My Dropshipping Story

larrysy

larrysy

Member
The beginning..

It all started with a YouTube video by somebody called Johnny reviewing a travel jacket which I was interested in back in early July of 2017. The review is a negative review so I say this must be a legit guy so I checked out his other videos. It turned out that he is promoting a dropshipping lifestyle with S...fy and telling us about his mentor Anton. His videos got me interested so I checked out Anton. And what did I find? Almost 3K for a course on dropshipping! Whew, you must be kidding. I can use that as my startup fund instead of paying some one to teach me things I can find on the net. So, I looked around for any open source solutions (meaning free) and came across WooCommerce. By this time, Ob..lo is targeting me in the face left and right whenever I click something. I checked out Ob..lo, it has a free tier but you need to be a S...fy user to use it, which is a monthly overhead of $29 after the free trial. Again, I checked out free or cheaper alternatives and came across 2 or 3 plugins with the same function as Ob..lo and started the comparison. Some were cheaper than AliDropship but it seems that AliDropship is more stable (the demo websites work). And after signing up for the "free ebook" (everybody does that now to get your email), I got an email giving me a discount. Since it is a one time fee (vs a subscription model), I jumped on it. I was also up-sold on SocialRabbit for a one time fee vs a regular subscription (scarcity or urgency works). So, 3 weeks after purchasing the AliDropship plugin, I'm almost ready to launch my shop.
 
larrysy

larrysy

Member
Thanks @drluisbarrios

This is a great community. It's like being in a coworking space without being in a coworking space.

I will be sharing my thought processes here (which might be wrong) and some unique resources which I come across doing this project.
 
larrysy

larrysy

Member
Mental preparation...

I'm reading a book on book on how to open a shop in TaoBao (equivalent of Amazon for the Chinese market) and one of the point mentioned is that psychological investment is more important than capital investment.

4 tips mentioned in the book for mental preparation -
1. Be calm - don't get excited over the hype that you can make so and so amount of a money in a short period of time (although it's nice to imagine that you're in that situation). It's not that easy - be prepared mentally to have 1 day, 3 days, 1 month or even 3 months without any sales
2. Be prepared to learn - you need to learn the rules of the game (like FB ad requirements so you don't get banned) and the details on how to do things (the knowledge base here is a great resource)
3. Be grateful - thanks to the potential buyers, thanks to the supplier, thanks to @Yaros for sharing the AliDropship plugin (which makes things easier) at a reasonable price. Be grateful, be happy and be successful.
4. Be prepared for a long journey - look forward to your first sale, then then 2nd, then the next.

IMG_20170727_114144.jpg
 
larrysy

larrysy

Member
Interested in The North?

Canada is a small market. Fact: Do you know that the population of all of Canada is less than the population of California?

Anyway, I'm from The North so I have a hometown bias and I started my search for a product with local information. During my research, I found a good resource to see what people in Canada are spending their money on - http://www.statcan.gc.ca/eng/start

Here is a sample data from their site (example, for the "Games, toys and hobbies" category, Canadians spend around 5 billion CAD annually). If you get only 0.0002% of that amount, that would be .... (you do the math).

Screen Shot 2017-07-27 at 1.26.25 PM.png
 
K

Krishna Jangir

New Member
larrysy said:
The beginning..

It all started with a YouTube video by somebody called Johnny reviewing a travel jacket which I was interested in back in early July of 2017. The review is a negative review so I say this must be a legit guy so I checked out his other videos. It turned out that he is promoting a dropshipping lifestyle with S...fy and telling us about his mentor Anton. His videos got me interested so I checked out Anton. And what did I find? Almost 3K for a course on dropshipping! Whew, you must be kidding. I can use that as my startup fund instead of paying some one to teach me things I can find on the net. So, I looked around for any open source solutions (meaning free) and came across WooCommerce. By this time, Ob..lo is targeting me in the face left and right whenever I click something. I checked out Ob..lo, it has a free tier but you need to be a S...fy user to use it, which is a monthly overhead of $29 after the free trial. Again, I checked out free or cheaper alternatives and came across 2 or 3 plugins with the same function as Ob..lo and started the comparison. Some were cheaper than AliDropship but it seems that AliDropship is more stable (the demo websites work). And after signing up for the "free ebook" (everybody does that now to get your email), I got an email giving me a discount. Since it is a one time fee (vs a subscription model), I jumped on it. I was also up-sold on SocialRabbit for a one time fee vs a regular subscription (scarcity or urgency works). So, 3 weeks after purchasing the AliDropship plugin, I'm almost ready to launch my shop.
Click to expand...
How is it running?
 
larrysy

larrysy

Member
After purchasing the AliDropship plugin exactly 1 month ago, my webstore is now in beta testing.

I tried all 3 themes and even the WooCommerce version, but finally settled on the Michelangelo theme as it is the most "minimalist" of the 3 themes (with some code modification).

I also settled on the stand-alone (vs the WooCommerce version) with built-in themes as it is all-in-one (although lacking some features) and easier to use.

For the prices, I tried several formulas but settled on the "recommended" + 20% (to allow for 20% coupons clawback).

Transactional emails - settled on MailGun as I had issues with Pepipost. Promotional emails - no problem with MailChimp.

Live chat - used tawk.to but I don't know whether to love or hate the screaming "We Are Here" logo.

A toll-free number which works (cost is $1.25 per month) - don't know how many people will actually call. I used a free online text to voice digitizer to record the message (saves 5 bucks from paying Fiverr to do it).

My real SSL Trust Logo (not the fake ones) is shown on the left lower corner on the page. I don't know how to make the logo in the middle of the page "live". @Victoria Kudryashova

The Paypal Express Checkout doesn't work, so I took it out.

I thought I picked a niche, but along the way, I found out that a lot of people are selling the same items as what I'm selling (even people here). Anyway, I already started it - it will be a valuable experience no matter what happens. I'll just try to give it a different spin.

About niches, here's a quote from a book about niches I had for some time about Amazon - "The jury is still deliberating on Amazon...". Guess what, Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world on July 26, 2017.

IMG_20170807_090220.jpg


Finally, here is my website - https://doghaulexpress.com

Thanks in advance for your critiques. :)
 
drluisbarrios

drluisbarrios

Member
larrysy said:
A toll-free number which works (cost is $1.25 per month) - don't know how many people will actually call. I used a free online text to voice digitizer to record the message (saves 5 bucks from paying Fiverr to do it).
Click to expand...

Hello, where do you buy it?

larrysy said:
I thought I picked a niche, but along the way, I found out that a lot of people are selling the same items as what I'm selling (even people here). Anyway, I already started it - it will be a valuable experience no matter what happens. I'll just try to give it a different spin.
Click to expand...

Don't worry about that, if there is no competition, maybe is because there is no money in some cases

larrysy said:
Finally, here is my website - https://doghaulexpress.com
Click to expand...
https://doghaulexpress.com
I like the concept, but i prefer the themes that looks similar to the big ones stores, but is a matter of testing.

Many successes ;)
 
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