Featured Business of the week: How to Start a Human Doll Dropshipping Business in the Philippines with “Mini Me Human Doll Pillows“
Looking to start a dropshipping business in the Philippines but don’t know how or where to start? You’re in luck today! We’ve got the perfect product to help jumpstart your entry into the world of dropshipping, and it’ll be more fun than you thought.
Have you ever seen custom human doll pillows, those miniature Mini Me dolls who have the face of a human but a cartoon character for the body? Merchiful started manufacturing the product back in 2019 in Pampanga, Philippines, and they’ve become hot sellers ever since.
You too can jump on the bandwagon and start selling these trending products right away under your own brand name. Yes, this is the perfect starter product to launch your dropshipping business with!
In this article, we’ll cover all the steps necessary to start your own Human Doll dropshipping business in the Philippines selling “Mini Me Human Doll Pillows”.
We’ll teach you which platforms you can sell your products on and give you some resources to help jumpstart your human doll marketing campaign. Follow these steps and you’ll soon become part of the growing dropshipping scene in the Philippines.
**Note: In case you are unfamiliar yet with how a dropshipping business works, you may check out this quick guide below. Once you’re done reading, then you can always come back to this “Human Doll Dropshipping Business” Guide.
1. How to Get Started in a Human Doll Dropshipping Business
The best way to start dropshipping human doll pillows is to find a platform you wish to sell your products on. Here is a list of the most popular options in the Philippines:
a. Shopify
This is perhaps the most popular platform for launching your own website with your own products. It’s super easy to set up a website and they provide all the tools and resources you’ll need to get your website off the ground. If you’re just starting out with your first website, this is the way to go.
b. WooCommerce
WooCommerce is actually a plug-in that runs on the popular WordPress platform. WordPress started out as an easy to use blogging platform. Integrated with the WooCommerce plug-in, WordPress quickly emerged as one of the strong players in the e-commerce space and now powers over 35% of websites on the internet. Setting up a store with WooCommerce can be a little challenging though, so we wouldn’t recommend this option for non-coders or non-technical people.
c. Shopee
Shopee is an online marketplace that is super popular in the Philippines. It’s easy to start up your own store and you can start listing your products for sale right away. The downside is that your products are listed alongside hundreds of other Shopee sellers, so it might be difficult to stand out from the crowd. You also don’t have your own website like you can with Shopify or WooCommerce.
d. Facebook
Facebook is an excellent platform to start selling your products because pretty much everyone is already on Facebook and promoting products is quite easy with their Boost Post service. With their new Facebook Shop feature, getting your catalog of products listed and selling on Facebook is easier than ever.
e. Instagram
Instagram is a social media platform that puts your products front and center to an audience eager to learn more about your products. If you’re into photography and making creative layouts, Instagram is the right choice for you. It’s also strongly tied together with Facebook, so a Facebook + Instagram account is a powerful selling combination.
There are many other ways of selling online, but based on previous experience, these are the selling platforms we prefer most.
Once you’ve decided on your platform, you’ll need to populate your store with content using mockups and templates.
2. Where to get Mockups and Templates
Merchiful has developed the website Template Kings to centralize all the available marketing tools and templates. From photos and videos to animated ads and 3D mockups, you’ll be able to download this content and start posting them on your website and social media pages.
This is a quick way to start promoting and selling your products right away. Here are some examples of the marketing assets that would be available to you:
Social Media Ads
Photosets
Mockups
VIDEO 1
VIDEO 2
3. Pricing
In order to become an official reseller of human doll pillows, you’ll first need to join the website at PrintOnDemand.com.ph. The monthly membership automatically grants you reseller rights, meaning you’ll be able to buy the products at its low reseller prices and get to add your own price markups on them.
When it comes to determining the price points to sell your human doll pillows at, a good rule of thumb is to double the reseller price to arrive at your customer selling price.
Note that the cost for shipping is not included in the price and is something that you should add separately. For J&T shipping rates, you may refer below:.
J&T Express Shipping Fee5″, 10″, or 15″ Human Doll = P120 shipping fee
19″ Human Doll = P160 shipping fee
36″ Human Doll = P350 shipping fee
4. Production Workflow of a Human Doll Dropshipping Business
You’ve chosen a platform to sell your human dolls on, you’ve downloaded pictures, ads, and videos to promote the product, and you’ve figured out how much you want to sell your human doll products for. The next part you need to master is the production workflow.
Having a good production workflow is the key to keeping your customers happy and having shipments sent out in a timely manner. Master this and your customers will thank you for it.
Here is our process for accepting human doll orders:
STEP 1: Customer places an order request for a human doll pillow on your online shop. Part of that process requires them to upload a picture for the head cutout.
STEP 2: We receive the customer’s picture from you, receive your payment, then proceed by making the head cutout and placing it on the human doll body of their choice.
STEP 3: The customer receives the first mockup with their face on the human doll pillow. They can either approve the design or send it back for revisions.
STEP 4: After the final human doll design has been approved by the customer, the file is sent to fulfillment, then packaged and shipped directly to your customer.
Note that this is an oversimplified view of our production workflow. There may be more steps involved, but this depends on the particular platform you’re selling your products on.
5. How Does Shipping Work?
The beauty of owning your own dropshipping business is that all you need to focus on is marketing and selling your products. Everything else — from manufacturing the item to packaging and shipping the item directly to your customer, is taken care of by Merchiful.
In terms of inventory, there’s no inventory to worry about! Merchiful’s factory in Pampanga, Philippines is based on a print on demand model where all products are made only after a customer has ordered it.
Since you’ll be selling your products under your own brand name, one of the added benefits we offer is that you can specify the name you want your orders to be shipped under.
For example, you can use your company name or brand name as the shipper’s name. When your customer receives the package, they will see your name as the sender of the package, ensuring a consistent branding experience all the way from ordering their items to receiving them in the mail.
6. Ready to Get Started with a Human Doll Dropshipping Business in the Philippines?
I hope this article has helped inspire you to consider a Human Doll Dropshipping Business in the Philippines. The secret to success lays in starting with baby steps first. As your confidence and expertise grows, you can start expanding into selling other print on demand products in the future.
So what are you waiting for? There’s nothing stopping you from starting your very own human doll dropshipping business right now. With all the steps laid out for you above, the next move is on you. Visit PrintOnDemand.com.ph to start your dropshipping journey today.
Author: David Tan
Founder of Merchiful.com, an online marketplace based in the Philippines where Filipinos can buy, sell, and create merch they love.
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