Dropshipping is an order fulfillment technique where the business isn’t required to purchase and stock inventory. Instead, the business will receive orders via their online store and then send the order details to third-party suppliers, who will then pack and ship the orders on the store’s behalf.
This business model is an excellent option for people who are tired of their monotonous 9 to 5 office jobs and wish to start their own business. Although starting a business with minimal overhead costs sounds exciting, you should be well prepared before entering into the e-commerce world.
As dropshipping has grown in popularity, a wide variety of people across the world have entered into the market. When you can find guides to dropshipping even on TikTok, many myths and incorrect perceptions about dropshipping have popped up across the internet. These myths can be discouraging, frustrating, and misleading. To ensure that you know the facts before you start your own dropshipping business, we’ll be debunking five dropshipping myths so you know exactly what you are signing up for.
Myth No. 1: Dropshipping Makes You Rich Super-Fast
You might have stumbled across influencers on YouTube or social media guaranteeing that you will become rich instantly with dropshipping using their methods. In reality, these are often false promises made for the sake of views and likes. They often exaggerate, making dropshipping seem like a way to get rich overnight.
However, this kind of content is both misleading and dangerous, causing new dropshippers to start their business with unrealistic expectations. This can lead to dropshippers quitting before they have even really started.
While most dropshipping success stories you have read are true, none of these sellers turned rich overnight. The success of dropshipping business calls for testing and experimentation to analyze and find strategies that work best for your brand and your customers. Building great things takes time and that should be true for your dropshipping business as well.
Starting your own dropshipping store and running it can be challenging. Be prepared to invest your energy and time. It takes time for a business to grow and mature. If you start a dropshipping store based on unrealistic expectations of becoming rich overnight, you will only end up being disappointed.
Myth No. 2: Dropshipping Is Easy
With low overhead and minimal investment requirements, dropshipping seems like an easy way to start a business. Looking at the cost to start and the potential earnings, many assume that dropshipping is easy. However, merely creating a webstore and an ad will not automatically mean sales.
Creating a webstore is just a first step and doing this thoughtfully and strategically will make a world of a difference. Many new dropshippers make the mistake of launching their stores quickly without giving much thought to their brand and shopping experience. This leaves these businesses disappointed by a lack of customers and sales. Their store might have missing images, placeholder text, mismatching product selection, and other issues that will turn off customers.
The more strategy and effort you put into designing your store, choosing the right products, and marketing those products to your target audience, the more money you can make in the long run.
Before the actual big payday, it takes months of testing, failure, and even more testing to build a strong brand and successful online store.
Myth No. 3: You Can Only Dropship Products To and From the U.S
Contrary to popular beliefs, you can actually dropship products to any part of the world. Most new dropshippers located in the United States will solely focus on the domestic U.S. market. As the world’s 3rd most populated country, this is not a bad market to be in.
Nevertheless, solely focusing on one market might result in a significant loss of opportunities in other countries where the market is less saturated, and therefore have less competition. Besides the United States, some of the most accessible regions and countries for dropshipping products are the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the European Union (EU).
There are no restrictions imposed on dropshipping products in any given country. However, depending on your products and where your supplier is located, make sure you understand which countries have restrictions on certain goods and higher shipping risks. You will also want to check with your supplier how this will impact shipping costs for your customers.
Myth No. 4: People Do Not Buy From Unknown Stores or Brands
Without a big brand or company name, many people assume that people will not buy from websites they have never heard of. However, you do not have to have a well-known brand to sell your products. In fact a vast number of successful and unknown dropshippers sell their products on platforms such as eBay, Amazon, Shopify.
What is being sold matters more than who is selling it. Many customers think more about what they are buying more than who they are buying it from. Choosing the right product is important. In starting your dropshipping business, learning how to find, select, and market the right products to the right audience will help your store take off. Keeping up-to-date on trends and finding lucrative niches will help you choose the best selection of products to offer.
Offering products that personally appeal to your audience, combined with the excellent customer service, you can lure in potential customers despite being an unknown store.
Myth No. 5: Dropshipping Success Case Studies and Stories Are Untrue
The internet is often full of misleading and exaggerated stories of success. It is easy to be skeptical of the dropshipping case students and success stories around the web. With many influencers and YouTubers looking for views and clicks, it is understandable that many people think that these dropshipping success stories and case studies are false.
However, these stories are generally honest and have acted as the most significant motivational factor for many dropshippers and individuals planning to test their luck in this particular online space.
There are many real stories of successfully running dropshipping stores that started from scratch. The marketing strategies do work. With the effort and time you invest, you can uncover an array of possibilities and create a success story of your own.
Start Your Own Dropshipping Business with Launchers Academy
Now that we have debunked the most popular dropshipping myths, you probably feel a bit relieved and can see dropshipping from a different perspective. Dropshipping requires just as much hard work and patience as any business, but it is indeed an excellent way to make money online.
Ultimately, the more you experiment with your dropshipping store, the closer you are to achieving success. Dropshipping isn’t as easy as people assume it to be, and there’s really so much to learn.
Rest assured, Launchers Academy helps you find out all about the most winning products and launch your own winning dropshipping store in just 90 days! We are a group of responsible dropshippers who have built this academy for people like you to become a part of the dropshipping world.
Our time-proven strategies and methods aim to provide you with a holistic and straightforward process so you have all it takes to start and grow your own dropshipping business and see for yourself why these dropshipping myths need to be debunked for good.