one product shopify store

Discover these foolproof strategies to help you build and scale your one product dropshipping store in 2020.

How To Build A Successful One Product Dropshipping Store With Shopify

Can you guess what Spanx, Casper, and Crocs have in common?

Well, other than generating millions of dollars in revenue each month, they all started as single-product eCommerce businesses.

Most eCommerce entrepreneurs start out attempting to sell an extensive catalog of products. Afterall, offering consumers more choice is always a good thing, right?

But what would you say if I told you that offering multiple products might actually be hampering your chances of success?

See, a one-product business removes the distraction of sourcing, managing and marketing a large catalog of different products.

Not only that but from a customer perspective, too much choice can negatively impact purchasing decisions. As psychologist Barry Schwartz says in ‘The Paradox of Choice’; “...as the number of choices we face increases, the psychological benefits we derive start to level off”.

And we don’t want psychological benefits leveling off now, do we?

When you’re focused on making just one product successful, rather than spreading yourself thinly across multiple products, you’ll be able to give one great idea the attention it needs to flourish.

You’ll find it easier to build a cohesive brand, identify your ideal customer, create meaningful trust and ultimately, make more sales.

In this post, we’ll cover everything you need to know in order to make your single product dropshipping store a success.

Still with me? Excellent - then let’s jump in!

The Benefits of One Product Ecommerce

Running a business involves keeping many balls in the air at the same time and successful dropshippers have multitasking in their DNA.

But with so much to consider, analyze, tweak and improve on a daily basis, stripping your main offering down to a single-product can help relieve scatter-brain and increase your chances of success.

Here's how:

Enhanced Brand Positioning

Suppose you’re in the market for a new razor. In reality, most razors will do the same job of keeping your whiskers at bay, but while scrolling through Facebook you get hit with an ad from Dollar Shave Club.

Suddenly, those Gillette razors you’ve been buying seem awfully expensive. And plus they’re so easy to forget to pick up at the store - which means Karen from accounts will sneer at your unintentional stubble on Monday morning. What you really want to find out more about is brand identity .

Enter Dollar Shave Club - a single-product brand who’ve done their homework on positioning and value propositions. Before you know it, you’ve got your credit card out to join the club.

Brand positioning is about how your business is perceived in your consumers’ minds. Having a one-product store allows you to position your store in a way that very specifically solves your target customer’s problems that a generic store never can.

Deeper Understanding of Customers

The problem with trying to sell a wide range of products is that your message can become diluted. Or as Meredith hill put it; “When you speak to everyone, you speak to no one.”

Opting to market just one product to a specific group of buyers makes crafting your marketing message a whole lot easier.

Take BestSelf for example, a one-product store that sells journals. Journals are a product that appeals to a wide audience - but Best Self positioned their product as a specific tool to help entrepreneurs and freelancers stay on top of their goals.

They totally ‘get’ their customer and because of that, they can market much more effectively to them. Everything from their product page to their abandoned cart email is tailored to speak to their ideal buyer.

The result? A higher conversion rate and a tribe of loyal and satisfied customers who identify with the company's message.

More Effective Advertising

Knowing how your one product helps your customer group allows for more effective marketing. Targeting for Facebook ads becomes straightforward and refined while budgeting becomes flexible, which is perfect for a one product dropshipping store.

Copywriting for your emails and website becomes less daunting too. It's easier to generate engaging and relevant content when you’re specifically talking to your ideal buyer.

Producing creative assests for your advertising also becomes easier. You couldn’t possibly create high-end video or photographic content for 100’s of products. But if you can put all of your resources behind just a single product - the results will be far superior.

Your SEO strategy also becomes simplified. When you’re putting all of your efforts into ranking for just a few target keywords, you’ll start to see yourself rocket up the search listings.

Private-label Potential

If you’re a regular user of social media, chances are you’ve come across a watch brand by the name of MVMT.

MVMT started as a dropshipping store by two college roommates who were on a quest to make beer money. Initially, they focused on just one product: watches.

The founders were social media-savvy and were one of the first brands to truly leverage the power of iinfluencer marketing. Once sales started to pick up, they began to private-label their watches.

Selling a lot of units per day, the supplier was happy to oblige and began placing their logo on watches and shipping them in custom packaging.

5 years later, MVMT had become the world’s fastest-growing watch brand generating over $90m in sales. That’s the power of one-product + good marketing + private labeling.

Finding Winning Products To Sell

A large amount of your dropshipping success comes down to choosing the right product. So here’s what to look for in a winning product:

The Product Solves A Problem

People are always willing to hand over their hard-earned cash to alleviate their problems.

So, every time you come across a problem in your life or hear somebody complain about something, ask yourself; ‘is there a product that can solve this problem?’

Let’s say for example you’re out for a walk with your dog on a hot summer day. With the sun shining down, it’s not long before your pup starts to get thirsty. But - there ain’t no clean water in sight.

Solution? A portable dog water bottle. Check out how ThirstyPup has turned this problem-solving product into an impressive one product dropshipping store.

It Can’t Be Found in Regular Stores

The beauty of eCommerce is that consumers can discover and purchase products that they wouldn’t previously have been able to get their hands on at their local mall. However, local stores are uber-convenient, have buckets of trust and are pretty risk-free for consumers. So, if Walmart is selling a product, you’re going to have a tough time competing.

Opt instead for unique products that can’t be bought in normal stores like this huge blanket hoodie which is perfect for staying toasty on chilly winter nights.

This is good news if you're Shopify Dropshipping as you can easily use a product research tool like SaleSource to find unique winning products.

It Has Visual & Emotional Appeal

Nowadays, attention is scarcer than ever. To capture the eyeballs (and clicks) of your potential customers, it helps to choose a product that’s visually and emotionally enticing.

Keep your eyes peeled for products that stand out and jump off the screen and make you feel something.

Since you’ll only be selling one product it’s also wise to invest a little money in professional photography. That’ll provide enticing and unique images that browsers just won’t be able to resist.

Consider how these pet costumes make you stop and momentarily melt your heart:

Recommended: Is dropshipping dead in 2020?

Designing Your Single Product Store

One of the key differences between selling a full product line and one product dropshipping is how you design your store.

The best one product dropshipping stores focus on designing their site around the product. And without 20+ pages to worry about you can put all your focus on getting your home page and product page just right.

But before that, it’s important to choose a suitable theme to cast your product in the best light:

Choose A One Product Optimised Theme

When it comes to one product dropshipping store, not all themes are created equal. Choosing the right theme will keep site visitors from getting distracted and boost purchase conversions.

Boundless & Debut (pictured) are both excellent examples of the perfect single product Shopify theme. Both are free themes that are focused on telling the story and showcasing the benefits of your product.

If you want to know how to find out what shopify theme a website is using you can use SaleSource's free theme detector - we also recommend starting your SaleSource free trial so that you can perform a deep analysis on any store and find their best sellers, revenue, apps and much more.

Building Your Homepage

When designing your homepage think of it as an opportunity to highlight how your product can solve your customer’s problem.

Structure it around:

• Engaging product images
• Enticing benefit-driven copy
• Relevant content that prompts sales

When visitors land your homepage, greet them with a captivating hero image and short sales copy highlighting the key benefit of your product.

Overlay your image with a powerful call-to-action to encourage browsers through your mini-sales funnel to the product page. Check out Truff hot sauce for an example of how to layout a killer single product homepage:

People who don’t click on your CTA will likely scroll down to learn more. That’s why the body of your homepage should be focused on alternating sections of product shots accompanied by more benefit-driven copy to warm buyers up for the sale.

For inspiration, have a look at how Muse highlights the benefits of using their product alongside some quality photography:

Notice how they don’t lead with product features or technical specifications - instead, they summarise how using their product can help you in your life with your meditation.

Creating A Great Product Page

Your product page is your best shot at moving a visitor from consideration to purchase. Similar to the homepage you want to have alternating images and sales copy, but you also want to add a third element: social proof.

Allbirds sell wool footwear and are an excellent example of how to construct a high-converting product page.

They lead with impressive photography and copy that draws you in. Scrolling down you’re met with more helpful information about how the product is made and what benefits you can expect from owning it.

They also include custom-designed icons that add more compelling reasons to click that add-to-cart button. Crucially, their product page also includes customer testimonials - a powerful tactic that has been shown to increase conversion rates by up to 230%.

In Summary

Putting your efforts into selling a single product business increases your odds of success by allowing you to focus on what really matters: dialing in your positioning, honing your value proposition and streamlining your advertising efforts.

In this post we’ve covered:

• The benefits of one product eCommerce
• The characteristics of successful dropshipping products
• How to design a high-converting one product store

So, there’s nothing left to do but to get to it! When you’ve found a product with potential and designed an awesome store around it, check out SaleSource’s guide on how to drive traffic to your shopify store to start bringing in your first sales.

Best of luck!