DAY 2 Introduction about Shopify and drop shipping

History Of Shopify

Shopify was founded in 2004 by Tobias Lutke, Daniel Weinand

,

and Scott Lake.

After attempting to open Snow devil, an online store for snowboarding equipment. Unsatisfied with the existing e-commerce products on the market, Lutke, a computer programmer by trade, used the open source web application framework Ruby on Rails to build Snow devil's online store, and launched it after two months of development.

The Snow devil founders launched the platform as Shopify in June 2006

In June 2009, Shopify launched an API platform and App Store. The API allows developers to create applications for Shopify online stores and then sell them on the Shopify App Store. Shopify window display in north London

In April 2010, Shopify launched a free mobile app on the Apple App Store. The app lets Shopify store owners view and manage their stores from iOS mobile devices. In 2010, Shopify started its Build-A-Business competition, in which participants create a business using its commerce platform. The winners of the competition receive cash prizes and mentorship from entrepreneurs, such as Richard Branson, Eric Ries and others. Shopify was named Ottawa’s Fastest Growing Company by the Ottawa Business Journal in 2010.The company received $7 million from an initial series A round of venture capital financing in December 2010. Its Series B round raised $15 million in October 2011.

In February 2012, Shopify acquired Select Start Studios Inc ("S3"), a mobile software developer, along with 20 of the company's mobile engineers and designers. In August 2013, Shopify acquired Jet Cooper, a 25-person design studio based in Toronto.

In August 2013, Shopify announced the launch of Shopify Payments, which allowed merchants to accept credit cards without requiring a third party payment gateway. The company also announced the launch of an iPad-centric point of sale system. It uses an iPad to accept payments from debit and credit cards. The company received $100 million in Series C funding in December 2013.

By 2014, the platform hosted approximately 120,000 online retailers, and was listed as #3 in Deloitte’s Fast50 in Canada, as well as #7 in Deloitte’s Fast 500 of North America. Shopify earned $105 million in revenue in 2014, twice as much as it raised the previous year.

On April 14, 2015, Shopify filed for an initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange and Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbols "SHOP" and "SH" respectively. Shopify went public on May 21, 2015, and in its debut on the New York Stock Exchange, started trading at $28, more than 60% higher than its USD$17 offering price, with its IPO raising more than $131 million.
In September 2015, Amazon.com announced it would be closing its Amazon Web store service for merchants, and had selected Shopify as the preferred migration provider; Shopify's shares jumped more than 20% upon the news.

On October 3, 2016, Shopify acquired Bolt made. In November 2016, Shopify partnered with Pay stack which allowed Nigerian online retailers to accept payments from customers around the world. On November 22, 2016, Shopify launched Frenzy, a mobile app that improves flash sales. On December 5, 2016, Shopify acquired Toronto-based mobile product development studio Tiny Hearts. The Tiny Hearts building has been turned into a Shopify research and development office.
In January 2017, Shopify announced integration with Amazon that would allow merchants to sell on Amazon from their Shopify stores. Shopify's stock rose almost 10% upon this announcement.
In April 2017, Shopify introduced a Bluetooth enabled debit and credit card reader for brick and mortar retail purchases.

why is Shopify is the best platform for e-commerce

It is simple and I can give you 20 reason why Shopify is the best platform right now in 2018 and for coming years.
Thousands of free and paid available themes (new ones coming out all the time)
3rd party shopping integrations
Integrations with PayPal
They support blogs and we all know content is king!
Tracking and maintaining customer data
Works like a regular website CMS
Optimized for SEO and easily customizable in regards to keywords
You can use your Mail Chimp or other Email provider for email marketing
You can add coupons and discount codes
Full HTML and CSS Editing abilities

A “Buy Now” call to action button to be placed on external sites
POS Integration
You can make a customizable profile for your employees
Integrations with live chats
Create your own store Gift Cards
Advanced Reporting
An Abandoned Cart feature built in!
Integration with help desks like Zen Desk
Analytics reporting
Shipping carrier integration

The List will continue and it is not limited by the number described above. But this list alone can show you the advantage of working on Shopify.

what can You do with Shopify ?

There are Two main tasks you can do in Shopify

Drop Shipping

Print On Demand (POD)

What is Drop Shipping?

Understanding Drop shipping

Drop shipping is a retail fulfillment method where a store doesn't keep the products it sells in stock. Instead, when a store sells a product, it purchases the item from a third party and has it shipped directly to the customer. As a result, the merchant never sees or handles the product.

The biggest difference between drop shipping and the standard retail model is that the selling merchant doesn't stock or own inventory. Instead, the merchant purchases inventory as needed from a third party – usually a wholesaler or manufacturer – to fulfill orders.

Benefits Of Drop Shipping

Less Capital Is Required – Probably the biggest advantage to drop shipping is that it's possible to launch an ecommerce store without having to invest thousands of dollars in inventory up front. Traditionally, retailers have had to tie up huge amounts of capital purchasing inventory.

With the drop shipping model, you don't have to purchase a product unless you already made the sale and have been paid by the customer. Without major up-front inventory investments, it's possible to start a successful drop shipping business with very little money.

Easy to Get Started – Running an ecommerce business is much easier when you don't have to deal with physical products. With drop shipping, you don't have to worry about:
Managing or paying for a warehouse
Packing and shipping your orders
Tracking inventory for accounting reasons
Handling returns and inbound shipments
Continually ordering products and managing stock level

Low Overhead

– Because you don't have to deal with purchasing inventory or managing a warehouse, your overhead expenses are quite low. In fact, many successful drop shipping businesses are run from a home office with a laptop for less than $100 per month. As you grow, these expenses will likely increase but will still be low compared to those of traditional brick-and-mortar businesses.

Flexible Location

– A drop shipping business can be run from just about anywhere with an internet connection. As long as you can communicate with suppliers and customers easily, you can run and manage your business.

Wide Selection of Products

– Because you don't have to pre-purchase the items you sell, you can offer an array of products to your potential customers. If suppliers stock an item, you can list if for sale on your website at no additional cost.

Easy to Scale

– With a traditional business, if you receive three times as much business you'll usually need to do three times as much work. By leveraging drop shipping suppliers, most of the work to process additional orders will be borne by the suppliers, allowing you to expand with fewer growing pains and less incremental work. Sales growth will always bring additional work – especially related to customer service – but business that utilize drop shipping scale particularly well relative to traditional ecommerce businesses.

All these benefits make drop shipping a very attractive model to both beginning and established merchants. Unfortunately, drop shipping isn't all roses and rainbows. All this convenience and flexibility comes at a price.

Disadvantages Of Drop shipping

Low Margins

– Low margins are the biggest disadvantage to operating in a highly competitive drop shipping niche. Because it's so easy to get started – and the overhead costs are so minimal – many merchants will set up shop and sell items at rock-bottom prices in an attempt to grow revenue. They've invested so little in getting the business started so they can afford to operate on minuscule margins.

True, these merchants often have low-quality websites and poor (if any) customer service. But that won't stop customers from comparing their prices to yours. This increase in cutthroat competition will quickly destroy the profit margin in a niche. Fortunately, you can do a lot to mitigate this problem by selecting a niche that's well suited for drop shipping.

Inventory Issues

– If you stock all your own items, it's relatively simple to keep track of which items are in and out of stock. But when you're sourcing from multiple warehouses, which are also fulfilling orders for other merchants, inventory changes on a daily basis. While there are ways you can better sync your store's inventory with your suppliers', these solutions don't always work seamlessly, and suppliers don't always support the technology required.

Shipping Complexities

– If you work with multiple suppliers – as most drop shippers do – the products on your website will be sourced through a number of different drop shippers. This complicates your shipping costs.

Let's say a customer places an order for three items, all of which are available only from separate suppliers. You'll incur three separate shipping charges for sending each item to the customer, but it's probably not wise to pass this charge along to the customer, as they'll think you're grossly overcharging for shipping! And even if you did want to pass these charges along, automating these calculations can be difficult.

Supplier Errors

– Have you ever been blamed for something that wasn't your fault, but you had to accept responsibility for the mistake anyway?

Even the best drop shipping suppliers make mistakes fulfilling orders – mistakes for which you have to take responsibility and apologize. And mediocre and low-quality suppliers will cause endless frustration with missing items, botched shipments and low-quality packing, which can damage your business's reputation.

Is It Worth It?

As I initially warned, drop shipping isn't a perfect, stress-free way to build a successful business. The model has some definite advantages but comes with a number of built-in complexities and problems you'll need to be able to address.
We'll be examining these problems – and how to best address them – in future courses. The good news is that with some careful planning and consideration, most of these problems can be resolved and need not prevent you from building a thriving, profitable drop shipping business.

Print On Demand (POD)

What is Print on Demand?

Print on demand is when you sell your own custom designs on products like mugs, t-shirts, and phone cases.

Print on Demand is a retail fulfillment method for printing products on demand, only after the customer buys them. This way a client can buy products in an ecommerce shop and the order goes directly to the Print Provider. Thus, this eliminates the need for order fulfillment and storage space..

Typically, for Print on Demand apparel fulfilment, Direct to Garment printing is used. Screen Printing is convenient only in cases of large volume orders - because with higher volume there's a lower price, while DTG is great for small orders. With Direct to Garment Printing you can get a detailed print, while Screen Printing in terms of photography print is limited.

Why go Print on Demand? & it’s benefit

First of all, it's easy. With Print on Demand you save time and money. That's because there's no need for huge investments, no need for storage space or inventory. Furthermore, you pay only after you sell, you never go out of stock and you never have unsold products - the kind which usually end up as Christmas presents for your relatives. With (POD) you get stunning product images for your store - and the creation process is fast and simple. You also have automated Print on Demand order fulfillment and shipping - which means that you have a lot more time on your hands to focus on your designs and growth.

You’ll Have Your Own Custom Products:

It can be a pretty cool feeling to have someone buy a product that you designed yourself or your product. Most print on demand suppliers allow you to design your own clothing like print on demand t-shirts, dresses and leggings. They might also have products like phone cases, tote bags, and canvas. If you’re a graphic designer or a creative type, designing your own products can be a fun experience.

You Might Be Able to Do Custom Packaging:

While most print on demand suppliers don’t allow you to design your own boxes or add marketing inserts into your packages, some allow you to add your logo on a receipt or a sticker for your package. This can be helpful in building your brand.

Disadvantage of Print on Demand

There are a few issues with the print on demand business model. Here are a few examples:

Expensive Shipping Costs

Shipping rates are usually the worst for print on demand. With 90% of customers wanting free shipping as an incentive more than anything else, it’s fair to say you should probably be offering it on your store. Absorbing the cost of U.S. shipping (most print on demand suppliers are U.S. based) can quickly eat up your profit margin. If you try selling internationally, you’ll quickly realize you can’t sustain the business long-term.

High Product Cost

It’s not that print on demand product costs are high for what you’re getting. I mean, for getting your own custom design on a product it isn’t too bad for a one off piece. However, for running a business, the print on demand prices are sky high. On Printful, the starting price for a mug is $8.95. Add in a worldwide shipping price of $16.95 and you’re at $25.90 USD for a mug! That’s not even the customer cost because you need to have a retail price to ensure a profit for your store. Your profit needs to be high enough to afford marketing and business costs and pay salaries.

Mockup Generator Models All Look the Same

Many print on demand services have a mockup generator that allows you to easily include a product photo on your website. This is great for new store owners. The downside is that all the mockups look the same. If you only sell leggings or phone cases, all your product photos will look identical. From a user experience perspective, your store can end up looking really repetitive making it hard for a customer to differentiate which product they should buy. Having models wearing the product or having different types of settings for your product photos can help make the decision making process of online shopping easier.

Eventually, you’ll find that you need to invest in product photography to ensure you have great product photos. However, this can have a high financial cost, especially for a new entrepreneur.

Need to Have Strong Design Skills

If you’re a graphic designer looking to monetize your talent, print on demand is likely your best bet. A lot of new entrepreneurs, falsely believe that all they need to do is use a cool font and put a funny slogan on a print on demand t-shirt for it to sell. The biggest challenge for most new store owners is design. Sometimes it’s their store design that could use an improvement but with print on demand it’s almost always the product design. If you’re an inexperienced graphic designer, your designs can look cheesy. Mine included. I thought, ‘hey, I got a 95% in a graphic design class I took for fun. I can do this.’ My designs were bad. Real bad. Your customers can spot a real graphic designer’s work versus an amateur’s. If you have skill and a strong understanding of what your customer wants, you’ll do well. But if you don’t, your sales performance will be low. There’s no guarantee that your design will be profitable and resonate with your audience.

Is It Worth It?

Limited Product Selection

Print on demand brands tend to have limited product selections. If you want to sell print on demand t-shirts, you’ll likely find variety across a range of platforms. Beyond that, the product selection gets smaller. You might find a dress on one platform but with only one style. Or you find iPhone cases on one platform but Samsung phone cases on another one. Most print on demand suppliers don’t have the full spectrum when it comes to product selection. With AliExpress drop shipping, you can choose from millions of products beyond things that can be printed such as figurines, toys, tools, glitter phone cases and other products.

To succeed on print on demand by it’s own is very hard b/s of the above reasons. do a mix of print on demand and AliExpress drop shipping. In This way you can back your Drop shipping business and up sail the POD product with the drop shipping product. Also, this method work very well b/s when people start buying they have the behavior to spend more. So you can build a POD that is similar to your niche and to the specific product and up sail.

Why up sail the POD?

we discuss on above section about the drop shipping & one of the cone is shipping time it can take from 15 – 40 days. That means your customer may not be patent for that long. That could create unsatisfied customer. To take this risk down you can offer a POD up sail with the product they buy. you promise to your customer if they buy both you tell them you can deliver very fast shipping for POD that will give you the time to keep a customer from complaining because they think you already give them value by delivering one product with fast shipment. But you have to be careful about how you pitch this.