You found this page, so it’s not surprising that you’re looking for advice and better suggestions on whether to launch a general store or a specialist dropshipping store.
When it comes to launching a dropshipping business, there are a lot of questions that spring to mind, but choosing the right model for your store is the most difficult. You can find yourself torn between going for a specific dropshipping niche or opening a generic store. Some people have the misconception that running a dropshipping business is as simple as adding products and selling them online. The reality, however, is quite different, and one must plan extensively while taking into account all the important variables.
Starting a dropshipping business without a clear plan can make you feel invisible, as if you were shouting into a room that was empty and no one was there to hear you. However, success comes with its ups and downs, and a successful business journey will have both positive and negative outcomes. However, continuing in the wrong direction over time costs you money, so it’s imperative to make the necessary changes as soon as feasible. Your decision-making will directly affect the success of your e-commerce business, thus we are here to provide you with complete guidance by referencing advice from professionals in the field.
Prior to making a decision, we must carefully weigh the advantages and disadvantages of running both a general and a specialized dropshipping business. Let’s now talk about general dropshipping stores versus specialty stores in more detail:
What makes a general dropshipping store different from a niche dropshipping store?
In a general store, you can sell any kind of product and keep your store up to date with the latest trends. This is why the two choices are so different from each other. In a niche store, on the other hand, you have to stick to or focus on a certain type of goods that have unique qualities that appeal to customers with specific needs.
But how do you choose between a general dropshipping store and one that only sells a few things? Before deciding where to start, it would be helpful to keep reading about the pros and cons of both options:
What’s good and bad about general stores?
As the name suggests, a general shop is an online marketplace that is like a real-world department store. You can’t get food and drinks from an online dropshipping platform, which is still a big difference between online and brick-and-mortar businesses.
This site lets you buy everything else, like socks, light bulbs, and a wide range of consumer goods sold at general dropshipping stores. The owners of these stores think that if they keep their shops flexible, they will be able to reach more potential customers.
Let’s look at the pros and cons of generic dropshipping stores to see how much we can trust what they say.
PROS:
These are the main reasons why business owners decide to go with a generic dropshipping store. So let’s pay close attention:
Not Really Necessary Research
If a new dropshipper chose the general design of the store, they wouldn’t have to do a lot of research to learn about market trends and the newest products. You can sell any interesting item in the general store and still make money, even if you don’t know what people like. But waiting around for people to buy it can be annoying. Also, the chances that it will sell as soon as you add it to your main dropshipping business are about the same.
There are a lot of choices
When starting a dropshipping business, the first problem for the owner is to find the right products to sell. But if you have a general dropshipping store, you won’t have to worry about this problem because you can install whatever you want and don’t have to stick with just one product. You can easily add your favorite AliExpress items with just a few clicks, as there are many ways to do it.
Want to know what the pros are? Wait a minute. To be honest, this business idea isn’t as appealing as it seems. Why? Let’s move on to the next paragraph;
CONS:
A general dropshipping store can be called “lazy” without being unfair. It’s the easiest and least interesting thing to do. Try not to spend too much time running a general store, which is a very hard job on its own:
There are too many ways to set up the products.
In order to run a general dropshipping store, you need to set up a lot of different products. In fact, you need a lot of products, or else the store will look strange and visitors may start to grit their teeth. We can’t argue with how easy technology has made it for your general dropshipping store to import a wide range of goods.
But you have to agree that making the necessary changes to the product pages takes a lot of time. You have to change them in order to meet the SEO requirements of the website.
Competition Is Tough
Yes, competition keeps us going at work, but if it’s too tough, it can also make you feel down. Here, you have to deal with a lot of indirect competitors whose goods are similar to yours and can be controlled in some ways. It’s almost impossible to beat direct competitors like Amazon and eBay. Also, the prices of your products are so low that you will lose money because of them. So, it doesn’t sound like a good idea to go up against these giants.
It’s hard to get a high ranking with few keywords.
The problem of how to be competitive is still there. If you want your website to be good for SEO, you need to be clear about the details of your online products. And we assume you know that “online shopping” or “buy online” are the best keywords for these kinds of platforms. Can you imagine using these two keywords, which are already used by a lot of well-known eCommerce sites, to rank your site?
There is no such thing as a good marketing plan.
If you can’t compete on price or product variety and can’t use SEO to rank at the top of Google, the only way to make sales is to spread the word about your company online. In the end, you’ll either guess at random or do nothing to promote yourself. Also, you shouldn’t expect these to be successful ways to make money.
You can’t give your full attention to everything at once.
Many new dropshippers don’t know what to do when they first start their business. But if you have a general store, things could become a lot harder. It may not be able to handle the unstructured and segmented data from your store if it has never worked in the industry before.
So, that’s all there is to know about a typical dropshipping store. Let’s talk about specialty dropshipping stores in more depth now:
Niche stores have both pros and cons.
As the name might suggest, a niche store is an online store that focuses on selling a certain set of products. All of the things sold in specialized stores have something in common. To put it another way, there are different ways to find a product niche and grow it. And your hobbies and tastes play a big role in the decision you make.
So, it’s usually a good idea to choose a niche that you’re interested in. You should at least know about the products, market trends, and customer preferences in this sector. This invaluable information is the key to getting all of the benefits of a specialty dropshipping store.
At this point, we think you know enough about what a “niche dropshipping store” is. So, you can easily see both its pros and cons, which are listed below:
PROS:
Specialized dropshipping companies have a number of benefits that are worth mentioning, such as high conversion rates, user attention, and relevance. Here are all the reasons why a specialty store is the best choice for dropshipping beginners.
Easy to Handle
A specialty store needs a lot less money to run than a regular business. The problem is that you are not building a big eCommerce empire in this case. Instead, you are making a business that is much easier to run and will be much easier to grow and keep up over time.
A very limited number of goods
Knowing what is popular and in demand in this niche gives you a great chance to only sell things that will be bought often.
Also, because you enjoy your area of expertise, you know which parts of your products are important to your target market. So, you can write unique descriptions of your products that appeal to potential customers and are also good for search engines.
Equal Playing Field
If you try to sell everything at once, you will be up against hundreds or even thousands of other businesses. But your chances of running into someone selling the same products are much lower if your product line is a highly specialized group of things that go well together.
This gives you the chance to market your business as a unique one that sells things that are hard to find elsewhere.
Keep in mind that your deep knowledge of the field will help you create a friendly and helpful atmosphere in the shop and convince customers of your professionalism and skill. It goes without saying that this is good for your brand, your reputation, and the loyalty of your customers.
Knowledge of your niche audience in depth
As a fan of your own field, you know that there are other people who like the same things and subjects that you do.
If you know who you’re trying to reach, you can customize your ad settings and send helpful information to Internet users who will be excited to join the community you’re building around your business.
Dedicated Plan for Marketing
If you know what your target customers are interested in and how they act, you can easily make advertising campaigns that are very appealing. You can also choose the right ways to get the word out.
If you talk like them and hang out where they do, you have a better chance of making a good brand image. In fact, it might make people want to buy from you again and again.
Successful SEO Techniques
You can look for and choose high-quality long-tail keywords with a unique product offer. These phrases, which are usually three or more words long, describe exactly what your web pages are about. The most important thing about these keywords is that they can bring very interested customers to your store.
In fact, if someone clicks on your site URL because it shows up on the search results page for a word combination that is similar to some of your target keywords, they are very likely to buy from you at some point in the future.
Higher Rates of Conversion
If your website is easy to use, the products are well-chosen, and the product pages look good and are trustworthy, you have a good chance of turning a casual visitor into a buyer.
If you have a specialty store, this is obviously a lot easier to do. But, as we’ve already seen, a general store with a lot of items may be hard for the owner to run and hard for customers to look through.
Easy to sell more
If you didn’t know what “upselling” meant before, we’ll tell you. Upselling is the owner’s basic sales strategy for making as much money as possible from a rise in sales volume. An upsell is a way for a salesperson to make more money by getting a customer to buy more expensive items, upgrades, or other add-ons. It usually means promoting more profitable services or goods, but it can also just mean showing the customer something new they hadn’t thought of before.
In other words, most people who come to your dropshipping specialist business will like a number of things because they like them. For example, if you sell a dog toy to someone who likes dogs, they are more likely to buy a fishing rod and a coffee mug with a dog on it.
CONS:
Like any other business idea, the idea of a specialty store has some problems that could let you down. If you think about both parts of a niche dropshipping store, you will know what you need to know to make the right choices.
The disadvantage of a dropshipping store, on the other hand, should be seen as a feature. Even so, it is important that you know what they are.
Research must be done perfectly
Yes, it seems like the biggest problem with a niche business is that you have to know exactly what you’re selling and to whom. If you already know a lot about this field, you won’t have any trouble.
In this case, you either know what the most important things are about this business sector or you know where to look for the information you need.
There isn’t a backup plan.
Unlike a regular store, it seems like a specialty shop doesn’t have a “backup plan” in case the products they sell aren’t popular. This isn’t completely true.
If you find that this market segment isn’t making as much money as you had hoped, you can change your business plan and stock your store with items that are only loosely related to your original choice. Dropshipping is what this is, so it won’t cost you anything and won’t hurt your online reputation in any way.
Telling Behavior
You might think that opening a specialty shop will hurt your chances of making money and limit how much you can sell. In many ways, customers are more likely to shop at a specialty store than at a big-box online store. People are willing to buy from smaller online businesses and often prefer them to retail giants for a number of reasons.
So, if you market your store well, you can still expect to get a lot of orders and make a lot of money.
Which is better, a specialty store or a general store?
When you look at the two options side by side, you can see that opening general stores is the easier one. Even though it might take longer to find products, you’re not limited to just one type. When it comes to trying out new products, it’s also easier to do so in a shop that’s easy to get to.
Starting a general business is easier than starting a specialty store, but making money in a general business is much harder. With a specialized store, you only need to promote one subject and a few types of products.
When you only need to reach one group, it’s much easier to keep up with social media. So, our staff suggests that newcomers open a store that focuses on one thing.
The easiest way to judge niche market ideas
Most business owners choose markets they are really interested in. But you shouldn’t start a dropshipping business just because you feel like it. You can use these general rules to look at a niche idea. If you can answer yes to the following questions, it’s likely that your plan will work.
- You care a lot about dropshipping shops in specific niches.
- Google Trends shows growth and study results that are good news for niche stores.
- The item you’re thinking of selling in your online specialty shop is in high demand and has sentimental value.
- It’s hard to find offline the goods you’ve decided not to ship any longer.
- On AliExpress, you can find the most reliable and highly rated suppliers or get recommendations for them.
- For this niche market, there are social media groups that can be joined.
- You feel pretty sure of yourself and ready to go up against your competitors.
- Of course, you don’t have to keep shopping at specialty stores forever. This industry has a lot of room to grow, and you can carefully add other product categories to your specialty store to make it better and grow your business.
Final Words
That’s all there is to it! What are the pros and cons of running a broad or narrow dropshipping business?
It’s true that a general dropshipping company with a wide range of products could appeal to a large number of potential customers, but it’s harder to make money from a general store than from a specialty store.
We strongly suggest that you talk to dropship-empire to get the best advice and learn more about the topic. You can also get advice from people who work in your field.