If you aren’t sure if you want to dropship or not, you might want to think about an alternative.
What if I told you that there is a business model that is very similar to dropshipping, but you don’t have to sell physical products?
Drop servicing is the new way that people do business online these days. This is not the same as dropshipping, but it is similar.
Drop servicing is a way to run a business in which services are sold. But you won’t be the one to do the service. You must find someone to do it for you. Your job is to get people to buy these services so you can make money.
Today, I’ll explain how drop servicing works and give you a plan for getting started.
What Does Drop Servicing Mean?
Service arbitrage is another name for drop service.
What’s the meaning?
You find clients who need a service, but they don’t know that you’re hiring someone else to do the work they asked you to do. This is called outsourcing.
In the real world, it is like hiring someone else to do the work. Sometimes, contractors will show you the plan for the house you want and talk to you about how much it will cost and how long it will take.
These contractors don’t have their own architects or carpenters, though. They give this deal to someone else to do, but they still get paid for it.
In the online world, you can find clients who need graphic design or blog content, among other things.
When these people buy from you, you give the order to someone you know who can do the job. They are called freelancers, and you can find them on websites called “freelance markets.”
Before you do this, you need to know how much the seller or freelancer will charge. So, you can add a markup to that price. Your profit is the difference between how much you charged your client and how much the freelancer wants.
What Services Can You Stop?
You don’t have to do anything. But don’t drop service on something you don’t understand, or you’ll fail.
For example, if you don’t know what SEO or PBN services are, you shouldn’t try to sell them. You don’t have to know everything there is to know about a service, but you do need to know how it works.
For instance, it’s easy to sell blog posts and then hire people to write them. This should be easy to do, since you don’t have to be an editor to know the difference between good and bad content.
Some examples of services you could sell are:
- Web building Backlinking
- Guest posts
- Blog posts
- Social media management
- The visual arts
- Writing ad copy
- Making a video or an animation
- Video editing
There are a lot of other things you could stop doing, the list goes on and on.
You need to find out what kind of service people want. Since this is a new idea, you won’t be able to find data about it anywhere. In this case, Google Trends is your best choice.
Look at the below screenshot. We looked for the term “freelance writer” all over the world for the last five years. We can see that a lot of people want this.
With this information, you can see that there are people who want freelance writers. Now, the next step is to find one that is good and doesn’t cost too much.
The next step is to get people to use this service.
How to Start What You Need
To get started, you need a list of services and a list of people who offer those services. As the example above showed, there is a need for freelance writers all over the world.
I would suggest that you choose just one service from the list you have made to promote.
So, you won’t feel too overwhelmed when you start.
For example, if you wanted to resell writing services, you would need to find a writer who could meet my standards. This is an important step.
Then I would spend money to see how good different writers’ work was.
Where can I find people who write? We’ll talk more about that soon.
Next, you need a place to stand. A website or store is the best place for drop-off service. You can market your services on social media, but most people won’t trust you if you don’t have a website.
Starting a store that does drop service
The best platform for an online store is the one that drop shippers use. We use Shopify because it is the best in its field.
What’s Shopify? It is an online tool for doing business that lets you set up a store.
You can get the following in that store:
- System for taking payments at a store
- SEO tools for marketing
- Social media integration
- Email subscription
- Answers even more
Even though Shopify was made for selling physical goods, all you have to do to sell services is change the product pages to service pages. On Shopify, there are places where you can write about the service, the price, and other options.
The “Add to Cart” button is already built into every Shopify store. This means that your customers can now place orders right from their phones or tablets.
A marketing plan is the last thing you need to get going. The first steps to getting started are to look for a service provider and build a website.
Where Can Drop Services Be Found?
A freelance market is the best place to find drop service jobs. Freelancers post their profiles on these sites so that clients can see them. You can also post a job, and then freelancers will bid on it.
These are some sites where you can find cheap services to sell on your store.
- Fiverr
- Freelancer.com
- Humans Per Hour
- ProBlogger
- HubStaff Talent
- UpWork
Before you hire someone to help you with your test, you should look at their profile, feedback rating, years in the business, and how much they are charging.
From there, you can make a list of these services and choose your top three. Order their service to find out who does the best job.
You should also take the time to learn the rules of the freelance marketplace. Some don’t have a way to pay, so you could lose money and have no way to get your money back if the service provider did a bad job.
Regardless of which one you choose, it should have a Resolution Policy where you can file a complaint if the service wasn’t good. In this case, the company will give you back your money, which you can then use to hire another company.
You should also check how much the freelance market place charges the freelancers because this affects how they price their goods.
The freelancer has to pay Fiverr 20% of the cost. If a freelancer charges $100 for a service, he will only get $80.
If that’s the case, the service providers here won’t charge you $100, but they will charge you at least $120 to cover this fee. Clients are also charged between $1 and $2 per project. On top of the 20% fee that the freelancer pays, this is an extra cost.
Even so, I’m going to suggest Fiverr as the best place to start.
No matter what website you choose, you should always spend money before you start a drop service business. You need to think about how long it will take to finish the project, how much it will cost, how good the service is, and what the fees are.
What can’t be done with Drop Servicing?
The main thing that can hold you back in this business is what you know. You can charge whatever you want for the services, but you can’t just sell any services.
For example, if you don’t know what medical transcription is, you can’t offer it as a service. The same goes for services like data entry, lead generation, and others where you don’t have a background.
Your level of control is another thing you can’t change. Not all freelancers can meet your deadlines, and you can’t do anything about it if they don’t.
Some of these guys only do this on the side. If a freelancer says it will take three days to write an article, you need to add at least two days to that.
Because you need to be ready in case they miss the deadline or do a bad job and you need to ask for a revision.
Or it could be even worse if you need to find a new freelancer.
Again, you shouldn’t start this kind of business if you’re not willing to try the service provider yourself. The client doesn’t know that you’re outsourcing, so you can’t use that as an excuse if you don’t do what you said you would.
How much will dropping service cost?
The price really varies, but the least you should expect to pay for your Shopify store is $29 per month. The other cost will be your domain name, which you might be able to get for free for the first year if you can find a deal online.
The other cost, which will be different for each freelancer, is the trial period. If you need a writer and can find one on Fiverr for $30 per article, it could cost you $90 for three freelancers to do your test.
Once they’ve done these three things and sent you the sample article, you’ve found a writer you can work with.
But what if you want to offer other services like SEO or graphic design? To find the right provider, you have to pay for these two services again.
So, the best thing you can do is find a service you know a little bit about, buy a few to test, and look for a good supplier. After that, you can concentrate on selling that one service.
Once you start making money, you can start to grow.
Should I go to a class to learn how to do drop servicing?
Drop servicing is something you should learn. Since this is a new opportunity, there aren’t any courses available right now.
You can take a course in e-commerce, which is similar to dropshipping in how it works and how it is run.
The only difference is that you won’t be selling physical products, so you won’t need a supplier. But the most important thing you need to know is how to market your services and use social media to your advantage.
If you haven’t run a business before, it might be hard for you to make this one work. But you just need to learn how to market your service.
Summary
The next big thing might be drop-off service. It is easy to use and easy to make money from. With drop servicing, there are no actual goods involved.
You won’t lose money on shipping costs, and you won’t get a lot of complaints from customers about bad products, because every finished service will go through you.
