Recently, opening an online store to expand a business has been a hot trend. Rather than run stores on platforms like Amazon and AliExpress, more people prefer to develop their own websites with their own domain names to sell products. As a SAAS-based website development system, Shopify can help you build your store easily.

However, the key to operating your own store on your website (we can call it an independent store) successfully is the traffic, and the key traffic comes from Google SEO, Facebook, YouTube, and so on.

I will tell you more about how to get traffic on another blog post. Today, I would like to introduce you to something about the e-commerce trend.

What types of online stores are there currently?

1. “Supermarket” or “Grocery ” Store

These kinds of stores are based on a large of SKUs. They sell all kinds of products on their own website. In fact, they are more like Ali express, Walmart, and Amazon. The difference is there is only one store on the website. Some of these kinds of stores work with a lot of suppliers like Walmart, but some of them only dropship from other platforms （with no stock).  So most of the latter usually sell the recent hottest items.

2. Brand Stores

Brand stores are more suitable for those who want to specialize in selling brands - including their own branded products. Most of these stores have their own factories or exclusive suppliers. But this is not absolute. Some stores that focus on different niches can also develop into brand stations. I will elaborate below.

3. Niche Stores

The products selling on the niche stores are those products with large demand and small competition. They are carefully selected from segment markets through product selection software or according to certain product selection strategies.

They are online stores strongly related to product selection and promotion based on selected products. This is the most recent widely adopted store model.

Niche stores have many benefits, and the core point is product selection. The selection of products also determines the website life cycle, sales volume, and revenue. As for how to choose products, this is a big topic, which will be discussed in a future article.

There is no absolute standard for product selection, but here is still something you can use to get some references.

The following list can help you reduce the risk of incorrect selection at the beginning: 

1. High demand in the market

2. Low competition in the market

3. Products with less seasonal influence

4. Available profit of more than 50% of the sales price

5. Products’ selling price is about US$18-50

6. Obtained the trademark and patent protection of the country where you sell

7. Products without risk of safety

8. There is no geographical restriction, and it is a universal product

9. Products suitable as gifts

10. Products that have the ability to improve based on bad reviews

11. Shapable and non-fragile products

12. Products that are not billed according to the volume and weight of the product (length x width x height inches/139)

13. Products that are easily consumable, easy to obtain, and easy to repurchase

14. Lightweight and compact products under 2 kg; the shipping weight is less than 1 pound, preferably

15. Products that are easy to use

...

Is there a product that fully meets the above criteria? I think it isn't easy to find such a product. The requirements here are just a summary of the standards of product selecting experience and just for reference.Anyway, we can give weight ratio to these criteria and count them to get a total score, select the products according to the total score for upgrade evaluation, and then proceed to the next step of specific sales to the accurate tracking of quantities. What types of warehousing and delivery modes?

What are the types of warehousing and delivery modes?

There are 4 types of common warehousing and delivery modes:

1. Self-prepared and Self-delivered

Regardless of risk management and cost control, the self-prepared goods and self-delivery model is not a good idea for individual sellers.Self-preparation means purchasing and booking the warehouses in advance. And necessary butinvisible cost input such as labor cost—— self-delivering means that it takes time and energy to pack and ship; if there are not many orders, the logistics price will not be discounted; when you operate after a period of time, more and more inventories will gradually accumulate, and the products will also appear to be unsalable. In fact, the self-prepared goods and self-delivery sellers have piled up a lot of slow-moving inventory in the warehouses, and these inventories were purchased with a lot of money, which can put you into a dilemma.For someone who runs an online store on their own, the most important thing is to spend time and energy on getting the traffic for your stores and promote your products —— try to get orders, improve conversion rate and profit margin, instead of in the warehouse, pulling tape and packing things to ship.

2. Dropshipping

Dropshipping is a business model that doesn't need expensive start-up capital, no need to prepare sufficient inventory in advance, no need to package and ship by yourself, and management is also very flexible and convenient.

Dropshipping can reduce various risks encountered in the early stages of operating online stores. The cost is low, the risk is low, and barriers to entry are low.

Of course, dropshipping also has a lot of shortcomings. Therefore, some experiences tell you that when your dropshipping business has reached a higher level, preparing the products with stock in advance can save more money by reducing costs, ensuring the timeliness of logistics, and product quality to improve customer experience.

Let the companies that are professional in stocking, packing, and shipping do these things.

Suppose you are a dropshipper sourcing products from China. In that case, you can entrust a dropshipping company like USAdrop to help source products (USAdrop is an integrated fulfillment platform that integrates warehousing and delivery ) or just take advantage of our warehouse- USADrop has two warehouses in China as well as in the United  States. One of the warehouses in China is in Shenzhen and the other is in Yiwu. USAdrop supports integrating with Shopify. After your Shopify store gets the order, it will be synchronized to USAdrop's system, and the corresponding express logistics company will be selected according to your own needs. The goods will be shipped to your clients directly through the special delivery express service. USAdrop has two obvious benefits: one-stop fulfillment support and super fast logistics speed at a reasonable price.

3. The USA Warehouses

Because of the high cost of warehousing in the United States, only a few big dropshippers use them. It is suitable for some large products or products with higher unit prices. Because of their timeliness, the warehouses in the United States may have a higher repurchase rate for some high-value products.

4.Virtual Warehouse

The virtual warehouses are not real American warehouses. In fact, the warehouses are still in  China. They just collect large numbers of single order products into the warehouses in China, and then put American information on the waybills, and then ship them to the United States in one flight together. When the products arrive in the USA, the local express delivery company will help you deliver the products. USA drop also supports this kind of business. In fact, our USPS shipping method can make your shipping and logistics information completely without Chinese information.

5. Amazon FBA Warehouse

Amazon FBA can also be used as a local warehouse in the United States to deliver product orders from other third-party platforms (3PL), including some stores like Shopify stores.

Well, above all are all the things I want to tell you about 2 Dropshipping-Related Concepts That Can Help You Achieve a  7-Figure Dropshipping Business in 2022. If you are interested in more things and tips about dropshipping. Sign Up Now to Get you personal sales Agent.

If you have any questions about us or any suggestions, you can email us at:

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