[WeekendCasanova]

Hey everyone,

It's been a few months since my last guide on eCommerce, and I wanted to give some more value back to the community, as some information on here really helped push me to seek a better life; including becoming location independent.

Needless to say, I’ve achieved that, quit my job, and now travel 365-days of the year.

This guide is updated, and current. I run a few online businesses not related to dropshipping, however, I still maintain an online eCommerce store, which still generates upwards of 5-figures a month in revenue, and high 4-figures of profit per month.

There's a lot of information on the internet regarding dropshipping, so hopefully this will help cut out some noise. It’s tough to explain a subject such as dropshipping over text, without videos, text etc..but I’m going to do my best. My hope is that you can use this as a general guide, then ask questions in this thread, and I’ll respond more detailed. Hopefully this can be a comprehensive guide and thread!

I’ll be doing this in parts, over the course of a week or so. The sections will be as follows:

Part I.
The platform
The process
Choosing a niche & products

Part II.
Creating your store
Product descriptions
Applications I recommend

Part III.
Facebook Targeting (the ins & outs)
Instagram
Launching your first ad
Monitoring ads + which metrics to look out for

Part IV
Scaling
Selling your store
POD (Print on Demand)

Part One

I. The Platform

Nothing has changed from the previous installment of this guide. The best platform to use, is Shopify, combined with Oberlo for order-fulfillment. Shopify will cost you $29/month for the basic account, and Oberlo is free for less than 50 orders orders.

Shopify was designed for two purposes:

Keep startup costs low &
Create a low barrier to entry, by allowing people to set up their stores QUICKLY.

This means that your learning curve will not be steep. You’ll be able to learn the ins and outs of Shopify very quickly, so I won’t really cover that here. You can't go wrong with the free themes. The one thing to keep in mind, is that you should find themes that are optimized for Mobile devices.

One such theme, that I recommend is Brooklyn. For paid-themes, Retina is my go-to. In any case, you're fine with the free themes, at least until you prove that your idea works.

Payment Gateways:

If you're in the US/Canada/UK/Australia, you can use the payment gateway prebuilt within Shopify, that offers the lowest rates (Stripe), as well as Paypal. If you're outside the above countries, you'll likely have to use Stripe (but outside Shopify), or another gateway such as authorize.net, 2checkout etc...If you have any more questions about this, just ask below.



II. The Process

Traffic (Facebook, Instagram, Google) -> Platform (Shopify) -> Supplier (Aliexpress)


The process for getting started is actually quite simple. Even beginners can create their store in less than a day. The above flow sequence, is as basic as I can get.

Once you've created your store, you drive traffic to your store by using either; Facebook, Instagram, or Google (you can use others, but for the sake of ease, I'll stick with these).

After driving traffic, and selling your product, you order from the supplier and ship directly to the customer.

Some quick FAQs that I always get..

1. No, you don't hold physical inventory. You can, if you want, but there's no need.
2. Yes, it's legal.
3. You order the product first, with your own money, then you can 'capture' the customers payment, thus depositing it into your account after 7 days (or less if you're using paypal).

Voila. You're a dropshipper.

I just wanted to get everyone familiar with the process before I move on to niche selection, so thanks for being patient.

III. Choosing a Niche

This is often the most frustrating part for most people, and the most time-consuming which is why I'm leaving Part One after this point. Broken down, you're basically looking for a niche that fits this criterion:

1. Is a solution to a problem/pain-point, or is a want
2. Has demand
3. Has products
4. Is a passion niche (Cats, dogs, nurses)

Seems simple right? It is, and it isn't. People can overcomplicate this step very easily. The best advice I can give is to use all available resources to determine if people want a specific product within a niche. Some of the ones I use (and you can ask me more specifics in the comments to this thread)...

- Etsy (items with >1k orders)
- Google trends (an upward 12-month trend, or a consistent 5-year trend)
- Google keyword planner (high suggested bid = customers in this niche pay good money)
- Wanelo (items with >1k orders)
- Ebay Watch Count (you want a 2:1 buyer-watcher ratio)
- Searching other shopify stores
- FB Search (search what competitors are selling)
- Amazon
- Pinterest
- Instagram

You should want to disprove your idea, not try to prove it. If you try to prove it, you'll look for what you want.


At the end of the day, you can be in a saturated niche as long as you differentiate yourself. My best-selling store was in the fitness niche (leggings, etc). So don't focus too much on the niche, but instead, focus more on the products within that niche.

So how do you pick your products?

Well, use the above websites to find in-demand products, firstly. Secondly, we'll try to find these products on the site below.

For this, we'll be using http://www.Aliexpress.com, a Chinese wholesaler/retailer site (sister to Alibaba).

You want products to fit specific criterion...

1. The product offers ePacket to the USA (your main market). ePacket shipping is the fastest (12-20 days), and fairly cheap (usually less than $2), so it won't affect your margins too much.

2. The supplier offering a specific product should have a rating exceeding 4.5 gold stars (for reliability & product quality)

3. You'll want to look at the reviews for specific products, and ensure good reviews from normal countries (i.e canada, usa, australia, uk etc), and look for product pictures to ensure product quality.

4. Good pictures. Part of the reason my stores are so successful, is that I look for products/suppliers with excellent quality pictures (which we can use for ads).

Again, broken down to the fundamentals you want...

1. A product that is in demand.
2. A high-quality supplier.
3. Excellent promotional material (pictures)
4. Fast shipping (ePacket).


Part One is done. This was brief, but as I mentioned, I want this to be more a Q&A thing!

Hope this part has helped!

[This Is Trouble]

GREAT post.

When you say FB/G/IG - you're talking making actual accounts/pages/profiles and using them as a medium for traffic, or are you talking paid ads?

My follow up would be then, if paid ads - what kind of conversion rates regarding CTRs and then cart conversions should you aim for?

[Suits]

Thanks for the new thread. I'm currently developing a business with drop-shipping as part of a larger business plan, as I plan to first develop my own products and then drop-ship additional products to supplement those products.

[WeekendCasanova]

(07-10-2017 01:04 AM)This Is Trouble Wrote:  

GREAT post.

When you say FB/G/IG - you're talking making actual accounts/pages/profiles and using them as a medium for traffic, or are you talking paid ads?

My follow up would be then, if paid ads - what kind of conversion rates regarding CTRs and then cart conversions should you aim for?

Yeah, you make an account on each of those, under your brand name. You can use them as a free-medium for traffic, but the main goal will be to use them as a paid source of traffic.

I use Facebook mostly, so in general, here are the metrics I personally like.

CTR - Anything above 2%
CPC (Cost per click) - Below $1

In terms of conversions, industry standards across the board range from 1-3%, but for more niched stores (yoga-loving cat moms), you're probably looking at about 5%.

[WeekendCasanova]

(07-10-2017 03:29 AM)Suits Wrote:  

Thanks for the new thread. I'm currently developing a business with drop-shipping as part of a larger business plan, as I plan to first develop my own products and then drop-ship additional products to supplement those products.

I'm doing the opposite, but both work depending on what your end goal is!

I'm dropshipping AliX products first, before switching to higher-quality, custom-branded items.

I figure I'd prove the idea first, before spending the capital required to buy custom branded products, as I'm not on the ground on China, and move is kinda risky.

[Suits]

(07-10-2017 08:13 AM)WeekendCasanova Wrote:  

(07-10-2017 03:29 AM)Suits Wrote:  

Thanks for the new thread. I'm currently developing a business with drop-shipping as part of a larger business plan, as I plan to first develop my own products and then drop-ship additional products to supplement those products.

I'm doing the opposite, but both work depending on what your end goal is!

On strategy I'm pursuing is to bundle physical (drop-shipped) products with a digital product (that I've created) that expands the usefulness of the otherwise commonplace physical product (which normally is intended for a less niche purpose).

My customers will have the choice between buying the digital product (delivered by email) and the physical product together or buy the digital product from me and the physical product from a different source.

I'll substantially mark-up the digital only option so that buying the combined product set exclusively from me is cheaper than buying just the digital product from me.

[str8_thggn]

Anybody have experience with amazon merch?

[re33603]

For the past couple of months I have really looked into this, and I really like the whole drop shipping "system". I like the idea of higher costs, higher margin, less orders and therefore less work. Though I haven't found a niche that would match that criteria, so I will try with lower cost items. I am new to this but I've decided to jump right and not overthink it to much.

For my first store, I will sell products for around $50-$100. Less margin obviously, then higher cost items. In your opinion, is it to low?

The payment method on the site is PayPal and I have linked the site with my personal bank account. Do you think this is a good idea or would opening up a new bank account be a better idea?

I live in Mexico and i am a employee, I also am part owner of a company, but for my ecommerce business I am not registered as a company because I am not 100% sure it will take off. Do you think this will be a problem ?

[Hypno]

Great information above, but it presumes you have items that can be dropshipped. So once you have products, you create a store on Shopify and then drive traffic to it through FB/IG, etc. Alternatively via Amazon Merch.

But how does one find products that can be dropshipped in the first place? Is that was Oberlo does? I have seen some printing companies like Teespring who I guess you could say drop ship because you can set up products with them as a backend with a frontend on Spotify. But where does one get started finding products you can drop ship?

[cnfrmdbusto]

Hey man great guide and looking forward. Already started building my store months ago.

Is there anyone from out side US - preferably EU country - who has experiences with this? It seems that it is super easy from US to set it up (do you even need company or trade license to run it?) but in EU you need to have actual company for payment gateways to let you add credit/debit card payment option to your shopify store.

+ of course I want to have everything legally. I am based in Czech Republic (EU country). What would be the best way to start does anyone know?

[jamaicabound]

I'm a Shopify affiliate and I build out stores for people so I get to see peoples backend info like their stores, I can see how long they've been on for. I would say 10% or less of dropshippers are around after 30 days and that's being pretty generous, honestly its probably well under 5% and as far as say 6 months or a year down the road I would say probably 1% or less.

I know some people do really well with this but at the same time many people make it sound so easy and in reality it's not for the majority of people, especially if your not already involved in internet marketing.

I think doing Ali Express dropshipping is a huge mistake these days. There was a time when the just pay shipping marketing campaigns would work but people are too used to it. Everyone is selling the same items ie survival items, parachute hammocks, etc. The shipping times piss off customers meaning you'll almost never get a recurring buyer or someone referring a friend.

Dropshipping isn't all bad the but Ali Express thing IMHO is really played out.

[jamaicabound]

(07-10-2017 08:42 PM)re33603 Wrote:  

For the past couple of months I have really looked into this, and I really like the whole drop shipping "system". I like the idea of higher costs, higher margin, less orders and therefore less work. Though I haven't found a niche that would match that criteria, so I will try with lower cost items. I am new to this but I've decided to jump right and not overthink it to much.

For my first store, I will sell products for around $50-$100. Less margin obviously, then higher cost items. In your opinion, is it to low?

The payment method on the site is PayPal and I have linked the site with my personal bank account. Do you think this is a good idea or would opening up a new bank account be a better idea?

I live in Mexico and i am a employee, I also am part owner of a company, but for my ecommerce business I am not registered as a company because I am not 100% sure it will take off. Do you think this will be a problem ?

You are incorrect in stating higher margins. Dropshipping typically gets you the worst possible price as A. your not ordering in bulk and B. your making someone else handle the fulfillment. I'm not saying your paying retail but if I bought the same items as you do in bulk I'm going to get them for 1/3 if not even 1/4 of the price.

Also, the whole less work thing is a bit misleading as well. If you use a program like Oberlo it automates the process although there will be occasional fuckups by the program, but Oberlo to my knowledge only works with Ali Express which isn't really who you want to use to dropship stuff.

Many people report that keeping track of orders, communicating with suppliers and then passing that info along to customers is actually more work than just handling the merchandise yourself.

IMHO unless you dont have money to buy inventory or want to sell to a market you don't live in, I would personally advise against dropshipping.

[jamaicabound]

(07-10-2017 01:13 PM)str8_thggn Wrote:  

Anybody have experience with amazon merch?

Yes signup today because people are reporting wait times of up to a year to get accepted. Some people saying 30 days to 3 months but many people have been waiting over a year.

I'm a Merch seller, I dont do huge number but may sell a dozen or two shirts per month. I don't really do much promotional or much external sales outside of just letting organic Amazon sales roll in though.

[WeekendCasanova]

(07-11-2017 11:50 AM)jamaicabound Wrote:  

I think doing Ali Express dropshipping is a huge mistake these days. There was a time when the just pay shipping marketing campaigns would work but people are too used to it. Everyone is selling the same items ie survival items, parachute hammocks, etc. The shipping times piss off customers meaning you'll almost never get a recurring buyer or someone referring a friend.

Dropshipping isn't all bad the but Ali Express thing IMHO is really played out.

Free + shipping isn't dropshipping. It's one technique.

I disagree 100% with everything you have said, and you're speaking in black and white terms with "it's played out", when it's not played out at all; it's just entering the mainstream.

1) It's about differentiation now. I've made high-5 figures selling boring, saturated products.
2) The shipping times don't piss people off because you inform them in FAQs + receipts

You're coming from a point of little experience, as building out stores is a tiny portion, of what dropshipping is.

While you're saying it's played out, myself, and others are making 5+ figures a month using it.

Lot's of what you've said in your other comments is simply wrong, and I'd take it with a grain of salt.

You're also the same guy who used my exact article word-for-word. Then when I accused you of it, you vanished.

[re33603]

(07-11-2017 11:54 AM)jamaicabound Wrote:  

(07-10-2017 08:42 PM)re33603 Wrote:  

For the past couple of months I have really looked into this, and I really like the whole drop shipping "system". I like the idea of higher costs, higher margin, less orders and therefore less work. Though I haven't found a niche that would match that criteria, so I will try with lower cost items. I am new to this but I've decided to jump right and not overthink it to much.

For my first store, I will sell products for around $50-$100. Less margin obviously, then higher cost items. In your opinion, is it to low?

The payment method on the site is PayPal and I have linked the site with my personal bank account. Do you think this is a good idea or would opening up a new bank account be a better idea?

I live in Mexico and i am a employee, I also am part owner of a company, but for my ecommerce business I am not registered as a company because I am not 100% sure it will take off. Do you think this will be a problem ?

You are incorrect in stating higher margins. Dropshipping typically gets you the worst possible price as A. your not ordering in bulk and B. your making someone else handle the fulfillment. I'm not saying your paying retail but if I bought the same items as you do in bulk I'm going to get them for 1/3 if not even 1/4 of the price.

Also, the whole less work thing is a bit misleading as well. If you use a program like Oberlo it automates the process although there will be occasional fuckups by the program, but Oberlo to my knowledge only works with Ali Express which isn't really who you want to use to dropship stuff.

Many people report that keeping track of orders, communicating with suppliers and then passing that info along to customers is actually more work than just handling the merchandise yourself.

IMHO unless you dont have money to buy inventory or want to sell to a market you don't live in, I would personally advise against dropshipping.

Obviously you'd get a better price/product when ordering bulk. I don't want to order bulk.For example, I sell a product for $50, and 30% of that is profit, how many orders will it take until I make $1,000 ? Around 67 orders. So what if I sell a product for $450 and 30% of that is profit, how many order will it take until I make $1,000? 8 orders. Less work obviously, and that is essentially what my goal would be. Easier said then done, I know, but that is what I would be going for.

[tomzestatlu]

This is not really a question, so I am sorry, if you find this post needless, but I will share my thoughts.
I am surprised it really works. I don´t know what´s shipping time for US, but when I order something to Czech Republic, it´s at probably at least 4 weeks of waiting.
There are many dropshipers, who work on free auction sites. My parents once ordered some smartphone cases for my sister and wanted me to help. When I found out, it´s being dropshiped from Aliexpress, I was angry. It was christmas gift and it didn´t come before christmas and than, the price was more than 150% higher than on Ali.
I guess the most of the people when buying from eshop take a look if the item is on stock. Or I am supposed to count, that the most people are still that uneducated?

[asiaslayer]

thanks for the thread, had a few questions below:

- what shipping fulfillment center can you use within your country that your supplier can ship to? lots of people will not be happy seeing their merchandise arrive from China/HK with Chinese writing on the box. when people think China, they automatically assume low, cheap quality. so do you use Amazon FBA or what?

- if using FBA, won't Amazon confiscate your products and dispose of them if they deem them low quality during product inspection, causing you to lose lots of money? what's the solution for that?

- finally, on Shopify: what do you do if customers complain about slow shipping time? or if they want a refund? will Shopify penalize you and limit or end your store, or can you ignore them?

thanks for any information.

[jamaicabound]

(07-12-2017 02:54 AM)tomzestatlu Wrote:  

This is not really a question, so I am sorry, if you find this post needless, but I will share my thoughts.
I am surprised it really works. I don´t know what´s shipping time for US, but when I order something to Czech Republic, it´s at probably at least 4 weeks of waiting.
There are many dropshipers, who work on free auction sites. My parents once ordered some smartphone cases for my sister and wanted me to help. When I found out, it´s being dropshiped from Aliexpress, I was angry. It was christmas gift and it didn´t come before christmas and than, the price was more than 150% higher than on Ali.
I guess the most of the people when buying from eshop take a look if the item is on stock. Or I am supposed to count, that the most people are still that uneducated?

Your experience is a common one. Nobody wants to wait 30 days to get an item, let alone 45-60 days if its shipped post instead of epacket.

Many dropshippers aren't upfront with how long products will take and even those who are as we know majority of people look at a pic and read a title and don't read an entire eBay listing or a Shopify FAQ page, people assume things ship in a reasonable amount of time NOT 30 days so IMHO the vast majority of buyers are going to be upset regarding shipping time.

Once a customer asks for a refund or does a chargeback there's no way for them to turn a package around so the customer will wind up with their money back plus the item which will eventually arrive most likely.

Add to that in order for a product to enter through customs it must say what the item is and the cost so any buyer who looks at the label will see the true cost of the item if not less as many chinese suppliers will lie and undervalue whats in the package.

I would say your experience is pretty typical of the average buyer who orders something from a dropshipper who's using a chinese supplier.

I'm not completely knocking dropshipping. Let's say I like a particular hammock. I can contact the company and say hey I'm a blogger in the camping niche I think I could sell these will you dropship for me. If that is the case you'll actually have communication iwth your shipper, items will ship out from the same country within a day or two max, that is how you can actually have some success as a drosphipper

[jamaicabound]

- what shipping fulfillment center can you use within your country that your supplier can ship to? lots of people will not be happy seeing their merchandise arrive from China/HK with Chinese writing on the box. when people think China, they automatically assume low, cheap quality. so do you use Amazon FBA or what?

Great point packaging as stupid as it sounds is important. If I pay $30 more than retail for an Ali Express product and it shows up wrapped in a black garbage bag any illusion of me getting a high quality item is gone. The packaging also shows the true cost of the item if not less.

For USA look into Shipwire, Redstagg or others.

- if using FBA, won't Amazon confiscate your products and dispose of them if they deem them low quality during product inspection, causing you to lose lots of money? what's the solution for that?

Amazon really doesn't do a thorough inspection and typically your items are going to be either in a polybag, a box, etc so they can't really look at them. The biggest worry in terms of quality issues is fad products. Right now Amazon is requiring all fidget spinner sellers to show they are UL certified and nobody is so basically within 30 days everyone's listings who isn't will be removed.

- finally, on Shopify: what do you do if customers complain about slow shipping time? or if they want a refund? will Shopify penalize you and limit or end your store, or can you ignore them?

If you ignore them they will open up a credit card chargeback and not only will they get their money back, you'll also have your shopify payments account shutdown. Same with paypal or any other processor and if you have enough you'll be blackballed from ever processing credit cards again unless your willing to go high risk and pay 10% if your even lucky enough to find someone willing to take you.

[re33603]

With all businesses, be transparent and clear to the customer. Not different with drop shipping. Make it clear that it take X amount of days for the customer to receive the merchandise. Wether it´s 10 days or 60

[asiaslayer]

in the past when i've used selling formats like amazon, and specifically wrote down the estimated shipping time, i've had fucktards complain about not getting their packages the very next day. jamaicabound is mostly correct; most of these fuckwits are not going to browse through a FAQ page, or even read the sales page, except to make a purchase. or they'll just complain anyway.

it's a shame you can't ignore your customers on Shopify who pull this stuff. but i'd assume, depending on the payment processor you use, they can't do chargebacks for slow shipping times.

how about WooCommerce? i've heard it's better than Shopify.

[FlyHigher123]

Has anybody of you tried to transfer the dropshipping model to Airbnb or similar? So essentially putting up apartments from others with a markup?

[WeekendCasanova]

Jamaicabound spewing such nonsense in this thread, that there's almost no point in me replying to anything.

1) The packaging does not show the true cost. In your fulfillment service (Oberlo), you leave a note to the supplier that you're dropshipping, and they do not include the cost, receipt, or invoice. Only the product.

2) Shopify encourages dropshipping. If you have a slow-shipment time notice in your FAQs, receipts etc, your customers are less likely to file a chargeback.

3) I've had maybe 2 chargebacks in over a year of running stores. I've never lost a chargeback, and have NEVER heard of someone being blacklisted for getting a chargeback issued against them.

4) Most stores ARE upfront about their shipping times.

You're talking out of your ass, and you've clearly never built a successful dropshipping store. Stick to FBA + stealing others people content, which you have yet to respond to.

The average, newbie, maybe run a store the way you're mentioning. But I'd never teach to run a store that way.

[SnowHugger]

(07-15-2017 02:23 PM)WeekendCasanova Wrote:  

Jamaicabound spewing such nonsense in this thread, that there's almost no point in me replying to anything.

1) The packaging does not show the true cost. In your fulfillment service (Oberlo), you leave a note to the supplier that you're dropshipping, and they do not include the cost, receipt, or invoice. Only the product.

2) Shopify encourages dropshipping. If you have a slow-shipment time notice in your FAQs, receipts etc, your customers are less likely to file a chargeback.

3) I've had maybe 2 chargebacks in over a year of running stores. I've never lost a chargeback, and have NEVER heard of someone being blacklisted for getting a chargeback issued against them.

4) Most stores ARE upfront about their shipping times.

You're talking out of your ass, and you've clearly never built a successful dropshipping store. Stick to FBA + stealing others people content, which you have yet to respond to.

The average, newbie, maybe run a store the way you're mentioning. But I'd never teach to run a store that way.

I'm very interested in this. I set up a shop, put some products in. Going to be doing FB advertising soon, but my main question. Do you have an FAQ page I can use for reference?

[nigerian]

unless you find a really good niche as well as an exceptional product, dont bother with this.