We are always looking for ways to help you diversify and grow your income, especially avenues that scaffold onto your present business without creating lots of extra work. Let us introduce you to one of these. . . drop shipping!
What is Drop Shipping?
Drop shipping is a form of ecommerce that re-routes the usual supply chain. (Any Supply Chain Management majors here?) The seller chooses products and markets them to a target audience. Once purchased, the items are shipped directly from the manufacturer to the customer.
So, it’s a shop with all the expensive parts removed: no brick and mortar store or warehouse, no inventory, and no staff. The products are sent directly to the consumer and the seller never sees them.
You can use drop shipping to sell products you’ve created (more on that in a minute) or you can go the white labeling route. In white labeling, a seller takes a generic product, rebrands it with their logo and packaging, and sells it via drop shipping. Either way, drop shipping is a great way to get products to customers.
Why Add Drop Shipping as a Revenue Stream?
The SOWBO Team has been thinking a lot lately about passive income—revenue that, after an initial set up, is earned with little on-going effort. (We are thinking so much about it that we have created an entire Passive Income Mastermind event!)
Drop shipping is an excellent passive income opportunity, and many business owners are adding it as an additional revenue stream. Why? First, it’s easy to create products with tools like Canva and Printful. With no upfront costs, no building or warehouse, and no inventory, you are not investing any money. AND, platforms like Etsy or Shopify make promoting, marketing, and selling simple.
As a business owner, you already have a product or service that you are providing to clients. Consider how an online store could promote your brand, scale your business, and generate additional revenue with just a few up-front hours and a bit of management.
Stock Your (Virtual) Shelves
What are some products you can sell in your online shop? Now, this is where it gets fun. Think about your business. What are items that could enhance your existing products and services? What could promote your brand or encourage your clients? What could you stock that clients could use personally or give as gifts? As a starting point, consider stickers, mugs, tees, posters, keychains, and masks.
The next step is to create your designs in Canva, an online design and publishing tool. They make custom designing easy with hundreds of templates, helpful tips, and step-by-step instructions.
Then, time to pick your products and mock up your designs in Printful. Their design maker allows you to play with all kinds of options, and you can see exactly what your products will look like in their mock-up generator. Printful enables you to start an online store by processing your orders, printing on-demand for your customers, and shipping globally.
Open for Business
Finally, connect your store—consider Etsy or Shopify—to Printful and add your products; let the world know what you are doing through your website, emails, or social media platforms; and start selling. Again, Printful will print and ship directly to your customers. It really is that easy!
Take a peek at SOWBO’s Encourage Her Shop and see what we’ve done with Canva, Printful, Etsy, and drop shipping! In our shop, we offer business resources, like our Ideal Customer and Core Value guides, as well as fun gifts to encourage hard-working women, including tees, mugs, and jewelry.
Feeling inspired? Hope so! Once you’ve signed up for Canva and Printful, designed your products, and opened your online shop, let us know about it! We’d love to see how drop shipping is working for you!
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