 Starting a dropshipping business is a smart decision. There's low startup costs and it's super simple to get started. But if you're brand new to e-commerce, there's still a lot to learn. That's why today I'm going to give you 10 different tips that every beginner should know so that you can have a strong base to build, launch, and grow your dropshipping business. If you have any questions about dropshipping or would like to see us cover any specific topics, drop it down in the comments. And before we get to our video, make sure to subscribe so you can watch new videos like this every week. Now, before we begin, let's give a super quick overview of the dropshipping business model. As a dropshipper, you are the middleman. Allow me to explain. When a customer places an order from your store, you forward that order to your supplier, and then the supplier ships it out directly to your customer. As the middleman, you never actually touch any inventory. Now that we all understand the basic business model, let's get to our list of tips. Tip number one, start with a general store. A lot of beginners ask, should I sell general products or go niche specific with my store? The trick here is to start general so that later, if you want to, you can go niche. This way you can test out a range of different products in different categories and take note of what's selling. Once you have that information and let's say you see that toys and games are your winners, then that's the time to start considering niching down. Tip number two, sell on the best platforms. eBay, Shopify, and Facebook Marketplace. Each one of these are great options, but you might want to consider their pros and cons before starting with any one of them. eBay's pros, free organic traffic, and free to use. Cons, they have low selling limits to start out with. That means you're limited in the amount of products you can list and sell at one time. Eventually, you can increase selling limits or even just upgrade to a store subscription so that you can start listing more products and really scale. But because of that, the growth on eBay is a bit more gradual and you've really got to work your way up. All right, moving on to Shopify. Pros, fully customizable, no selling limits, and something really special, your customers are really yours. What do I mean by that? Well, whenever you make a sale in Shopify, you get to collect your buyer's info, specifically their email. That email is key for building up your business and can be used for future marketing campaigns. Shopify Cons, it does require a larger startup budget for marketing and for having a store subscription. Lastly, we have Facebook Marketplace. Pros, it's an untapped marketplace, meaning less competition, and it's also free to use. Cons, you do need to be a US citizen and live in the US to get shipping options. If you don't have that, you can't really drop ship on Facebook. Sorry, guys. Tip number three, do your product research right. Product research is time consuming, but it's super important. So here are a few tricks to make that process a little faster. First tip is automate it. Instead of you doing all that research, you can use the AutoDS product research system to do it for you. There, you'll be able to easily find trending products from different suppliers and import them to your store. You want to learn more about that? I'll link to it below in the description. Another great method is browsing bestsellers and new releases on your supplier's website. The trick is to then go back to your selling platform. Let's say it's eBay. Look up that same product you saw trending on, let's say Amazon, and check if it's also performing well on eBay. If it is, start listing that product and other similar products. Another age old strategy for product research is spying on other drop shippers. Do a little snooping, see what they're selling on your platform, and get inspired. On Shopify, you can use an app called Koala Inspector. Link will be below in the description. And this app will do your secret spy work for you. Last trick for finding great products fast is also by checking out our trending product playlist called Sell These Now. Link below in the description. Tip number four, keep your business safe. This should seem like common sense to most of you, but there are a few products you'll need to avoid selling to keep your business running smoothly. Among that list is copyrighted products, products that are age restricted, dangerous items, and medical products or supplements. Quick tip, whenever you're unsure of a certain product, if you're using AutoDS, our database will block them automatically from importing to your store if they go over any of the guidelines I just mentioned. To learn more, you can check out our eBay Vero Guide. It also buys to Facebook Marketplace and Shopify. Link will be in the description. Tip number five, find the sweet spot for pricing products. A satisfying part of being an online seller is watching those profits roll in. But as a beginner, navigating all the different price ranges and profit margins can feel a little overwhelming. So allow us to help. For someone starting out, I recommend having 70% of your products be low ticket items and the other 30% high ticket items. Low ticket items are products priced $30 and under. Cheaper products will get you more sales and more customers right off the bat, but you will see lower profits. On the other hand, medium to high ticket items, which are priced $30 and up will have fewer sales, but much higher profits. So I recommend you start with that 70 to 30 ratio and you can always build up from there. But how do we find that sweet spot for pricing products? I'll tell you have through the AutoDS price automation feature. This automation tool will scan through your products and for the products that are selling well, it'll automatically increase the price for you so you can earn more on every sale and vice versa. For products that aren't selling well, it'll automatically decrease the price for you so that you can increase your chances of selling that product. Tip number six, don't put all your eggs in one basket. Work with multiple suppliers. If you're using only one supplier with no one else to fall back on, odds are you're going to run into trouble. For example, one problem you can run into if you're using one Chinese supplier is that when they have holidays that can sometimes last for weeks at a time, this can significantly delay your shipping. But if you were working with another supplier, they could fill in for you during that time. Other benefits of working with multiple suppliers is having a larger variety of products, different regions to sell from such as US, UK, Canada, Germany, Australia, I could keep going. Also, if one supplier runs out of stock or has a major price change, another supplier can fill that in for you. There's a lot to cover when it comes to this topic. So if you want to learn more, check out our video on the top 22 dropshipping suppliers. Link will be below in the description, or you can head over to autods.com slash suppliers to see some of the best ones you can work with. Tip number seven, have a great customer support. Some people overlook customer service, but this is actually a super important element for the long term survival, survivability of your business. If you want returning customers, here's what you have to do always and I mean always read and respond to your customers, be friendly and professional and take care of your returns right away. Tip number eight, get more sales by using upsells and promotions. Upselling is when you offer similar or related products during the checkout process and this is typically a safe bet since buyers who are already willing to purchase one of your products may be interested in buying more. Depending on the platform, you can use different marketing strategies to get more sales. For eBay, there's PPC campaigns. For Shopify, you've got Facebook ads and influencer marketing and for Facebook marketplace, you've got Facebook promotions. For more in depth videos on each of the strategies I just mentioned, links will be in the description below. Tip number nine, plan achievable goals and don't give up. You can do this. One tip that helped me a lot is creating a daily schedule, sticking to it and tracking my progress. Don't get discouraged. Getting started is the most challenging part. If you need any extra help or extra motivation, check out our Facebook community to help you stay focused on your goals. It's a good place for drop shippers to ask each other questions and keep each other motivated. Lastly, it wouldn't be a tip video if I didn't throw in a little self plug here. Tip number 10, use automation tools to save yourself time. Time savers are important and will help you scale your business faster since you'll be able to focus on more important tasks. AutoDS has tools like price and stock monitoring, order automation, importing products, product research and so much more. And you can try our trial for just one dollar. Link will be in the description. All right. Well, I hope you enjoyed our list of tips. If you found this helpful, make sure to give this video a like and hit that subscribe button. Good luck starting your drop shipping business. And if you need any more tips, you know where to find us.