How to Do Dropshipping on Twitter / X - Your Ultimate Guide

Twitter Shops is a feature that allows businesses to showcase their products to generate traffic to their site and increase sales.

We use Twitter to build our brand’s reputation, engage with potential customers, and advertise our products. 

In this article, we’ll look at all the ways you can use Twitter for dropshipping.

Let’s get started.

Key Takeaways

• If your dropshipping business operates from the US, then you can apply for Twitter Shops.
• There are several Twitter Shops features, including a 50-product Storefront and five-product Spotlight, which are displayed on your profile.
• Twitter Shopping doesn’t allow customers to checkout on Twitter. But makes it easy for customers to visit your store and checkout.
• If you’re not qualified for Twitter Shopping, you can still use Twitter to promote your products and increase your brand’s credibility.

How to Sell Dropshipping Products on Twitter with Twitter Shops 

Twitter Shops is a set of features that enable you to showcase your dropshipping products to generate sales. 

Before we look at how to create a Twitter Shop, let’s look at what they are and who can use them.

What Are Twitter Shops?

Twitter Shops are made up of four features. These are the following: 

• Storefront - Create a Storefront that users can open from your Twitter profile. The Storefront can have up to 50 products. Shoppers can click on the products they’re interested in and view a native product detail page. To checkout, shoppers can click to access your website through an in-app browser.

• Spotlight - Add five products to a swipeable section on your Twitter profile. This allows customers to instantly view the products you sell. They can click on the product and be taken to the product page on your website using an in-app browser. The shopper can then checkout on your website.

• Product Drops - Product Drops are a way to generate interest in your product before it launches. It’s almost like a countdown Tweet. 

The Drops enabled users to take the normal actions they can with Tweets (Retweet, Like, etc.) But the Tweet also contains a product image that users can click to view the product details and a Remind Me button, which, when pressed, sends notifications for the launch.

‍

• Live Shopping - Live Stream to your audience and display your products during the stream. There are several shopping elements, including a shoppable banner that highlights your products as you discuss them in your live stream. You can swap the products every five minutes. 

There is also a Shop tab displayed underneath the live stream. This is your 50-product Storefront discussed earlier.

Shopping is also made easy during your live stream, as shoppers can check out your products using the in-app browser at the same time as viewing the live stream. 

Who Can Use Twitter Shops?

To use the Twitter Shops features, you need to meet the following criteria: 

• Have a business located in the United States
• The business is not a state-affiliate media entity
• Sell physical products (not digital products or services)

The products aren’t in the prohibited merchandise categories. These include the following:

• Adult or Sexually Suggestive Content
• Alcohol
• Body Branding and Ultraviolet Tanning Devices
• Cause-Based Content
• Documents, Currency, and Financial Instruments
• Gambling
• Goods from Threatened or Endangered Animals
• Hazardous Goods and Materials
• Health and Wellness Supplements and Substances
• Human Body Parts and Byproducts
• Illegal and Recreational Drugs, Prescriptions and OTC Drugs, and Drug Paraphernalia
• Live Animals
• Malicious Hardware
• Political Content
• Used Motor Vehicles
• Real Estate
• Recalled Goods
• Regulated Medical Devices
• Stolen Goods, e.g., counterfeit goods, anything that infringes on an IP, etc.
• Tobacco Goods and Related Paraphernalia
• Unauthorized Ticket Sales
• Weapons and Weapon Accessories

Follow all relevant laws, regulations, and industry codes

• Adhere to X’s user agreements and rules
• Have a professional Twitter account that is public

Have an existing website with active product listings that accept direct purchases. Your website must also include the following:

• Clear contact information
• This could be a phone number, email address, contact form, or business address
• Clear refund and return policy
• Clear shipping policy
• Secure checkout process

Sadly, Twitter Shops aren't available for everyone. If you don’t meet the criteria, check out the next section on using Twitter to advertise your dropshipping products.

Is Twitter Shops Free?

Yes, Twitter Shops is completely free for all users who qualify.

As Twitter doesn’t have any sales or payment features, there are no fees to pay on purchases as all purchases are made through your website.   

If you are eligible, we recommend signing up, as it’s completely free to use and can help increase your sales. 

How to Sign Up for Twitter Shops

So, now we know what Twitter Shops are and who can use it.

Before you start, make sure that you’ve already converted your business's Twitter account to a Professional one and that you’re logged into the account.

To do so, follow these steps:  

1. Visit the X Shopping Manager. https://ads.twitter.com/shopping_manager/onboarding
2. Enter your Catalog Name.

1. Read and agree to the Twitter Shopping policies.

1. Add your products and create your shop.

‍

How to Advertise Dropshipping Products on Twitter 

If you’re not eligible for Twitter Shops, there are still plenty of other ways you can use Twitter to promote your products, generate interest and traffic, and convert your traffic to sales. 

We’ll look at a few free and paid methods so you can choose the right one for your business.

Free Ways to Advertise on Twitter

There are a couple of free and cheap ways you can promote and advertise your products on Twitter.

These include sending your products to influencers for promotion and creating a profile for your brand.

Promotion in Exchange for Free Products

Technically, this isn’t free, as you have to pay for the product and ship it. However, the actual promotion is free, so we’re including it here.

This advertising method is when you send an influencer your product (look for influencers with a following that matches your target audience. For example, if you’re selling beauty products, look for beauty influencers.) 

They then post videos and images or create giveaways or challenges with your products on their Twitter. 

Their followers trust their opinion and hopefully will purchase your product based on the promotion.

This option is an affordable alternative to influencer marketing. However, the influencers that will accept products in exchange for promotion are likely to have a less engaged or smaller audience. Therefore, the conversion rate is usually lower with this method (but it’s almost free).

Organic Following

Build and grow a Twitter profile for your brand.

Getting followers organically can take time and effort. However, those who follow and engage with your brand are likely to become your best customers and biggest fans.

There are a few ways that you can increase the likelihood of gaining followers. These include the following:

• Post consistently
• Reply and engage with other Twitter users
• Find other brands in your niche and engage with their followers, as they will likely be your customer base.
• Look at trending and relevant topics and share and post about them
• Share visually appealing posts to catch followers' attention
• Create a Twitter follower campaign
• Post different types of content and see which gets the most engagement and repeat.

We have added a section on Twitter Dropshipping Tips and Tricks later in the article. We’ll expand these points to help you create the best Twitter profile, find followers, and generate the most sales.

Paid Ways to Advertise on Twitter

There’s no denying that paid advertising methods are more effective than free ones.

Here are a couple of ways we have increased our traffic and sales using Twitter.

Run Ads

Use your Twitter account to create paid ads.

Twitter makes it easy to create ads. Choose your objective, enter your ad content, select the audience you want to see the ads and set your budget and date range.

There are advanced targeting features. These include gender, age, location, keywords, follower look-alikes, operating system, interests, and more. 

Twitter's advanced targeting features make it easier to get your content in front of the right users. This can give you a higher conversion rate and increase the traffic to your site.

Influencer Marketing

Like promotion in exchange for free products, influencer marketing is when you contact an influencer to promote your product, but instead of offering them free products for the promotion, you pay them.

Often, this option will apply to influencers with a more engaged or larger following. This is because their posts will have a better conversion rate than influencers who accept products as payment, and it is, therefore, worth the costs. 

The right influencers will often have an audience who trust their opinion and recommendations, which, in turn, means they will trust your products and, therefore, buy them.

Should I Use Twitter to Dropship My Products?

Twitter has tons of features that can benefit your dropshipping store. Twitter can increase your brand's visibility and credibility to generate interest and sales.

However, if you’re not sure whether Twitter is the right platform for you, we’ve created a list of the pros and cons to help you make a decision. 

Pros of Using Twitter for Dropshipping

• Increase Customer Trust Using In-App Browser - When a customer visits your Twitter Shops product listing and wants to check out, it opens your website using an in-app browser. This means that customers aren't taken away from the Twitter app, which increases their experience with your brand. It can also add a level of trust as the customer feels more secure checking out from the Twitter website browser than leaving Twitter.

• Variety of Shopping Features - Twitter Shops has a variety of features, as we learned in the previous section. These include the Spotlight, Storefront, Product Drops, and Live Shopping. These features allow you to highlight, showcase, and generate interest in your products in whichever way suits your business and brand.

• Free and No Fees - All of the Twitter Shops features are free to use. This means you can create a Storefront and use the Spotlight feature without spending anything. As Twitter doesn’t facilitate the purchase of your products, there are no fees to pay for the sales you make through the Twitter Shops. If Twitter Shops is available to you, we highly recommend using the features as it’s a free way to promote your products, get your business name out there, as well as making your business appear professional.

• Showcase Your Products to Increase Click-Through Rate - The way Twitter Shops showcases your products makes them appealing to potential customers, and therefore, they are more likely to visit your site.

A Twitter test showed that brands who used Twitter Shops to promote their products, rather than linking to their site in their bio, saw an average 1.8X increased click-through rate [1]. 

Cons of Using Twitter for Dropshipping

• Additional Management - Creating a business profile on a social media platform requires management. We recommend being active on any platform that you create a profile for. This will include sending Tweets, engaging with other users, and Retweeting relevant Tweets. You will likely also have customers asking questions, reporting issues, and engaging with your brand through Twitter. You’ll need to keep up and respond to these.This additional management takes time and effort to manage. If you don’t have the time to keep up with the platform, it can be frustrating for customers and potential customers.

• Can’t Sell on Twitter - Although Twitter allows you to create a Storefront and list your products, you can’t actually sell on Twitter. So, you’ll still need to operate and manage your e-commerce store. You will also need to keep your Twitter store up to date. Like managing the Twitter account, managing and updating your Twitter Shops is additional work. 

• Meta Ads - The type of business you operate might mean that it’s better to spend your ad budget on a platform like Facebook or Instagram rather than Twitter. The platforms are used by different demographics and for different purposes. The type of products you sell and the ads you want to create will determine the platform you use to advertise your products.

• Not Available Everywhere - Twitter Shops is only available to US businesses. So, sadly, it’s not an option for everyone.

Twitter Dropshipping Tips and Tricks 

Twitter is a powerful platform with over 368 million active users a month [2]. You can use the platform to increase brand awareness, find new customers, and drive traffic to your site to generate sales.  

Here are a few tips and tricks to help you do so.

Optimize Your Profile

We recommend that you create a clear and professional-looking profile.

Your potential followers will likely use your profile to make a judgment on whether to follow you. And you get one chance to win them over. So, let’s make it count.

Your profile consists of a few things. We’ll be looking at the following:

1. Images
2. Name
3. Bio
4. Location
5. Link
6. Pinned Tweet

1. Images. You can add two images. Make sure both of the images are high quality and in line with your business and branding.

• The first is the profile picture. We recommend adding your brand logo here. 
• The second is a header photo. This could be a photo that showcases your most popular or new products or shows what your business represents. 

2. Name. Next, an easy one - your display name. We recommend keeping this simple and using your brand name.
3. Bio. We have a few tips for creating an effective Twitter bio:

• Keep it short, simple, and clear - Tell your customer what your business does in a few words. Twitter gives you 160 characters.
• Add keywords - Include relevant keywords to help customers find you (but don’t overdo it).
• Use a call to action (CTA) - Tell the customer what to do next with an encouraging call to action. This could be ‘Check out our latest launch,’ ‘ Shop now,’ etc. 

2. Location. If it’s relevant to your business, add the location it operates from. As a dropshipper, this might not be one that you want to fill out. However, if you only sell to a specific location, it could be helpful to your customers. 
3. Link. Twitter allows you to add one link to your profile. 

However, you might want to add multiple links. Such as your other social media profiles, your main website, your contact form, an exclusive discount, and anything else that’s relevant.

To do this, you can use a ‘link in bio’ page. These are landing pages that have all of your links in one place, which makes it easy for customers to find exactly what they’re looking for. 

A link in bio page is easy to create using a tool like LinkTree. 

LinkTree allows you to easily customize the page so it’s in line with your business and looks professional.

6. Pinned Tweet. A pinned Tweet is the first Tweet a visitor will see when they visit your profile, as it shows at the top of your feed. It’ll get the most views and give them a glimpse of what to expect (if they decide to follow you), and you can use this to your advantage. 

Some of the Tweets we recommend pinning are the following:

• Business values or beliefs
• Popular products
• New releases
• Giveaways or challenges
• Countdowns to new drops
• A Tweet that has had high engagement
• Testimonials or feedback from customers

Tweet Consistently 

Twitter users are always looking for new content to read. 

Regularly Tweeting and keeping users entertained and engaged will increase the likelihood that they’ll follow you.

Once a user follows you, you can communicate and build a relationship with them and direct them to your website to generate sales.

Look at the times potential customers are likely to be online and post during these times. This can help you reach the most users and increase your engagement. 

Engage With Other Users

There are a few ways to engage with users on Twitter. These are the following: 

• Get involved in conversations within your niche to show your knowledge. This can help potential followers find you.
• Start conversations with your existing followers. This could be replying to their Tweets, liking Tweets, Retweeting, or Tweeting questions to your followers. Engaging with your followers can build a relationship and trust, which can generate sales.
• Users will share feedback on your products. You can Retweet positive feedback to promote your products to your followers. And if the feedback is negative, you can reach out to the customer to see how you can resolve the issue. 

Replying and engaging with users shows you care about them and their opinions. 

It also helps potential customers feel safe purchasing from you as if there are any issues, they know you’re active on Twitter and will reply.

Use Hashtags

Hashtags make Tweets easy to find. Using hashtags can increase your brand’s visibility and help potential customers find you.

If a user searches for a specific term and you’ve included the keyword as a hashtag in your Tweet, the Tweet will show in the search results. 

You can also create your own hashtags to categorize your tweets. For example, #BrandNameGiveaway, #BrandNameNewReleases, etc. You can then create giveaways (more information on this coming up) and make your hashtag go viral.

Look at Trends

Get involved in current trending topics to get your brand seen.

Your tweets will appear in the trending section and prompt other users to engage with you and your brand. 

For example, on August 8th, it was International Cat Day, and the hashtag InternationalCatDay was trending. 

Under the trending tweets, we can see that Papa Johns got involved in the trend by Tweeting, “In honor of #InternationalCatDay, here’s a cat craving a slice.”

As we know, Papa Johns has nothing to do with cats. However, they’ve managed to insert themselves into the conversation, and over 6,000 users have seen the Tweet. 

This increases their visibility and get’s people who are looking at the trend craving pizza! 

Contest and Giveaway

Challenges and giveaways can help you increase your brand awareness and your follower count. 

They’re easy to do. Simply post a Tweet with the details and watch it generate traction. 

For example, you could create a Tweet where you give away a set number of products to users selected at random. For users to be in with a chance of winning the giveaway, you can ask them to complete a few actions. 

These could be the following:

• Retweet
• Follow
• Posting with a Hashtag

All of these actions get your brand name in front of new users and increase your follower count. 

Make sure the Tweet includes all of the rules of your giveaway. This includes:

• Exactly what they need to do
• Opening and closing dates
• Inclusions 
• Any terms and conditions

Just make sure you check Twitter’s rules when you create your giveaway and select your winners. We also recommend that you check that your giveaway or contest complies with applicable laws and regulations.

Run a Followers Campaign

As well as paid ads, you can also create follower campaigns on Twitter. These are like ad campaigns, but instead of your products being advertised, it’s your business’s Twitter account. 

One of the best things about follower campaigns is that you only pay once someone follows your account. Any other engagement with the follower campaign is free.

Your promoted profile will show in several places, including the timeline, who to follow list, and search results. 

Running a follower campaign can get your business in front of customers who would be interested in your products and services. 

Once they follow you, you can then engage with them, share your business message, and hopefully convert them to customers. 

Frequently Asked Questions 

Can I Dropship on Twitter for Free? 

Twitter doesn’t have the ability for you to sell your products on the platform. You need an existing dropshipping website to sell your products. 

However, there is a free Shops feature that allows you to showcase the products from your store.

Users can browse your products on Twitter and then use the Visit Shop button to access your website. 

Does Twitter Have a Marketplace like Facebook? 

There is no marketplace for all shops on Twitter. Instead, you can create your own Storefront with up to 50 products. 

Shoppers can then visit your website to purchase your products from the Storefront.

Is Twitter Good for Dropshipping? 

Twitter isn’t a platform you can use solely for dropshipping. You need to use a commerce platform to sell your products. 

But, it is a great platform to showcase and advertise your products to generate traffic to your dropshipping site.

Can You Actually Sell Stuff on Twitter?

No, you cannot sell your products using Twitter. However, there are several shopping features that can help you generate traffic and increase your sales. 

Twitter allows you to create a Storefront with up to 50 products. When someone wants to buy your product, they can click on the product, which will open an in-app browser. 

Final Thoughts 

Twitter Shops makes it easy for customers to find and shop your products from your Twitter profile. 

We also recommend running ads and creating a professional Twitter profile to increase your brand's presence and build trust with your customers. 

Hopefully, this article has shown you everything there is to know about how to dropship using Twitter.

If you need inspiration for creating Twitter ads, check out our Chrome Extension. It gathers ads as you browse and allows you to analyze them. This can help you create high-converting campaigns for your own store.