How to Set Up Shopify Dropshipping

Written by Coursera Staff • Updated on

With our step-by-step guide, learn about Shopify dropshipping, how to start your own dropshipping store, and how to choose your shop niche.

[Featured image] A woman in a floral blouse sets up a dropshipping business on Shopify on her phone while sitting at a desk by a window.

Dropshipping is an e-commerce method in which you build a website that sells products that a separate company fulfills and ships. As the owner of a dropshipping business, you’re responsible for selecting the products, posting them to your online store, and working with reliable dropshipping companies to ensure the products are high-quality and delivered in a timely manner.

Dropshipping is a business model for people looking to break into e-commerce, who have limited space to store products, and who don’t want to be responsible for shipping high volumes of products from their homes. Shopify’s platform makes creating a dropshipping store simple and straightforward without the need to learn any coding. With Shopify, you’ll have the tools to set up your dropshipping store, handle payments, and market your products.

By the end of this tutorial, you’ll be able to create your own Shopify dropshipping store.

How to set up Shopify dropshipping

Shopify is a user-friendly platform for launching a dropshipping store. The following offers a list of what you’ll need to do to start:

  1. Identify your product niche.

  2. Define your audience.

  3. Open a Shopify account.

  4. Install dropshipping apps.

  5. Set up your store.

Let’s go over these steps in more detail.

1. Identify your product niche.

When choosing which products to sell in your store, it is essential to balance your passions and interests with the market's demands. You should sell something that genuinely interests you so that you don’t burn out or grow bored, and you should also sell products you know other people are searching for. 

Keyword research and market trends are great places to start. You’ll also want to consider items with a high-profit margin that are also specific so that you aren’t competing in a saturated market. For example, phone cases are a high-demand product, but those with 3D designs are more niche.

2. Define your audience.

Understanding your target audience's needs will help you create more effective marketing strategies, choose better-performing products, and increase website traffic. Ask yourself who needs your product, how much they’re willing to spend, and where they like to interact online.

3. Open a Shopify account.

Once you know what you want to sell and who you want to sell it to, it’s time to open a Shopify account. You can sign up for a free trial and use it to experiment with different products and marketing techniques. Shopify requires an email, and it’s best to set up an email address specific to your store. Then, follow the prompts from Shopify to set up your account.

4. Install dropshipping apps.

Once you set your account up, you can search for dropshipping suppliers on your own or use the dropshipping apps Shopify offers. The apps are available in Shopify’s app store and provide a huge variety of suppliers and products. The Oberlo app is built-in and provides access to products through AliExpress, but they also have other options as well. Select the ones you’d like to work with and add them to your store.

5. Set up your store.

Next, it’s time to set up your store. Choose a domain name that’s short and easy to remember. Follow Shopify’s prompts to select your store’s design, add a copy, and attach the domain name. Then, import the products you want from the apps. You can search the products by review, price, and shipping options. Select “Add to Import List”. Once the items are in the import list, you can edit their price, descriptions, and more. Once you select “Import”, the items appear on your storefront.

Common Shopify dropshipping issues

One of the primary issues people run into with Shopify dropshipping is that Shopify doesn’t generate organic traffic on its own. To reach your intended audience, you’ll need a robust marketing plan, including keywords and social media ads.

Learn more with Coursera

India’s e-commerce industry is the fastest-growing worldwide, with 87 percent of households online and between 500 and 600 million online shoppers by 2030, according to Invest India [1]. If you’re ready to join this thriving sector, consider sharpening your e-commerce skills on Coursera with Google’s Digital Marketing and E-commerce Professional Certificate. You will be able to learn the fundamental tools to launch your own e-commerce business.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Article sources

1

Invest India. “E-Commerce in India: Market Size, Opportunities, Growth, https://www.investindia.gov.in/sector/retail-e-commerce/e-commerce.” Accessed 19 June 2024. 

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