You’ve been making good profits with your dropshipping store. Do you want to grow it into an international dropshipping business? Imagine selling products all over the world sitting at your own desk. Amazing, right? It truly is. And today’s article will help you figure out how you can do that.
Dropshipping business has no geographical borders. You don’t need to limit your capacity within your country. Run an international dropshipping business also gives you new perspectives and new experiences. What does not sell in your country may succeed in another country. And the important thing is that you don’t need to travel. All you need is a laptop with an internet connection. If you still don’t believe that, scroll down and see what we’ve got here.
How to set your foot in international dropshipping
If you want to live a life that you’ve been long dreaming of without worrying about the financial burden, don’t hesitate to take a step further and do things that you never think you would do. Surely you will need a lot of planning, but there’s a big chance that you would succeed. You just need to get well prepared and be persistent in what you are doing. In order to help you during this journey, we would like to provide a simple guideline so that you can avoid any unnecessary problems while expanding your business.
1. Map out your potential market
Undeniably, you always should map out your potential market first before starting your international dropshipping. List down the countries that you want to dropship to. It’s important to know where your products could work and make money. You could use Google Trends to do some research on the demand for your items. Type in the keywords that you want to evaluate and see the results by looking at the trend line.
A product could be in high demand in some countries but could be in low demand in others. Therefore, you need to research and make of list of the countries where you can sell your product. It’s obviously critical to your further plan.
2. Weigh up the competition in your market
Once you have listed all your potential countries, it’s time to look at those countries a little bit closer in terms of the niche you are in. Try to figure out if there are a bunch of other competitors in the same niche in your market. Then it means there’s very little room left for you. Clearly, it’s not easy for you to win the race. If you still want to do it, you will spend a great amount of money on marketing and advertising. It’s not a good idea to jump into such an oversaturated market.
However, there’s never a hard code for you. You don’t have to back up whenever you see tough competition. Just look at other things closer to see if your competitors have a great marketing campaign and great products. If they don’t, then it’s the chance for you to dive in.
3. Choose a trustworthy dropshipping fulfillment agent or suppliers
A trustworthy sourcing agent dropshipping or fulfillment agent will be a good partner to support your growth during the process. So it’s of utmost importance if you could choose a good one. Your dropshipping fulfillment agent or your suppliers should be able to ship internationally as well, especially the countries on your list. You should look at their shipping price and time. Since customers always want fast and cheap delivery.
Another important thing is that you should control the shipping process through tracking code. Make sure your dropshipping fulfillment agent or your suppliers work professionally and include the tracking code so that you can quickly detect the problems and solve them without delay. This could save you unnecessary problems when dealing with your customers.
4. Try to find suppliers that locate near your customers
If you have difficulties in finding the right dropshipping fulfillment agent or good supplier to provide quick and cheap shipping to the countries that you target, you’d better go for suppliers that locate near your customers. This could save you money, time, and a lot of problems with your dropshipping partners when things just go wrong. Actively reduce your shipping time and shipping cost to make you more competitive.
5. Set payment gateways
Payment gateway is another critically important thing to your international dropshipping business. People really like your product. They want to buy it but leave it at the checkout process since their cards are not accepted. In that way, you undoubtedly lose a great number of customers. So, if you don’t want that to happen, set a suitable payment gateway in your store. This seems to be a small task but an essential thing.
6. Launch different marketing campaigns for each market region
This is obviously indisputable. Each market, each country has its own history, culture, behavioral trend, and shopping habits. You cannot apply the same promotional campaign to many different countries but you need a separate campaign for each.
What’s liked in one country may not be accepted in another country. Especially when it comes to culture, you should be really careful. It’s best when you consider the diversity of each country and translate your idea into local languages.
7. Translate customer reviews
Your social proof is another critical thing to your international dropshipping. But when you sell in many countries, it’s necessary to translate your customer review into each language. First thing, you help your customers understand easily. Second, it shows your respect and appreciation for their country. It helps build your reputation and a positive image of your store. It looks much more professional when your customers read a page in many language options.
8. Build your great customer service
To run a successful international dropshipping business or any other business, customer service is the key to win your customers. You cannot build your brand with unsatisfied customers. You cannot gain your reputation with unhappy and angry customers. You never expect negative feedbacks to flood your page and ruin your image. So, just focus on building good customer service.
Hire responsible staff to take care of your customers 24/7. Try to respond to your customers as quickly as possible. Calm them down when they are angry and try to solve any conflict quickly before things get worse and they leave bad feedback about you. Excellent customer service always gives you a good reputation and makes you stand out among other competitors.
Try to avoid misunderstanding or delay in responding to your customers. If those things ever happen, deal with them in a professional manner. When you run an international dropshipping business, language can be a challenge. Try to solve this problem by hiring native speaker staff if possible. Otherwise, you can seek help from other freelance platforms that can let you find someone suitable for the job. Don’t underestimate the issue and keep trying to make it as perfect as you can.
9. Other things you should be aware of
Apart from the above, you should also keep an eye on other factors as well when you set foot in international dropshipping.
The laws and regulations of the target countries
It’s important to understand the legal regulations of the countries you operate your dropshipping business. It’s easier when you run your business in your own country. But once you step out of your country, things could be unforeseeable. So it’s necessary to check if there is any restriction for international shipping or any other related things. Before making money, you need to have some protection for yourself. You don’t want to get troubles in a faraway country where you are completely unfamiliar. Dont let any penalty or extra fees scale down your profit-making.
Packaging
Packaging is also crucial to your international dropshipping store. Your customers never expect a torn, dusty, crumpled package. Or even without any of the mentioned problems, your packaging looks really dull. Good packaging represents your store. You need to make it look really neat, clean, well-designed, and professional. You can include thank you card if possible.
No matter how good your product is, your customers will judge it and your store by the packaging. You never see a poorly packaged product from a big brand, do you? That’s the reason why you should invest in your packaging or also your branding. That’s the way to make your customers remember about you. If you could have someone design a creative package for you, it will be the best. Along with the effort to please your customers, make sure that your packaging is lightweight to minimize the shipping fee.
Return terms and conditions
Everything is not just perfect. Sometimes there are some problems with your package or shipping and you have to reship or get returned package from your customers. So you need to get prepared and get acquainted with that kind of issue. Be clear in the return policies of your international dropshipping business. List the policies on your website so that your customers could find out about them.
Getting prepared for any scenarios will help you enter your international dropshipping with confidence and stand a bigger chance of success. Don’t be afraid to grow your business even more and increase your profit margins.
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