Dropshipping: Too Good To Be True?

by Brian | Feb 24, 2023 | Ecommerce Strategies, Entrepreneurship

Dropshipping is quickly gaining popularity in the ecommerce world and many Shopify and Etsy sellers are beginning to adopt this method. The promise of low risk sales, more flexibility, easy scalability and more can all sound too good to be true, but is it?

What is dropshipping?

In traditional commerce, sellers are responsible for every step in the order fulfillment process. This means sellers often need to maintain a warehouse where they store their inventory, handle supply chain operations, and manage shipping. This puts the seller at risk because they’ll lose money if they aren’t able to sell the product.

Dropshipping is a supply-chain-management technique where the seller does not produce or store product, instead they list other manufacturer’s or wholesaler’s products in their store and send the order and shipment details to the manufacturer or wholesaler after the product has been purchased by a customer.

This method mitigates much of the risk for sellers and helps suppliers get more sales, so all parties benefit.

Dropshipping requires three parties:

The seller

The individual listing the products in their store.

The supplier

This could be a manufacturer, wholesaler, or another online retailer.

The customer

The individual who purchases the product from the seller.

The four basic steps of dropshipping are:

Seller lists a supplier’s product in their store
Customer places an order for the product
Seller sends the order information to supplier
Supplier prepares the customer’s order
Supplier ships the order directly to customer

Dropshippers choose products they love, list them on their store, market those products to their audience, and handle customer relations. This simplified form of ecommerce comes with some incredible benefits, especially for entrepreneurs with low capital who want to spend less time worrying about operations.

Advantages

Low start-up costs:

One of the most significant advantages of dropshipping is the low start-up costs. As a seller, you don’t have to purchase inventory upfront, which means you do not need to have a physical store or warehouse to store your products.

Reduced risk:

Dropshipping reduces the risk of unsold inventory because sellers only pay for inventory after it has sold. In traditional retail models, sellers often buy a large amount of inventory, and if those products do not sell, they incur significant losses.

Flexibility and scalability:

Dropship sellers can offer a wide range of products without having to keep them in stock. This means that sellers can quickly and easily add new, unique products to their online stores to expand their product lines and increase sales.

Location independence:

Dropshipping allows sellers to operate their businesses from anywhere in the world. Sellers don’t need a physical store or warehouse, they just need access to the internet!

Challenges

Dropshipping does present a few challenges that, although easy to overcome, entrepreneurs should consider before adopting this model.

Low profit margins:

Dropship sellers can’t take advantage of bulk pricing or economies of scale so they have to pay a higher price per unit for each product they sell. Additionally, because the competition is high in the dropshipping industry, sellers may have to lower their prices to remain competitive, reducing their profit margins.

Dropship sellers can overcome this challenge by selling unique products that have limited competition in the marketplace. Customers have been proven to pay more for products that are unique.

No control over product quality:

Dropship sellers aren’t involved in the creation of the product, so they don’t have control over the quality of the product . The manufacturer or supplier may ship faulty or low-quality products, which can lead to negative customer feedback and loss of business.

Sellers can mitigate this risk by taking time to research a manufacturer’s failure rate and checking their reviews before forming a partnership. Past performance is a great indicator of future success.

Shipping delays:

Dropship sellers are dependent on a supplier to fulfill orders, which means the seller has little control over the shipping process. Shipping delays are a common issue in dropshipping, as the supplier may take longer than expected to ship the product to the customer.

To balance this, many sellers search reviews to find reliable manufacturers or change their store’s shipping policy to account for the possibility of long shipping times.

Lack of brand control:

Because the dropship sellers aren’t involved in the shipping process, they have limited control over the customer experience and branding of their store. This can reduce the number of repeat customers.

Sellers can overcome this by increasing the number of customer touch points they have. For example, the seller could email their customers after their order has been delivered asking about the quality and thanking them for making the purchase. Going the extra mile helps customers remember a company, even when the shipping package isn’t branded.

How you can get started:

Dropshipping is a great business model for entrepreneurs who are looking to start an online store without having to worry about manufacturing, shipping and inventory. By partnering with a reliable supplier, these entrepreneurs can focus on building their brand, attracting customers and developing relationships with suppliers.

Although dropshipping presents it’s own set of challenges, sellers can easily overcome them and find success through this ecommerce method.

If you want to learn more about dropshipping and/or print on demand, visit www.goquadra.com to watch Quadra’s free masterclass and get started as a seller today!

Using Social Media as an Ecommerce Seller

by Brian | Feb 21, 2023 | Ecommerce Strategies, Entrepreneurship

In the digital age, shopping isn’t the only online activity. In fact, since the launch of Facebook in 2004, social media activity has risen every year. Currently it is estimated that over half of the global population log on to a social media platform daily.

Within the scope of ecommerce, social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and even TikTok can be used to help promote products, raise brand awareness and engage with the consumer on a more interpersonal level.

Using these platforms can help smaller online stores market to a larger audience and locate members of their niche from around the globe. While social media platforms offer paid advertising opportunities, certain algorithms will show unpaid (organic) content to millions of users for no ad spend.

It’s important to know how these platform’s algorithms work for creating social media strategies. Below we’ve outlined benefits and tips for several major social media platforms.

Facebook

If you’re looking to launch a paid-ads campaign, i.e., you pay for your content to be promoted, Facebook is your place. Here’s why:

Facebook ads reach 33.3% of the global population over age 13
The average price per ad decreased 18% in Q3 2022
37% of Facebook users will make a purchase on the platform in 2023
19% of U.S. consumers start their online shopping search on Facebook
The average Facebook page in the retail industry sees 974,000 impressions per month

Additionally, Facebook allows you to reach a diverse audience. Reach specific generations, religions, races and nationalities with simple targeting. That’s because Facebook has a huge, diverse range of users.

70% of US adults use Facebook
56.6% of Facebook’s ad audience are men
49% of Americans say that they visit the social media platform several times a day
Facebook usage is an even split between Democrats and Republicans
Facebook is the favorite social platform of the 35-44 demographic
7% of Gen Z users plan to quit Facebook in 2023

Instagram

Being owned by Meta (Facebook’s dd company), Instagram shares a lot of similarities to Facebook. In fact, if you’re using one platform, you should consider using both as the platforms allow for cross posting of posts, stories and reels. Both platforms also allow advertising through Meta Business Suite.

However, they have a fair amount of differences. Instagram is considered to be more visual, with a greater emphasis on photos’ graphics and reels. While running paid ads is still an option, this algorithm caters more to organic content than Facebook.

Instagram also has a different expected user base than Facebook, and tends to appeal to a younger audience. With that, one can expect the use of social media trends to play a significant role in content performance. Below is some more information about Instagram’s users:

47% of American adults use Instagram.
52.2% of Instagram’s audience identifies as male
Instagram is Gen Z’s second favorite social platform
61% of 12-to-17-year-olds use Instagram weekly
Instagram accounted for 17% of the time U.S. adults spent on social media in 2022

Twitter

Twitter is a microblogging site that boasts more than 300 million users; however, it functions differently than any other major platform. Twitter highlights trends and shows users tweets based on what the accounts they follow are engaging with.

There are several strategies to improve post performance on Twitter. Some accounts maintain their brand voice while focusing on engaging content, while others, such as Wendy’s, use a completely different approach, using humor to build relatability. Below are some different ways to market using tweets:

Have an engaging profile, unique bio and eye-catching header image
Show personality when engaging with your audience
Run a Twitter poll
Retweet relevant content, and add a personal touch
Develop and use creative hashtags

Content isn’t the only way Twitter stands out as a platform. Twitter also has a different user base than other platforms. A breakdown of Twitter’s user demographics is below:

Most Twitter users are between the ages of 25 and 34
56.4% of Twitter users identify as male
1/4 of all American men use Twitter
The number of teens who use Twitter has decreased

TikTok

TikTok has taken off in recent years due to its algorithm, which allows any video to be promoted and “go viral.” It’s because of this that, while paid TikTok ads are a great option, a business can find organic success with no ad spend.

Additionally, TikTok is a powerful app for social media marketing. Here’s why your brand could benefit from creating TikTok content:

TikTok is the top app for consumer spending
67% of users say TikTok inspires them to shop
TikTok ads reach 17.9% of all internet users aged 18+
TikTok boasts the highest engagement rate of any platform, with an average user session of 10.85 minutes

Lastly, as the user base for TikTok continues to grow, so does the demographics of its users. With more than 3 billion downloads, here is the rundown on TikTok Users:

TikTok has over one billion active users
TikTok is now more popular than Instagram among Gen Z users in the US
In the U.S., 61% of TikTok users are women

As you can see, social media is a powerful tool for marketing brands of all sizes and industries. Social media could be just the resource you’re looking for to grow your business’s audience and get more sales than ever before.

If you want to learn more about using social media for print on demand or ecommerce, check out learn.goquadra.com for hours of video training.

*Statistics Provided By HootSuite

What is Print on Demand?

by Brian | Feb 3, 2023 | Business Basics, Ecommerce Strategies, Entrepreneurship, Print On Demand, Uncategorized

If you’re in the ecommerce space, you’ve probably heard of print on demand, or POD, but you might not be sure what it is or how it could benefit you. Keep reading to learn how print on demand could help you establish or scale your ecommerce business.

Print on demand is a form of ecommerce selling where sellers connect with manufacturers who create white-label and easily-customizable products such as mugs, wall signs, and t-shirts. These sellers then upload their own custom designs on the products to sell in their stores. With print on demand, manufacturers only produce and ship products after they have been purchased.

Print on demand products are fully customizable and unique so they stand out in the crowded ecommerce marketplace. That’s why print on demand could be the perfect next step for your business!

Why Customers Prefer Print on Demand

Your customers will love your print on demand product offerings! Not only will they benefit from the robust creative abilities and quality of the products, but they’ll also be able to request customizations personalized to their tastes. In fact, 1 in 5 customers are willing to pay up to 20% more for personalized products so this could significantly increase your profits.

As a print on demand seller, you won’t have to worry about inventory or shipping products yourself! The traditional way to sell online is to find a product, order that product in bulk, and then start selling. This form of selling puts a lot of risk on your end. You could sell out within the first week or you could be left with hundreds of products still in your inventory at the end of six months. This reality makes selling online a large risk to small business owners and large CEOs alike.

Print on demand manufacturers take responsibility for maintaining stock of all their products so you have one less thing on your mind as you grow your business. They will also ship the product directly to your customer for you! This process is called dropshipping.

Dropshipping creates a low point of entry for businesses, making it a great option if you are looking to start a business but you have limited capital. It also removes you from a number of the messier operation components of running a business so that you can focus on what you love such as creating designs, advertising, and/or expanding your brand.

A lady designing clothing for her business

Quadra Simplifies the Process

The benefits of print on demand are clear, but you might be asking yourself: Where do I find manufacturers? How do I make sure the manufacturers receive and print the right design? How do I know which products to launch? How do I know the manufacturer is reliable?

Quadra simplifies the process. Quadra builds the manufacturer relationships for you. All you have to do is select products from our extensive catalog of unique products, upload your own design onto the product of your choice, and launch it in your Shopify store. You only pay for products to be manufactured after a customer has purchased them.

We send the product with its design to the manufacturer. The manufacturer prints the design on the product and ships the product directly to your customer. That’s all there is to it!

By using Quadra you get all of the benefits of print on demand such as spending more of your valuable time creating designs, marketing your products, and building your brand, without going through the hassles of starting a business.

Subscribe to Quadra Pro and you’ll receive early access to unique products and manufacturer-volume pricing so you can save up to 50% compared to our free plan. Plus you’ll get access to training videos from Quadra’s Print on demand experts.

How John Sanders Achieved His Personal Rags to Riches With Quadra Marketplace

by Brian | Sep 2, 2022 | Entrepreneurship

From pizza delivery to 7-figures in sales, John Sanders has overcome language barriers, financial disasters, and multiple business failures to get where he is today. To understand Quadra, one must first understand John, his life, and his mission.

Growing Up In Brazil

John Sanders, a co-founder of Quadra Ecommerce, was raised in Brazil, between the ages of five and eleven. His parents met when John’s father was on a religious mission in the area. After his religious service period ended, he reconnected with John’s mother and they married. John was born in the United States but the family moved to Brazil during John’s formidable years.

When John turned 11 his family moved back to the United States, which provided a unique challenge for John: the only language he knew was Portuguese. John looked like all of the American kids he was going to school with and they expected him to understand them perfectly. Faced with their expectations and the reality that he didn’t understand a word of English, John was forced to adapt and learn English or be left behind by potential friends.

From an early age, John learned skills such as resilience and the true value of effective communication. He often attributes the lessons he learned during these experiences to his future successes while building the Quadra Marketplace from the ground up.

The Infamous 2008 Recession

By the time of the 2008 recession, John had gotten married, graduated from the University of Utah with a degree in Marketing, and had a job selling software to homebuilders. However, disaster struck his personal life, as it did for thousands across the country when the recession hit. John was laid off and couldn’t find work to provide for his still-growing family.

John made several plans for how to make money and provide for his family, including contracting work and starting a business. John’s debts continued to climb even as each venture John started failed. Eventually, John had to humble himself to do something he’d never thought he’d have to do: spend his nights delivering pizzas for the local Pizza Hut.

For John, delivering pizzas was humiliating. Here he was, a well-educated, entrepreneurial, and motivated man and he was delivering pizzas just to make ends meet. John clarifies that “there is no shame in providing for your family and doing the hard work.” But for John, delivering pizzas was a real low point in his life. He felt like he’d failed and those feelings were compounded when he looked at his classmates and friends who were all thriving in well-established careers.

Enter Teespring

In 2013 John heard about a selling platform called Teespring. Teespring is a print on demand platform that allows you to sell t-shirts without holding any inventory. John took an internet training course about how to sell print on demand t-shirts on Teespring and got excited about the concept. However, when he pitched the idea to his wife she was less than enthusiastic about yet another business venture that could lead to nowhere. Because of this, John made a deal with her, he got 30 days to make a sale, or he quit trying to sell print on demand products forever.

By day 21 John was starting to get worried. With no sales and his deadline coming up he saw the death of his dreams fast approaching. John decided to lean on his heritage a little and made a Brazil-themed t-shirt. Somewhere in that third week, John made his first sale, and then he made another and another. 40 Brazil-themed shirts later and John had successfully proved to his wife, but more importantly, to himself, that his dream of selling products online was possible.

“You can still go for your dreams no matter what your situation is in life.”

–John Sanders

Quadra Marketplace Is Born

John kept selling with Teespring and eventually got big enough that the company lined him up with a mentor to show him the ropes. During this time, John’s big question was about unique products. In the print on demand space, less so now, but certainly at the time, the only selling options were shirts and mugs. John thought these products were great, and they were certainly earning him money, but he kept wondering about other products that could fit the print on demand model.

In 2017 John met his future business partner, Scott Carpenter. He pitched the idea of creating a platform that would be home to a large variety of print on demand products for sellers to take and sell on their own websites. Scott liked the idea, and together they started the long journey of making the Quadra Marketplace a reality.

Along the way, John and Scott met their third business partner, Brian Rueckert, who owned a laser engraving business selling laser-cut products to national parks. With Brian’s manufacturing experience he was a great fit for the team of Quadra founders.

The Quadra founders used their Ecommerce store, Urban Forest Woodworking & Design, to fund their work on the Quadra Marketplace app. The store also served as a way to test that Quadra Marketplace was working, because a large majority of the products sold on Urban Forest are on the marketplace’s catalog.

The Product That Changed Everything

In early 2020 this strange virus called COVID-19 was starting to make headlines. After supermarket aisles were emptied of toilet paper overnight, Brian came to John with an idea to sell a Christmas Ornament shaped like a roll of toilet paper. John agreed that Brian should run with the idea but didn’t think it would go very far. “…I’m like, this things ugly–looks like a whistle–it’s not going to do anything…We put it on the website and I didn’t even launch any ads on it.”

Like most people in early March of 2020, John thought the COVID-19 virus was going to be a passing event. Eventually, John looked at the sales on Urban Forest and was shocked to find that dumb little toilet paper ornament had made several sales–all without ads. So John started running ads and between March and April of that year they “…made close to a million dollars on just that ornament.”

With the success of the toilet paper ornament, as well as a few other products, the team was able to fund Quadra Marketplace using just the revenue from Urban Forest. Now, two and a half years later, Quadra Marketplace is live with close to 500 users and is about to close negotiations with its second and third manufacturers. The Pro subscription for the app comes with monthly training sessions that are provided live so viewers can ask questions to both John and Brian. Replays are always available and the topics vary from print on demand specifics to tips and tricks about scaling your business.

John was 44 when he first had the idea for Quadra Marketplace. The previous ten years of his life had been filled with financial problems and multiple failed business attempts, but John maintained that “it’s never too late to go for your dreams.” It took him five years to accomplish it, but John has successfully become a 7-figure Ecommerce seller and the co-owner of an up-and-coming print on demand marketplace. In an effort to help all those dreamers out there who believe it’s too late, John has made it his mission to not just create a marketplace, but to teach people how to make money using it.

“There were some people who made their first online sales ever. And for me that’s been the most rewarding thing. I look at those stories and I just smile… for me it’s not about selling product, it’s about seeing other people succeed.”

–John Sanders

While John’s life is a far cry from where it used to be, he’s never forgotten the steps he had to take to get where he is now. As a daily reminder that anyone, from any situation and any age, can make it, John still drives the same car he delivered pizzas in over a decade ago.

How Outsourcing Allows You To Become the CEO of Your Own Company

by Brian | Aug 17, 2022 | Ecommerce Stories, Ecommerce Strategies, Entrepreneurship

John Jonas, the founder of Onlinejobs.ph, met with Quadra founders, John and Brian, for a podcast interview to talk about how outsourcing can ease the burden of running any business.

In 2006 Jonas hired his first Filipino worker and it was then that he started to grasp the power of outsourcing work. Jonas says outsourcing took him from business owner to CEO.

“You don’t become a CEO until you start paying someone full time.”

-John Jonas

It started with one full-time Filipino employee but from there Jonas built up a small team of all Filipino employees. After working with them for a few years, the vision for his future changed. Jonas set out to build a website to more easily connect small business owners to Filipino workers. Today Jonas, working hand in hand with his Filipino team, has succeeded in creating the largest Filipino outsourcing website in the world.

What Can Outsourcing Do for You?

There are only two things people talk about in terms of spending:

Money and Time

For Jonas his time meant more to him than the money he was making working his 9 to 5 job. Jonas decided to quit his programming job to start his first business. His goal was to decrease the time he was spending at work and increase the time he spent with his family. As you can imagine, it didn’t work. “I quit working my full-time job to live the dream of working 24/7.” After months of working around the clock, Jonas realized something had to change. Outsourcing was his solution.

Today Jonas works an average of 17 hours a week–effectively realizing his goal of spending as little time at work as possible.

For Jonas, the first step to achieving his goal was hiring a full-time employee. In the beginning, it took even more time to train the employee to do the job he wanted to be done. However, after his employee was fully trained, Jonas found he’d saved himself hours of work in the long term. His process continued with one Filipino employee after another until Jonas achieved the lifestyle goals he’d set up for himself.

How Not To Approach Outsourcing

1. Outsourcing Tasks You Cannot Do Yourself

Jonas says one of the worst pieces of advice he’s ever received is to “stick with what you’re good at and outsource the rest.” The reason behind this is that you can’t manage something you don’t understand.

Jonas’ alternative advice is to only outsource what you feel confident teaching to someone else. He often gets pushback on this idea. It’s what you’re good at, so shouldn’t you keep doing it? Jonas’ response is, “it’s cool to get things done your way, but it’s better to get things done.” His point is if you are going to scale your business you simply cannot do everything yourself. To shift from small business owner, Jonas says, you need to start delegating tasks. This will allow you to shift from the doer to the overseer.

2. Approaching the Hiring Process With Your Own Worries

When business owners are first starting to Outsource work, there are some natural concerns and fears that accompany the decision. To name a few:

How do I know if I can trust my employee? They could steal my ideas.
What if they don’t follow my instructions?
What happens if this employee turns into a waste of time?

Jonas had all of these concerns himself. He even found that all of his concerns were realized through his experiences with workers from other countries. When Jonas heard about Outsourcing from the Philippeans, he was on his last straw.

Jonas approached the Philippines with little hope of success but what he found was a culture of people who wanted to work and work for him. People who didn’t want to start their own businesses, who wanted to learn and grow. People who valued stability and would do anything to maintain a long-term position.

During his years of experience working with Filipino workers, Jonas has changed his approach to hiring overseas workers from the Philippines. It is no longer about his concerns and fears but about theirs. “…they have the same feeling as you do, but their feeling is stronger than yours.” Here are the same questions from above listed from the other perspective:

How do I know if I can trust my boss? He/she might not pay me.
How will my boss react if I make a mistake?
What will happen to me if this job doesn’t pan out?

3. Looking for a Skill To Be Filled

Jonas’ final advice to all business owners looking to hire a Filipino worker is to remember that you are not hiring a skill, you are hiring a human. Your focus shouldn’t be, how can I trust them, it should be, “…how do I gain this person’s trust?”

From Jonas’ experience, Filipino workers want to have long-term positions and they will do things to ensure they keep their job. However, if you aren’t treating them well, they will leave. Jonas says this is critical. You can’t yell at them when they make a mistake, you can’t expect them to do it right the first time they have ever completed a given task.

“If you go into it with the attitude of how do I gain this person’s trust in me, you’ll find just an amazing experience in talent and loyalty and honesty…”

-John Jonas

« Older Entries

Next Entries »