What is an M.V.P. dropship store?
Launching your ecommerce dropship store with the minimum features required is what we call a M.V.P. or (minimum viable product) dropship store. It’s simply a term we use in the development world to describe the type of product that consists of the absolute minimum, but yet most professional and important features your ecommerce stores needs before marketing it properly to your audience.
After launching your MVP dropship store, the goal is to grow your business with your customers as you gather feedback from them and innovate.
You should still do your marketing and audience research before launching your M.V.P. site so you can go into the game with your eyes wide open! However, launching your M.V.P. store for your dropship business does not have to take longer than a two weeks, see here. In fact you can set up and design your dropship store in as little as a week if you have the desire, time and skill.
Whatever the case is though, the goal here today is to teach you about the minimum points you should have in place so you can launch your dropship or ecommerce store asap.
Why Focus 1st on the Minimum Viable Product?
Focusing your efforts on first on launching your M.V.P. ecommerce store is extremely valuable because it helps you avoid a few traps:
1- you can avoid the trap of thinking you know what your audience wants 100% when you really don’t. Yes, do your market and audience research ahead of time. But once you know who to target it’s time to get off the ground engaging with your audience.
2- you avoid the trap of analysis paralysis. In other words when you get out of the gate with the design and products your audience wants to see and access the most you can start growing your company a lot quicker. The sooner you can take the proper time upfront to do your market and product research and then launch the sooner you can start making money!
3- lastly, you avoid the trap of not generating an income. Yep, the sooner you can get what’s needed out the door in front of your audience the sooner you can obviously tap into the opportunity of selling something great to your audience.
One of the greatest financial principles of success I’ve learned is that “money loves speed”. That just means that the quicker you can get the value you have to offer (aka your ecommerce/dropshipping products) in front of the people who cares most about them, the sooner you can start generating cash flow/revenue, which is the life-line of your business.
So here is the minimum viable product checklist you can follow to help you set up and design and launch your dropship store in the next 2 weeks or less. And remember, if you would rather have me and my team just do it all for you, check out our Done-For-You MVP Dropship Store Design Service here.
23 Steps to Launching Your M.V.P. Drop Ship Store/Website
The following 23 points in this checklist are focused on using WordPress, but it can easily be adapted for launching your dropship store upon any website builder or platform such as Shopify, etc.
Not sure if you should use WordPress or Shopify? Read this guide here I created for you.
To learn how to choose a winning domain name and set up your WordPress system properly here are two free video tutorials I created for you to walk you through the process:
Step 1: Learn How to Choose the Right Domain Name & Set up your WordPress Host
Step 2: Learn How Set Up WordPress on GreenGeeks
| Items | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| Click here to choose a relevant domain name that you like. | ||
| Go here to set up your account with GreenGeeks: Set Up Your Account Here | ||
| Install WordPress on the domain you chose. Follow this tutorial here to show you show. |
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| Any of these top themes in the world for ecommerce sites are perfect. View themes here. |
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| Install WooCommerce and start adding your basic core products to your site from your supplier website using quality descriptions and images. Don’t make your store live yet. That will come later. | ||
| Go here to fiverr to order your logo and favicon for your website. | ||
| Create these basic pages inside of our WordPress site: Home, About page, FAQ’s, Contact | ||
| Go here to get the legal page templates to copy, paste and customize. | ||
| Design your home page of your drop ship site to include a value statement and a nice presentation of your popular products, navigation bar, etc. | ||
| Add the logo and favicon you had designed to your site. | ||
| Make sure your basic pages are customized are presentable. Example customize the content on your about page, contact, FAQ’s, etc. | ||
| Add the legal pages and any other pages to your website footer to make it easier for your customers to navigate your website. | ||
| Add a search bar to the top header section of your drop ship site. | ||
| Add a Free Shipping notice at the header of your website if relevant or possible for your niche site. |
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| Integrate your payment processor to your site such as PayPal, Stripe, or other. |
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| If you are using WooCommerce for your store and you want to keep customers on your website when they checklist you will need to order an SSL from your host. Call your host, or order an SSL with GreenGeeks here for around $50 a year. |
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| Log into your GreenGeeks account here and go to the Email section to add your business email accounts such as info@yourdomain.com etc. | ||
| Add your telephone number to the top of your drop ship site. Consider using Google Voice to set up a tel# that forwards to your cell phone. | ||
| Go to your state or country commerce or government website to register for your Employer Identification Number (EIN) For USA click here to register for free online. |
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| (optional) | Login to your WordPress site and create a page or category titled “Blog”. Assign this page to your navigation bar. Write a few blog posts on various topics in your niche for your audience to read and for you to use to market your drop ship biz organically. | |
| Add your physical address to your website footer or contact page. | ||
| Add the Google Analytics tracking code to your website. Click Here | ||
| Add credibility and trust images, logos to your site. Read a great article about website credibility here. |
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