If you are looking to make money online via blogging or ecommerce stores in Australia, then this tutorial with shopify for creating your online shop will help you get started in 2020.
It involves making an eCommerce online store and selling stuff/products on the internet from other merchants and making a commission (this is called drop shipping) as opposed to making money with affiliate commissions via links on your blog.
I have researched online shops and selling quite extensively before starting my first online store and there are many ways you can do this, but using Shopify and Ali express seems to be the easiest way to getting started with your own online internet shop.
You can even give it a go by trying it for free today with the free trial offer listed here.
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The shopify online shop setup Guide |
This has worked for many newcomers and also internet marketers in the eCommerce niche because it’s easy to set up and requires minimal effort.
These two platforms are one of the best platforms for this method and is the most easy to use internet-shop building software available today.
If you are just looking to build an income, by just starting a website or your own blog then you can read my this post over here, but if you are serious about making some money on the side selling stuff on the internet then read on.
I can most certainly vouch for the getting started process given below as I myself have just started a shopify ecommerce drop-shipping shop and got sales going on my brand new shop. I’m not yet there, like some of the other gurus/wizkids who do up to a incredible $50k a month and possibly wont be there for a while, but hope to make some spare change in the meanwhile.
I do know a few people who make that kind of money(10k to 50k turnover a month) doing this featured online-selling method.
Some of the tips, in this detailed guide has been provided to me by my experienced marketer friend who is making up to $10,000+ a month.He is using aliexpress and shopify for his stores with this drop-shipping method for selling stuff online.
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Earn with dropshipping |
So what is this dropshipping – Drop-shipping is the process where you buy from a wholesaler online and resell it online to another buyer and make a commission in between.
This can be done by you selling a product collecting money for it from the buyer – then purchasing the same product from a wholesaler and providing the buyer address (from your shop) for the wholesaler to ship the product to that client. This is called dropshipping as you physically dont have to store any products or ship any products to your customer but just get all this arranged between the buyer and wholesaler
Drop shipping VS selling your own product !
Normal selling as opposed to dropshipping involves selling your own product , keeping inventory of your products , handling all shipping, packing ,tracking etc until the product reaches your customer/client. You will also need space to store your products that you are selling. This does involve a lot more work and money.
Many punters start with dropshipping because it is easy to start with and if you start getting sales – it is quite easy to scale up to $10k to $25 K a month easily if you become good at it and learn all the ropes – and this has become a full time income to many successful people.
This is a new growing trend in the online world and so is not saturated yet , so if you get in fast you can still make money.
I will provide you some screenshots of how I started my store along with the essential tips my experienced buddy gave me to promote and scale the shop and online bizness.
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Free trial offers Ecommerce |
There is two things you definitely need to start an online store with dropshipping
1. You need a Shopify account
2. An Aliexpress account
Shopify for newbies (in short) – Its a ecommerce platform that allows you to build your online store and sell stuff online in a few clicks – Its that easy.
Get your aliexpress account here – Free registrationGet the – Free 15 day trial for shopify stores to test it out
I suggest using this 15 day trial if your a beginner, however in my humble opinion it would take at least a month or two to start getting some real traction with sales-So its best really if your have atleast 2 months fees to start with to trail this service,but this is upto you entirely to make that call.
What’s aliexpress for newbies – Aliexpress is one of the biggest china wholesale website that sells everything from gadgets , garments clothes, consumer products ,electronics , jewellery and many more. With drop shipping you can easily buy from Ali express and sell on shopify making a commission. To register with aliexpress is free – Register here
This trend of creating your online shop and making money has just recently caught on, and many people have become full-time online entrepreneurs with this new hot trend.
Unfortunately all good things do not last very long and trends and new ventures get saturated quickly – and so if you want to get in – NOW is the time.
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How to start your own store |
How to get your store online?
Well the reason so many people are starting ecommerce online shops is that shopify has made it so easy to set up a store in minutes.
It doesn’t matter if you got your own products to sell, selling someone else’s products for a commission, or you are selling digital products – you can do this by getting a shopify account.
Here is a quick step by step process to get you started with your new online shop with shopify
1. Sign up for the free trial here ( they will ask you for your email )
2.They will send you login info for your online shop and you need to pick an appropriate plan for your shop ( recommended one is $29 for beginners- though if you can afford more go for $79 a month)
I chose the $29 plan as you can see
Then you choose a name for your store and click publish and its done , you will see the welcome screen like below
Now you can add products to your store manually by clicking on the products link as shown above and adding prices and pics and descriptions (its that easy and you can start selling in minutes). Here is a look at the front end and back end of a shopify store.
If you are going to do dropshipping than you can pay like an extra $4.99 a month and get oberlo app add on – which makes it really easy to add products and pics description automatically from aliexpress with one click ( Aliexpress is china’s biggest wholesaler that sells stuff cheap online and many new online store entrepreneurs use this website to do dropshipping selling stuff on their online store).
To make a profit , you will need to mark up the product prices you import into your website with oberlo and then sell.
If you dont want to spend the extra money on oberlo, then you can do the adding products manually as well.
I would suggest adding atleast 20 products to your store as a start to get some variety in your store and setting up the structure and important pages ( privacy policy , about us , contact us pages, social media buttons +pages etc)
I would suggest though that you get a good domain name for your shop from godaddy (they got a current 30% off deal for au users- get it here ) eg. www.myrabbitgear.com, rather than the free shopify domain name that you get with your shop account. eg. rabbitgear32.shopify.com as a proper name with .com looks more professional.
You can do this by buying a relevant domain name from godaddy and then getting it to point to your online shop by following instructions from the domains area in your online shop or then contacting godaddy support and getting them to help you out doing that.
Improving your online store look
By default there are many free themes you can use on shopify once you sign up for an account.
A theme is basically what changes the look of your shop and you can choose any free theme to change the look of your shop.
Shopify has some decent free shop themes .Another way of making your shop more attractive is to get a nice paid theme for your store that will make it look better than the rest, but the free provided themes have some great ones too if you are on a budget.
They are shopify them providers from outside of shopify as well if you want o shop for a great cheap theme outside of shopify.
The best way to promote your new shop is to start a facebook page for your shop and then integrate it with facebook to show new products launched , it will look something like this once integrated
They also make it seamless to advertise with Facebook advertising and ads for your online-shop.
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Why choose shopify |
Why shopify as a ecommerce platform?
People who are more into coding and programmers prefer magento ecommerce software, but most people prefer shopify for these reasons(my reasons)
- Easy to use and set up
- Amazing free themes (don’t pay)
- Set up online shop in minutes
- Can start making money quickly due to easy integration with facebook and facebook ads
- Case studies & success stories from people who started shops provided
- Regular tips and tutorial posts from shopify newsletters
- Easy for Promoting your store and getting sales
- Free 14 day Trial offer to test it out for free
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Promotion Methods |
Once you have your store online, you will need to promote it to make sales. Facebook , instagram are good platforms to get sales for your shop with advertising on Facebook and Instagram sponsored shout outs.
Google Adwords, Bing advertising , linked in and Pinterest advertising are other advertising options you could try depending on your niche.
Health products normally do well with Instagram promotion. With Facebook advertising – if you target your niche properly it can do wonders.
You can s start making money with this method just by getting the monthly plan and Facebook advertising- but there is many add-ons that can still help you get more sales.
They are some paid ones which I will list below.
- Oberlo – adding products seamlessly to your onlinestore (available via shopify portal)
- Coin – Changing currency from AUD to USD and other curencies
- Scarcity – Showing urgency with count down timer etc
Get your free Oberlo trail here – Free Oberlo trial
Oberlo features and Pricing:
FREE Starter Plan is for those who are just starting out. It has all the main features and will perfectly suit you until you reach 50 orders/month.
Basic Plan ($29.90/mo) is for those who receive up to 500 orders/mo. It has shipment tracking and orders monitoring features.
Pro Plan ($79.90/mo) has all the features you need to scale your business. Unlimited orders number multiple users and sales channels.
WordPress + Ali affiliate
If you do decide wot work with wordpress instead of shopify then this WP plugin below might help you
You can also join a Facebook group for support to get tips and ideas and guidance. if your in the online store niche with shopify in this facebook group – https://www.facebook.com/groups/211798732549122/ (Murray Edwards Mastermind). I am also a member of this group