Understanding the dropshipping model is one thing, but knowing how that looks for you is another. There is no one size fits all solution to creating a dropshipping business although there are three main ways dropshipping entrepreneurs choose to run their business:
- Running a store which sells one or a few specific products
- Running a store in a particular niche which sells multiple products
- Running a general store
Option One: Running A Store Which Sells One or a Few Products
If you’ve found a product you want to sell, it’s entirely possible to create your dropshipping website entirely around that one product. In fact, it’s a very common method of creating a dropshipping store.
The benefits of doing this is that your brand will become synonymous with this product and you will be able to build brand loyalty around it. There are a couple of issues with this though. Number one, you may find yourself limited as you’ve committed yourself to that one or a couple of products, so adding new product lines might be difficult (although not impossible). Number two, if your product falls out of favour or has ridden out that particular trend, your entire dropshipping business may be in tatters.
Option Two: Running A Store In A Particular Niche
The next option is an extension of option one. Instead of running a store around one or a couple of products, you can create a dropshipping website around a particular niche. That way, you can build brand loyalty and awareness with the right demographic, but add products in that related niche every time you see a specific product that would work for your audience.
This is perhaps one of the most popular options since it offers flexibility and structure all in one.
Option Three: Running a General Store
The final option is to create a general store which sells products from a number of different niches. Often retailers running these kinds of store will list a number of products to see which are winners and which are losers, enabling them to quickly swap and change, pivoting in their direction and approach as and when needed.
While this may seem like a great option, it’s much harder to build brand loyalty or position yourself as the expert in a certain niche with a general store.
A hybrid of this option combined with option one is sometimes a viable path to go down. By creating mini, one-product stores when you find a product you think will work for a while, dropshippers doing this are willing and able to set up stores quickly and happy to burn them down just as quickly. While that might seem like a lot of work, after creating your first or second dropshipping website, you’ll gain a good understanding of the quickest and easiest ways to do this. Many dropshippers can set up a simple site in an hour or less.
