As an entrepreneur, one of your long-term goals is to scale your dropshipping business as customer demand grows. Scaling your business means increasing the size and scope of your operations to accommodate more customers and sales.
Your overarching goal should be to scale your business without overextending your team’s resources. Indeed, it requires a lot of planning to install the right systems and hire the right people to help you manage your workload more effectively.
Strategize so that you can better allocate your resources and free up more time to focus on revenue-generating activities. And once you find the business growth strategies that move the needle for you, it’s time to scale your business to the moon!
The following sections will discuss the tips and strategies you can use to add rocket fuel to the growth of your dropshipping business.
How do you know when it’s time to seriously scale your dropshipping business?
Once your dropshipping store is registering strong cash flow and repeat sales, then it may be time for you to seriously consider scaling your business. Another sign is if your customer base is so strong that you have to turn down new orders due to insufficient inventory.
Remember that you should only scale your online business when you and your team are fully prepared to accommodate skyrocketing demand.
Here are the six business growth strategies you can implement to allow your company to reach new heights:
As a dropshipper, your business success depends on the ability of your suppliers to fulfill your orders. In order to scale your eCommerce business, you need to check if your suppliers will be able to keep up with an increased volume of orders.
Also, take the time to pre-vet backup suppliers in case your main supplier runs out of stock. Make sure that the alternative product replacements are nearly identical so customers won’t complain about product quality.
Suppliers who are unable to keep up with demand and fulfill your orders could put you in a really difficult position when angry customers get impatient and demand refunds.
Automation can free up your time so you can concentrate on building and growing your dropshipping business. By leveraging automation, you can be as hands-off as possible when it comes to completing administrative tasks. Automation tools can also minimize human errors and speed up your entire operations.
There are apps and software that you can use to process orders automatically. Instead of manually sending customer details to your supplier, these automated tools can send the necessary information with just a few clicks. Once you ramp up sales and start selling hundreds or thousands of products daily, using automated tools will ensure that you won’t be overwhelmed by the increase in online orders.
Automated order tracking can put your customers at ease by giving them updates regarding their shipments. There are apps and software that you can use to automatically send your customers emails providing the tracking numbers and links that allow them to monitor the status of their orders. This will reduce the number of emails and messages sent by customers asking about shipping times.
Upselling and cross-selling provide you with an opportunity to earn bigger profits more quickly by anticipating the needs of your customers.
Upselling occurs when a seller convinces a customer to upgrade or purchase a higher-priced alternative to the item being considered. This requires convincing the buyer of the added value of a higher-priced product.
When you’re in a fast-food store and the cashier asks you, “Would you like to Supersize your order?”, that is upselling.
Cross-selling occurs when a seller convinces the customer to buy a completely different, but complementary, product.
Again, when you’re in a fast-food store and the cashier asks you, “Would you like fries with that?”, that is cross-selling.
By encouraging upsells and cross-sells, you can maximize your store’s profitability and advertising budget (if you’re spending money on ads).
Scaling your advertising means investing more money to increase your ad spend while getting a positive return on investment (ROI). By scaling up, you increase your advertising budget in the hopes of expanding your audience and generating more sales.
You can begin by making incremental changes to your budget. For example, after placing your Facebook ad, monitor your sales performance for 24 to 48 hours. If you see that sales have spiked up, try to increase your budget by $10.
Facebook will now show your ad to more people in your selected target audience. Once you’ve increased the budget, continue monitoring the performance of your ad. If the ad continues to generate more sales and is exceeding your expectations, increase the budget to $25 to $50 a day. If the campaign continues to be very profitable, boost the budget to $100 or more a day.
If you notice decreased sales, you should consider scaling down or stopping the ad if you’ve exhausted that niche.
When you spend more money on a particular ad, you are essentially giving Facebook a bigger budget to work with to show your ad to the people who are more likely to engage with your content. This way, you are leveraging Facebook’s data for your success.
Keep in mind that the more relevant your ads are to your target market, the greater the chance that they will perform well for you. Just as importantly, scale and analyze your Facebook ads to avoid wasting your budget on inefficient campaigns.
Retargeting and remarketing are both effective ways to capitalize on existing site traffic to get more conversions for your dropshipping business.
Retargeting involves showing customized ads to people who have already engaged with your brand online. In essence, you will use paid ads to re-engage people who have visited your social media pages or dropshipping store in the past.
This is not to be confused with remarketing, which primarily uses email to re-engage people and send them relevant and highly targeted messages. Retargeting, in contrast, attempts to entice visitors to return to your dropshipping store by showing them display ads on other sites or on social media.
Retargeting works by adding a pixel to your dropshipping store. A pixel is a small snippet of code that you install on your website. It collects data about the people who visit your website and the activities that they do, such as viewing product pages or adding items to cart. All these activities are stored in the pixel and the data is used to create an audience profile for you.
The more sales you generate, the easier it becomes for the pixel to find you a better target audience. This is because Facebook’s tracking pixel allows you to run targeted ads based on the behavior of previous site visitors.
A lot of visitors to your website would leave with abandoned carts. You can reach these high-intent buyers again through Facebook’s tracking pixel. You can convert these missed leads by showing them dynamic ads that display the products that they left behind in their shopping carts.
On the other hand, remarketing allows you to use the information you already have about site visitors to refine the messages that you send them by email.
Capture email addresses by incentivizing people to sign up in exchange for something of value, such as a free eBook. You can also offer a free shipping discount code for those who will sign up for your newsletter.
You can then launch personalized email marketing campaigns that are designed to pique the interest of potential customers by reinforcing your unique value proposition. You can also send customized emails recommending similar or complementary products to items already bought by your customers.
By nurturing these leads, you can eventually turn casual window shoppers into loyal brand advocates.
How quickly are you able to respond to emails and messages from potential buyers and customers?
If most of your time is spent responding to customer queries rather than growing your business, then you should seriously consider expanding your workforce. You could choose to either outsource the labor or hire more in-house employees.
As your customer base grows, you’ll want to hire customer service representatives who genuinely want to help your customers. It is crucial to choose people with the right skill sets and capabilities who can serve as the face of your brand. This way, customers are more likely to have a positive experience with your brand and will have only positive things to say about your business.
