• How to start DropShipping Business with Zero Budget

    Well not exactly zero budget, you have to pay for Domain & Web hosting. You can buy domain from any of the provider, I see a lot of country specific offers on domains these days. Sometime I am able to get domain for as low as $2 using coupons or as fresh signup with new domain provider. Similarly you can signup for Web hosting at low prices with good service provider like Hostgator.com (I use it personally), Bluehost.com. Last time I checked with hostgator they were offering 1 year of hosting at $60 (or $10 for 1 month of hosting).

    As a web developer I have made hundreds of ecommerce websites. But for last few months I have received lot of queries for building websites solely for Dropshipping Business. Today, also I got a query from one of my good client – “How can I make a Dropshipping website at low budget. I donot want to pay monthly fee to Shopify”. So I decided to write this small guide as answer to my client’s query.

    Note: This article does not cover the business aspect like how to find product, what dropshipper to use, which payment gateway is best etc. etc.

    Shopify is a very good platform. The shopify team really has put a ton of efforts. I am a big fan of it. There are third party service provider like Oberlo.com which make it very easy to import products from AliExpress.com for the purpose of Dropshipping.

    Although, some client find it tough to pay their monthly fee at very initial stage when they are just starting out and testing the water. The alternative I suggest is WordPress + Woo Commerce. Here are the step by step guide:

    1. Buy domain and hosting. Only investment you will make.
    2. WordPress is offered by most of the Web hosting provider and user can easily install wordpress thru cPanel in less than 5 minutes.
    3. Next Step would be to install woo-commerce, which is free.
    4. Now comes a bit time consuming task – Finding a Good wordpress theme with Woocommerce support. I am listing few free themes below.
    5. Then comes the Payment Gateway. Most of the payment gateway companies have their own WordPress Plugin. Otherwise find payment gateway company in your country and ask if they have wordpress plugin or not.

    Your site is ready to go. Now just upload product data and focus on promoting your website through various channels.

    Here is the list of few free wordpress themes with woocommerce support:

    If you have few dollars to spend, I will recommend to buy Pro Themes from Themeforest.com (my affiliate link) . You will get good theme in the range $29 – $69 . Most of themes comes with One Click Demo Install. Look for theme’s description for what they have written about Demo data. Demo install can be a good time saving as it require lot of time to manually make them look like demos.

    Looking forward for you comments about your choice of platform for dropshipping.