If you've got a dropshipping business that is growing quickly, you're in a great position. You no longer need to waste time learning how to start a dropshipping business, how to dropship, or how to find dropshipping suppliers. Instead, you're probably looking for ways to make it easier to continue to grow at a fast pace.
That's where dropshipping automation comes in. It's a great way to help you scale your business without being overwhelmed by all the moving parts and different dropshipping business ideas.
Here's what automated dropshipping entails, how it can benefit your business, and some dropshipping automation software you can use to help you sell online.
What Is Automated Dropshipping?
Automated dropshipping is the use of eCommerce software to simplify dropshipping processes and eliminate the need for manual control of different aspects of your business. In action, these tools can save you time and money in getting the best dropshipping products live on your site, marketing materials to customers, and more.
Here are a few different ways to automate dropshipping orders:
Order Tracking
As your business continues to grow, so too does the quantity of orders you have to deal with. While your supplier will handle all order fulfillment processes, including creating and inserting packing slips and RMA forms, you're still expected to communicate order updates to the customer. Manually, this can be quickly difficult, particularly when dealing with multiple orders. Automation software can track thousands of orders and keep you, and the customer, informed of any changes or updates along the way. This saves you time and increases customer satisfaction since they are never surprised or left out of the loop.
Pricing
Another popular usage of automated dropshipping software is for establishing pricing. Instead of manually determining the prices of your product offerings, you can set particular rules within the software to automate them. For example, you don't need to know how to calculate markup for all of your products, you can set the software to always increase product prices to give you a certain dropshipping profit margin. Then, when you add new products, prices are calculated automatically and assigned in the system. This allows you to get products live more quickly and ensures you always price products competitively. You can even set separate margins for wholesale vs retail price in the system. If you pair this with dropsurfing, you can increase the amount of money you make from each sale as well.
Email Marketing
The most effective form of eCommerce marketing is eCommerce email marketing. Dropshipping businesses rely heavily on marketing efforts to drive sales and increase their reach. Email marketing automation is a valuable tool that allows you to send bulk emails quickly and maximize the impact. You can even set up a series of welcome emails for new customers that provides a discount on their next order and helps increase the orders and lifetime value of every customer.
Dropshippers who use BlueCart eCommerce for their storefront can send emails right from the platform. It also has a built-in promotional function, so you can set up a deal and send out an email blast in one place. Even better, all BlueCart customers also get listed in our online marketplace where their products can reach 92,000+ buyers in the U.S.
Product Research
Finding new products is the cornerstone in how to make money dropshipping. However, it is very time-consuming, and you may end up listing products that don't sell. Automation puts all the product research in the hands of an AI that can provide live comparisons of pricing, insight into trends for demand planning purposes, and even dropshipping niches that are underserved. This gives you the opportunity to make informed product decisions and only list and market high demand products.
Even with this software, make sure to avoid investing heavily in low-cost, low-quality products. While they may offer temporary success and high margins, they can also quickly damage your brand image and customer satisfaction. Years ago, some dropshippers were flooding the market with poor customer service for dropshipping and low-quality products. This hurt many consumers and led them to ask "is dropshipping dead?" and "is dropshipping legal?"
Data Transfers with Suppliers
The final way you can use automation software to streamline your dropshipping business is by automating data transfers with your suppliers. That is, automatically forwarding product orders to your dropshipping suppliers as they are made on your website. This limits the chance of human error and gets the supplier picking and packing the order as quickly as possible. Since, the speed of your order fulfillment is a key part in how to make money dropshipping, any opportunity to shorten this time will pay dividends.
Dropshipping Automation Software
If you're looking to streamline your dropshipping business, there are a number of automation tools that can help. While you can use general eCommerce tools to automate aspects of your business, there are a few areas where you need to use dropshipping-specific software.
Here are the main types of dropshipping automation software on the market:
Vendor Management
Since dropshippers tend to acquire products from multiple vendors, often through an online marketplace, it can be difficult keeping track of them and finding new ones. This is one of the most common dropshipping beginner mistakes. Vendor management software--which is similar to hospitality procurement software--keeps track of what products you're selling, who supplies them, and what levels of inventory are remaining. It can also track the different vendors and offerings in a marketplace and provide insight into the ones you may want to work with. If a certain vendor sells the same wholesale items as another, but for cheaper, your software will highlight this, so you can establish a new relationship and increase your margins.
Product Tracking
Another type of dropshipping automation software that is commonly used by dropshippers is for product tracking. This software tracks all of the products you sell, how many you're selling, and automatically updates your databases whenever a sale is made or the supplier makes any changes to their inventory levels. It's similar to a perpetual inventory system, but you never touch the products. This can help you plan your dropshipping ads and eCommerce PPC efforts as well as keep you informed of any issues with production or lead time.
Website Building
The final type of dropshipping automation tool you'll want to look into is a dropshipping website builder or subscription website builder. These tools streamline the website and page creation process, so you can get your business running as quickly as possible. They can also automatically pull all requisite product data and imagery from your supplier, so you don't have to manually update anything at all. Many of the best dropshipping websites use automation to monitor and update product pages in real-time, allowing the team to focus on more valuable tasks.
Automated Dropship Website
By using the right combination of software, you can actually run a fully automated dropshipping website. Product and vendor automation can allow you to automatically add new products to your store and pull all relevant information at the same time. Then, order information can automatically be transmitted to the suppliers to begin the fulfillment process. Finally, automated order tracking can send an email with pertinent shipping info directly to the customer. You can even include a link to your shipping policy in the automated emails so customers can seek out info themselves before reaching out to your customer service team.
With your site automated, you can focus on other dropshipping jobs like customer service. This will allow you to continue to ensure customer satisfaction and build brand loyalty while the software drives traffic and sales. You can also look into investing in affiliate marketing vs dropshipping or expand into reverse dropshipping with your new software. Automation allows you to explore new avenues to grow your business without getting dragged down by the day-to-day needs of the business.
Autobots, Roll Out!
Automation software can benefit all types of eCommerce businesses, but they're particularly good for dropshippers. They can help you keep on top of your business as it scales and let you keep your team as small as possible, while still letting you increase eCommerce sales. Just make sure to include this all in your drop shipping business plan.
For more dropshipping tips, check out our free drop shipping for dummies guide, or pick up some of our favorite dropshipping books and take a few dropshipping courses.
Frequently Asked Questions About Dropshipping Website Builder
Getting a dropshipping business off the ground is no easy task, and that includes creating a website. If you’ve never used a dropshipping website builder before, it helps to have some background knowledge. Read these commonly asked questions and our answers:
What website is best for dropshipping?
Each dropshipping platform offers distinct advantages and features, so what works best for you may be different from what works for another person. Here are some of the leading dropshipping websites to choose from:
- BlueCart
- WooCommerce (WordPress plugin)
- Shopify
- Magento
- BigCommerce
How do I create a dropship website?
There are four ways you can create a dropshipping website: use a dropshipping-specific store builder, an eCommerce website builder, build a site yourself, or hire a web developer.
Using an eCommerce or dropshipping site builder is the cheapest and fastest way to get a dropship website set up. You can browse dozens of website templates, install plugins, and get products listed quickly.
If you want a fully customized website or a site that can host thousands of products, it’s best to work with a developer or create it yourself. This gives you visual and functional flexibility that isn’t available with pre-made site themes and out-of-the-box eCommerce platforms.