With the way shopping habits are nowadays, turning your attention to an eCommerce project seems like a foolproof plan. Retail has been on an exponentially falling trajectory, while on the other hand, all types of eCommerce have risen in equal measure.
Now, if you’re looking to start out with something that’s safer than most things, you should consider a dropshipping service. It’s a low-risk venture that can represent your starting point in the market.
Dropshipping is easiest to explain if you think about it as a facilitating service. Basically, you’re running a site that represents the “middle man” between the customer and manufacturer or wholesale seller. You don’t have your own stock, negating any potential cost you’d have if you actually had to own the goods you’re selling along with any warehousing costs. Furthermore, delivery is handled by the aforementioned manufacturer/wholesale seller, which again means no extra cost for you (financial or otherwise).
With things laid out like this, you’re probably thinking, what’s the catch, since there appears to be no downside at all. Well, there are some things that have to be noted as negatives. For instance, your margin will be smaller than if you’re selling goods you own (sometimes significantly so), and in most cases, products are sold as-is (no branding or customization opportunities at all).
Now that you have a firm understanding of what dropshipping is, its strengths and weaknesses, let’s look at DSers, a dropshipping service you can implement on your site to get you on your way to earning your share of this growing market.
The official AliExpress dropshipping service
Whether you’ve used AliExpress or not, you’ve most certainly heard of it. Standing as a shopping platform right next to the likes of Amazon, it’s without a doubt a recognizable brand worldwide. We’re mentioning this because DSers is the official dropshipping service for AliExpress that has been connecting it to Shopify for a while now and recently to WooCommerce. That alone is reason enough to use it, but we’ll be digging much deeper than that. First, let’s see where they’ve come from.
The service launched back in 2018. and, as we’ve mentioned, primarily focused on being used with sites that run Shopify. Gradually, the devs have been expanding it to the point that just a couple of days ago a WordPress plugin was launched so that the service can be used with WooCommerce, expanding its reach and target audience even further.
Now, with WordPress (the most commonly used site management platform) under their umbrella, there’s even more reason to give them a try if you’re looking for the perfect dropshipping solution.
The three pillars
There are many things DSers does well, however, there are certain features that stand above the rest and provide the essential foundation that everything else is built on.
Order management
Without a doubt, the main selling feature is the extremely powerful order management tools.
Usually, other services tend to use a one-to-one ratio when it comes to orders. This means that for every order you receive on your site, you need to put an order to your supplier. The game-changer that DSers offers is placing over a hundred orders at once to AliExpress. This means that instead of going through every order form individually you can sit back wait for all your daily orders to come in and then forward them in bulk.
Just think of the time you’ll save – let’s say it takes you one minute to fill an order; if you have 120 orders a day, that’s two hours lost to just jumping through fields, confirmations, and payments. DSers will cut that time to just a couple of minutes combined, saving you around 97% of overall ordering time you would otherwise have to spend. In our example that’s just under two hours you’ll get to focus on other tasks that can further improve your business.
Your options aren’t limited to a single product, shipping option, or specific manufacturer either. When placing multiple orders, you’ll be present with a list, not unlike any familiar excel worksheet, with dedicated columns for all the key attributes of a product, one of which is the shipping method. Within the table, you can select any of the available methods for every product individually (if you’re selling on a global scale some options will usually be better than others). Once you’ve chosen your preferred method and confirmed the order you’ll be redirected to AliExpress to complete the payments.
By page, you’ll be able to see up to 30 of your pending orders that are awaiting payments. These payments can then be done in bulk by page, or individually, all based on the particular terms you have for your orders.
Supplier management
When you’re dealing with no stock of your own to fall back on there’s always a chance for a potential situation where your supplier will be out of stock and there’ll be little you can do to change that. However, with the DSers supplier management feature, you’ll be able to set up multiple suppliers for a product.
Since AliExpress offers the same product from multiple sellers, this feature seems like an obvious one, but the way it’s realized is pretty ingenious.
Namely, when setting up multiple suppliers you’ll be able to sort them by importance. You’ll have your default supplier, the primary choice that gets all the orders if they have the product in stock. In case the product isn’t available from them, the order will go to the first alternate supplier, then the second alternate, and so on. This method ensures you’ll never be sold out since AliExpress hosts millions of products from thousands of suppliers.
As of writing, you have to manually set up the suppliers in order, but the devs are working on expanding the service with a unique feature that automatically highlights the cheapest supplier for a product making things as cost-effective as they can possibly be.
Automation and Tracking
DSers will save users’ time by automatically syncing the tracking number to WooCommerce orders. It is more efficient so that users can have more time to focus on other things that are more important to run a store.
We’ve mentioned the initial focus on Shopify and the new expansion to WordPress, but the focus doesn’t mean exclusion. No matter the selling platform you’re using you can upload your product database and import your awaiting orders to DSers and take advantage of all the benefits the service has to offer. You won’t be limited by your preferred choice of platform in any way.
Key features
Without a doubt, the “three pillars” are what sets DSers apart from other similar services. So if you’re looking to recommend DSers to someone you’ll do it by listing these three.
However, there are many more features worth mentioning and that’s precisely what we’ll do right now.
Variants mapping
Products often come in several variants. Everything from shoes and laptops to cars could have the same model with variations. Shoes can be low or high, a laptop could have different components, and cars generally come in variants of the same model like sport or comfort.
There will be times when variants of a product are tied to the supplier and DSers allows you to easily connect these product variants to your designated “default” product by linking the other suppliers. Giving your customers more options makes them more likely to buy after all.
Advanced mapping
Mapping doesn’t stop at simply offering different variations of the same product. Instead, the advanced mapping feature enables you to customize an imported AliExpress product even further. For example, based on the country the product is being shipped to you can set a different price as opposed to other countries and can even set the country the product is being shipped from (if you have suppliers that offer this choice).
Shipment settings
We’ve touched a bit on how shipping arrangements are handled, but there’s more to it than that. Naturally, if you’re covering more countries you’ll have to take more factors into account. Global shops need to provide clear and precise information regarding shipping options and costs to their customers because these wildly differ depending on where said customers are located. Luckily, you can set up default methods by both criteria from the backend eliminating any possible confusion on the frontend.
AliExpress whitelist
Since DSers is an official AliExpress partner it’s expected for their users to have certain benefits and rightly so. You’ll be put on the whitelist which means there are no order limitations whatsoever, you can place any number of orders in a day, week, or month. Dropshippers that use other services need to work up to get to that coveted status and you’re starting with it already in hand.
Multiple stores manager
Sometimes one shop just isn’t enough. Whether you’re running multiple stores based on the products on offer, country/region/language, or some other reason that makes sense to you, problems will arise if each of them has an individual account, user interface, and in worst cases differing platforms. To avoid all of these potential organizational hazards DSers makes it possible to manage multiple stores on the same account. That means simultaneous access to everything from the same browser window – another massive time saver.
Product importer
This feature is rather straightforward. Just as its name suggests, you’ll be able to use the Google Chrome extensions that come with DSers to find and import products to your store. In case you’re looking to broaden your selection of products a feature like this can provide you with an easy solution to get the job done without much fuss.
Auto messaging
Everything that can be automated in any given process should be automated. You’ll save time and minimize the risk of human error. While you probably won’t be at a big risk content-wise if you use manual messaging, you will have to invest unneeded time for the action. Creating automatic messages for AliExpress users will ensure all users are contacted without fail and, more importantly, without a need for individual action on your part.
Email template
Creating email templates for notifications, just like automated messaging, reaffirms your users on how far along the fulfillment process has come, ultimately ending with product delivery. This is especially valuable if there’s a longer delivery period with many stops along the way. Notifying a customer every time the product changes hands in the delivery process makes for a happy customer.
Tracking
Notification emails are one thing, tracking is something else entirely. While getting an email every time the status changes is fine, you need to make it possible for your visitors to check the delivery status at any time, on-demand. Delivery tracking isn’t anything new and is actually an industry standard that DSers adheres to.
Price monitor
Very rarely are product prices a fixed value. Certainly, in the short term, you can expect most products to keep their price level, but over time it is bound to change for a whole host of reasons. In order for you to always know what you’re offering your customers, DSers has a built-in price monitor that will notify you of any price changes on AliExpress for products you’re selling. If prices go down, you can put the products on sale while keeping your margin intact for example, or simply plan your future campaigns based on the changes.
Inventory monitor
In this highly competitive market, you can’t allow yourself to run out of stock since your customer will likely switch to somebody else to fulfill their needs. The fact that, as a dropshipper, you can’t control the stock of the products you’re selling (it’s handled by the supplier) it’s extremely important to be aware of how many items on stock there are. By knowing this, you’re putting yourself in a position to make contingencies such as alternate suppliers which will eliminate a situation where you can’t offer a product.
Special offers
No shop is complete without the option to provide its customers with special offers. DSers as a service gives you that option as well.
BOGO
The popular “buy x get y free” is one of the most recognized campaigns you can start, and creating one with DSers is a breeze. All you’ll need to do is connect the items you want to have featured and they’ll be instantly visible to your customers who will then have an additional incentive to buy.
Bundles
Some products just naturally go together, so why not enable your customers to buy them in bundles that cost less than the sum of their parts. You’re still coming up on top since you’re selling more products even if they are individually a fraction cheaper, and your customers are coming on top because they don’t have to search for each product individually – it’s a win-win situation.
Download DSers NowSummary
For dropshippers there are many services they can use to build their business. But a plethora of options can also be a burden because it’s hard to choose one for yourself. DSers was being overlooked by WordPress users up until now, and when you take into account how many shops use WordPress, more specifically WooCommerce, it stands to reason you didn’t have a chance to use the service.
Now, however, with the new plugin that just launched, we’ll all be able to experience the benefits that have made it so great for shops on platforms like Shopify, most prominent of which is the dramatic speed increase of completing your day-to-day tasks. That is why we recommend DSers to all dropshippers without reservation.
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