How about starting your online journey with a business model that’s a blue ocean with not much competition and plenty of high ticket sales for everyone?
Starting a Shopify drop servicing business is stupidly easy! Here are the four actionable steps that you’d need to implement to start a drop servicing from scratch using Shopify, the best eCommerce solution around:
| To start a Shopify drop servicing business, you’d need to |
|---|
| 1. Pick a profitable niche |
| 2. Find freelancers and services |
| 3. Start building your website |
| 4. Promote your business |
This article is going to show you, you know, what the hell drop servicing is and how to start your very own drop servicing business and turn it into a viable career option for you.
I’m going to show you precisely how to create a drop servicing business that makes actual income so you can replicate the business model with a meager investment.
If you find it useful and inspiring, don’t forget to share it with your friends! Also, make sure to stick to the very end as I have something special to share with you!
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Before we go in-depth in the actual process of starting a drop servicing business, I thought that it would be nice to give a shoutout to people who have never heard about this business model before and tell them that they are at the right place!
A good starting point would be defining what drop servicing is, and what actually makes it a great business model for beginners and experts alike.
Are you ready? Let’s dive in…
What Is Online Drop Servicing Business?
In the drop servicing business model, you act as the middleman between the final customer and the contractors that perform the services. As the owner of a drop servicing business, you will be running the logistics of the business, not performing services directly.
Your customers will be paying for marketing, SEO, or Facebook ad services, depending on what would be your drop servicing offer.
Drop servicing is the new form of the dropshipping business model in which you sell digital services instead of physical products! Here’s how it works:
eCommerce has changed the form of traditional shopping and people have been crushing it with the dropshipping business model.
As more and more gadgets continue to get online, entrepreneurs are in rapid need of starting websites to promote what they do or sell.
Thousands of websites are being created daily, and behind all of those outstanding websites are humans who are responsible for the content, design, and hosting.
Leveraging the drop servicing business model has the power to change your life as a reseller (middleman) and your customers as well!
So, basically, in the drop servicing business, you go find a service in a particular niche that you’d be interested in reselling.
In return, you would need to find people who are actually interested in that type of service and introduce yourself as a professional service seller.
In this business, you are merely acting as a middleman. You connect service sellers with service buyers while setting your own prices and margins!
What’s Unique About The Drop Servicing Business Model
Well, drop servicing is like the new baby-born business of dropshipping. The thing about drop servicing is not many people are doing it right now or know about it.
So, it’s a massive opportunity to ride the trend and build a real online business, and on top of that, you’re going to have clients pay you month after month recurring revenue.
Rather than searching for new customers all the time.
The thing that’s responsible for lowering your cost per acquisition, leading to massive potential financial gain!
With that being said, it’s time for laying down seven benefits of this business model in the form of bullet points.
7 Drop Servicing Pros & Benefits
1. Flexible
Drop servicing is a super ultra-flexible business model that can be run while only having to work a few hours per week and actually reaps the rewards of being your own boss!
2. Requires little overhead
Unlike brick-and-mortar businesses, drop servicing doesn’t require much to get started. An online storefront to showcase your portfolio is all that you may need!
3. Highly profitable
The drop servicing business can be fruitful and rewarding, allowing you to make a 6-figure or more from the comfort of your home!
4. Scalable
When it comes to picking a business model, scalability would probably play a big role in your decision.
If you deliver what you promise, you will get a bunch of clients who are hungry to pay you, month after month, a recurring revenue!
5. No fulfillment and shipping involved
Sometimes, it takes customers an eternity to receive the orders they have shopped for online! And this is the biggest dropshipping nightmare!
Moreover, the coolest thing about the drop servicing model is that there’s no shipping or fulfillment involved since you’re selling digital services.
6. Fast order-delivery periods
With that being said, order delivery could be from as low as 12 hours (depending on the type of service and your picked freelancers), because you’re actually selling an online service that needs no shipping or packaging.
7. No returns or refunds
Chances are that shipping companies and retailers could mess up with customers sometimes and ship a different product or variant (size, model, or color).
Or the package will take so long to be delivered. It just happens! When this happens, customers are more likely to ask for a refund or return the item!
This is another advantage point for drop servicing! You’re selling digital services, and people won’t go and submit their credit card info unless they are pretty sure what outcome they will be receiving in return.
If you’re able to commit to what you promise in the service description page, you will just be fine!
Who Is Drop Servicing For
This business is really for two types of people.
The first are those of you out there (and you may be one of them) that have never heard about this online business stuff or entrepreneurship in general.
And if that’s you, this piece of article is going to show you step-by-step how to build a real, sustainable, and consistent online business that generates results.
Without you having to continually be on the lookout for new tactics, new strategies, or new ways of doing things.
This is a real business that you can literally just step by step follow the strategy build it and get your first high ticket sales in 30 days.
The second type of person is those people out there (you may be one of them as well) who already have a business, whether online or offline.
If that’s you, this article is going to show you how you can systemize everything in your business and make you able to see the potential in leveraging others’ skills and capabilities!
Overall, drop servicing can be a good fit for everyone who’s looking forward to starting a reliable business or looking for a dropshipping alternate!
How Does Drop Servicing Differ From Dropshipping
Although drop shipping and drop servicing are quite similar, they are different in the way that they are pitched.
Both business models have the same concept and approach, but picking the right business model can be vital for your success!
So, Drop Servicing Vs Dropshipping…
Drop Servicing is selling a service but hiring contractors or freelancers or even using a SAAS software to do the work for you.
In the grand scheme of things, it’s not that different than saying running an advertising agency or a service business except for using freelancers instead of employees.
The good thing about this business model is it can be started with very low startup costs.
Dropshipping and Dropservicing really have nothing in common besides the word drop being in front of each one.
The fact is; both businesses can be started up with low costs and without having to commit to buying inventory in the case of dropshipping and without hiring employees in the case of starting a service business.
Here’s an in-depth comparison between drop servicing and dropshipping. I highly recommend you check it out so you can pick the best-suited business for you.
What Is Shopify
Shopify is a cloud-hosted eCommerce platform that has everything you need to start selling online!
>> Claim your 14-day trial on Shopify <<
What Shopify can help you with is that it allows you to create an online storefront to showcase your products or services to customers worldwide.
Leveraging professional tools like Shopify is critical when starting a profitable online business because Shopify was mainly made for eCommerce and selling online purposes.
Shopify will act as your hosted eCommerce solution, allowing you to start selling online without any prior technical or coding skills.
From as low as $29/month, you can easily create a professional-looking store, display your products/services, and take payments from your customers.
Related articles:
- Shopify’s Pricing Guide – What Are The Shopify Payment Plans?
- What Is Shopify? Now Home to 1,000,000 Business Owners
- The 7 Step Process For Starting A Dropshipping Business (Easy)
What Makes Shopify The Best Option For Drop Servicing
Shopify has been rapidly growing in the recent three years. And the fact is, the Corona Virus Pandemic has just accelerated its growth to reach new peaks!
When it comes to eCommerce, Shopify tends to be the leader! There are various reasons why Shopify is one of the best options for running a drop servicing business. Below are some:
– It’s a platform that was designed for selling online.
– Trusted by over 1,000,000 business owners!
– It’s very affordable for both types of people who are just starting and those who are already selling offline and have an established business (you can start from as low as $29/month.)
– Shopify is supportive of dropshipping, and they highly encourage drop shippers.
– They are capable of handling your marketing.
– Shopify has an app store where you can install apps that would make your business run smoother. Some are free, and others are paid!
– Their innovative drag-and-drop builder makes it easy for you to start and customize your online storefront with no technical or coding skills at all.
– They have an effective tracking system that has various metrics to give you a better idea of what’s going on in your store and determine your profitability.
– Those who have tried WordPress before know that servers got crashed all the time. Mostly at big times like “Black Friday”!
Well, this is not the case with Shopify!
While other eCommerce platforms limit your listings, Shopify allows you to upload unlimited data, images, and products since it has unlimited bandwidth.
Related: The 7 Step Process For Starting A Dropshipping Business (Easy)
How To Start A Shopify Drop Servicing Business
Starting an online drop servicing business that generates real money would require four actionable steps only:
| 1. Pick a profitable niche |
| 2. Find freelancers and services |
| 3. Start building your website |
| 4. Promote your business |
In this section, you’re going to learn how to do all of this without any experience, skills, or knowledge.
So, you can go out there and build a real online business for yourself driving a 6-figures while only have to work a few hours per week and actually attain some of that freedom that you always wanted.
So, let’s break the process into 4 phases, alright?
Phase 1: Picking Your Niche
There are thousands and thousands of services that can be sold online. However, you can’t just sell anything!
Indeed, you don’t need to go technically in-depth into the service, but you should at least know how it works.
The more you know about the service, the more you’d be able to provide enough information for the customer.
Picking a niche can be intimidating sometimes, but by leveraging some online tools you can come up with a promising niche for your drop servicing business.
A good and promising drop servicing niche should have a:
+ Positive trend
+ Relatively low competition
+ Huge potential financial gain
+ Bunch of complementary services
It’s crucial to assess the competition for a particular niche to get some refreshing insights about what’s actually going on in the market.
What if I tell you there’s a free tool that helps you identify what topics are trending in a specific period and region?
Yup! It’s called Google Trends.
Google Trends is a great free tool offered by Google that analyzes the popularity of top search queries in Google Search across various regions and languages.
For example, during the Corona Virus Pandemic, a lot of topics and products have been (never like before) trending, such as “Bidets.”
This tool is powerful as it can show you related queries and break down the interest of that particular topic by subregions.
Google Trends can give you a headstart in your drop servicing business as it will show you exactly what types of services people are looking for most!
Asides from Google Trends, you can leverage some tools like Ahrefs and Ubersuggest to have more thorough insights about particular keywords.
Related: What Makes A Good Drop Servicing Niche? 6 Things To Consider
What Are Drop Services?
Drop services are the freelancers’ services that you flip online for a profit! Drop servicing business model is the method of earning money online in which you are selling a service to a customer for a certain price (say $200). Then you are hiring someone else to provide the service for the client at a lower price ($100), and the difference is your income.
What should I drop Service?
Here are some of the Drop Servicing Ideas that you can drop service:
- Sales funnels
- Video & animations
- Chat bots
- Content marketing
- SEO (search engine optimization)
- Local business reputation management
- Graphic design
- Writing
- Web development
- Link building
- Virtual assisting
- Market research
- Customer support
- Social media management
- guest posting
- YouTube optimization
- Infographic design
- Voice over
- Scriptwriting
- Lead generation
- Google ads
- Public relations
- Transcribing & proofreading
Related: If you want to learn more about each of the mentioned service niches above, I have written for you an article that goes in-depth in those exact 23 drop servicing niches. You can check it out here.
Phase 2: Finding Freelancers & Services
When starting a drop servicing brand, relying on one freelancer only to do the job for your customers could be a recipe for failure!
Freelancers sometimes won’t meet the deadline for the job because they would be working for you and others at the same time. It just happens!
Therefore, I would recommend you pick several freelancers to increase your order capacity and deliver services fast.
Each freelancer has his/her own skills, expertise, and capabilities. So, having a group of people will just increase your coverage, skills, and knowledge.
The question now is; Where to find freelancers online?
There are various networks and marketplaces that you can leverage to find freelancers and experts that you can resell their services.
Here are some of those marketplaces:
– Fiverr
– UpWork
Related: 11 Most Crucial Drop Servicing Tips (For EPIC Results)
Phase 3: Building Your Website
And this is the most straightforward part of the game! If you end up going with Shopify, you will get amazed by how fast it is to get your store up and running.
Let’s break down the process of building your website into 6 actionable steps:
>> Claim Your Shopify Free 14-Day Trial
You obviously need to go to Shopify.com and create your free account.
The process is seamless, you’ve just got to answer a few questions, and you’re there!
Shopify indeed offers a free trial period of 14 days, but you won’t be able to receive real orders and capture payment unless you’ve picked up a subscription plan.
Shopify’s free trial is an excellent entry for such an outstanding tool. It will help you get familiar with the platform, and it’s a period that is more than enough to design and customize your store the way you want it to look!
It will just put your feet into the water, allowing you to test its features and navigational dashboard without the need to submit your credit card info.
However, it’s recommended to pick a paid plan to get access to their premium support in case you need any help on your way up. You won’t be charged until after the 14-day trial ends!
After signing up, you’ll be assigned your very own backend office that looks something like this:
Congratulations! 🎉You’ve just created your brand new online store! Did you know it’s that easy?
From that point, start navigating the different tabs and get familiar with the platform. (It’s super easy to deal with)
>> Integrate A Unique Domain Name
After you’ve successfully created your online store, you would need to go and pick a domain name that represents your brand.
Related: 27 brand name generators to find the best name for your business
When you first start your Shopify store, it will be hosted on Shopify itself in it this form “YourStoreName.myshopify.com“.
It would be better to have your site hosted on your very own domain name of yourself.
Luckily, Shopify allows you to purchase and add a unique domain name, within the platform itself.
In my case, EcomDimes.com is my domain name! (By the way, do you think it’s a catchy domain name? :))
>> Setup Your Payments
That’s how you’ll get paid and see money rolling in in your Shopify backend office!
There are multiple ways to set up your payments on Shopify:
- Shopify Payments (Available for Europe and US stores)
- Stripe and PayPal
- 3rd party payment providers such as 2Checkout
- Manual payment methods such as bank deposit or cash on delivery (Fits businesses that locally sell and deliver physical products)
- Coinbase and crypto payments
The most common way for setting payments on Shopify is to activate “PayPal Express Checkout.”
>> Populate It With The Needed Pages & Policies
When creating your Shopify drop servicing, think about it like building a whole brand and a real business!
It’s your empire that’s hosted on clouds! You’ve got to run it the way you want to and set your very own rules and policies!
There is a must-have type of page that your store should contain. Below are some of the pages that you need to populate your site with:
- About Us
- Delivery Policy
- Privacy Policy
- Terms & Conditions
- FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) Page
- Contact Us
Start populating your store with the needed pages, and make them easy to navigate by adding them to your menus (Header and footer).
If you’re able to provide enough information on your website and pages, customers are more likely to feel more secure to buy from you.
>> Pick A Professional & Inviting Theme
Although Shopify offers a variety of free themes, having a premium paid theme would result in more significant outcomes in terms of speed, functionalities, features, and more!
In short, this is an investment of around $180 maximum; that’s definitely worth it!
So, where can you find premium and verified Shopify themes to purchase?
– Envato Market – Theme Forest
Those are just the best and most verified and trusted online asset marketplaces on the web.
To upload a new theme, you would need to head to your Shopify dashboard – Online Store – Themes.
Here’s a quick step-by-step tutorial on how to upload and install a Shopify theme (Open in a new tab).
>> Add Your First Service & Get Familiar With Shopify
Returning to the multiple-tabs dashboard, here’s what every tab is for:
Orders: Here is where your first order will appear, and you’ll just get in love with this!
Products: This is the section in which you can go and add the products that you want to sell (In your case, digital services).
To add a service to your storefront, you’d need to click the products tab and follow along with me.
First of all, you’ll give your service a title name, and description. In the description box, make sure to explain what precisely the client is going to receive upon purchasing the service from you.
Don’t promise customers something you cannot commit to!
That is why it’s so important to make sure of the freelancers you’re working with because they will be delivering the work on your behalf.
Please note that your customers don’t know that you’re not doing the service for them! They only know you, and if something wrong happens, they will only blame you!
After then, you’ll need to provide some images of your services and set your own prices and margins.
If you want to show a discount on the service, you would set a price of $49.97, for example, and arrange a compare price of $99.97!
That will show them that the previous price before the sale was ($99.97) and the current discounted rate ($49.97)!
Providing the cost per item would be great for giving you detailed metrics and insights into your profits and return on investment once you start receiving orders.
Yup, you’ve guessed it!
The cost per item is the cost of service that the freelancer charges you for doing the service.
Customers: In this section, you’ll have more details about your clients and customers.
Analytics: Shopify has an excellent tracking system that gives you outstanding metrics to know better what’s going on in your store.
You’ll be able to see your live visitors and where they are located on the world map.
Things like the number of visitors, number of orders, average order value, return on investment, and much more!
Marketing: Didn’t I tell you earlier that Shopify is capable of handling your marketing and promotion? In this section, you can find more details about this.
Discounts: Inside this tab, you’d be able to create automated discount rules. For example, if you’re selling a content writing service, you could offer a $20 discount for orders above $100!
Once the customers’ cart value is over $100, the system will automatically issue them a $20 discount on the checkout page. Things like that!
Apps: Through this tab, you will get access to the Shopify enormous app store. Inside the app store, you can find apps from other parties that can make your business more functional and add more features.
Some apps are free, and others are paid. Each app has its own rules and policies.
You’ve just got to check and see what works best for you and your business!
Phase 4: Promote Your Business
You’ve created an outstanding online storefront that you’re proud to own and promote. Now what?
It’s time for marketing baby!
Your website won’t just get noticeable unless you start running some promotions and advertisements.
This can be tough for beginners, I know. But, here’s the deal!
Acquire the skill! Everything is just doable and achievable. No one was born with knowledge, and if someone has done it, you can do it too.
No matter how hard you have tried and read, or how many YouTube videos you have watched, this will get you overwhelmed and not sure where to start!
So, are you looking forward to learning how to leverage Facebook paid advertising to acquire more leads and sales? Go learn it on Udemy and Teachable, or even higher a professional marketer on Fiverr.
Is There A Drop Servicing Course Out There?
Drop servicing is a relatively brand new business model and you can barely find information about it on the internet.
For the last couple of weeks, we at eComDimes have been working on a comprehensive drop servicing course for our readers.
Conclusion
The drop servicing could just be a great replacement if you’re looking for a dropshipping alternate or starting a reliable business online!
Are you intimidated by starting a drop servicing business on Shopify? Not anymore!
This article has gone through the four actionable steps you’d need to go through for starting an outstanding drop servicing business on Shopify.
No matter what skills you have, no matter what experience you have. Where you’re at in your life right now.. it doesn’t matter! You don’t need a fancy college degree or anything like that to do this at the end of the day. That’s what the internet is allowing us to do, and that’s what you can do!
Jump into this while it has shallow competition. Put your feet into it by creating an online store on Shopify and testing its water.
It might be the business that could change your life forever, who knows!
Grab your free 14-day free trial on Shopify and start building an online storefront you’re proud to own and promote!
I hope that you enjoyed this article! Is there anything else that I’ve not covered? Drop us a comment 🙂
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Cheers,
Odeh
Freequently Asked Questions
The drop servicing business model is fully legal. There’s nothing against the law about reselling someone else’s services and making money off the price difference. The fact is, drop servicing works just like any other business model: Buy low, sell high.
Drop servicing is profitable if you will promote your offer in the best possible way so people will find you. The advantage of this model is that you might not risk losing money with a drop servicing business, but on the other hand chance for sustainable profit depend on how you will take care of your marketing. Many people are looking for UpWork and Fiverr to find freelancers to provide their services.
Do you need a business license for Shopify? it all depends on your local regulations, as for now, Shopify itself does not require a business license to sell your services or drop service, but in the case of many states, there is a limited time you can operate without registering or if you use your own personal name for the business.
