New User, New Journey [Long]

Tokay

Member
Hi all! Apologies for the long post. Been a lurker here for a while and just finished launching my first store so I thought I'd document my journey to gain some feedback from fellow members.

I first learnt about dropshipping 10 years ago, when I was just 15. I was obsessed with the idea of making money online. I spent hours researching and eventually opened my very first free store on ecrater. This was 100% free with no investment, no marketing, no advertising, etc. I just set it and forgot it. I made maybe 9 sales over 3 months then forgot about it. Throughout the following years I tried Affiliate marketing, T-Shirts, Product Creation, etc and must have spend thousands on failed ventures. Right now I'm working a job that pays well for the country I'm in, but I find it boring and unfulfilling. Day in, day out, collect your check at the end of the month - the same situation many of us are stuck in. After finding Yaros' thread on blackhatworld I decided to give dropshipping another go. I'd tried a variety of marketing methods in the past but never tried Insta shoutouts, so decided to try them this time.

Since I have no particular hobbies (I tend to drift from one to another) I asked my friends what they liked and settled on the one that most had mentioned as my niche. I then spent another week doing heavy niche/marketing/competitor research to determine whether I'd found the right niche or not. So far I think its OK. A lot of niche enthusiasts, not too much competition. One important thing to note is I'm a perfectionist. I researched my competition on instagram (by finding out who influencers were advertising) and found most of the sites they were promoting fell short in one way or another. Whether it was price (greed kills!), bad advert layout or site layout (what's the point of running a web store if the buying process is confusing?) they had their shortcomings. I kept their flaws in mind and made sure my site had none of that.

Exactly 1 week ago today I took the plunge. Bought the WP plugin and set everything up. I'm lucky enough to have a job which doesn't require much work and gives me access to a PC and internet, so everything was done from work. It took me 6 days to set everything up, add 100 products, SEO optimize the titles, etc including 1 day off and 1 day spent re-doing the products.

Yesterday was my site's "official" launch. I launched my first shoutout with an influencer. I found an influencer with around 150k followers and each post got 3000-5000 engagements on average, yet I noticed the product posts he put out only got around 800 with maybe 1-2 comments. Because of this, I made sure to use a variety of images and a caption that encouraged engagement. As of now, 22 hours after the shoutout launched it has gained over 2,700 likes, 37 comments and gained me 22 followers.

This morning I rushed to check my email. No PayPal notifications. I knew not to expect much, admittedly my heart did sink a little but it had been less than 12 hours since the shoutout so I kept my chin up. I then noticed an email from the site's contact form, a guest was having trouble making a payment without a PayPal account.

Turns out he was trying to make a $156 purchase, around $80 of which would have been profit! That's more than I make in 1 day at my job, in just 1 order! He was also determined to make it, as you can see he attempted 4 times. ohno.png
It was gut wrenching to see this, but encouraging at the same time. I sent him an email with instructions along with a coupon for an additional 15% off, advised him to use his PC rather than phone and have yet to see a reply. Fingers crossed, but I won't be too disappointed if he doesn't come through. I also had another order abandoned, have a feeling it was a PayPal issue also. Earlier this afternoon though my 1st successful order came through! The 2 orders completely redded out are test orders I myself made to make sure everything worked.

If the PayPal thing becomes an issue, I will have to suck it up and register for a card processor. Unfortunately Stripe is not available in this country, but I did see a post where some members have been using it successfully with Payoneer. Maybe I'll try that.

Anyone have any experience with 2checkout? This is my 2nd choice since they don't seem to be too picky about verification however they do need the address to be displayed on site which I'm a bit hesitant about, since a Thai address might discourage some people.

So, here are my stats so far. 22 hours since my first shoutout was launched.
stats070917.png


223 visitors, 1 $156 order lost, 1 $16 order lost but 1 $14.45 confirmed order! I think the time is set up wrong on either AliDropship or Google Analytics :p Also I gained 3 subscribers on my mailing list, which I had simply set up and not put any effort into so far. I do have experience with and know the power of email marketing so this will be a future plan.

EDIT: I forgot to mention I am also using Social Rabbit and it seems to be working slowly but surely, have had around 10 hits from facebook and 20 from pinterest.

Right now my plans for the future are;
Work out any little bugs
Keep adding more products (ongoing)
Keep driving social traffic (ongoing)
Finish up SEO articles for each product category
Set up credit card gateway
Set up email marketing campaign.
Keep adding images for Social Rabbit to post (ongoing)

All feedback welcomed!
 

kingpin

Well-Known Member
Great work Tokay

Is it a general store or a niche store?

And how much did you pay for the shout-out?
 

Tokay

Member
Great work Tokay

Is it a general store or a niche store?

And how much did you pay for the shout-out?

It's a niche store. Whilst I get having a general store and promoting specific products, I'm not too sure how to go about doing this, so I figured might aswell make a niche store and get people to browse the site. I paid $15 for the shoutout but will try negotiate for a lower price for a bulk package. Still I think $15 is fair. I also got burnt after paying $70 for a month's worth of promo and the guy disappearing the next day. All a learning experience :)

Right now apart from sales, I'm using shoutouts to gather info using my Facebook pixel for retargeting/FB targeting in the future.
 

kingpin

Well-Known Member
Just one more question

Is it a fan merchandise or movie or series related niche store?
 

Ryan

Active Member
Hi, Tokay!
Welcome on board.
Nice introduction. I read all from start to finish.
Great start, hope to read regular updates from you.
I personally don't use 2Checkout but from what I have read I wouldn't recommend it.
 

Tokay

Member
Hi, Tokay!
Welcome on board.
Nice introduction. I read all from start to finish.
Great start, hope to read regular updates from you.
I personally don't use 2Checkout but from what I have read I wouldn't recommend it.
Thanks! Do you use Stripe? I'm in a country not supported so I'll have to go the route of payoneer etc like someone else posted on the forums.
 

Ryan

Active Member
Thanks! Do you use Stripe? I'm in a country not supported so I'll have to go the route of payoneer etc like someone else posted on the forums.

No, I am using PayPal only. Stripe is not supported in my country either. But I think I am also going to go with Payoneer + Stripe. I read that it still works well. Have to try.
 

Tokay

Member
No, I am using PayPal only. Stripe is not supported in my country either. But I think I am also going to go with Payoneer + Stripe. I read that it still works well. Have to try.

Yeah, I'm thinking of going that way too. Can't help but keep thinking PayPal only is an issue, especially when using mobile devices. After checking other analytics, I can see that I've had about 16 carts abandoned before any info was input. Could be a coincidence, but could also be because they didn't want to pay through PayPal. We take PayPal where I work too and have found that the fact that people don't want to create an account/use PayPal ended up costing us quite a bit of business.
 

jubran

Active Member
Very nice work! I wish you the best of luck :)

And yes PayPal only is a big issue nowadays. I've used 2Checkout on multiple websites but they charge way too heavy fees 5.9% and about 30 cents on each transaction (and that's without the withdraw fees and the currency conversion fees....) And since stripe isn't available in my country too. I'll try this method of 'https://medium.com/@IsAlmog/hacking-strip-payments-to-use-in-any-country-886a7cafb690'
 

Tokay

Member
Ok so new week, 6 days into the new store. Here are the stats;
stats110917.png

Out of all the visitors, 379 were unique with 2 orders so a conversion rate of 0.53%. Both these orders came after I made a shoutout with a particular user. Since then I haven't made one with him to test others. From others I'm getting visitors and mostly US but it seems to be people just browsing, not interested in purchasing.

Here are my Google Analytics Stats for 06-09-2017 - 11-09-2017
ganalytic11092017.png
Seems like people are browsing, but they're not buying. The days with high traffic are the promoted days, I also intentionally left the site un-promoted on some days to test the amount of organic/residual traffic I was getting. 34 on the 8th, 22 on the 10th. On the 8th, 22 users were from Social, 6 were direct, 3 came from organic search and 1 referral. I'd be surprised if the organic search results were actual people as I've not done much apart from SEO optimized titles and slugs. I will focus on adding some SEO content later on.

Had a few more abandoned orders. These seem to be coming mainly from UAE and India, 2 countries which sometimes have problems with PayPal, from past experience so I'll definitely have to get Stripe set up. I've also learnt that some users have difficulty paying without a PayPal account on certain devices.


I will be booking a week of shoutouts with the first user, since I got 2 sales (2nd one eventually came through!) from just a 24 hr shoutout with him.

My focus will also be on growing my followers organically. I now have 87 followers on instagram. None on Facebook. Have tried sharing entertainment posts in multiple niche groups but the majority of them aren't getting approved by admins for some reason, whilst other page shares are going through. Seems like I can't get any fans on Facebook without paying for them. If anyone has any free FB strategies, let me know! I don't mind spending money on followers but I'd rather grow them organically. I have an idea to boost followers on IG and will try that out later.

I have also since then gained 1 new subscriber to my mailing list. I think this is impressive since the subscribe bar is hidden at the bottom of the page and I've made no effort whatsoever, apart from signing up to mailchimp and creating the list, to market this. I plan on integrating a popup signup form offering subscribers a discount.

Financials 29-08-2017 - 11-09-2017
Sales: +$114.41
Supplier Costs: -$60.28
Site, hosting, plugins, logo, etc: -$183.11
Shoutouts: -$128 (incl. $70 lost in a scam)

So far this puts me at -256.98$ for the site which in my opinion is a small investment. I think with a bit of work and the right traffic, this can quickly be recouped in the next few weeks and after that I will start seeing some profit.
 

Tokay

Member
any update ?

Since Monday I launched 2 more paid shoutouts which drove another 150 or so visitors to my site but no completed sales. Still trying to work with more IG accounts for better quality traffic. I will be launching a week-long promo with the first user that drove my 1st 2 sales. Hopefully that will boost my followers too. I seem to be having trouble with Social Rabbit and FB. I can see the posts being made and going live on my FB account but when I try look from another account/Incognito mode on chrome; I can't see anything so I'm trying to figure that one out. I'm thinking of getting rid of Twitter since it seems to be of no use so far, and sticking to IG, FB & Pinterest.

So far my experience with the shoutouts is quality over quantity. I've learnt that the cheaper the shoutout, the lower the quality of the traffic will be. It's also important to make the images look enticing. I've seen other sellers mass purchase shoutouts and dump pictures of the product with the original seller's watermark still on it. These got 700-800 likes in comparison with my posts receiving 2k+ likes, just by spending a few minutes compiling them and placing my own watermark on them.

2 more abandoned carts which would have resulted in another $30-40 profit, this time all from the UAE so I will be attempting to set up Stripe today, PayPal only option is hurting me. I have a feeling I'm only seeing orders from those that tried to pay unsuccessfully, I'm probably losing more orders to people who close off without bothering to fill in the info once they see PayPal is the only option.

I have also integrated a popup subscriber form on my site, have gained another 10 subs since my post on Monday and set up a simple welcome email offering subs a 15% discount. I gained 10 more instagram followers.

I have done some more SEO optimization on some of the pages which Google has picked up on and by experience this will increase over time.

EDIT: I have just added Stripe. I had been putting it off because I kept forgetting to record my bank details when I was home and I prefer not to look computers after I'm done with work.

First I set up Payoneer (which is what I needed my local bank details for) - This gave me a US bank account.
Next I purchased an address from USAMail1.com for about $10/month. It also came with a fax number.
This allowed me to set up Stripe. I used my USA address and Fax number as the phone number. This seemed to work. If needed I will buy a Cell forwarding number later.
The only place I got stuck was the SSN. Some people have reported using 0000 as the last 4 digits which seemed to work, it didn't for me so I used 1234.
After that it was done and I set up the CC option on my site.

The whole process took around an hour which includes waiting 45 minutes for Payoneer to approve me (they say this could take days, not sure if this is normal or I was lucky).
 
Last edited:

jubran

Active Member
Cool, now you hopefully convert more customers with on-site credit card payment option.
Stripe didn't ask you about an EIN?
As for Payoneer, they approved my bank account in 30 minutes too.

I've also seen that Stripe is prohibiting dropshipping but it's weird because many people still use it and Shopify, which highly support drop-shipping also uses and provides stripe for it's customers. What's your thoughts on that?

All the best Tokay!
 

Tokay

Member
Cool, now you hopefully convert more customers with on-site credit card payment option.
Stripe didn't ask you about an EIN?
As for Payoneer, they approved my bank account in 30 minutes too.

I've also seen that Stripe is prohibiting dropshipping but it's weird because many people still use it and Shopify, which highly support drop-shipping also uses and provides stripe for it's customers. What's your thoughts on that?

All the best Tokay!

The EIN was optional, as for SSN I typed 1234. The guide you linked before, the author used 0000 as the last 4 digits and was approved. Even so, they seem to have made an SSN mandatory now.

I think that rule applies to dropshipping suppliers. Our business model is a webstore based on drop shipping, but we are not actual dropshippers like the guys in China. Fingers crossed that there will be no further verification and I'll be able to fly under the radar.
 

Tokay

Member
Had my first payment via stripe overnight. So far so good, woke up to an email saying the amount would be transferred to my bank account (payoneer) by the 21st. We'll see how that goes.
 

Tokay

Member
congratulations

Thanks, I checked it again and it actually said the 18th. For some reason Stripe seems to instantly transfer money to the bank account. Will update on the 18th, if it works then it proves it is still possible to get Stripe approved without being a US resident or opening an LLC!
 

Tokay

Member
Ok so its now week 2 of my store going live. Here are my stats from AliDrophship;
ADstars20092017.png
As you can see since my last update I've received another 5 orders. Plenty of visitors but few, sporadic sales. My conversion rate is 0.52% which is concerning since I've spent more money on Instagram shoutouts, this means even though the bulk of the traffic is from the US, it's seems to be low quality. It is for this reason I've decided to experiment with FB ads. I know the site works, I just need a cost effective way of driving traffic. So far insta shoutouts have not been cost effective; I feel for the money spent I could have got more value on Facebook. With FB ads I can better target my users, this way I know the ads are being delivered to an audience of a specified, target demographic and not just relying on the word form the influencer on instagram. If anyone has any advice or working FB strategies, please do share!

On the topic of insta shoutouts, I've noticed that individual shoutouts produce a better ROI than more expensive, week long ones. As an example, I paid $70 for a week of shoutouts, 1 every 12 hours, with a particular user who charges $15 per post normally. The first time I worked with this account I got 1 sales overnight. Second time I got 3 overnight, 1 a day later and nothing since then, with 2 days left that's a spend of $70 with a return so far of $46.82, meaning it's a loss of $23.18 unless enough sales come in the next 2 days to balance it out, which I doubt.

For this reason I won't abandon shoutouts entirely, but shift my focus onto other things. It's pretty clear that thanks to the boom of dropship stores and the use of instagram as influences that plenty of people are racing to build impressive looking accounts and making a business off shoutouts alone, charging more and more.

I tried to increase my followers on Instagram by creating a giveaway, this didn't have the big effect I was hoping for but my followers did grow by 166 over the past 2 weeks, something which could have probably been done organically/without the giveaway. Still no likes on Facebook since I had configured Social Rabbit wrongly and only realised how to fix it yesterday. Hopefully the ads will work.

Regarding FB ads, I was using a fake FB account to manage my page, when I tried to launch my ad campaign yesterday, FB support team suspended my PayPal account since it was a different (my real name) name on it. So now I've had to try and launch this from my own personal account and have had to lodge a support request to get the PayPal account whitelisted again.

Stripe is starting to concern me now, the payment transfer keeps being pushed back. I.e if it said it was due on the 18th, I'd check on the 18th and it would show due 20th, check 20th and says due 22nd. My first transaction was on the 15th, in which I was told it would take 7 days. 7 days would be the 22nd, if the money isn't transferred by then I'll write it off as a loss and take down the Stripe payment, meaning a further $83 wasted.

Overall things have definitely slowed down since the last week. Here's a breakdown of my financials so far;

Sales: +$237.45
Supplier Costs + processor fees: -$131.87
Site, hosting, plugins, logo, etc: -$193.97 (Added $10.86 for US address)
Shoutouts: -$230 (incl. $70 lost in a scam)
Total: - $318.39 (loss) - not counting the potential $83 from Stripe hanging on the line.

So my initial investment has increased another $61.41 since first started. Not the best of news but still not giving up.
 
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