Something else to note, all of the scarcity apps like Hurrify - I wonder if they will be “legal” in the future. There were rumors about a ban, and with all the recent GDPR stuff, I can’t help but think they may not be allowed forever.
Learning Dropshipping journal
- Thread starter This Is Trouble
- Start date
Winston Wolfe
Woodpecker
Very interested in following your progress here.
I have experience in various online business fields, but not dropshipping. I've been looking into trying my hand at it lately.
One question for you This Is Trouble:
How many initial hours of self learning / failing / figuring things out / rinse and repeat did it take you before you had something basic up and running?
Lack of time is currently my biggest constraint, but I do recognize the fact that I'm gonna need to put some initial effort in to figure out the basics. When I have more time on my hands, I might give it a shot.
Would be good to have a rough estimation of how long that took you. I'm usually pretty good at figuring out new stuff and technologies, if that helps. I prefer to just dive into it instead of learning from a course, and if I run into a specific problem I'll then Google a solution.
I have experience in various online business fields, but not dropshipping. I've been looking into trying my hand at it lately.
One question for you This Is Trouble:
How many initial hours of self learning / failing / figuring things out / rinse and repeat did it take you before you had something basic up and running?
Lack of time is currently my biggest constraint, but I do recognize the fact that I'm gonna need to put some initial effort in to figure out the basics. When I have more time on my hands, I might give it a shot.
Would be good to have a rough estimation of how long that took you. I'm usually pretty good at figuring out new stuff and technologies, if that helps. I prefer to just dive into it instead of learning from a course, and if I run into a specific problem I'll then Google a solution.
JekyllAndHyde
Woodpecker
Really looking forward to people's eCommerce progress out there.
Going to a specific eCommerce meet opens a few perspectives in person.
Most of the discussion is available online if you do your research well such as the need for VA's when expanding, many refusing to disclose their niches and profitability did not come quickly.
Many have just hit mid five figures AUD per month revenue after a few years.
What you may or may not find online are extremely dependent on the individual's niche or circumstances like how Pinterest is ideal for generating traffic bespoke hand-made products and it's worth subscribing to paid traffic there.
Then I constantly hear whinging about running an eCommerce in your 30's with 3 kids in an expensive country like Australia:
:lolwtf:
Going to a specific eCommerce meet opens a few perspectives in person.
Most of the discussion is available online if you do your research well such as the need for VA's when expanding, many refusing to disclose their niches and profitability did not come quickly.
Many have just hit mid five figures AUD per month revenue after a few years.
What you may or may not find online are extremely dependent on the individual's niche or circumstances like how Pinterest is ideal for generating traffic bespoke hand-made products and it's worth subscribing to paid traffic there.
Then I constantly hear whinging about running an eCommerce in your 30's with 3 kids in an expensive country like Australia:
:lolwtf:
jamaicabound
Pelican
Aviel said:
Not saying it can't be done but when somoene orders 2 products from your store a shirt and an Ali item potentially the shirt shows up in 6 days, their Ali Product is trailing 30 days behind it. Your probably going to be fielding a lot of questions about I only got one item, and your gonna have to be like oh man here check this China post tracking that doesn't show anything,you can be confident your mini sewing machine will be arriving in 30-45 days, just be patient
OrthodoxExpatCol
Kingfisher
jamaicabound said:
Can you cut your shit with hating on a viable business model?
I make most of my money via consulting now, but I'm still earning around 5-figures a month through dropshipping, and coach/consult various others earning 5-6 figures a month using this business model.
Just because you suck at it, doesn't mean it's not viable.
I've had maybe 10 customers over 2-years complain about the shipping length, as I typically put a notice in the receipt, product page, and FAQ pages.
jamaicabound
Pelican
WeekendCasanova said:
First off wasn't even talking to you was ansering a question someone else had posted. Their question is a legit concern and I was answering it. If I order 2 items form a store and I get something in the mail and only one product is in the box I'm going to be curious where my other item is. Regardless of whether you mention this in your FAQ section people don't read shit so your going to get calls and/or e-mails saying hey I got my package I only got my shirt I didn't get my xyz item. What is your explaination to them about that?
Someone asked a question and I was answering it. You started this thread and then dipped off a couple people have been asking you things and you havn't been back to the thread so I was trying to help answer their questions.
Personally I think dropshipping is kind of a shit business, that's just me, if it works for you do you brother. I think the vast majority of people are gonna fail at it but then again the vast majority of people are goign to fail at traditional ecommerce as well so maybe its all a wash anyway but if you think the whole Ali Express DH Gate dropshipping thing isn't comming to an end you have your head in the sand.
jamaicabound
Pelican
Spaniard88 said:
I'm gonna guess revenue. Everyone loves to throw out "I made a million Dollars" but what they really mean is I did a million in sales. Nohting against that its still very imperssive but its far from the same thing as netting a million.
I don't know dudes situation, maybe he'll come answer this himself but dropshipped items tend to be cheaper items and the profit margins tend to not be fantastic so to make 100K in a single month you would have to sell 10,000 items, that breaks down to 333 items per day. I find it very hard to believe someone is dropshipping cheap Ali Express items and selling 333 units per day consistantly day in and day out.
Cassanova mentioned he makes most of his money from consulting which is true of most dropshippers, shopify sellers, etc. Nothing wrong with that, there's value in information and it would be stupid to pass up money, but personally if I'm making doing six figures dropshipping per month which is pretty passive, something that you can do on your own time, etc I wouldn't be coaching people on how to do it, I would continue to scale my dropshipping business and once I hit a plateau I'd go start another one in a different niche. I don't get why one would move onto consulting where your beholden to other peoples time, have to work with other people, is less passive, etc.
Winston Wolfe
Woodpecker
jamaicabound said:
I think you may be mistaken with a different thread as this one wasn't started by WeekendCasanova.
It does seem that every thread or remark about dropshipping, on every platform or forum, pretty much instantly turns into a debate whether dropshipping sucks or works.
Can we just let This Is Trouble log his experiences here instead of talking about buts and ifs. He's a guy with a proven track record in internet business and I for one am curious about how he will do in this endeavor.
Not critizing anyone here, just asking to let OP do his thing before this turns into yet another one of those dropshipping debates that doesn't add any value.
jamaicabound
Pelican
Winston Wolfe said:
Above on this page cassanova told me to shutup and quit being pessimistic and went on to say he does six figures per month dropshipping. If he does more power to him but he's an outlier and not the norm. That said even with a more traditional ecommerce business majority of people are gonna fail and a few will succeed so in that sense dropshipping isn't really any different than anything else.
My point is the whole Ali Express dropshipping thing is comming to an end, buyers are getting saavy to these just pay shipping deals and all the other gimmicks dropshippers use to sell their products. The whole nature of dropshipping tends to mean lower priced items and low margins so to do big numbers like 100K a month as I laid out above would require having hundreds of units selling per day. If that's the case he's in the upper 1% of the 1% of dropshippers.
For anyone who sees a post like this and thinks I'm gonna start dropshipping, most likely they'd be better off and more profitable selling gigs on fiverr or something like that. Just my opinion and my 2 cents, not trying to shit on dropshipping but I think people should understand the challenges going in.
The comment cassanova got mad at me about was someone had asked what if I'm using a POD fulfillment site and selling Ali Express products. I actually think that's a fantastic idea but one challenge to plan for is that your customers are going to get teh POD item probably 3 weeks or more ahead of the other item and I imagine most people are gonna be contacting you saying I ordered a tee shirt and a resistance parachute, the tee shirt arrived but I didn't get my parachute. Then your having to explain that the parachute is comming form your supplier in China and it should be there in another 3 weeks. Just adds a challenge and just something to think about, I think that's a legitimate concern to bring up.
This thread is about dropshipping and I believe his SAAS services. I think the SAAS is probably one of the best business models around today and I'd love to get into it, dropshipping not so much.
crudeloyalist
Robin
Jamaicabound, I think it's fair to say that you're not a fan of dropshipping. You've said this numerous times on different threads. Seems like WeekendCassanova is pissed at you because you keep knocking the viability of a business model that works well for him. I have no experience with dropshipping but I've recently stumbled across a clothing niche/lifestyle that I'd like to pursue. These threads have inspired me to give it a go, although these extended shipping times are a concern to me.
jamaicabound
Pelican
crudeloyalist said:
I'm not against dropshipping, I'm against stupid dropshipping. Cassanova mentioned POD which I think is a fantastic form of dropshipping, I also think it was incredibly smart what he said about tying a POD element into your store so for example if your dropshipping camping goods also sell camping tee shirts. I think thats a great idea.
Ali Express dropshipping to me is straight garbage though, all the products are saturated, most are low quality, you can get past that by ordering samples and making sure your dealing with a decent supplier but 99% of people aren't going to do that and people with mega product catalogs definitely aren't going to do that. The other thing is shipping times are just ridiculous, everyday I see people crying about how their shopify payments store got shutdown because of dropshipping and once you've been shutdown good luck getting another one.
Everyone should do what they wanna do but I'd hate to see someone new to ecommerce do something short sighted, then wind up getting banned from shopify payments which means moving forward they'll have to use Paypal or get their own merchant processing at which point shopify is going to charge you 2% on every dollar you make on top of and in addition to whatever paypal or firstdata is charging you.
If Cassanova is making 100k and up per month dropshipping he's in the upper 1% of the 1% so just realize going in that's likely not going to be your experience. I'm not trying to talk shit, just trying to offer an opposing view.
With your niche clothing site I'm going to assume your doing POD and not dropshipping shirts from Ali Express. While Ali may offer slightly better margins doing it your own way you have 100% unique designs, your completely in control of the fulfillment process, you have faster shipping times, etc. The only dropshipping I'm against is the type where your customers aren't getting the product they ordered for 30 plus days
Jamaica, I sensed your overall disdain towards it before WC came in. And I do get your apprehension, it’s justified. I am as well, and several weeks in still am not sure how long shipping stuff from China will be viable.
With that being said that, lets get back on track. Seems there is a lot of personal beef brewing up, and I really would like to document this more. But, I prefer not to deal with negative remarks at every turn. I recognize the difficulty as is.
Let’s leave the beef against DS out from here, fair?
With that being said that, lets get back on track. Seems there is a lot of personal beef brewing up, and I really would like to document this more. But, I prefer not to deal with negative remarks at every turn. I recognize the difficulty as is.
Let’s leave the beef against DS out from here, fair?
In other news, I took my most successful product (I seem to have hit on two), raised price by 50% to see if it still sold, no dice.
Back to the drawing board as I’m not making enough profit on this particular one to keep going after a few weeks.
Back to the drawing board as I’m not making enough profit on this particular one to keep going after a few weeks.
OrthodoxExpatCol
Kingfisher
This Is Trouble said:
How are your up-selling apps doing?
And if you don't mind me asking, what price-range are your products in? For dropshipping, the ideal range is $20-$70, unless your branding is on point.
crudeloyalist
Robin
jamaicabound said:
Still getting my head round this. Yeah I intend to do POD. So with Ali Express, each product comes as is without the possibility of customisation? I was under the impression that you could send a manufacturer your logo and they'd print it on and send you samples to be approved. The appeal of Ali Express is that they ship internationally. But if you think they're garbage would you recommend I find a local alternative? I'm thinking it may be better to start slowly and focus on my native market and then expand gradually.
OrthodoxExpatCol
Kingfisher
crudeloyalist said:
AliX is 100% non-customizable.
The strategy I typically recommend is pick a niche where you can start with dropshipping AliX products, before expanding into your own POD custom merch.
If you have the budget, go straight to POD. POD is an excellent business model for long-term success.
jamaicabound
Pelican
This Is Trouble said:
There's no personal beef on my end, if were discussing dropshipping I'm simply sharing my view of it which is a bit critical, but I'm not even critical of dropshiping so much, more so critical of this half ass lazy dropshipping every pre-roll Youtube ad is pushing.
If a dissenting view isn't welcome just lemme know and I'll dip out of this post
jamaicabound
Pelican
crudeloyalist said:
As Cassanova said, on Ali Express what you see is what you get. If you wanna sell their designs dropship them.
Print on demand is another animal entirely, think sites like Printful or Customcat. You create your own design, upload it to their platform and then go setup a Shopify store or setup some listings on Etsy.
WHen something sells your essentially going to place an order with Etsy or Printful and they are going to print your design and send it to the customer. This process can be automated through integrations with Shopify and Printful or Etsy and Printful.
To me POD is better than Ali Express. Customers in the USA will probably have their items in 7 days or less, the quality of the shirts is gonna be much better, you actually can choose if you wanna sell say a Gildan or Anvil shirt which are cheaper or a Bella Canva or AMerican Apparel shirt which will cost a bit more or be better quality.