How to Start Dropshipping for Free ( Easy 3step Beginners’ guide)

 

Are you researching how to start dropshipping for free? 

Chances are that you’ve read some articles before landing on this one— right in front of your screen. 

By now, let’s assume you somewhat know what dropshipping business is. Still, you’re trying to figure out how you can get started and feel what it means to run a dropshipping business for FREE. In this article, you will learn what it means and how to do just that with almost no money.

Yes, almost with no money.

While dropshipping seems to be a buzzword in the money-making online business, it can get done by anyone. At a low cost.

But before we delve into that, it’s good you know this. You can start your dropshipping business for free. But to move from a beginner to one who makes really big money from dropshipping, you should accept the reality that you’ll spend money sooner or later.

 

What is a dropshipping business model? 

In the business model of dropshipping, you serve as the middleman. And you do that by helping your customers satisfy their orders. But you’re able to achieve that by receiving orders from your customers in your store. 

And some of the big e-commerce platforms on which you can set up your dropshipping store are eBay, Amazon, and Shopify. But they would require you to pay subscription fees to host your online stores, usually, after your free trial period has expired. On Shopify, you’ve got a 14-day free trial period to roll on the wheels of your dropshipping business.

But this is not what you want, right? 

Read on! You might ask,

 

What are the benefits of starting a dropshipping business? 

Perhaps, just like others who are new in the online making money niche, you may have your reservation as to why dropshipping is perfect for you. However, below are three benefits one can get from deciding to drop ship:

1. No stress to start

Unlike physical retail stores, dropshipping is a business that is easy to start, especially when you’ve done the below:

• Chosen a niche
• Executed competition product research
• Getting reliable dropshipping suppliers

2. Flexibility in operation

Since you don’t need to stock up any inventory in a physical store or warehouse as a drop shipper you can do your business anywhere you’re. All you need is a good internet connection to research the type of product you want to have in your stores and access your online stores to take orders from your customers. And then, redirect your customer orders to your suppliers while you sit back and enjoy your profit.

3. Overhead costs

Dropshipping business helps you cancel out many overheads you would incur if you were to own and manage a physical retail store. Some of them include transportation and other maintenance costs that an owner of a retail store would incur.  

 

How to start dropshipping for free

Step 1: Set up the store

You may have the most fantastic product on your list, but you barely would make any sale if people can’t find you on any platform— a store. And interestingly, there are some platforms where you create a store for a dropshipping business.

As said earlier, you capitalize on the free trial period on platforms like Shopify to host your online store. But you’ll eventually pay for that.

However, there are a couple of platforms where you can set up your dropshipping store for free. An example of such a platform is Big Cartel, and you can go through this tutorial to help you with that. 

Step 2: Carefully pick your suppliers

After picking a niche and products you want to deal with, the next step is finding reliable suppliers who can deliver quality to you–- and your customers. And to achieve that, you can leverage websites like Alibaba, and AliExpress, among others.

Step 3: Invest yourself into it

Here’s the point where many newbies in dropshipping miss it. Some don’t give themselves to the building of their dropshipping businesses. But as one who wants not only to search for how to start up a dropshipping business for free but wants to make a good living, you must be able to commit your TIME to build an exquisite drop-shipping brand.

 

A RULE when trying to start dropshipping for free

Don’t expect a miracle to happen! 

Yes. Trying to set up your dropshipping business with no money means you don’t have a budget for advertising. That’s because you want to generate leads through free traffic from social platforms such as TikTok, which will not earn the conversions you’d have loved to get.

 

Top niches for categories when you want to start dropshipping for free

There are a good number of niches you can choose from when starting out in your dropshipping journey. Some of the top niches are:

• Photography
• Fitness
• Technology
• Beauty 
• Kids
• Health

 

How much money do you need to start dropshipping?

The correctness of any answer provided to this question depends on a whole lot of factors. And sure, you must have come across a couple of them in different articles, stating specific figures in terms of the amount you’ll need to start your dropshipping business. 

1. Set up fee 

As said, it depends on what you want. Generally speaking, it will take you about $100-$1000. But the route you decide to go through will determine how much you’ll spend. 

If you want to set up your own ecommerce yourself, it may cost you more. That’s because you’d have to pay for a domain name, web hosting fee for your drop shipping ecommerce website, and other associated costs. 

But if you decide on shopify, you would have to budget about $30 as your monthly subscription to set up your dropshipping online store. That could be after your 14-day free trial period has elapsed. 

2. Advertising cost 

Advertising is another crucial factor to consider when estimating the amount of money you’ll spend when starting your dropshipping business. Dropshippers who started with well-planned advertising budgets aside SEO strategies tend to achieve quicker results, when done well. Again, that depends on your budget and what you intend to attain in the short-term or long-run. 

 

Final Thought on how to start dropshipping for free

Dropshipping, like any other business, needs you to invest your time and money to scale it up while you have reason to smile at your bank. So while you can start a dropshipping business almost for free, it won’t take long to start needing money to fund it.