Let’s face it. There are no natural competitive advantages for a dropshipping business. Other merchants the world over sell the same products you do. Many of them sell for similar or even lower prices than you.
What’s going to set you apart in the eyes of your customers? What’s going to get them to keep coming back to your store instead of shopping around?
For a dropshipping business, it’s all about the competitive advantages you create.
Here are five ways you can make your drop shipping business stand out in the eyes of your customers, and get them coming back again, and again, and again.
1. Customer Loyalty Program
It’s not about the money.
Maybe for you, it is, but not for your customer. The top priority of most shoppers is to buy from a company that they feel a connection to.
How do you create that connection? Establish a customer loyalty and rewards program. Give your customers a reason to appreciate you and develop a warm, fuzzy feeling about your brand - and give them rewards that they need to come back in order to use.
Store credit is a great reward type for getting customers to come back. Let’s say a customer spends $100 and gets $15 of store credit as a reward. There’s nothing to do with that $15 store credit apart from coming back to your store and browsing around for what she can buy with it. Oftentimes the $15 isn’t enough for the item that she’s set her eye on, so she ends up adding more money of her own.
Bingo! Return customer! Another purchase! More revenue, and an opportunity to grant more rewards.
It’s a virtuous cycle, and in the end, you and your customers have become inextricably intertwined. This is a good thing - for you. In Shopify’s recent State of Commerce Report, 73% of North Americans said that once they find a product or brand they like, they remain loyal to that brand.
2. Spot-on Branding
Imagine the experience of walking into Home Depot. Now imagine the experience of walking into Victoria’s Secret. Where would you rather shop?
If you thought there was a “right answer” to that question, there wasn’t.
True, the atmospheres are very, very, very different. (To get an idea of how incongruous they are, imagine going to Victoria’s Depot and looking for perfumes and lingerie items on industrial metal shelves bolted down to concrete flooring.) But the different atmospheres will resonate with different people, or even with the same person at two different times.
Your job is to match your store design to your customer’s mindset so that they have a comfortable, enjoyable shopping experience. This is actually easier - and usually much cheaper - to do for an online store than for a physical store. Give your sports apparel site the feel of a stadium rocking to the chants of the fans. Give your store for children’s toys a cheery, playful look. Look at the difference between these two brands and the energy and feelings they conjure - they’re intrinsically different, but both spot-on for their target audiences.
Grant your site, your store and your loyalty program a personality - one that will resonate with your customers.
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