Dropshipping in Europe
The European market is a complex and fragmented market, but once understood it represents an ideal market to enter and sell products in.
Why is the EU a good market for dropshipping ?
The most important aspect to understand about Europe is how different each country is, and in some cases some regions are. This creates a highly multicultural market with different supplies and demands which constantly fluctuate. This also means a constant stream of high sales events. Consumers celebrate different holidays, watch different sports for different leagues, major nation events happen... All these events create influxes of online sales which are more steady across a year than in uniform markets such as North America for instance.
This diversity also brings vastly different spending habits as well as expected qualities. In some countries consumers would rather get a cheap price even if that means a lower quality products, whereas in other countries people will want to spend more on average but will have higher quality standards. This is not only true for the product and its price but also for elements like shipping price and time. Some cultures are also more receptive to promotions than others which might prefer a flat and clear price.
Entering the EU market is therefore a progressive process. Each country has to be considered individually but also globally to align and optimize sales periods, target marketing budget to the right places at the right time and so on.
Most supplier have well established logistics in the continent assuring fast and efficient delivery.
Recap of why the EU is a good market:
- High sales events happen at different times in different countries.
- Different spending habits but overall disposable cash to shop online.
- Flexibility with shipping expectations.
- Many unique niches of product sought after by specific regions.
- Good logistic networks through reputable suppliers.
Downsides of ecommerce in Europe
While having it's advantages there are also some consideration to take when serving Europe as an ecommerce.
Each country has its own language, in some cases multiple languages per country. This means your site has to be translated for each European country not only once, but every time you add new content or pages. This is also true for marketing and advertising material which needs to be localized and translated.
This disparity between customer's expectations creates waves of unsatisfied customers for instance during promotional seasons or when shipping is delayed due to world events.
Every country has specific laws which you need to stay on top of and which may affect the logistics of your shipments. This is where a reputable supplier makes the difference as they will take these into account for you.
Useful resources for EU ecommerce
In a previous post we helped you pick a supplier for your e-com operations : https://mymarginguard.com/blog/which-dropship-supplier/
In a word, our recommendation (unaffiliated) would be cjdropshipping for EU operations. The reason is that they offer attractive shipping times for Europe and have optimized logistical optimizations in place to get the products in your customers hands in no time.
We also talked in a previous blog post about which platform to use: https://mymarginguard.com/blog/how-to-start-dropshipping-creating-the-store/
In this case both options presented (Woocommerce and Shopify) are suitable.
And finally of course you'll probably want to secure your shop's profits.
We've talked about how you can achieve this with MarginGuard in the following blog post: https://mymarginguard.com/blog/how-to-track-dropshipping-prices/
But you can also directly try it for yourself on our official website MarginGuard
All our paid plans are available in euro. If you're unsure which one to pick we also wrote a guide to help you choose and compare the options: https://mymarginguard.com/blog/cost-of-tracking-dropshipping-prices/