If you are reading this blog post, it is likely you
wish to start your own dropshipping business and specially to do dropshipping
from UK suppliers. Or you simply want to
know what exactly dropshipping is. This blog post will discuss what is
dropshipping in general as well as what is NewNine dropshipping specifically
and how to do dropshipping from UK suppliers with NewNine Partner Program.
So, what is dropshipping?
In essence, dropshipping is simply a specific form of
retail business. It differs from traditional retailing by the fact that with
dropshipping the seller (retailer) does not buy products in advance from a
wholesaler. Instead, the seller uses their business and communication skills to
arrange a deal with the dropshipping supplier who allows the seller to first
sell the supplier’s goods and only then to come and buy the goods from the
supplier. After this is done the dropshipping supplier sends the product directly
to the seller’s end-customer.
Dropshipping in the Era of eCommerce
In the age of eCommerce, a lot of retailing happens on
the internet. And dropshipping is not an exception. It features a specifically
organised online supply chain management, where the retailer requests
permission to sell dropshipping supplier’s goods on the retailer’s website.
When the supplier grants the request, they provide the retailer with the products’
data (images and descriptions) to enable them to sell those same products on
the retailer’s site.
When customers buy the said products on the retailer’s
site, the retailer gets an order in their admin panel. Then via inbuilt
functionalities it notifies the dropshipping supplier about the product being
requested. Subsequently, once the supplier confirms the order, they ship the
product to the retailer’s end-customer.
In modern platforms the wholesaler and retailer
websites are connected via an API which allows seamless integration and
information exchange. This information includes but is not limited to stock and
price monitoring and updates. This in turn ensures that the retailer never
sells products that are out of stock at the supplier’s website or are priced
differently.
Why Choose Dropshipping?
Dropshipping proves effective for eCommerce and
especially for beginners in this field. This is especially true for those who
do not have large capital to start with. Dropshipping eliminates costs related to buying large
quantities of products in advance as well as costs related to packaging, handling
and shipping.
The main concern for the dropshipping retailer remains
marketing, selling and customer service.
Considering that the retail eCommerce sales as share
of general retail trade in the UK have grown from 19% to 24% in the last couple
of years, it’s to be expected that dropshipping as a model will only increase in popularity
alongside the industry in general.
Shipping Times and Dropshipping
One of the most important hurdles in dropshipping
business model are the shipping times. Until very recently most dropshipping
providers were from China or other countries outside the UK. This made it very
hard for dropshippers to offer good shipping times. Which in turn sometimes led
to disappointments from the side of the customers who often would be waiting
for the goods to arrive for impractically long periods of time. As dropshipping
in the modern form has not been around for very long, it is still not easy to
find many local UK-based dropshipping suppliers.
Automated Dropshipping from UK
Suppliers with NewNine
At NewNine our dropshipping model is unique partially because of this
very reason – our dropshipping system involves dropshipping from UK suppliers
only. In this way we are different from most providers who mainly offer
dropshipping suppliers based in China.
Another aspect that is different at NewNine is that our dropshipping process in not manual. Since the very beginning the NewNine dropshipping process has been designed to be mainly automatic.
Firstly, there is no worry about setting up your own
site because with any NewNine package you will receive your very own eCommerce
site as a retailer. This will be done using Getshop Today’s eCommerce platform.
Getshop Today provides many eCommerce
Themes to tailor your site design to your liking.
Upon your eCommerce site being created, you then need
a supplier who will be sourcing your products and will be responsible for
shipping them to your end-customers. This is where NewNine comes in with their
dropshipping supplier network. Via our special automated dropshipping API, we
will be able to import products from UK based supplier websites straight to
your online site in a one-click process.
Next, you will be able to list your products on such 3rd
party platforms as eBay, Facebook and others.
When your end-customer purchases your product through
these platforms, your website admin panel will receive the same order
automatically. From there on with a couple of clicks you will be redirected to
that particular product on the supplier’s website where you can then easily
place an order to the supplier. From there, the supplier will be able to
complete the sales process and ship the purchased product straight to your end-customer.
This is in essence how the NewNine automated UK dropshipping system works.
What You Need to Start Dropshipping from
UK Suppliers
Now that we have a better understanding of what
dropshipping is and how NewNine functions in particular, let’s outline what we
need to start a UK based dropshipping business.
There are 3 things that are fundamental to start
dropshipping from UK suppliers:
As mentioned earlier, upon subscribing to any of NewNine
packages, you will receive your very own eCommerce site. With over several
design schemes and layouts available, there are a number of ways to tailor your
website to your needs. Irrespective of the package you choose, you will receive
full eCommerce functionality with any package.
We will also aid in setting up your eBay Seller
account as well as seller accounts on other platforms such as Facebook and
other third-party marketplaces if necessary. This is done through setting up a
special API to connect the platforms.
Linking your new eCommerce website to your eBay Seller
account (and any other third-party marketplaces) is essential to start getting
your first sales. This is because your first sales will most probably happen on
these 3rd party marketplaces rather than on your own website. It
takes a lot of time and effort to make your own website so popular as to get
orders directly there. That is why we recommend to first focus on getting sales
on these 3rd party marketplaces.
With your freshly set up eCommerce site, eBay seller account generated, and suppliers established and connected we will now move onto the sourcing of your products to sell.
At this point you can now begin choosing products to
import from our dropshipping UK suppliers. You can do this via our supplier
network using automated tools.
Product sourcing is a core component in starting your
dropshipping business. To start selling products on your eCommerce website, you
must be sourcing goods with great quality and pricing. The goods must also
perform competitively within the market to ensure they sell well.
However, this can prove demanding as finding products
that achieve these criteria requires time, knowledge and thorough market
research skills. Fortunately, there are many modern tools that help in
searching for these products. The downside with these tools is their potential
cost. They can be expensive and quite burdening for new eCommerce businesses or
smaller brands.
Thankfully, NewNine is able to resolve these concerns by offering our subscribers highly researched data on best-selling products. This is conducted by the most effective AI in the market combined with human researcher input. No longer is there a need to carry out time-consuming research – NewNine does this on your behalf thus giving you access to the best-selling products of high quality which are simultaneously popular in the market. NewNine is there to mitigate the stress of product sourcing.
Now let’s talk about the third important aspect
mentioned earlier – marketing. Dropshipping usually is a business model
undertaken by people lacking solid capital to invest in products or marketing,
but who still would like to start their own business. So how can we achieve
successful marketing without any budget in the beginning stages of our
business?
Promoting Dropshipping Products via
eBay
Considering this fact, we have developed a new
framework with a fresh approach:
As we have been explaining already, with NewNine we
find and provide you the best-selling products to sell and you don’t have to buy
those yourself in advance. You can list these items on your website as well as
on eBay (or other similar marketplace) with ease using our user-friendly
automatic tools. We also have special subscription packages with an Account Manager
who lists the products on your eCommerce site and eBay on a daily basis.
When you have a solid number of products listed in
your eBay shop, eBay then will begin to promote your products on their site to buyers
visiting eBay, especially if you list your items regularly. Why? Let us explain
in detail.
During our 5-year tenure in the dropshipping field, we
were noticing that over 60% of failures with this model are a result of not
remaining consistent in product listing. In order to achieve success selling on
your own website or 3rd party platforms, firstly it is essential to list
the items on a regular basis. If you list even just an item a day, your sales
will expand automatically. This is because eBay rewards stores which exhibit regular
activity by positioning the store’s products higher in eBay’s internal search
engine results. Therefore, more buyers will see these products when browsing on
eBay. However, if your product listing activity is infrequent this will likely cause
your volume of shop sales to drop greatly.
To manage this, NewNine provides managed package
subscribers an Account Manager who will be listing items into your website and
other stores every single day.
This regularity ensures your stores are always up to
date and active, increasing your sales. Our unmanaged package subscribers
however will have to make sure they are maintaining this regularity themselves.
Now let’s return to why it is profitable for eBay to
promote active sellers on their platform, even though they don’t pay eBay for
promotions or forgo the most expensive eBay seller packages.
This is because eBay is taking a fee for every product
that is sold in your eBay shop – this can be up to 15%.
You may be thinking “What will my profit be if eBay is
taking 15% of my sales?”
So, here’s the maths:
Imagine you took a product from a NewNine supplier for
£5.
You increased the retail product price by 65%.
From this you will give eBay 15%.
Even after this fee you are left with 50% profit.
So, even though you will be paying eBay a portion from
your sales, still this will be profitable as in this way you can make your
first sales without spending large sums of money for marketing. It is
especially important for beginners in this field as marketing can be quite
complex and it can take some time to find the winning marketing strategy.
Conclusion
In essence, this is how NewNine’s automated UK dropshipping
system works – regardless of the fact that you spend no marketing budget or pay
no up-front fees for products, your business is able to start running and grow.
This highlights how beneficial dropshipping can be for beginners in the
landscape of eCommerce or for businesspeople who lack large capital to start
with. With the aid of technology as well as patience and perseverance of the
businessperson, dropshipping can be an excellent platform to jumpstart your
eCommerce business or expand an existing one.
