How to start an E-commerce business for just 35$

This is my first post on medium. So please bear with me for some mistakes. This post is for newbies who wants to start a business.
So many people think it require lot of investment to start your e-commerce business, but today i am going to share with you the whole cheat sheet of starting a dropshipping e-commerce with just 35$ in your pocket.

Step 1 (Finding Niche):

So first thing you need is to select your niche. Niche is your genre what product categories you want to sell. Sell something that you’ve interest in or something which is high selling or something for which you find and build community around i.e Facebook groups.

For example drone niche have lot of good facebook groups. These are some suggestions Leather products, Drone acccessories, jewelry products, watches, toys for kids, home improvement products, etc. You can research and create your own niche as well

Finding a niche can take a lot of time, because this is step one. It is very hard to start something.

Step 2 (Buying Domain + Hosting)

Now you have got your niche. Let’s buy a domain name and hosting. Go to Namecheap.com buy a shared web hosting Stellar package, after you add it in cart it will ask for domain. Click “i want to buy new domain”. Choose your domain and finish checkout.

This is where you’ll spend your all 35$. Now you’ve purchased a domain and webhosting. Namecheap will link your domain and web hosting now.

You’ll receive an email. It will contain your cPanel login details (url, username, pass). Login to your cpanel. Then search for “softaculous”. This will install your Wordpress (website) for you. Open it. It will ask for some info like domain name, your site name, admin username and password etc. It will install wordpress for you. After successful installation you will get a admin panel url. It will be yourdomain.com/wp-admin.

That’s it. Now you’ve got your website up.

Step 3 (Making eCommerce)

Login to your website admin panel. i.e yourdomain.com/wp-admin. Go to plugin → Add new plugin. Then search for WooCommerce. Install the WooCommerce and follow its procedure. Its easy.

Step 4 (Adding Products)

Now you’ve to add products. Head over to AliExpress.com find your niche products, use filters to see Most Ordered or Newest Products. Now open the product download it’s photos. Now open your website “Add Product” page. Enter product name (do not copy aliexpress product name, change it a bit) , add photos and details. Now come to pricing. Add mark up (profit) on your product cost. E.g if price on AliExpress is 5$ you can sell it 15$ or even 20$.Add atleast 20–30 products on your store.

Step 5 (Start Marketing)

This is the main and most important part of running a dropshipping store. So now we need to do marketing. But we have no money left. Don’t worry!

This is free marketing technique. Go find out some facebook groups related to your niche. Post in those facebook groups as a customer. Note that you don’t spam the groups otherwise you’ll be kicked out of those groups. This is called posting as a customer: Anyone tried this thing? [your-product-link] or Should i buy this? anyone using it? [your-product-link]

This is free marketing technique. It works. Just do not spam. Do not SELL SELL SELL. Keep patience your first sale can take time. Join as many facebook groups as possible.

That’s it for today. Hope it will help you guys to start with something. BTW i am not a dropshipping eCommerce mogul. I am still in process.

If you liked like this post show me some love . You can reach me on Instagram (@im.usamakhalid). Send me a message if you’ve any questions.