Scale Without Fail: 6 Steps To Grow Your Dropshipping Business

So, it’s time to grow your dropshipping business. You have proof of concept, a decent amount of sales, and you’re ready to play in the big leagues. 

Most dropshippers start out small, but after a certain point, you need to restructure your business to compete with bigger competitors on a global scale. After all, dropshipping will be worth an estimated $591 billion worldwide by 2027; you need a trusted, recognizable dropshipping brand to cement yourself in a cutthroat market. 

It’s pretty easy to earn a 4-figure revenue with dropshipping, but going to 6-figures and beyond is a different ballgame. You need a strategy in place to help you future-proof your business as you grow. 

6 best practices to scale dropshipping

But what strategies actually move the needle? What steps should you take to increase dropshipping revenue? 

Keep these 6 best practices in mind when it’s time to scale your dropshipping business to the next level. 

1. Brand yourself

   As a dropshipper, you’re selling a manufacturer’s products. The danger of dropshipping is that your competitors can swoop in and sell the same products at a lower price.
   
   The best way to protect yourself against the inevitable race to the bottom is by branding your business. Your dropshipping brand should be the foundation of everything else you do.
   
   A brand:
   • Immediately tells shoppers who you are and what you stand for.
   • Differentiates you from other dropshippers. 
   • Persuades shoppers to choose you over everyone else.
   
   If competition is making it hard to boost revenue, branding is the answer. While you’re still operating as a dropshipper, this step means thinking of your operation not as a dropshipper, but as a true eCommerce brand (even if you’re still selling other people’s products).
   
   This matters because shoppers trust high-quality, consistent brands—in fact, consistent branding can lead to a 33% lift in revenue. Since they can’t see your business and products in-person, consumers often rely on your branding to choose what to buy.
   
   So if you don’t have a brand yet, create one, stat. 
   
   

2. Get in your customer’s head

   Shoppers are the lifeblood of your business. When it’s time to scale your dropshipping operation, you need more than a surface-level understanding of your audience. Knowing that you sell to 30-year-old soccer moms won’t cut it at the 6-figure level.
   
   This means understanding:
   
   • • Shopper behavior: How do people navigate your website? Web analytics like Google Analytics and HubSpot will tell you so much. Pair them with a heatmap tool like Hotjar to watch shopper decision-making in action.
     • Your sales funnel: How do customers find you? How many times do you interact with them before they buy? 
     • Pain points: What keeps your customers up at night? What burning problem do they need to solve? How does that match with the solution you sell? 
     • Customer costs: How much do you spend targeting a customer before they buy? Are you making your money back?
   
   Your goal is to find points of friction in the customer experience. Go beyond demographics and try to understand why customers buy from you. This can lead to so many improvements in your website, customer portal, product pages, and more. But you need to listen to the data to strategize a path forward. 
   
   

3. Automate and outsource

   It’s very difficult to scale a dropshipping operation without some kind of help. Automation and outsourcing free up your time (and sanity) so you can focus on growing the business.
   
   Automation is great for manual tasks like repricing and fulfillment that take up way too much of your time. For example, Spark Shipping’s inventory fulfillment tool helps you intelligently route orders with zero manual actions. Instead of letting orders pile up, automated fulfillment prevents backlogs and customer service headaches.
   
   Plus, automation tools often perform better than humans for these types of tasks, minimizing errors and speeding up your entire operation.
   
   But not all tasks are suited for automation. Save more time by outsourcing tasks to other humans. Whether it’s social media, copywriting, web design, or web development, other professionals can help you save time while doing the job right.
   
   Maybe it stings a little to spend profits hiring a support team, but you can’t scale effectively by yourself. If you want a dropshipping empire, automation and outsourcing help you take care of business quickly, boosting profits in the long run. 
   
   

4. Invest in customer support

   Customer service can be a huge headache, but done well, it gives you an incredible edge over your competitors. That’s because 84% of shoppers say customer service is a big factor in their decision to purchase a product.
   
   The downside here is that 75% of all shoppers want to speak to a human support agent, not a chatbot. That means your dropshipping operation needs living, breathing humans available for customer support.
   
   Investing in customer support means:
   • Hiring human support agents: Make them available 24/7 for customer issues. You can affordably outsource this to a service like Zendesk.
   • Offering multiple contact options: Email-only support is okay, but customers want more options. Phone, IM, and even video calls are popular customer service options these days. 
   • Reducing wait times: 66% of customers say waiting is the most frustrating part of contacting customer service. Find efficiencies in your current processes to cut down on wait times. That might mean hiring more agents or creating a self-service customer portal. 
   
   Customer experience matters—a lot. If you’re struggling to outpace your competitors, you can win shoppers over by offering stellar customer service.
   
   

5. Market yourself

   Many dropshippers don’t market themselves, but if you want to connect with more shoppers, you need to put yourself out there. 
   
   Not sure how to market your dropshipping business?
   
   Try these 4 popular and effective options: 
   
   
   1. Influencers: Are you selling lifestyle products, kitchen gadgets, or fashion? If so, the best way to grow your dropshipping biz is to partner with influencers. Micro-influencers, in particular, have more sway over consumer shopping decisions. You can partner with an influencer marketing platform to significantly speed up the influencer marketing process. 
   2. SEO and organic content: Content marketing is a must for dropshippers. In eCommerce, your customers are finding you through Google searches and social media—start creating content so these shoppers can find you. Blogs, YouTube videos, TikToks, podcasts, and more can bring more shoppers to your eCommerce site. But remember to optimize everything for SEO!
   3. PPC: Pay-per-click (PPC) ads can put you in the poorhouse if you’re not careful, but done right, they give an immediate boost to eCommerce. To make the most of your budget, stick with Lookalike Audiences and retargeting ads. 
   4. Affiliates: 16% of global eCommerce sales come from affiliates. Offer a 20% affiliate finder’s fee to encourage loyal shoppers to sell for you.
   
   While you shouldn’t market yourself on every platform known to man, a comprehensive strategy will grow your business more quickly. Carefully expand your marketing and test along the way to find what methods are the most cost-effective. 

6. Reduce costs

   It’s hard to earn money if you keep spending it, right? Your goal is to improve not only revenue, but profits.
   
   And expenses are weighing you down. Take a good, hard look at your numbers to streamline your dropshipping business:
   • Pricing: Are you pricing your products appropriately? Charging super-low prices can hurt your profitability, so always test your pricing to stay in the black. 
   • Suppliers: Don’t choose just any supplier off the street. You need a supplier who gives you great prices and who’s trustworthy. Have a positive relationship with your supplier and try to order in bulk whenever possible to get the best prices. Need help managing inventory with multiple suppliers? Spark Shipping has a fix for that. 
   • Product choice: Dropshipping moves fast, and that means you need to be able to add new products to your business. The thing is, selling fad items will be profitable in the short-term. But what about the long-term? It’s okay to sell popular fad products, but invest in products with consistent demand, too. That means dropping products that aren’t profitable and routing your dollars to what works.

   
   While it’s important to cut costs, be reasonable. Don’t cut things that you need to stay profitable. Spending too much or too little on your business is bad either way. 
   

The bottom line

In dropshipping, you have to move fast and effectively to boost profits. It’s hard work, but you can increase revenue by simplifying and streamlining your dropshipping business as you grow. Follow these 6 steps to preserve your sanity, earn more revenue, and scale your dropshipping business to new heights. 

Need help getting to the next level? Check out Spark Shipping: we help growing dropshippers automate and streamline their operations to save time and money.