Empire builders, today I’m going to be sharing dropshipping hacks about how to turn a profit with your dropshipping business. This is especially useful if your store is currently underperforming or not delivering the returns you were expecting.
If you’re struggling with this issue, you’re definitely not alone. Pulling profits out of your ecommerce business can be a very tricky operation, especially since you need to continually spend on advertising. Many beginning dropshippers will find that, once all the numbers have been added up, they’re only breaking even. Today I’m going to tell you why that’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, you’re ALMOST there. It’s time to break through that stalemate and enjoy some healthy profits with these dropshipping hacks.
Maximizing the Impact of Every Sale
Profitability in dropshipping is all about making the most of your advertising dollars, whether you’re driving that traffic to Shopify, Clickfunnels, a two-step order form, or to a different funnel. You need to make every sale count. Let’s take a look at some of the most effective and reliable ways to get the most out of every conversion.
Capture Customer Emails
Building your email list is absolutely critical for dropshipping success, especially if you’re struggling with profitability. Every customer email is an asset for your business that goes way beyond that individual sale. You’ll be to reach out to that person again and again, with promotions, new product launches, discounts, etc.
Every sale generated by email marketing is essentially pure profit that’s just for you, without having to hand over a chunk for each click. No matter what platform you’re using, make sure you drive traffic to a landing page where you can collect those assets for yourself, along with their billing information, address, etc. Growing your email list is one of the most important factors for sustainable growth and consistent profitability.
Quantity Break Discounts
If your current funnel has the structure for quantity break discounts, there’s absolutely no reason not to use them. This very effective technique is to give the customer an irresistible discount for buying multiples of the product. Offering quantity break discounts can boost your profitability like almost nothing else; it’s one of the best dropshipping hacks to implement for an overnight boost in sales.
Why?
Because people love getting a bigger and bigger deal. My magic numbers for quantity options to offer the customer are 1, 2, 4, 6, and 8. Those numbers may sound like overkill to you, but this method is absolutely tried and true. I had a student a year ago that was selling premium-priced products using a two-step order form. It wasn’t a product you would expect to sell in multiples, and yet he got phenomenal results from the quantity break discounts. This is literally free money and a very effective strategy for making your business more profitable.
Order Bumps
You always want to give the customer PLENTY of opportunities to spend money with you. An order bump is just something enticing that the customer can add on to their order. Keep it as simple as possible, but make sure it’s complementary in some way. For example, if you have a customer buying a toothbrush, why not offer them some toothpaste? You can also offer something like expedited shipping or front-of-the-line service. A well-executed order bump campaign will be converting at around 20%. This is an absolutely fantastic way to maximize this sale and help you become more profitable.
Upsells, Upsells, Upsells
As you dive deeper into how to make the most of each sale, you should absolutely have upsells inside your funnels. That means you offer the customer more hand-picked, relevant products that they might be interested in. You have the consumer’s attention, and you probably paid dearly for that click, so make the most of it.
Your funnel can have as many upsells as you want, but I typically recommend offering three or four options. You don’t want to annoy the customer by putting them through upsell oblivion, but that’s not necessarily something to worry about. Just make sure you’re offering complementary products they might actually like, and that will provide value for them. Here are four reliable upsell dropshipping hacks you can use to be more profitable:
1. More of the Same
This upsell is basically to give them an even better discount on the same product they’ve just bought, assuming that your margins allow it. This upsell works because they obviously like this product, and it’s what motivated them to click on the ad. Give them a reason to take advantage of the discount (“perfect for gifts,” “perfect for friends and family”). Then you can easily expand your profits on this sale.
2. Complementary Products
These are, again, product offers that are extremely related to whatever they just bought. If the customer purchased some fishing lures, you can offer a fishing tackle box. The idea is to include something they’re going to need anyway. They might as well buy it from you, right?
3. Digital Products
It’s very hard to sell digital products on their own because it’s not something tangible. It’s hard to convince people of the value of a digital product, and they just tend to convert at a lower rate. But digital products work very well for upsells, especially if they relate directly to the niche this customer is interested in. It can be an eBook bundle, a video course, a PDF, or anything else. The best part is, you only pay someone to create the product once, and then you can sell them over and over again.
4. Monthly Subscriptions
This is the most important upsell option, BY FAR, and one of the most effective dropshipping hacks to make your business more profitable. Every monthly subscription you sell is money that flows into your business every month without you having to do anything. It’s pure profit! If you can sell this service to 10 percent of your customers, and each subscription is $39.99, it would completely transform your business. That money could help you expand your ad budget, or you can even use it to pay yourself. Pound for pound, monthly subscriptions are one of the most effective ways to make your business profitable.
The Smart Way to Think About Profitability
If you want to get more profitable, I want to challenge you to change your line of thinking. You can’t depend only on “posting the ad and getting the customer to buy that product.” It’s not surprising that some of you will only break even by following that basic strategy. After all, advertising costs aren’t getting any lower! There’s really only so much you can do at the ad level. But if you’re just breaking even and practically giving products away for free, that’s an excellent start. You’re getting those customers into your funnel, and THAT’S what matters.
In other words, your profits may not come right at the beginning of the funnel. That’s why you focus on maximizing each sale by upselling digital products, complementary products, and monthly subscriptions. You make bank on quantity discounts and order bumps, not ad clicks. It’s really going to be later on down the funnel, where your margins are much more favorable and you can add in dropshipping hacks, that you can generate those big profits.
Utilizing Your Most Important Asset: Email Lists
Email marketing remains the most powerful and cost-effective way to sell anything you want online. You should be emailing your customers every day, or at least several times a week. Email them discounts and offers. Email them your Shopify product page. Create order pages for your monthly subscriptions and email them promotions for that. If you’re really lazy, you can even email them affiliate marketing offers that relate to your niche. Like I said earlier, your customer’s email addresses are your most important asset.
But these email addresses won’t do you any good if you’re not using them! Simply put, these email-generated sales are pure profit. If you find you’re only breaking even after paying for all those clicks, make up the difference by reaching out to your list with relevant, attractive offers.
My team at Ecommerce Empire Builders is actually putting together an email package right now, which will be for a small group of dropshippers. These are businesses that are already earning at least $5,000 a month and have the budget for a back-end email system. The service will essentially be a 93-email sequence that we build and manage for you. If your business qualifies, email me to learn more!
Consult With the Pros to Put These Dropshipping Hacks Together
There’s so much more to learn about building a profitable dropshipping business, and it’s important to start your business with a strong foundation. Reserve your seat at our free dropshipping webinar to learn all about maximizing sales and making the numbers work for you. Also, visit my YouTube channel for frequent videos about trends, new strategies, and other insights.