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.
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.
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
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!
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.
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.
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
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!
