Starting a Shopify dropshipping business from your home is a fun activity that can lead to serious wealth if done correctly. Getting it right allows you to scale your business and perhaps allow you to leave the old way you made money behind. 

However, you need to be careful. It’s not for the faint of heart. 

Here’s what you learn when you start Shopify dropshipping: 

Niche Selection Matters

First, what you choose as your niche is important and can make or break your business. Choosing the wrong category can leave you feeling underwater and unable to make ends meet. 

Therefore, people learn early on that picking products with high market demand is essential. It’s critical that margins come first and everything else comes seconds (including how much you actually know about the products). 

Payment Acceptance Isn’t Always Easy

Second, Shopify drop shippers learn that payment acceptance isn’t always easy. While it seems like it should be as straightforward as transferring funds from one account to another, that doesn’t always happen. 

It’s critical to work with a payment integrator who understands how the backend systems work and can link them up. These services can connect various systems and bank accounts, allowing you to take card payments and so on.

You want these to work flawlessly. If they don’t, it could create headaches for customers and mean you miss out on crucial revenue you need to keep your operations afloat. 

Marketing Is Everything

While it might sound like a truism, marketing is everything. Dropshippers rely on getting their message out onto the internet and driving traffic. 

Unfortunately, creating sales funnels is the most time-consuming element of dropshipping and can also cost quite a bit of money. Therefore, you’ll want to work with agencies that can fine-tune your campaign and ensure you’re on the right track. 

This part of the process is a learning curve and something you’ll need to invest your time in to get good at. But once you understand it, the possibilities are endless. 

Profit Margins Are Slim

Another thing you learn when you start Shopify dropshipping is that profit margins are slim. It’s hard to make money just by reselling items and working with a fulfillment provider. More often than not, these additional elements eat into your total profits, leaving you with single-digit percentages of every sale, and perhaps less. 

How you get around this is challenging. However, there are some methods, including efficient marketing and working with larger products. The more expensive they are, the more you can roll your costs into each item and make a profit. 

Handling Times Can Be Lengthy

Another thing you learn when you start Shopify dropshipping is how long handling times can be. Often, new dropshippers expect them to be similar to established brands like Amazon, but that’s rarely the case, which is why it is challenging to create a successful dropshipping business. 

Getting around this requires working with the right fulfillment companies, but they can be few and far between, which is a problem.