Keys for a successful drop shipping business in NZ
Create a good relationship with your suppliers.
Your supplier is key to your drop shipping business. Remember you must collaborate with your supplier, do not think of yourself as their customer. Think that you are in a partnership with them. If they do not act promptly your customers will complain. If you do not make sales your supplier will suffer it is a co-dependent relationship and it is the key relationship in drop shipping businesses.
Branding
Some suppliers have options to have your own personalised branding on the products they ship to your customers. You can even choose to brand the packaging. Spend some time and put together your own personal brand rather than handing your customers a product with an unrecognisable brand.
Set up procedures for when things go wrong
With logistics or even with any business there will always be events which will not be in your favour. The key is put in place procedures in anticipation of bad news. For drop shipping the basics that should be prepared for are below.
How will returns be handled by you and your supplier?
Broken items - what is your supplier willing to do about replacements?
Lost items – how will you handle the cost of replacements
Think of all of these and set a detailed contract with your supplier. Make sure they know exactly what is expected from them. This also goes for your customers. Make sure there are clear terms and conditions
Inventory
This is clear and simply make sure you can supply what you are offering. You do not want to be in a situation where your customers are putting in orders only to find out your suppliers are unable for fill the orders. You will have a nightmare refunding your customers and worse than all some customers will not return.
Spread out
Use multiple platforms to advertise to your customers. Shopify, Ebay, Amazon, Facebook and Instagram should be staples of your business however spread-out further. Go to places where your niche market is going.
Take proper care of your tax and financial side of your business
Managing your expenses and managing your taxes is an important part of your business. Make sure you are taking full advantage of taxation laws. Make sure you have someone by your side to help you with your business decisions and to help you reduce your tax.
Ask yourself, if you had to pay taxes right now, do you know how much tax you need to pay? if not then have you set a side profit purely to pay tax?
Unfortunately help like that from an experienced accountant can be very expensive however at 93 accounting we offer full year unlimited business and tax support, financial forecasting and completion of reporting to the IRD (income tax & GST) for just $30 per week. You can have an accountant by your side right from the start for just $30 per week. visit www.93accounting.com for more information.