In: Dropshipping|Last Updated:

International shipping is a fact of life in ecommerce. Store owners have access to a market that is more or less the size of planet Earth.

Which begs the question: How can you get products from Point A, which could be just about anywhere, to Point B, which could also be just about anywhere?

This is extra important for dropshippers. After all, the whole beauty of dropshipping is that you can sell products from suppliers all over the world.

That solves one challenge – getting products – but introduces plenty of others, like controlling international shipping costs

This guide introduces you to the ins and outs of worldwide shipping and arms you with seven useful tips to help ecommerce store owners, and especially dropshippers, navigate the maze that is international shipping. 

We’ll cover

The basics of international shipping rates The cheapest way to ship globally The different international shipping companies How long it takes to ship internationally

If you make it to the end of this post, you’ll have a better idea of how international shipping works and have a handful of cross-border shipping tricks to implement in your store.

Shipping is all about speed, so let’s hurry up and …

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In: Dropshipping|Last Updated:
Alibaba Dropshipping: How to Safely Dropship From Alibaba (2023)

If you want to start a successful ecommerce business, you need to know how to find and partner with effective, trustworthy suppliers. And these days, many businesses look to countries like China for the best deals — especially as international product sourcing has never been easier.

However, sourcing products from the other side of the world isn't exactly straightforward. Time zones, language barriers, and unreliable suppliers are just some of the challenges you'll need to navigate to succeed.

So, how can you find a great Alibaba dropshipping supplier?

In this Alibaba dropshipping guide, you'll learn everything you need to know to dropship from Alibaba, including:

The difference between Alibaba and AliExpress How to vet Alibaba dropshipping suppliers How to find great Alibaba dropshipping suppliers

But first, let's cover the basics.

(Disclaimer: Before making any purchases from Alibaba, be sure you read its most up-to-date information and safeguards to protect your purchase.)

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What is Alibaba?

The Alibaba Group is the largest ecommerce company in the world, and it owns many Chinese online marketplaces, including Alibaba.com, AliExpress, Taobao, and Tmall. 

Now, if you're looking to source products from …

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In: Dropshipping|Last Updated:
Dropship Website Builder: 5 Best Options For Your Business (2023)

Not sure how to create a dropshipping website? You’re not alone.

Making a website can be confusing.

Should you use website software? If so, which one? Do you need to learn how to program? Should you pay a web designer to create a website for you?

Thankfully, you don’t have to go through any of that.

With a dropshipping website builder, you can easily build a site without having to touch even a single line of code.

In this article, you’ll find a list of five best dropshipping website builders perfect for your needs. Plus, none of these tools require you to have programming skills or a huge budget.

Sound good? Let’s dive in.

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Top 5 website builders for your dropshipping business

1. Shopify

Shopify is a website builder designed to support dropshipping businesses.

The service powers more than 4 million online stores, a good portion of which include dropshipping websites.

Plus, the Shopify App Store is filled with apps to find dropshipping suppliers, including:

DSers Spocket Zendrop Dropshipman Printful

Here’s an example of a dropshipping app’s interface:

best dropship website builder: Shopify

Reasons to use Shopify

Shopify provides everything you might need to create …

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In: Retailing Tips|Last Updated:
It’s a Beauty-Full Match for these Emerging Small Businesses

Astoria Beauty Bar is no cookie-cutter, assembly-line salon. When a guest comes to have their hair styled or colored, get a scalp treatment, add extensions or have their eyebrows shaped, it’s the owner Michelle DeMartino who takes the call, schedules the appointment, and provides the service. It’s DeMartino who educates customers on how to maintain their hair between appointments. And it’s DeMartino who sources the products (many of which she finds on RangeMe) for them to use at home. She does it all, and there is a reason for it.

DeMartino is all about delivering a completely personalized end-to-end experience to each of her clients, many of which are local residents of the salon’s Astoria, NY neighborhood. “I wanted to create a boutique experience for my clients,” says DeMartino. “I want it to be more of an intimate affair versus the assembly-line type of structure that is very much the case with the big salons today. And this is demonstrated in the services I provide as well as the products that I sell, each of which is hand-picked by me to ensure they align with the salon’s values and our customers’ specific needs.”

This personalized experience has certainly resonated with …

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In: Dropshipping|Last Updated:

You may have noticed that there’s a massive market for print-on-demand products, especially for custom t-shirts. It’s one of those items that will never go out of style: people need clothing, and print-on-demand shirts guarantee an infinite flow of fun new ideas.

This presents both an opportunity and an obstacle for hopeful business owners. On one hand, there’s a ton of business to tap into. But on the other hand, competition is fierce, as many other entrepreneurs have the same idea. 

So how can you break in and build your own successful t-shirt business? In this article, we’ll talk about the basics of getting started. We’ll look at top print-on-demand companies to work with, how to create your designs, and how to start making some money selling them. 

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Best print-on-demand t-shirt companies

There are plenty of top-rated print-on-demand companies to choose from. Before you make your decision, you’ll want to consider some key elements like print quality, turnaround time, and competitive prices. Let’s go over a couple of popular companies.

Printify 

Best print-on-demand t-shirt companies: Printify

Printify allows you to print your custom designs on more than 750 high-quality products—including t-shirts, of course. …

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In: Retailing Tips|Last Updated:

Almost every time I facilitate a small group leadership discussion, I ask the team to share some of their story. Predictably, half the group jumps at the opportunity to transparently relay “who” they are and the “story” that informs their lives. It is one of the most powerful moments of any gathering because our story is the truth of where we’ve been and often the spark of our motivations. Our personal narrative is the essence of who we are and the impetus for how we engage with others.

We all have a story. It explains our past and inspires our future; it is, was, and will always be essential to who we become. As Harvard’s Dr. Howard Gardner says, “stories constitute the single most powerful weapon in a leader’s arsenal.”1 Dr. Howard Gardner quote, Howard Gardner, cited in: Richard L. Daft (2014), The Leadership Experience, p. 273 Research suggests we almost exclusively operate within a ‘story mindset.’ Leaders who are not afraid to enter someone else’s story understand the power of empathy. But leaders who are not afraid to share their own story understand the power of vulnerability. The future belongs to the storytellers.

One of the best predictors …

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