Dropshipping Journey from South Africa!!

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ShaunAM

Member
Hey guys, Shaun from South Africa. :)

I bought an alidropship custom store basic package to start off with Last year. Site is live but i have not put much effort into getting the store off the ground. Basic package only includes 50 products imported for you, so in my spare time i have been working on the product selection. And hopefully will begin advertising by the end of the week!!

My goal for this thread is to serve as a journal and to share with you guys my experiences along the way. It also serves as a reminder / motivatorto keep working on the store!!

Feel free to ask any questions should you have any!!

Current goal: First sale!
 
meeyule

meeyule

Active Member
Hey Shaun, nice to meet you :)
Also from S.A, but been living in Amsterdam for many years. Good luck with the site!
 
ZakD

ZakD

New Member
Hey Shaun!

Thanks for sharing your journey. Waiting to hear about your first sale!

Curious to know...are you targeting the South African market?

I'm contemplating starting my own store...just not sure how if there will be shipping delays to our part of the world.
 
S

ShaunAM

Member
ZakD said:
Hey Shaun!

Thanks for sharing your journey. Waiting to hear about your first sale!

Curious to know...are you targeting the South African market?

I'm contemplating starting my own store...just not sure how if there will be shipping delays to our part of the world.
Click to expand...


To be honest i have not put much time into a target market, a big mistake on my part but learning by doing i guess! i have just integrated social rabbit and have seen a notable rise in site traffic. making tweeks and adjustments here and there as my time allows. will judge demographics by social media interest and take it from there.
 
P

Pheello

Guest
ShaunAM said:
Hey guys, Shaun from South Africa. :)

I bought an alidropship custom store basic package to start off with Last year. Site is live but i have not put much effort into getting the store off the ground. Basic package only includes 50 products imported for you, so in my spare time i have been working on the product selection. And hopefully will begin advertising by the end of the week!!

My goal for this thread is to serve as a journal and to share with you guys my experiences along the way. It also serves as a reminder / motivatorto keep working on the store!!

Feel free to ask any questions should you have any!!

Current goal: First sale!
Click to expand...
Hi Shaun

We are in the same boat brother, Still waiting for my first successful sale, Its been almost 6 months since the site has been up and dololo sale.. I had a couple of abondonded carts and still trying to figure the cause of that.. Good Luck
 
S

ShaunAM

Member
Pheello said:
Hi Shaun

We are in the same boat brother, Still waiting for my first successful sale, Its been almost 6 months since the site has been up and dololo sale.. I had a couple of abondonded carts and still trying to figure the cause of that.. Good Luck
Click to expand...

I here you... Have you spent any money on advertising yet? I am yet to do so... To be honest i don't know what i am waiting for... No harm in trying just one instagram shoutout right? Facebook is another monster which i am yet to tackle.

I have been spending a lot of time editing, and personalizing pages like about us, shipping & returns etc and continue to add products.

Social Rabbit has made a significant impact on traffic its pretty clear below.

1518683442280.png
 
S

ShaunAM

Member
Still no sales... :eek::( However i still continue to grow traffic and the Jan vs Feb comparison speaks for itself. I did receive my first query about a product post via twitter. So a step in the right direction i guess!

1519899393598.png


I intend on throwing some cash into advertising in the coming month. It will be interesting to see how well it performs. Will report back with results!;)
 
D

Doit

Member
ShaunAM said:
To be honest i have not put much time into a target market, a big mistake on my part but learning by doing i guess! i have just integrated social rabbit and have seen a notable rise in site traffic. making tweeks and adjustments here and there as my time allows. will judge demographics by social media interest and take it from there.
Click to expand...
Yan said:
Good luck on your journey bro! :)

The first sale is always the best one!
Click to expand...
Hi Yan,
I read your interview with alidropship. Good one. Want to get some advice from you. Recently I tried to run s Instagram ad, the ad is related to anime theme. The Ad is disapproved and my account also disabled. I need to create new account if want to try ad again. I tried to approach accounts owner for shoutouts but non replied, so I tried for Instagram paid ad. Do you run Instagram ad ? Any tweak to be done to get it approve? Thanks in advance
 
P

Pheello

Guest
ShaunAM said:
Still no sales... :eek::( However i still continue to grow traffic and the Jan vs Feb comparison speaks for itself. I did receive my first query about a product post via twitter. So a step in the right direction i guess!

View attachment 3123


I intend on throwing some cash into advertising in the coming month. It will be interesting to see how well it performs. Will report back with results!;)
Click to expand...



Hey Shaun

Your report look great but im just worried about your bounce rate.. i think you are still not getting sales because you are not getting thr right traffic. I wanted to try the rabbit plugin but there is so much critisism and lack of support for the plugin for me to try now..
 
S

ShaunAM

Member
Pheello said:
Hey Shaun

Your report look great but im just worried about your bounce rate.. i think you are still not getting sales because you are not getting thr right traffic. I wanted to try the rabbit plugin but there is so much critisism and lack of support for the plugin for me to try now..
Click to expand...

Thanks for pointing that out, i'm a total beginner and hadn't a clue what bounce rate was!! Done a bit of research and found that my bounce rate is indeed a concern. The big question is how do i improve it?

I haven't done much with the site at all since my last post here been way to busy with studies and my full time job. I may consider just selling it off to someone who can make it work... I'm really not sure how to proceed with attracting the "right" traffic...
 
S

ShaunAM

Member
Hi Everyone, So i am back after abandoning my store and leaving it dormant for quite a while. Quit my Job, moved to South East Asia and now finally have some time to put into my store! Next step is effective marketing however i don't know where to begin!! My first question would be is it wise to offer free shipping world wide? Or would it be better to start by targeting one specific demographic? Aliexpress is so inconsistent when it comes to shipping rates, would it not be advisable to only target for example the US which has the faster E packet shipping method?
 
P

pouria

Member
Welcome to South East Asia. where are you settling ?


ShaunAM said:
My first question would be is it wise to offer free shipping world wide? Or would it be better to start by targeting one specific demographic? Aliexpress is so inconsistent when it comes to shipping rates, would it not be advisable to only target for example the US which has the faster E packet shipping method?
Click to expand...
Try those countries are supported by E packet. keep US in your list as there are over 300M people living there and chance of sales are higher.
 
S

ShaunAM

Member
pouria said:
Welcome to South East Asia. where are you settling ?



Try those countries are supported by E packet. keep US in your list as there are over 300M people living there and chance of sales are higher.
Click to expand...

Currently in Vietnam :)

Thanks for the advice!
 
S

ShaunAM

Member
Now finally have someone attempting / wanting to make a purchase! However now all of a sudden i have a ton of issues with my site:mad:

  1. Prices do not display on any of the pages, not even a specific product page.
  2. Adding an item to cart does nothing.
  3. User login / account creation has dissapeared from the site.
  4. I cannot login to my WP admin / Dashboard.
Emailed support & no response as yet. Not even a confirmation or support ticket number. Skype support is no longer available.

Not sure how to get around this, im clearly going to loose my very first sale because of this...:(
 
S

ShaunAM

Member
*UPDATE*

So, After hours and hours of trying to resolve this problem. Still waiting for a response to my support request from Alidropship... I discovered this:

"
Please note, we do not recommend using WP Cerber plugin for this purpose, since this plugin uses very strict blocking rules, which may block even legal login attempts. Furthermore, WP Cerber plugin is not compatible with AliDropship plugin now – it may cause 403 error when importing products with AliDropship Google Chrome extension.
If you need a reliable security plugin, we recommend using WordFence plugin. The official WordFence plugin documentation can be found here."

Shocking to me that this kind of information is not made easily available, I purchased the custom store which came with WP Cerber installed!! Yet i had to scour for a solution on my own...

Disabling WP Cerber resolved my problem, and i have installed WordFence although it's limited in its free version it will have to do for now...
 
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