Filipino Dropshippers, Anyone?
- Thread starter Neil De Mesa
- Start date
I haven't been able to login to my site for a few days because everytime I try I get this Wordpress error about login attempts limit. Can you share what you guys do to tighten your site security? Also how do I know if the site was hacked? Is it safe to continue working on the site now? Thanks for your help.
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Hi Jeffrey, I am also newbie here. Salamat sa thread na to. Last week pa ko nag eemail at nangugulit sa Alidropship about my concern. I would just like to ask about Paypal. Ok lang ba gamitin ang Personal Account na Paypal for dropshipping?
Hi Catherine, contact your hosting provider for technical assistance. O di kaya clean your history and cache then mag log -in ka ulit. Make sure tama ang username and password. For site security, make sure na meron kang SSL. Starting July 2018, google will tag your website as not safe kung wala kang SSL certificate. See: https://www.thesslstore.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/iStock-502558343.jpg
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Hi Neil, thanks for creating this thread for Filipinos. Walang Stripe sa Philippines kaya yan ang problem natin. Paypal lang pero ako din di ko pa alam kung pwede ang Personal Paypal account. Baka kasi mag ka problem ako pag Personal account. So I am asking Filipinos here na may experience na kung ok ang Paypal personal acct sa drop shipping.
If you want to use Stripe dapat may bank account ka from accepted countries , usually western countries. So if wala ang option mo is to have a registered business in the USA. Apply for LLC , Olga explained it here: https://alidropship.com/register-dropshipping-business-us-get-credit-card-payments-stripe/
Yup.. lahat ng gagawin mo all business.. goodluck!
Thanks for your reply, sendgrid would definitely be on the top of my list.
lordencain
New Member
Hello, everyone. I want to help!
(This paragraph is only to instill credibility to my words. Skip to the next paragraph if you want to go straight to the tips.)
I have purchased a custom store from Alidropship last November (2017). I researched everything I need to know before acting on the store on November and I am still learning about dropshipping and web developing since then. I just joined this forum today after reading all the 9 pages of this thread. I see some doubts and questions regarding the creation of online store and thought I can help out fellow Filipinos in this endeavor.
I want to talk about the site creation, not the marketing and sales since I do not have any sales since November 2017 due to "personality crisis."
- HOSTING. If you want to avail hosting, Alidropship's hosting is the best I have ever seen. Think of it as if you are paying $48 (P2,500) a year for 5 websites. Most hosting out there only offer hosting for a single website/domain name. And what you see on other hosting's homepage of $2.95, $1.99, or $3 are all part of the promo if you avail hosting with them fo THREE YEARS! That's right. Not for a single year. And for startups like us, that is a problem. Alidropship also offers 20 email addresses as part of ther Silver tier (the $48 one). Other hosting offer only 1 to 2 email addresses up to a maximum of 5 email addresses. You will always need more than one email address. For each website I own, I usually need 2 email addresses. One for accounts@example.com (FB, IG, Twitter, etc. registration). And another one for support@example.com (for handling customer support and marketing campaigns). I found out that some ecommerce store owner also use paypal@example.com for paypal transactions (I don't use this because I think accounts@examples.com is enough for me, and speaking of PAYPAL, I'll also discuss some tips about it on the next paragraph). On my personal website, though, I use 3 email addresses: accounts (for FB, etc.), connect (for people), and my name (for close friends and relatives). The downside to Alidropship hosting is the 3 GB storage. BUT, for startups like us, that's more than enough. To be fair, 1 GB storage can house a MINIMUM of 500 products in a website. Also, about Free SSL. SSL is actually free. But some hosting con/trick you into adding SSL as an addon for their services. Sure, there are Free and Paid SSL but there's not much difference security-wise.
- PAYPAL. You need a business account for this one. Because if you use your personal account, your customer will receive a PayPal notification with your name on it. It will affect your credibility negatively. If you use business account, you can actually change the alias into your business name. Telling the customers that you are indeed a legit store. It will also make it easy for them to recognize where they bought the product.
- NO CREDIT CARD. For a freelancer or an entrepreneur, it is really hard to obtain credit card for online transaction. So, we use our bank accounts. But as an online seller, if you connect your bank account to your paypal and transfer paypal credits to it, sales will come through after more than 5 business days. And most of the time you need to pay an additional 200 pesos when withdrawing money that came from paypal. I had experienced it and it is bitterly painful. P200 is still a lot of money, especially if accumulated over time. Solution? GCash. I once tried PayMaya and I loved it. Take note, LOVED, past tense. The problem with PayMaya is they also deduct P200 to your hard earned money.
With GCash though, you can withdraw it using their GCash Mastercard Card with a withdrawal fee of P20,not P200. And I think GCash to BPI is free, as far as I know. So, yeah, I switched from PayMaya to GCash ever since.
- NICHE. My first store BarAbout was a custom store I bought from Alidropship. I spent P16k for that. The niche is bar accessories. But I gave up on that store after realizing that I don't have the knowledge to sell that kind of niche. I mean, I don't have any idea who to target and what my ads should be. Not everyone in the US has kitchen isle or home bars (or you may call it pessimism, so don't do it), and I look for FB groups about it and they're not very active. The niche, I say, is not beginner-friendly. So, I'm sorry for Alidropship team for wasting their efforts Yes, it is my money but I still feel bad. FIRST LESSON I learned, don't do niche you have no idea about. My next store Luffy Senpai is a store I created myself since I love the anime One Piece. I am a worthless freeloader so I don't have a job and live with my parent (singular). I spent a whole month making Luffy Senpai, from the products to the social media. Yup, WHOLE month. Let's say I spent 10 hrs a day for the whole month. I don't have a knowledge of web developing yet so I took that long. But to avoid discouraging you, two-thirds of that month is spent tweaking products so maybe it really isn't that hard. Sadly, I also gave up on that store since I realized from a lot of research that anime fans either want free, or items that come from the original company. SECOND LESSON, don't do niche without a plan and a research beforehand. I have no sales on both store because I have no money for ads. So I look for a job, and I've got a job for a month. Yeah, I am that lazy but I am proud of my brain. I hope my brain could force me to be diligent. So after 8 months, since November, I will try again. And this time, I will plan efficiently. AND, don't forget about FB ads. I hear they're very efficient and I will definitely use them on my next store immediately.
- SECURITY. If you think someone hacked into your website, just change the Wordpress password in your cpanel. Go to yourwebsite.com:2083 and it will bring you to your hosting's cpanel. Go to Wordrpress Manager, find the domain you want the password to change and click Manage. Then, Password & Security (i think). There, you can change your password without keying in your previous password. It is also helpful if you just forgot your password. You can also use plugins like WP Cerber to lock out IP addresses that are trying to hack into your account. Take note that within the first week/month of your site, you may receive THOUSANDS of email notifying you that TENS OF THOUSANDS of IP addresses are trying to hack into your account. Don't panic because I think it is normal and will subside after a while. They are just bots using dictionary words to identify your password so I suggest you use password that cannot be found in english dictionary and also add some capital letters and numbers.
- BACKUP. This is the most important one. Don't ever, EVER, ever make big or unexplored changes without backing it up first. It's a bit of a hassle but if you accidentally destroyed your site and you don't have a backup on hand, then that's A LOT of a hassle. How big? You start from scratch all over again.
- CUSTOM STORE. So, nandito na tayo sa ndi magandang part. Kaya tagalog kasi ayokong isipin nila Yaros (founder ng AliDropship) na sinisiraan ko sila or ndi ko gusto ginagawa nila which is far from the truth. I love AliDropship plugin and it is exceptional. Yun nga lang ndi mo na actually kelangan mag avail ng custom store nila kasi ung plugin nila meron dung settings para gawan ka ng premade na page para sa About, Terms & Condition, Return Policy, etc. Ang iintindihin mo na lang ung Homepage mo at Product page. I suggest pag aralan mo na then and there kung pano maglagay ng products from Aliexpress to your site kasi gagawin mo rin naman un pag mag eexpand ka na. Kung nag aalala ka sa tagal, why hurry? It's not like kikita ka agad pagkagawa mo mismo ng site ee. So ang kelangan mo gawin is ilessen ang gastos para mas tumagal ka sa ginagawa mo. Still up to you, though. So even if you have a job or are studying, if you plan on making an ecommerce store, you still need to commit to learning even the basics of web developing and dropshipping. For a full time employee, I can estimate you can finish your store in 2 months. A little earlier if you are only transferring 50 products. So ang question talaga dito, anong gusto mo? Dalawang bwan na experience na kekelanganin mo rin naman, or magbabayad ka ng P16k pero kelangan mo pa rin alamin ang basics ng web dev at dropshipping? And take note, sa pagkaka alala ko, aabutin yata ng sampung araw ang pag gawa nila. Or something like that. So kung ikaw ang gagawa ng site, ang poproblemahin mo na lang ung logo at cover photos. Pero kung un lang ang habol mo sa P16k, tingin ko ndi worth it. Pagawa ka na lang sa kilala mong artist or hire someone in fiverr for $5 to $20. I haven't tried fiverr yet. I actually created my own logo for Luffy Senpai. And I will do it again for my next store.
There, sorry for the long post. But, I hope you can find something here that may help you. Also for NON-TAGALOG speakers, feel free to PM me and I'll translate it to you in English. And no, I can't speak any dialect or language other than English and Tagalog.
I repeat, this tip is only for the store creation. Not marketing and sales since I don't have experience with that as of now (except for my previous Business Administration course).
But, sure if you have questions. Fire away! I'll answer if I can/know.
(This paragraph is only to instill credibility to my words. Skip to the next paragraph if you want to go straight to the tips.)
I have purchased a custom store from Alidropship last November (2017). I researched everything I need to know before acting on the store on November and I am still learning about dropshipping and web developing since then. I just joined this forum today after reading all the 9 pages of this thread. I see some doubts and questions regarding the creation of online store and thought I can help out fellow Filipinos in this endeavor.
I want to talk about the site creation, not the marketing and sales since I do not have any sales since November 2017 due to "personality crisis."
- HOSTING. If you want to avail hosting, Alidropship's hosting is the best I have ever seen. Think of it as if you are paying $48 (P2,500) a year for 5 websites. Most hosting out there only offer hosting for a single website/domain name. And what you see on other hosting's homepage of $2.95, $1.99, or $3 are all part of the promo if you avail hosting with them fo THREE YEARS! That's right. Not for a single year. And for startups like us, that is a problem. Alidropship also offers 20 email addresses as part of ther Silver tier (the $48 one). Other hosting offer only 1 to 2 email addresses up to a maximum of 5 email addresses. You will always need more than one email address. For each website I own, I usually need 2 email addresses. One for accounts@example.com (FB, IG, Twitter, etc. registration). And another one for support@example.com (for handling customer support and marketing campaigns). I found out that some ecommerce store owner also use paypal@example.com for paypal transactions (I don't use this because I think accounts@examples.com is enough for me, and speaking of PAYPAL, I'll also discuss some tips about it on the next paragraph). On my personal website, though, I use 3 email addresses: accounts (for FB, etc.), connect (for people), and my name (for close friends and relatives). The downside to Alidropship hosting is the 3 GB storage. BUT, for startups like us, that's more than enough. To be fair, 1 GB storage can house a MINIMUM of 500 products in a website. Also, about Free SSL. SSL is actually free. But some hosting con/trick you into adding SSL as an addon for their services. Sure, there are Free and Paid SSL but there's not much difference security-wise.
- PAYPAL. You need a business account for this one. Because if you use your personal account, your customer will receive a PayPal notification with your name on it. It will affect your credibility negatively. If you use business account, you can actually change the alias into your business name. Telling the customers that you are indeed a legit store. It will also make it easy for them to recognize where they bought the product.
- NO CREDIT CARD. For a freelancer or an entrepreneur, it is really hard to obtain credit card for online transaction. So, we use our bank accounts. But as an online seller, if you connect your bank account to your paypal and transfer paypal credits to it, sales will come through after more than 5 business days. And most of the time you need to pay an additional 200 pesos when withdrawing money that came from paypal. I had experienced it and it is bitterly painful. P200 is still a lot of money, especially if accumulated over time. Solution? GCash. I once tried PayMaya and I loved it. Take note, LOVED, past tense. The problem with PayMaya is they also deduct P200 to your hard earned money.
With GCash though, you can withdraw it using their GCash Mastercard Card with a withdrawal fee of P20,not P200. And I think GCash to BPI is free, as far as I know. So, yeah, I switched from PayMaya to GCash ever since.- NICHE. My first store BarAbout was a custom store I bought from Alidropship. I spent P16k for that. The niche is bar accessories. But I gave up on that store after realizing that I don't have the knowledge to sell that kind of niche. I mean, I don't have any idea who to target and what my ads should be. Not everyone in the US has kitchen isle or home bars (or you may call it pessimism, so don't do it), and I look for FB groups about it and they're not very active. The niche, I say, is not beginner-friendly. So, I'm sorry for Alidropship team for wasting their efforts
Yes, it is my money but I still feel bad. FIRST LESSON I learned, don't do niche you have no idea about. My next store Luffy Senpai is a store I created myself since I love the anime One Piece. I am a worthless freeloader so I don't have a job and live with my parent (singular). I spent a whole month making Luffy Senpai, from the products to the social media. Yup, WHOLE month. Let's say I spent 10 hrs a day for the whole month. I don't have a knowledge of web developing yet so I took that long. But to avoid discouraging you, two-thirds of that month is spent tweaking products so maybe it really isn't that hard. Sadly, I also gave up on that store since I realized from a lot of research that anime fans either want free, or items that come from the original company. SECOND LESSON, don't do niche without a plan and a research beforehand. I have no sales on both store because I have no money for ads. So I look for a job, and I've got a job for a month. Yeah, I am that lazy but I am proud of my brain. I hope my brain could force me to be diligent. So after 8 months, since November, I will try again. And this time, I will plan efficiently. AND, don't forget about FB ads. I hear they're very efficient and I will definitely use them on my next store immediately.- SECURITY. If you think someone hacked into your website, just change the Wordpress password in your cpanel. Go to yourwebsite.com:2083 and it will bring you to your hosting's cpanel. Go to Wordrpress Manager, find the domain you want the password to change and click Manage. Then, Password & Security (i think). There, you can change your password without keying in your previous password. It is also helpful if you just forgot your password. You can also use plugins like WP Cerber to lock out IP addresses that are trying to hack into your account. Take note that within the first week/month of your site, you may receive THOUSANDS of email notifying you that TENS OF THOUSANDS of IP addresses are trying to hack into your account. Don't panic because I think it is normal and will subside after a while. They are just bots using dictionary words to identify your password so I suggest you use password that cannot be found in english dictionary and also add some capital letters and numbers.
- BACKUP. This is the most important one. Don't ever, EVER, ever make big or unexplored changes without backing it up first. It's a bit of a hassle but if you accidentally destroyed your site and you don't have a backup on hand, then that's A LOT of a hassle. How big? You start from scratch all over again.
- CUSTOM STORE. So, nandito na tayo sa ndi magandang part. Kaya tagalog kasi ayokong isipin nila Yaros (founder ng AliDropship) na sinisiraan ko sila or ndi ko gusto ginagawa nila which is far from the truth. I love AliDropship plugin and it is exceptional. Yun nga lang ndi mo na actually kelangan mag avail ng custom store nila kasi ung plugin nila meron dung settings para gawan ka ng premade na page para sa About, Terms & Condition, Return Policy, etc. Ang iintindihin mo na lang ung Homepage mo at Product page. I suggest pag aralan mo na then and there kung pano maglagay ng products from Aliexpress to your site kasi gagawin mo rin naman un pag mag eexpand ka na. Kung nag aalala ka sa tagal, why hurry? It's not like kikita ka agad pagkagawa mo mismo ng site ee. So ang kelangan mo gawin is ilessen ang gastos para mas tumagal ka sa ginagawa mo. Still up to you, though. So even if you have a job or are studying, if you plan on making an ecommerce store, you still need to commit to learning even the basics of web developing and dropshipping. For a full time employee, I can estimate you can finish your store in 2 months. A little earlier if you are only transferring 50 products. So ang question talaga dito, anong gusto mo? Dalawang bwan na experience na kekelanganin mo rin naman, or magbabayad ka ng P16k pero kelangan mo pa rin alamin ang basics ng web dev at dropshipping? And take note, sa pagkaka alala ko, aabutin yata ng sampung araw ang pag gawa nila. Or something like that. So kung ikaw ang gagawa ng site, ang poproblemahin mo na lang ung logo at cover photos. Pero kung un lang ang habol mo sa P16k, tingin ko ndi worth it. Pagawa ka na lang sa kilala mong artist or hire someone in fiverr for $5 to $20. I haven't tried fiverr yet. I actually created my own logo for Luffy Senpai. And I will do it again for my next store.
There, sorry for the long post. But, I hope you can find something here that may help you. Also for NON-TAGALOG speakers, feel free to PM me and I'll translate it to you in English. And no, I can't speak any dialect or language other than English and Tagalog.
I repeat, this tip is only for the store creation. Not marketing and sales since I don't have experience with that as of now (except for my previous Business Administration course).
But, sure if you have questions. Fire away!
I'll answer if I can/know.
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lordencain
New Member
Wow! Yaros liked my very first post! I'm super happy. Thank you! 
Yaros liked my very first post! I'm super happy. Thank you!
lordencain
New Member
Thanks Jessie! I did all of those but I found out a recent update in one of my plugins was the culprit.
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AndroPoland
New Member
Hello, Good day everyone.. a newbie dropshipper entrepreneur as well. I haven't explored all forums and topics yet, but I just want to ask something regarding product delivery and shipping (if this is not the correct forum, please kindly help me na lng to be directed there. Thanks).. But since I can't find it, dito na lang ako mag-ask. Kapag ba nag-order ako sa Ali for the customer, automatic ba na door-to-door yung delivery nun o mai-stuck sa Custom yun product? I supposed that should be door-to-door right? But I ordered a product for myself as part of order-testing, pero na-stuck sa QC Custom yung product. Is that suppose to happen or there something I need to know further about shipping a product in our country? Many thanks in advance sa sasagot.
AndroPoland
New Member
Hi sir, thank you very much for the response. Na-curious tuloy ako dun sa DHL/USPS option of delivery. Does Ali provide such option to choose whether which kind of delivery should be during the ordering? Maybe I missed it when ordering the product in Aliexpress because I haven't seen an option. Pero is there such an option there? I prefer sana yung door-to-door option for customers just in case whenever I order a product for them kasi, instead of picking it up sa custom. Since I feel like the essence of "convenience" by ordering in an online store will be defeated kung need pa nila pumunta sa Custom to pickup the product (which might also be subjected to additional fees if they fetch it there). Thanks a lot po ulet in advance.
AndroPoland
New Member
I see, thanks again for the reply
it gave me some insights. So If I will not get the product sa QC postal office, they will tendency deliver it in the nearest postal to deliver it. I guess, I have to wait then and test it for myself to learn and know the mechanics of shipping when it comes to Ph. Thanks po ulet hehe
AndroPoland
New Member
Aah that's one of my concern po pala.. so you're mandated to pick the item in the post office. So from Custom then papadala nila sa postal yung item. But I was expecting for a Door-to-door delivery for the item and should not be picked up in the Postal since that is what I am expecting when I ordered the product in Ali for the customer (in this case, ako pa yung customer because I'm testing it personally). Is that really how things should be dito sa dropshipping when it comes sa Philippines? Or is there a correct way na hindi dapt kukunin ni customer sa postal and it should be delivered specifically sa door nila po?