9 Ways to Grow your Dropshipping Business and Increase your Revenue

The dream isn’t to simply have a dropshipping store, the dream is to have a business that is thriving and able to generate the income that can make a big difference in your life. But when you are working a nine to five, raising your family, juggling college, or trying to find time for self-care, running and growing your online business may seem like something to put off for another day.

We are all busy in our own way, but luckily enough, taking your online business to the next level doesn’t mean that you will have to sacrifice sleep, your social life, and cash when you have already got some winning products and a solid online store as a foundation.

You have come a long way since building your online store and making that first-ever sale, and it does not stop there. Growth is something that you should aim for with your dropshipping store. You definitely wouldn’t be reading this article if you didn’t think that it’s finally time for you to scale your online business and earn more money through your site.

What Does Scaling Mean?

As you go through your dropshipping business and your research on how best to operate your store, you’ll hear a lot of talk on scaling and growing your business very frequently. But what does that even mean?

When a business scales its operations, it means that the business can process even more orders and increase revenue in a cost-effective and time-efficient manner. To scale your dropshipping business, you have to adopt some measures and invest to see that growth, but the goal is to get more money back than you put in.

In other terms, if you are adding operating costs at the same rate that your revenue is growing, your business isn’t scaling. However, if you are seeing an increase in revenue, with minute additions to your operating costs, then your business is definitely scaling.

For example, let’s say that you have been making $1000 a month from dropshipping, and you spend $100 a month on customer actuation. In the spirit of scaling, you decided to increase to $150 in customer acquisition and you found yourself making $3000 in sales from new customers. You are scaling your business without paying double to see a significant increase in results.

Your business is scaling when your revenue increases while your operating costs remain relatively on the low. But how can you scale your dropshipping business? Let’s now jump into talking about how to make more sales for your dropshipping business, without significantly increasing your overhead cost as you grow:

1. Focus on Existing Costumers

When it comes down to customer retention and customer acquisition, customer retention remains so much more economical by far. So when you feel like you are having trouble growing your online business, do not immediately jump to the conclusion that it is because you do not have enough new customers.

Customer acquisition is important for every online business, no matter the age or size of the store, but it is also more expensive and you must also improve your customer retention strategy in the long run.

Compared to new customers, loyal customers tend to add more to their shopping carts and generate more revenue each time they visit your store. Customer retention is also more cost-efficient.

So focus on improving customer experience and reward loyalty in customers. Try to come up with a loyalty program for your store that gives your customers incentives to stick it out with your brand. For example, you can develop a rewards point system, where each visit to your store can be converted to rewards points every time your customer comes to check-in, which your customers can eventually use for discounts and benefits.

2. Improve Site Security

No one wants to shop at an online store that does not look safe or reputable. It takes quite a bit for your customers to come up with the trust that will enable them to decide to make a purchase with your site, especially when they are new to you and your products.

One of the best ways to convince them to make a purchase is by securing your site. Cybersecurity is a major concern for online shoppers these days, in light of more people experiencing instances of credit card fraud.

Because of this, you must assure your customers that their data is secure with you. Thankfully, Shopify is one of the safest and most popular eCommerce platforms in the world. It is a hosted SaaS platform, unlike WooCommerce and Magento. Whenever Shopify makes a security update, it updates all Shopify sites immediately, without you having to do so manually.

But how can you prove to your customers that you are indeed trustworthy? One way is to display your store’s security badges in plain sight.

Shopify has its own security badge that you can display on your online store to establish trust with our customers, and link it to a description of how Shopify meets Payment Card Industry (PCI) standards. Alternatively, you can go on the Shopify App Store and install apps and display security badges, like that of McAfee secure, to protect your site, your customers, and your assets.

3. Leverage Customer Testimonials

Feedback is very important, for your shop and your customers. Today’s customers are more informed than ever, and they highly value the testimonies of the real-life users of your products. Most consumers today do a lot of research before making a product purchase, and testimonials are a powerful and moving tool that you need to leverage from your online store.

Testimonials can do three things for you:

1. It helps you to gain the trust of your customers from your online store fast.
2. Because you are establishing trust, this makes it easier to increase conversions.
3. You are establishing social proof.

Done well, testimonials can convince a customer to make a purchase. Customers read reviews to mollify certain anxieties and misgivings that they have about your product and shop, so reviews that specifically target your potential customers’ concerns regarding the quality, function, and effectiveness of your products should be treated like the valuable asset in converting your potential customers into your buyers.

By visiting your online store, customers are already showing an interest in your products, and sharing testimonials on user experience can act as a nudge for your customers to come up with the decision to buy your products.

You need customer reviews and testimonials and the easiest way of obtaining them is asking for them from your customers. This can be automated as part of the process of delivering and confirming that an item has been received by your customers.

You must also respond to your customers’ reviews with your thanks and an assurance that you are always working to improve the customer experience.

4. Offer Sales and Discounts

Give your customers enough incentives to come and shop with you by offering more sales and discounts for your products. People love the feeling of saving on their purchase, and if you are worried about your profit margin, you can always increase the base price of an item, and then slash it with a discount. This is an age-old trick that many online and offline businesses have been using.

If you feel like it can be beneficial, flash sales are also an extremely effective way to generate more sales and to leverage people’s tendencies to buy on impulse. A flash sale is a discount that you can offer on your dropshipping store for a very short and limited amount of time, with limited products. The time limit that you implement on a flash sale creates urgency, luring consumers to purchase the spot.

Consumers also happen to enjoy flash sales, because it makes customers feel that they are getting more value and more savings from their purchases. Holding flash sales on your website can be a way for you to garner repeat customers, as people will have reasons to keep coming back and checking your store for new deals.

5. Target other Groups

Growing your business may mean expanding your target audience-though not always, sometimes it’s best to specialize. But if you feel as though you have room to grow, then why not expand to include new products and a new target audience? It’s even possible that you may be thinking of shipping to new countries, new regions, or more states.

We encourage every new eCommerce business owner to first have a clear idea of who their target audience is. To find your target audience, we draw up a profile based on where your target lives, how much they make, their age range, and so on.

Let’s say you are at the point in your business where you want to reach out to more people. For instance, if you run an online business selling workout attire for women in their 20’s to ’40s, you can expand your business to target expecting mothers who also need maternity wear to carry on having a healthy lifestyle. Your target audience in this example has moved to encompass a wider range of women and their needs.

6. Highlight Your Very Best

Your bestsellers are a hit for a reason, and just as testimonials boost sales, so do bestseller lists.

Your customers need direction when they go online shopping, and showing them what people are buying the most on your site will give them a good idea of what products they might want to try out for themselves. It’s best to include a section for your best sellers somewhere on your homepage or product page to give your customers suggestions on what’s currently hot and popular with your other customers.

Anyway, you already have the stats that tell you which of your products are selling the most-these products are popular for a reason, so why not market and promote these products as they will help cause an increase in sales and conversions from your online store? Marketing your products that are a proven hit will make your marketing efforts more effective, and you will be bringing in more traffic to your site. So pick a few products that you know people love and use them to bring more traffic into your online store.

One other use for these types of lists is that they help you promote not only your best selling items, but your high margin products as well, which you can also include in this list for promotional purposes, and in the hopes that you make a higher revenue from those sales.

7. Never Forget the Holidays

People indeed shop more during the holidays and there is a mad scramble seen from both physical and online stores to buy gifts for family, friends, and loved ones, so try to reflect the spirit of the holidays from your shop every time they roll around. Downright be prepared for them, because more people will be shopping online to avoid the malls and to get away from that holiday rush.

Having your store reflect the holiday season puts people in the mood to make their purchases and it also shows people that your store is updated and down with the times. Take note that holiday shoppers are also more willing to spend more money than any other time of the year and that a good chunk of them are out to buy gifts for others.

Because people are out there buying gifts for others, one thing you can do is create a Gift Guide section in light of the holidays. Gift categories can include a section titled “Gifts for Moms,” “Gifts for Coworkers”, etc.

Holiday shoppers are also expecting discounts because they are everywhere in November and December. So make sure to highlight your deals boldly across your advertising campaigns, your homepage, and product pages.

8. Hire an Extra Pair of Hands

Starting out, dropshipping is something that you can easily do all by yourself. That’s not to say that you can’t carry on much in the same ways as you started, but everyone needs a hand, and maybe there are some things that you can’t do on your own.

When your business starts to grow, or when you want to instigate growth by maybe starting a blog, and you feel like you can’t do it on your own, then it’s time to start getting people on your team.

Here are the kind of people and their roles that you might want on board:

Virtual Assistant. A virtual assistant or VA can be a handy helper by removing many tedious tasks from your hands so that you can focus on other things that matter. A good VA should already be experienced and should be able to keep your dropshipping business running smoothly. While your VA can’t do everything, it’s up to you to delegate the tasks that you want to take off your hands so your energy can be better placed in growing your strategy.

Copy Writer, Marketers, Designers. Hiring someone to help you with your dropshipping site and business can either be a one-off sort of thing, or you can hire someone full-time, depending on your needs. Say you are trying to market your website, and you want to grow organically through social media, then hiring a marketer to work for you for a few hours a day can help. A designer can also come in handy for when you want to update your site for the holidays and such. A copywriter can take care of your blog and manage all your website’s copy as well.

Customer Support. Having a customer support representative can be pretty handy, especially when your site has been growing exponentially and seeing a lot of traffic lately. If you can’t handle your customers’ queries, problems, and messages in a good and timely manner, then it’s time for you to hire a customer support representative.

Hiring others to join your team may not always be necessary, but it is a great way to free your hands with the help of expert individuals who will only help you take your business to the next level.

9. Think Out of the Box

You can only go so far in having others tell you what to do with your dropshipping business, and while it is important to gather tips from resources and other successful businesses on how they achieved success, it is also good for you to experiment and see what works best along the course of your dropshipping venture!

So take some time to think and do your research on what strategies you can use to bring more customers to your online shop. Better yet, try to add your own special twist to everything we have mentioned in this article and on our blog.

Because there is no solid, one way shot to make your store grow, exploring, trying new things, failing and evolving to become better is all a part of the big process. Perseverance, being a proactive and resilient online store owner is what is going to get your store going and growing.

Back to You

Many people are lead to believe that dropshipping is a get rich quick kind of scheme, and while it is a business model brimming with potential, it all still comes down to hard and smart work. More importantly, perseverance is another vital element to your success in growing your business. There’s always going to be a hitch every now and again, but being determined to work around it and finding what works for you and your customers is what is going to make your business grow in the long run.

The strategies we have listed above are some great ways for you to grow your online business. You can carry on using these strategies to generate more sales and in continuing to grow your online business to new heights.

Your Thoughts

What methods have you used in growing your dropshipping business? Are you looking to improve your online store’s ability to grow and reach more people? If you are, let us know. At Ecommerce Pro, we love to discuss the future plans of your online business ventures and to share practical solutions that help you meet your eCommerce and dropshipping business goals. If you have any questions regarding this article, we would like to address them. Please feel free to begin a conversation with us today!

Originally published at https://ecommercepro.com on July 16, 2019.