses can do well year round because typically people tend to buy those at any time of the year. But with particular holidays coming up, like let's say Christmas, Mother's Day, maybe Father's Day, sales can spike a bit. So you're always going to have your ups and your downs. And that's not to say that generic stores also aren't going to have ups and downs, generic stores will have their on and off seasons. But since you are doing a generic store, you have the option to sell a lot more items. So regardless, if you go with a generic or a niche store, just make sure that it's clean, easy to navigate and professional looking. So we now know where we want to sell our products, what kind of store we're going to open up. So next up, we need to do some product research and find out what we're actually going to start selling. Now, there's a few different options that you have for product research. And this tip that I'm going to give you right now is one that most other tutorials are not covering. And that's the use of AI. So you have a few different AI models that you can choose from to help you out in your dropshipping journey. Some of them can build websites for you, while others can write full on titles and descriptions. So if you want to learn a bit more about AI, you can check out this video right here to learn about the top AI bots to help you make more money dropshipping. Or you can check out this video right here to help you understand a bit more about chat GPT and its use in dropshipping. Now, product research is extremely important and realistically speaking, it's probably one of the more crucial parts of the entire business. If you don't have good products, you're not going to have any sales. So that's probably why some people that have dropshipping stores filled with very generic products aren't getting any sales because they could potentially have very bland products that don't have a wow factor to them or they just don't provide any value to the customers. So here's a few different ways that you can start conducting proper product research to find some best selling and winning products. So the first method I'm going to show you is the winning product section over at AutoDS. So right now I'm logged into my AutoDS account and over on the left hand side, I'm just going to go ahead and click on winning products. Once we open this up, then you're going to be shown tons of different products that have been proven to sell in the past and are currently trending. Now, let's go ahead and click into one really fast. Let's say this bird feeder right here. So once we open up the actual product page and scroll down a little bit, you're going to have tons of information that can help you actually sell and market this product. So for one, you can see that this item costs $12.05. Now, if you scroll down, you're going to have a profit potential. So some websites are selling this particular product for about $31.23. That gives you a profit potential of about $18.32. Now, if you just look down a little bit, you're going to see a Facebook ad that's actually running a promotion for this item. You can use this to be able to structure yours similarly. Now, if you want to know who they're targeting with that Facebook ad, then you can check out the target audience section. Here we have all of the information that you need. So you can see that this one in particular is targeting both males and females between the ages of 25 and 60 who are married and single with interests in birdwatching, garden, outdoor activities and wildlife enthusiasts. Now, as an extra bonus, you get some out of DS insights. So here we give you a bit more information on the product itself and we even give you a link to a website that's selling the product. So here you can see that this website is selling the bird feeder that we were just looking at. Another option you have is this YouTube channel. So we actually have a playlist that's dedicated to the best products for you to start drop shipping. Every single month we have a different video and different videos within that month on different niches for the best products to drop ship. You can also check out your suppliers best sellers or their seller recommendations. So in this case, on this AliExpress store that we're on all we have to do is scroll all the way down to the bottom of the listing. And once we scroll to the bottom, you're going to have seller recommendations. These are all of the different items that the seller recommends for you to sell primarily because they're already getting some sales. Google Trends is also a fantastic option for you to be able to check out what trends are coming up or what trends are currently, well, trending. So just to show you very quickly how it works, let's go ahead and search up, let's say bikinis, right? Because summer's coming up. So the first thing that it gives us is the past days search. And this is no use to us. We want to look at the past five years. Now, once this loads up, you're going to see a graph with a few rises and a few dips. The dips are when people are not searching for it. The tips are actually where people are searching for bikinis the most. We want to start selling our products right at the dip. So either when it's going down or as it's starting to go up. Now, the reason we do every five years is because it can give us a quick overview of how the last years have worked. So you can see here that the dip pretty much stops between October to November. And the following year, it's about the same thing the end of October, beginning of November, same thing the year afterwards. So we can tell just from this data that we want to start selling our bikinis around the end of October towards the beginning of November. That would give us enough time to do some product research as well as add multiple products and more importantly, multiple variations to each product. So that we would have a few days before it actually starts rising around the beginning of December. Also, another super easy way to find out what products are trending right now is to just go on TikTok and search up hashtag TikTok, maybe buy it. Then filter out the results for about the last three months and see what products pop up. Then you can take that information, put it on Google Trans and see if it's worth selling. Now, each time that you find a product that you're thinking of adding to your drop shipping store then you can add it to this product research spreadsheet. So here you can add the product itself. You can add the link so you don't lose track of it and you don't lose it and you answer a few different questions. If you answer yes to all of the different questions that are asked in this spreadsheet, then this product is worth adding to your drop shipping store to see if it sells. If you answer no to any of the questions then skip it onto the next product. Now, if you want access to this spreadsheet all you have to do is go ahead and comment down below and ask for the product research spreadsheet. It's totally free to you. Just let me know that you want it and I'll send you the link. Now, one last tip regarding product research. Always, always, always, and I can't stress this enough. Always make sure that they have a wow factor. Make sure that they add value to someone's day to day because if they don't then chances are it's not gonna sell. So make sure that it's something that's cool, it's eye catching, it's popping and provides value. Now, next up we need to find a supplier. Where are we gonna source all of our different products? Well, there's a few different places to be able to do this. For one, you have CJ Drop Shipping. Now, CJ Drop Shipping is probably one of the bigger drop shipping suppliers out there. They have tons of products, fast shipping, and they have a sourcing option, which is really cool because if you find a product from a different supplier that's currently not being sold on CJ Drop Shipping, you can request to have it added. Another option you have is the one that pretty much everybody starts off with and that's AliExpress. AliExpress also has tons of different items for you to choose from and it's pretty much everyone's starting point. AutoDS is also another option for you to be able to source your products from. So if we log back into our AutoDS account and switch on over to the marketplace instead of the winning products, under supplier we can go ahead and actually select AutoDS. Now here you're gonna have again tons of different items but with a twist. So you're gonna have the AutoDS suppliers discount prices. These are private suppliers that have signed up to work with AutoDS and don't ever worry about quality because these suppliers are rigorously vetted to make sure that they have some of the best quality items and shipping times. On top of that, you also have the actual AutoDS warehouse. So AutoDS is a supplier in itself with its own warehouse full of drop shipping products. Now as a quick bonus, you can also brand these products with a custom thank you note with your logo on it to add a little extra personal touch to your orders. Now there's also tons of other suppliers. You have places like Wayfair, Costco, Walmart, DHgate and tons more. If you wanna learn about the different kinds of suppliers that there are, just make sure to check out the cheat sheet. And remember that if you want access to that, all you have to do is comment down below hashtag dropshipping with your takeaway from this video. Now once you find the different products that you wanna add, next thing you need to do is import them to your store. So you can either do this manually by copying over all of the titles, the descriptions, variations and images and just simply adding that to your store which that's perfectly fine if you wanna do that. If you have maybe three or four items, it's not gonna take that long. But if you start to have a greater quantity of items that you wanna import, let's say 10, 15, 20, even 50, then it's gonna start to get extremely time consuming. In that case, you can go ahead and just automate the entire thing using AutoDS. Automating your product import can easily save you hours upon hours of work. Now, if you wanna get your products in front of the eyes of more potential customers and make more sales, then you're gonna need to start marketing. And there's a few different ways to do that. And that's also gonna depend on the platform that you're selling on. So if you're selling on your own website, you're gonna need to market that website. One of the options that you'll have is running paid Facebook ads. You also have the option to work with influencers. So you can reach out to influencers, send them one of your products and have them review it or make a video of it. You also have the option for content marketing like writing blogs. Then you also have social media marketing as well as email marketing. Now, if you're selling on a marketplace, it's gonna vary by marketplace. So eBay has promoted listings, both standard and advanced. If you're selling on Facebook marketplace, you can promote your products on Facebook groups. And if you're selling on Etsy or Amazon, you can simply just promote your products with promoted listings. Also another way to be able to bring in traffic to any of these different websites is simply by creating user-generated content on a platform like TikTok or Instagram Reels. If a video goes viral, you have the potential to make a lot of sales. In the cheat sheet, I am gonna have linked a few different guides and a few different resources to be able to help you with marketing because I know that can get pretty complicated. And that's pretty much it on getting started. The next thing that you really need to focus on is just providing the best possible customer service. So if anybody has a question regarding a product or if they have a question regarding their order, always make sure that you answer them at least within 24 hours. If a customer wants to return an item, even if you don't accept returns, accept that return because that can make the customer feel valued and important like their money matters, which it really does. Always be professional and courteous. And if you're able to, send a personalized message. You know, if you can send a custom thank you message to your customer, whether it be through email or reaching out to your supplier and having them include a message, do that. Please consider sharing this video if you did find value in it and if you enjoyed it. Also, make sure you hit the subscribe button if you haven't done so already. So you don't miss out on any future videos to help you out on your dropshipping business. Also, remember to access the cheat sheet. All you have to do is comment down below hashtag dropshipping with your takeaway from this video and I'll reply back with a link to the sheet. Huge thank you to all of you for watching, especially all the way to the end. Truly means a lot. Once again, my name is Mario with AutoDS and I'll catch you all in the next video.