Let me try my best to give you a break-down of start up costs of starting a US-based drop shipping store while living abroad. Please note all costs will be in USD:
1) Domain Name - ~$2 to $16: Depends on the provider you choose
2) Hosting - ~$23/month: Shopify has a 14 day free trial, and after the basic plan you will need costs $29/month. However, normally there are promotions that give around 20%-35% off per month. You may have to Google around to find the best one when you sign up. That would would drop your costs to ~$23/month
3) Business Email Address - Free to ~$5/month: This can be done for free with zoho.com or you can choose an email with more features, Google Apps charges about $5/month
4) Logo Design - ~$5.50: We recommend you use fiverr.com, where you can find a good artist to make a logo for about ~$5.50
5) US Based Phone Number - Free to ~$30/year: Google Voice will give you a free US Based phone number you can use to route to a gmail account! From the Google Voice account you can check Voicemails, receive, and take calls. There are paid options like Grasshopper that cost about $30/month.
6) Incorporating a US Based Business as a non-citizen - $238: This will likely be your biggest starting expense. You can incorporate in the "easy" US states like Deleware, Wyoming, or Nevada. Please note: When using this service you don't have to pay to get the US Federal EIN number, you can do this yourself for free! You can use My USA Corp for this task.
7) Advertising - Varies: This will depend entirely on your niche and how competitive it is to advertise. We have members that pay less than $0.10 per click and others that pay well over $1.00 per click based on their niche. However, there is a free $75 Amazon Ad credit and free $100 Google Ad credit for all members. A good rule of thumb though, is to budget about $100/month in advertising to start with, after using up the free credit.
We actually had one of our coaches (Jon Warren from Australia) create a new course that's in the members area of Drop Ship Lifestyle that focuses on how to adjust the techniques in the course when selling in smaller markets. It's called the Doing Business Abroad Course.
Check out this blog article titled "Drop Shipping Outside the US - How much Does It Cost" - https://blog.dropshiplifestyle.com/drop-shipping-outside-the-us/
Our courses include step by step instructions on how to start, maintain and be profitable with your drop ship business. Our advanced packages include access to our online videos, community forums with drop ship professionals and newcomers, our Shopify Design Course, Private Coaching Calls, access to our Supplier Directory and much more! You can see what is included in all of our packages at this link -
https://www.dropshiplifestyle.com/ecommerce-courses/
Comments
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To start a dropship business, you also need to have a toll free number. If customers need to contact you, then would need some phone number that won't cost them money. Source: https://magenticians.com/how-to-start-dropshipping-business/
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