Dropshipping is one of the best ways to sell cannabis products and make a passive income. Most importantly, starting a marijuana dropshipping store is effortless; you only need an investment of $100 to $500 for the platform, a computer with internet access, and research and setup time. 

Unlike an ordinary eCommerce business, you don’t need expensive inventory, a large warehouse, or to spend countless hours fulfilling orders. As a result, dropshipping is a low-risk business model with excellent potential rewards. 

So if you’re wondering: how do I start a cannabis drop shipping business? You’ve found the right article; let’s look at the basic steps to creating your own online smoke shop:

1. Create Your Business Concept 

Regardless of the industry, you’ll need a business concept to grow a business. You should create your business concept based on your brand, content, and products. A huge benefit of dropshipping is not tying yourself to an expensive inventory. Therefore, you can make changes at any stage. 

That said, whether you’re focused on niche products or a broad range of products, you’ll need to complete some product research. With most businesses, you’re looking to fill a gap in the market; however, with dropshipping, you need to identify which products are selling well. Research a popular cannabis dispensary and see which products are doing well. 

2. Source Your Products 

Once you’ve completed your research, you can begin sourcing your cannabis products. Regardless of how you find your suppliers, sourcing your products is one of the most time-consuming aspects of the process, yet it’s critical to build a great business. So spend the maximum time possible sourcing the best cannabis or CBD products. 

You should consider the following things when finding potential products:

• Profitability – Although you hear about many huge companies — such as Uber and Airbnb — failing to make a profit, you can’t get away with this in dropshipping. Find products with good product margins. Your credit card fees and shipping costs will eat away from your profit margins, so maximize your profits as much as possible. 
• Location – A supplier’s location will impact your delivery speed and shipping costs — two things that can ruin your profit margins. A good online weed dispensary will choose a local and reputable supplier. 
• Supplier reliability – Unfortunately, some weed dropshipping companies come undone because of poor suppliers. There’s nothing worse than sending products late to your customers because the supplier is unreliable. 
• Item quality – Perhaps the most critical aspect of your dropshipping business is item quality. After all, what’s the point in providing excellent delivery times and customer service delivering sub-par cannabis products? Find the best marijuana products. 

3. Build Your Online Store 

Now it’s time for an essential part of the process: building your online store. You’ll need a user-friendly and SEO-optimized website to drive traffic to your products. Without the traffic, you’d never create a successful dropshipping business. You’ll need to build standard online store features, including return policies and product listings. 

Product-Focused or Content-Focused Website

You also have one big decision: choosing a product-focused or content-focused website. When you select a product-focused website, you choose the simplest option if you’re new to dropshipping. Product-focused sites include product photos, FAQs, product descriptions, and other relevant info. These sites are ideal for general dropshipping stores that sell a wide variety of cannabis products. 

Alternatively, you can choose a content-focused store. These stores are ideal for niche businesses — such as rock climbing gear or infrared saunas — which already have an engaged community. However, you can also use content-focused stores for cannabis products too. A content-focused store is excellent for marketing because your website will gain authority quickly.  

Choose Your eCommerce Platform 

You’ll also need to choose your eCommerce platform. Shopify is a popular option for most dropshipping sites because it integrates with Doba, Sprocket, Modalyst, Oberlo, and various other plug-and-play dropshipping marketplaces. Once you’ve chosen your eCommerce marketplace, it’s time to build your site. 

First, you’ll need to lay the groundwork to design a layout, connect a domain, and set up payment processing. Your eCommerce platform will offer customer support if you’re struggling with the setup. 

4. Set Up Your Finances and Business 

To launch a successful dropshipping business, you’ll need to fix the legal and financial aspects of your weed business. From the start, separate your personal and business finances. Many part-time business owners run into financial issues because they don’t do this from the onset. Ensure you set up a business bank account and take out a business credit card; this can further separate your personal and business finances. 

5. Market Your Products 

Congratulations on building your dropshipping platform; however, it doesn’t end there.

It’s now time to drive sales through marketing. 

You can do this via:

• Social media 
• Content marketing 
• Community involvement 
• Paid ads
• SEO 
• Email marketing 
• Influencer marketing

Successfully marketing your website doesn’t happen overnight. A successful SEO strategy takes time, diligence, and patience. Yet, once you’ve built a regular stream of traffic, you’ll have a regular stream of passive income from your smoke shop. 

6. Run Your Dropshipping Business

As with all businesses, you’ll need to tweak your cannabis dropshipping business as it grows. Pay close attention to the feedback your customers give you regarding cannabis products. What’s more, closely analyze the reliability of your suppliers. If your supplier becomes unreliable, ensure you quickly switch suppliers and maintain your own reliability.  

Running a dropshipping business often entails:

• Managing orders 
• Customer service 
• Accounting 

Ideally, you want your dropshipping business to provide passive income and a hands-off process. Unfortunately — regardless of the industry — this isn’t always the case. If you follow the right steps, however, you can build a passive income machine. 

Final Thoughts 

Although the initial time investment can be hefty, and you may make mistakes along the road, building a successful dropshipping business is one of the most rewarding businesses.

It’s a low-risk and low-cost business model. And, of course, this attracts many people to dropshipping.

However, only the best cannabis dropshipping businesses continue to flourish, and yours could be one of them if you follow the tips in this article.