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In the world of e-commerce, dropshipping is often cited as an example of an easy way to get started and an ideal business for anyone entering e-commerce. Today, it is quite difficult for a small dropshipping online shop to stay afloat and compete with the big marketplaces. Dropshipping is profitable if you have the ‘right’ suppliers, sell the ‘right’ product and promote your business in the ‘right’ way.
So why, despite all the difficulties, do so many people choose this route? The fact is that dropshipping allows you to start a business with minimal investment. You can test ideas and find your niche in e-commerce without taking significant financial risks. Let’s talk about promotion in ecommerce today.
Five sales channels for ecommerce
There is a myth that dropshipping is an easy business. But a poorly chosen niche, an irresponsible supplier and an unpopular product have more than once been the cause of business failure. The dropshipper’s profit depends on the choice and mix of business promotion channels.
Stelvel Ltd recommends five relevant sales channels for e-commerce and dropshipping businesses in 2024:
- Own a website, online shop or rudimentary rental site
- SEO is a set of techniques and measures designed to increase the relevance of a website in the eyes of search engines in order to increase search traffic.
- social media
- Marketplace placement (Shopify, Etsy, Amazon, Alibaba, Etsy, eBay)
- Contextual advertising
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION
SEO promotion includes strategy development, competitive analysis, internal and external website optimisation. Today it is the most effective business promotion tool in terms of cost and return. The disadvantage of SEO is that it can take 3-4 months to reach the top of the search results.
When planning an SEO strategy, it is important to clearly understand what kind of demand you need to accumulate. Commodity, category or mixed. If the demand is product-based, you should first improve the SEO of the product pages. If the demand is category-based, work hard on category pages, brand pages and filters.
SEO pros:
- high conversion rate
- cheap traffic
SEO cons:
- Delayed, sometimes unclear results
- difficult to predict
Marketplace Placement
The modern marketplace is a vast ecosystem that uses the latest technology to attract users, retain them and increase the average checkout. They have long been at the top of search engine rankings.
An ordinary online shop cannot compete with a system that employs thousands of specialists and invests considerable resources in its development. It is out of the question. But using a marketplace as an additional tool for promotion and market research should be mandatory.
The advantages of marketplaces:
- fast results
- cheap traffic – high conversion rate
Disadvantages of marketplaces:
- high price competition
- strict moderation
- Some product segments have a small audience
- High commission for services (15%)
Contextual advertising
Does it make sense to run contextual advertising when there are marketplaces that will always rank higher in search results? Of course it does. On the marketplace, it is difficult for the shopper to highlight a particular seller in their online shop, remember it and then find it again and place their next order. To increase sales, you need an audience that has already formed a need, that is looking for a specific product. And this is where contextual advertising comes in. Contextual advertising is a fast result, but also a constant cost.
To promote through context, you can set up traffic for each product group or priority product groups. Do not forget to combine retargeting and look-a-like audiences at each stage of the sales funnel (basket, visit, order).
Advantages of contextual advertising:
- fast results
- High conversion rate
- excellent controllability
Cons of contextual advertising:
- Rather expensive traffic (if we are talking about search)
- Budget “drain” without knowledge and professional approach
Own resources (website, online shop, social networks)
A dropshipper sells goods that are available from his supplier and is not responsible for the delivery and production of the goods. A reputable and reliable supplier is the most important prerequisite for the success of the dropshipping business model.
It is vital that your website is visually appealing, user friendly and easy to understand. The user will not spend time fiddling with incomprehensible catalogue settings or searching for the “order” button. They will simply leave the site and go to a competitor. An inexpensive landing page can do the job.
Pay attention to the quality of the product presentation. Make a photo shoot, think about the detailed content of the product cards, fill in the details, use keywords in the description of the goods.
Advantages
- The site is credible
- Clear, structured and relevant content
- It is possible to offer something different from the competition
Disadvantages
- Production and maintenance costs
- Cost of promotion
Targeted advertising on Instagram and Facebook
Targeted advertising on Facebook and Instagram is often used at the start of a sale to find the target audience and drive them to the website, lead form or online shop.
Benefits of targeted advertising:
- Quick start
- Flexibility, you can quickly change the settings of the advertising campaign
Disadvantages of targeted advertising:
- Constant monitoring of results is required
- Risk of wasting budget
- You need a professional targeting specialist to launch an ad
Optimal, active, passive
Active channels require more resources, but deliver significant results. Passive channels can be less costly, but depend on customer initiative. By combining promotion channels, a dropshipper can achieve optimal results in terms of website traffic and sales.
In order to select the optimal channels for product promotion, Stelvel analyses sales and identifies the most effective promotional channels. We calculate the cost of customer acquisition for each promotional channel.