70,000 tech workers were laid off worldwide in the last quarter of 2022 alone, with similar numbers expected in early 2023. With such volumes of skilled, educated and tech-savvy workers out of work, there are precious few destinations that they could go to. This is doubly a problem due to the nature of the problems facing them; from the cost-of-living crisis to high energy costs to the economic downturn plaguing the West. There is not a lot of room to maneuver in the job market, and those are exactly the conditions that make dropshipping a genuine game changer.
Dropshipping in many ways is the pinnacle of self-employment for the laid off tech worker — it requires little capital to start, utilises their skillsets, and can be done from home, anywhere in the world. It’s these three points that we’ll focus on, in turn, to make the case for dropshipping’s potential.
A dropshipping business can take less than a couple of hundred pounds to get going, the bulk of which goes into marketing and seeing up a website that can be done for even less. The number is startlingly lower than traditional retail’s average one year cost of £172,000 and much more in line with the finances of laid off tech workers. For them, one would hardly expect to have capital lying around to acquire stock, set up a supply chain and rent warehouse space. Which is exactly why they don’t, instead turning to the simplicity of dropshipping that takes all these expenses out of the equation. Dropshipping thus gives these workers the unique opportunity to build themselves up after a layoff, without asking too much of them in terms of finances and mental investment — both of which can be in short supply after losing work.
The point about skillsets is likely the sticking point in tech workers’ burgeoning love affair with dropshipping. Transferable skills such as web design, keyword ranking, coding and just a healthy heaping of internet understanding are key not only within the tech industry but also the growing community of dropshippers.. Tech workers should have these skills in abundance — their previous jobs would depend on them — and so excel at dropshipping. The process behind setting up an online store and using the right keywords as well as marketing materials to rocket it up search engine rankings is a web of SEO knowledge, e-tailing know-how and web design. One would certainly expect a laid off tech worker to use utilise skills to good use to differentiate themselves from the dropship masses and give them a sizeable advantage before they’ve sold a single product!
Finally, we come to the tricky matter of Work-from-Home culture in the tech industry — a phenomenon that has grown exponentially during the pandemic and carried on past it— with 3 in 5 tech workers wanting to work remotely according to a survey. Regardless of employers’ thoughts on WfH, it’s abundantly clear that significant proportions of workers, especially those in tech, are for it and are even willing to change jobs for remote and hybrid work. Dropshipping’s position as an almost entirely remote-based enterprise puts it in a brilliant position to attract laid off tech workers who prefer working from home. Indeed, the popularity of the so called “Digital Nomad” visas that encourage workers in the industry to live in a different country while doing their jobs make it clear that these people are very much global citizens. Digital nomads have exploded in number by over 131% from the pre-pandemic year of 2019, with over 9% coming from the UK. Dropshipping has few barriers to this end; business owners are free to travel anywhere in the world as long as they can engage in their work.
It is clear to see why these well-educated professionals that are laid off from their tech jobs gravitate to dropshipping —it’s not solely the low capital costs, their matching skillsets, or even the allure of working from home and anywhere in the world. It’s also the opportunity to be their own boss, to take back control after a lay-off. Financial independence is a great motivator, especially in uncertain times for workers everywhere.