How to start selling in dropshipping? Step by step

Starting dropshipping sales requires following a few basic steps. However, it is important to remember to commit all your efforts to each of them. Only diligence and reliability can work for results in a market that sees ever-increasing competition.

1. Product selection, i.e. the future assortment for your store – Product selection should be made based on the above advice. Using them, you can be more at ease with your industry's future. By completing the paperwork and insuring yourself properly, later on, most will depend on your marketing skills, strategy implementation and online store software.

2. Creating an online store – Building an online store for many may seem like an obstacle. This is because they think of it as something huge. A number of sellers think that e-shops can only be created from scratch with dedicated software. Nowadays, however, subscription-based SaaS (Service as a Software) online stores are very popular. This is due to their effectiveness, the ability to quickly create a store and easy integrations with the help of the platform provider.

3. Agreement with dropshipping wholesaler – Now that you know what you want to sell, and the store has been set up, it's time for the formalities. These include the contract with the dropshipping wholesaler. The agreement should include any arrangements that have been made between you as partners in the long run. Both in terms of billing, shipping, handling complaints, the ability to include the store's branding on packaging and more. Ultimately, a contract should be created containing all the arrangements in the context of cooperation.

4. Taking care of marketing and sales – If you have an agreement with the wholesaler, and the online store has been created, it remains to integrate with it and proceed with marketing activities. It is their effectiveness in the long run that will determine whether you will manage in the market as a company. Building a strong brand can take a longer amount of time, but you also have several actions at your disposal that can quickly result in complex orders. The best solution will be to build a comprehensive marketing strategy that takes into account each of the channels. For next will be a plan to set measurable goals. If we do it in a proper and professional way, we can easily measure the effectiveness of individual activities and limit ourselves to the most successful ones.

Accounting for dropshipping – What tax base?

Quite a big surprise for many sellers will be the tax base for dropshipping. This is because the settlement from sales in this model refers to the margin that the entrepreneur imposes on the wholesaler's product. This means that, indeed, with a price of 500 pln from the wholesaler, and selling for 600 pln, the tax base is 100 pln.

If you have doubts in accounting for dropshipping and do not know how to go about it, take care to contact a tax advisor. With relevant and up-to-date information, he is able to advise you so that you feel secure in planning your future.

Do I need to set up a business to sell in dropshipping?

Sales in the dropshipping model does not require the establishment of your own business only if the value of sales does not exceed half of the minimum rate. If you exceed this amount, it is better to set up the said business.

This proves especially useful when working with wholesalers, who may be much more willing to cooperate with companies. This is because economic activity helps to gain credibility and smoothly pass the paperwork. Remember also that when you sell goods, you need proof of it in the form of an invoice or receipt in physical or electronic form.

Course from dropshipping sales – What it looks like?

If one were to briefly describe the sales process in the model that is dropshipping, it would not be very complicated. It usually consists of several elements and looks similar to the one used during offline distribution.

1. The consumer, i.e. your customer, orders the product by going through the process in the store and makes payment to the designated account.

2. You, i.e. the owner of the online store, transmit the order to the partner wholesaler.

3. The customer receives the goods from the aforementioned wholesaler.

4. Remember, in the meantime, you should send an invoice or receipt (proof of product purchase) to the customer's email from which the order was placed.

5. You settle with your supplier for commissions, product costs and others, according to the arrangements finalized beforehand.

6. You accept the return, if any, and in the event of a complaint send it to your partner, who should analyze the situation. Of course, there are also individual situations in which you manage to negotiate with a wholesaler even to handle returns, but these are in the minority.

We hope that now the dropshipping model online store is understandable to you. We are sure that the above information would help you start this ecommerce adventure and get satisfactory profits in the long run. We have also tried in other articles to provide you with complementary information. We hope that with this knowledge your sales in this model will grow even more. Want to learn more? Read the article: Dropshipping – how to get started?