Is A Dropshipping Venture The Best Automated Business Model?
There will be a growing number of standard everyday jobs that youll now have to do
as you become increasingly successful sourcing drop ship products, uploading information on to your website, processing orders and taking care of customer service matters. Nowadays, with the major advances in the industry, there are a number of solutions that can help automate the different aspects of your dropshipping business.Why is it important to automate your dropshipping business?
A successful dropship business could take up lots of time, leaving you with little energy to pursue your other interests. Once you decide that running your business is becoming too cumbersome, you should set up an automated process so that customer details go directly to the dropshipping company without your help.
Ironically, the better you are at advertising and selling your goods, the more youll have to manage orders, inventory and customer service, leaving you with less time to keep advertising and selling in order to keep building your business.
How can you automate your business?
You can use a shopping cart that will notify your supplier immediately when an order is placed. This cart should pass along all the customers details in a format that fills out all the forms necessary for shipment to be made. There are also websites, such as Doba and Shopster that will automate the dropshipping process for you, for a fee.
An autoresponder can send out delivery notifications and the like to your customers. Once you set it up properly, you wont need to change it. Some business owners also take the option of outsourcing their order management, pricing etc. to companies that specialize in automated backend systems. If you choose this route, you will need to compare the services of several vendors, and choose the one that you think will come closest to fulfilling your needs.
Theres also software you can use that will let you know when items on your suppliers website are out of stock. The software can even mark these items as unavailable on your site. These tools can also upload and update product information, prices and images from your the supplier, saving you even more time, which you can spend on promoting your automated drop ship business.
Not an excuse for laziness
Automation is great, since mundane tasks like updating your shopping cart and order fulfillment are done for you, and you have more time to focus on your business. Keep in mind that some things cannot be automated, and one of these is customer service. Dealing with the customer personally to inform them of snags such as late shipments will always have a more positive outcome than a notification from your autoresponder.
When choosing an automation system, you should always consider your return on investment, i.e. the amount of savings and benefits you can expect from using the system. How long will it take you to recover the money you spent on the system? Once you know the answer to this question, and you recognize the benefit of saving time on keeping track of orders, inventory, etc., you can decide whether the automation system is worth keeping.
by: Wendy vanDijk