Are you thinking of taking the plunge and starting your own ecommerce adventure? Then dropshipping with CommerceHQ might be made for you! With its low entry costs and the freedom to work from anywhere, more and more entrepreneurs are choosing dropshipping.
Dropshipping is a form of supply chain management for eCommerce stores that allows merchants to sell products and have them shipped directly to the customer without ever storing stock themselves. This business model relies on a good relationship with a trusted supplier to help you automate manual tasks and sell more products faster.
If you’re only just getting started with dropshipping, or even if you’ve simply decided to change platform for your store, chances are you’ve heard of CommerceHQ. The newest kid on the ecommerce platform block,it has even won Nick Peroni’s approval!
So if you are interested in this business, continue to read our article to understand how to build a high converting dropshipping store with CommerceHQ and why this platform can be great for your business.
Why choose CommerceHQ?
CommerceHQ was created by Jon Mac, now a high-level multimillion-dollar eCommerce marketer but once a humble eCommerce retailer.
He’d tried a bunch of different platforms and started raking in millions, but soon got frustrated with their limitations. He felt that they just weren’t set up to help him and other businesses like his really boost their sales.
So he got together with his business partner Vlad to fix this, and in September 2015 he launched CommerceHQ, a platform specifically designed to be a conversion engine for your stores!
Boost your margins dropshipping with CommerceHQ
Jon and his partner thought that one of the most annoying things about traditional platforms are commissions on transactions. Dropshippers must already pay the third-party payment provider a transaction fee and adding a commission on top of this seemed just too much!
With CommerceHQ you save money on commission fees making your margins higher and giving you more cash to splash on reinvestment in marketing and advertising.
Avoid bans on dropshippers
A number of platforms have started to penalize dropshippers for no particular reason. They are banning completely legitimate stores just because they belong to dropshippers. This can leave you with a very nasty surprise!
CommerceHQ, on the other hand, was developed specifically with dropshipper needs in mind so there is no risk of unexpected bans or unfair penalization.
Build your dropshipping store: getting started
First of all, sign up to CommerceHQ. You get a free 14-day trial period so you can decide whether to pay the monthly fee after you’ve given it a whirl.
Enter a store name and store subdomain domain name (you will be able to change these later on). Your subdomain name should match your business and give a pointer about what you sell – TheMadhatter, if you only sell hats and caps for example.
For first-time access, CommerceHQ provides a handy set-up checklist that speeds things up and gets you selling in no time! The main items on the checklist are:
Connect your dropshipping domain
First of all, you will be asked to buy a new domain name or connect an existing one to your CommerceHQ account. Remember to connect the nameservers in your existing domain too.
Store Currency & Payment
You should now set up your payment processing in the currency you prefer choosing between: US Dollars, Canadian Dollars, Euros, Pound Sterling or Australian Dollars and set up payment processing with Stripe for credit card payments and Paypal.
Unique checkout options on CommerceHQ
You can select the number of steps in your check out (1- 4) and add your store logo, refund and privacy policies.
Dropshipping store theme
To activate the selected theme, you will need to return to the Themes page and select the theme by clicking Use Theme (Themes > Use Theme > Dashboard).
To customize it go back to the Themes page and let’s get started with CommerceHQ’s handy Drag-and-drop builder!
Click Edit on your selected theme and start playing around!
You can insert Headers, Headers & Text, Text, Icons with headings, Icon tiles and Text, Back quotes, Images, Thumbnail galleries, Videos, Sliders, Icons, Dividers, Buttons and other features simply by dragging and dropping them onto the page.
If you choose to insert your own image or logo for example, you do so by clicking on the bottom right and selecting Add/Edit Images and then Select Files to Upload.
In the same intuitive way, you can select elements on your store page and click on them to delete them until you are happy with the look and feel of your store.
Designed for dropshipping with CommerceHQ
If you want to add more personalization to your store, CommerceHQ offers a simple drag-and-drop system that allows you to change the look-and-feel of your store as much as you want.
You’ll also have a range of apps included in the monthly fee that you can add to your store to make it more unique.
In your Dashboard select Tools then All themes in the column under “store set up”.
We’ll be taking you through this standard process below.
Select your theme and click Add to Library and select a theme such as VB Vintage.
A reliable dropshipping supplier
Now your store is ready you’ll need to populate it with your great products!
Even if you are skilled at finding the products you want to sell by yourself, you will probably struggle with sourcing reliable suppliers.
Your options are twofold:
- Buy at B2C prices from a marketplace like Aliexpress and struggle with slow and unreliable shipping.
- Find a supplier that you can trust to source products at B2B prices and fulfill your orders.
If you want to start dropshipping with CommerceHQ and build a successful business, buying at B2C prices from chinese marketplaces is just not an option: it will eat into your margins too much. Add that these sites provide a very poor shipping experience for your customers, and it’s clear that you need to find another option to dropship successfully.
Sourcing B2B priced products from factories, most likely in China is the only viable business option but it is also a huge headache for dropshippers that don’t have a reliable supplier to deal with the factories and with shipping on their behalf.
Choosing a partner like Yakkofy that can help you source products as well as fulfill orders automatically end-to-end can be the make-or-break for a dropshipping store.
Connect Yakkyofy’s Software
To help you source and upload products to your store sign up to Yakkyofy’s free software and connect your CommerceHQ store.
Visit Yakkyofy.com and sign up if you haven’t already. Remember to click on the confirmation email to activate your account! From your main dashboard click Connect Your First Store and select CommerceHQ from the pop-up box that appears.
Give your store a name that helps you identify it- it is not displayed publicly so you can change it later. At this stage you need to fill in your API url, your API key and and your API password from CommerceHQ.
Once you log into CommerceHQ you’ll see your URL right at the top. Copy and paste it into the API URL box in the Yakkyofy dashboard. To find your API Key you need to go back into CommerceHQ and visit the Dashboard on the top bar. Click on “All tools”, then choose “App store”.
As Yakkyofy is not listed in the App store you will need to add a “Private App”. Name it and be sure to give it full access. Click “Add the App” and now you will see the new app listed in your App store. Select “Settings” and you will immediately find the API Key and passwords listed. Copy them into the pop-up box in Yakkyofy and we have lift-off!
Find a great partner to source your dropshipping items
Adding your first collection of products is an exciting moment!
Perhaps you’ve already selected some products you’d like to sell but, if not, don’t despair! There are several tools that can help you find popular products but try to avoid items that have become too popular, or you’ll struggle with the competition.
Yakkyofy can help you automate your store management from product sourcing through to delivery to the customer. With our innovative Image Recognition Technology you can simply upload images of the products you want to sell onto Yakkyofy and get a full quote within seconds.
This cuts back on endless back-and-forth emails with factories on the other side of the world and immediately identifies the right supplier for your products and your costs.
Select the items and variants and these will be automatically uploaded to the Yakkyofy dashboard ready to be purchased in just a few clicks.
Happy customers, happy you: automate fulfillment
Yakkyofy is by your side at every step. Once you’ve got your site packed with exciting products, orders will start rolling in.
To help you manage the fulfillment process Yakkyofy provides complete automation so that as soon as an order is made on your site we start processing your order.
Our worldwide shipping is fast and reliable guaranteeing delivery of your items to the customer within 3-15 working days in North America and most of the European Countries.
Yakkyofy also sends tracking numbers directly to your customers when they make an order so you don’t have to.
We also guarantee the physical attribute of your products so that if your customers receive an item that is different or damaged, we will reship a new one with video or photo proof.
Bumper services for dropshipping stores
But there is more! Because Yakkyofy is an experienced supplier we know that as your business grows you might have new requirements too.
This is why we enable you to private label your products, by printing logos on items and personalizing your packaging to help grow your brand.
If you decide to buy a small amount of stock of a product that is selling really well, we can offer a discount and also store it for you in our Shenzhen warehouse free of charge.
Give your business all the TLC it needs so make sure that your personalized and highly converting CommerceHQ store is also easy to manage by eliminating manual tasks with automation and avoiding customer complaints with reliable, fast shipping thanks to Yakkyofy.