Inside the world of Instagram dropshipping: is it right for your business?

How to dropship on Instagram

Plenty of people choose to sell products on Instagram because of the app’s low barrier to entry. Here’s how to build a dropshipping website and get selling on Instagram in just five steps:

1. Create a dropshipping store

Shopify provides ready-made templates for dropshipping businesses to take advantage of, covering sectors from clothing to pet accessories

Before you can sell anything, you’ll need to build a dropshipping store to sell from. Website builders like Wix, or special ecommerce platforms like Shopify are the most popular options.

Boasting dropshipping features like revenue reports and fraud detection, both software products can behave like your very own virtual retail assistant.

The next step is to research the products you want to sell through your website. Be sure to consider your suppliers at this stage. Reliability is key as the customer experience depends on supplier quality – which is why the best dropshipping suppliers have good reviews and fast shipping.

Got your products sorted? Next, import them into your website and decide on a pricing strategy. Add enticing descriptions and high-quality images to attract buyers.

2. Set up an Instagram account

The Startups team has had a business profile on Instagram for almost a decade, which we use to engage with users and help introduce them to our expert guides

If you don’t already have one, you’ll need to turn your Insta page into a business account. It is worth noting that a biz account isn’t all that different from a personal one. What it does offer is access to analytics tools that allow you to see how well your products are selling.

Once you have a professional account, you’ll be able to connect it to your dropshipping store in just a few clicks. This will allow you to add products to your shop so that customers can purchase directly from your profile.

3. Process orders

Order fulfilment is an important part of the dropshipping model. As you’re not manufacturing the products, your main responsibility as the shop owner is to track orders, communicate with suppliers, and handle any issues on the customer’s end.

Steer clear of customer complaints by setting clear shipping and return policies. Respond promptly to inquiries and complaints: if a parcel is lost or delayed, be transparent about why.

Order fulfilment services can minimise the risk of errors by automating some of the fiddly aspects of order processing, like product importing, routing, and inventory management.

4. Promote your products

Your Insta page is basically a virtual shop front. Make a high-quality window display using professional product photos and videos. Optimise your account to encourage visitors, which includes creating a compelling bio and profile picture.

Contests and giveaways can generate excitement and engagement amongst followers. This is an excellent organic tactic to grow your following and grow customer loyalty – but it can be difficult to tailor your messaging to reach your ideal consumer.

Instagram ads are a better method to target a niche audience. Using the platform’s analytics tools, you can target customers by demographic, interest, and behaviour. These same tools can also be used to gauge impact (more on this below).

5. Refine your strategy

Dropshipping is known as a good source of ‘passive income’; that is, income you’ll earn with very little effort. This doesn’t mean you can sit back and rest on your laurels, however. Growing any business requires involvement – particularly in the early stages.

Handily, Instagram analytics will let you regularly analyse and interpret customer data, such as page visitors, number of likes, and comments. These insights can inform strategic decisions to maximise engagement, product sales, and overall business growth.

Instagram ads for dropshipping: is it worth it?

If you have an Instagram account, you’ll already be well aware of what an Instagram ad looks like. As a form of paid social media, Insta ads mean you can pay for your content to appear in a person’s feed. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, as they say.

The benefits of using Instagram ads for your dropshipping business are:

• You’ll be able to target ads to specific demographics, such as location and age
• You’ll still have high engagement rates as users can still comment and like ads
• You’ll have access to Instagram tools and analytics to track campaign performance

How to set up an Instagram ad in five steps

Meta (Instagram’s parent company) requires you to have an ad account and a Facebook page to publish Instagram ads. Once you’ve set these up, you can then link your Instagram account to run ads across either or both platforms in just these five steps:

Step 1: Posts – Go to the post you want to advertise from and click the ‘Boost Post’ button on the bottom right corner

Step 2: Goal – Instagram will check your payment details. You’ll then be asked what you want to achieve with the ad. What it’s really asking you is where you want the ad link to take audiences. There are three options:

• To your website (if you want to boost traffic volume)
• To your Instagram page (if you want to boost brand awareness)
• To your DMs (if you want to encourage engagement)

Instagram let me boost a post from the Startups.co.uk account, choose a goal, and decide on the type of audience I wanted to target

Step 3: Audience – here you can select the demographic of users you want your ad to reach, including audience location, age, and interests. Or, for Instagram to do the work for you, click on ‘suggested audience’ to target groups similar to your followers.

Step 4: Budget and duration – this is where you set your ad duration and spending limit. For example, you might specify that you will spend no more than £4 per day over six days, for a total spend of £24.

Step 5. Review – Finally, review the ad and approve your payment. You’ll also be told how many new audiences Instagram thinks this ad will enable you to reach.

Instagram then let me select the amount of money I wanted to spend on the ad, before reviewing the final creation.

Instagram ads: associated costs

The cost of running ads on Instagram depends on a number of factors, including your targeting options, bidding strategy, and budget. However, here are some general averages:

• CPC (cost per click): this is the price you’ll pay every time a person clicks on your ad, and currently stands at an average of £0.35- £0.75 per click
• CPM (cost per mile): this is the price you pay to Instagram for every thousand impressions, which currently stands at an average of £7.94

CPM is cheaper than CPC. But in this case, less can be more. Using the above example, if Startups.co.uk boosted our latest Instagram post using a CPM method, we’d reach a total audience of around 20,000 at an estimated cost of £160.