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Posted by u/EcomWizard 2 months

ago

How I went from $0 to $17k a month dropshipping (again)

 Hey guys! You may recognize me from my previous post where I outlined exactly what I did to go from $0 to $25k a month
dropshipping. Eventually I got bored doing the same thing everyday and thought it would be an interesting challenge to see if I
could do it all over again, so I started a brand new store in August. That store is now doing close to $17k a month and I want to
share a month by month playbook of that journey. I'll even share some products and the niche I chose that got me there.

Early August - $33.18 : I knew I wanted to start a new store, and that I wanted it to be a niche store. Why? Because I find it much
easier to market and brand yourself. Picking a niche was pretty simple -- I found a handful of "winning" products and then
decided on a niche around those. A pair of "shark slippers" were actually the first ones I chose, which I still sell to this day. I
picked them because they are probably hard for consumers to find locally, and because they seemed like an item people on
Facebook would impulse buy. I also checked that they had relatively low competition and a decent growth rate on AliExpress. For
my store, I created it with Shopify using the free debut theme which is pretty much my standard for any new store.

August to September - $2,028.97: I got pretty lucky as this was mostly sales from that shark slipper. I added a few other funny
looking slippers to "fill out" the store, but most of my attention was on the shark. Its NOT typical to find a product that works on
the first try, you usually need to test a bunch. I ran a combination of Facebook ads and Google ads, but the majority of sales
came from Facebook. My advertising structure was basically a small sales funnel... I made a quick product video and ran 3-4
adsets of different interests using the video. I would then retarget people who watched 75% of the video with a "sales" ad offering
a discount on the product. If this is confusing you can watch a video explaining that more here. But I immediately began seeing
sales with this method. I think profit margins were fairly low at this point, probably 10%.

September to October - $5,474.86: This was literally just me scaling the Facebook ad mentioned previously. I also began adding
funny "costume" products to the store that matched the funny slippers theme. Profit margins were at 15% I believe. I was also
busy coding up new features for Niche Scraper so I couldn't dedicate a lot of time to the store that month :(

October to November - $7,969.05: Increased sales by $2,500 this month, woo! I also increased my profit margins from 15% to
25% by switching some suppliers and optimizing my Facebook ads. For the ads, I switched from interest based targeting to LAAs
(Lookalike Audiences) so Facebook could find new potential customers for me at a much cheaper cost. I also began writing blog
articles that attracted attention and got me some free sales. As an example, I would write articles like "Top 5 gift ideas for shark
lovers" and share those on social media. This would attract new people to my store, and even better, allow Facebook to re-target
them with ads later ;) Gotta get creative!

November to December - $17,231.02: This was the biggest jump in sales so far, largely because of black friday and the holidays.
I also discovered two new "winning" products which I'm currently setting my focus on. So I won't be revealing these to you guys,
unfortunately (You can't expect me to give my whole business away!). During this month I really buckled down on Instagram,
creating a brand and garnering more followers. Also, this month was 30% profit margins.

There's a few things I really want to stress to any newcomers -- As you can see growing a business takes time. I have experience
and it still took me 4 months to get to $17,000 in sales. Some may get there faster, and others may get there slower depending on
product/niche choice and marketing skills. That's OKAY! Don't be discouraged by this. You also have to remember that your
customers are living people, so create a website that looks and feels trustworthy. Would you buy from a website with no contact
page or terrible product descriptions? Probably not, so don't expect customers to. Also, I can't stress the importance of re-
targeting on Facebook enough... Sending people directly to your product page when they never heard of you is not very efficient.
Retarget. Always.

Lastly, I'm sure some of you are going to be skeptics and question why I'm spending time writing this. I will openly say that
outside of dropshipping I enjoy programming and am the owner of Niche Scraper, a tool that helps you research winning
products. It's a complete solo operation / hobby of mine that I created after I started my first store. So yes, I would love to
increase its exposure. But you really don't NEED it or any other fancy tools to succeed. There's so much free information out
there that will take you 99% of the way. It pains me when I hear someone telling me they spent $2,000 on a course and still aren't
able to make a sale. If you want to do it, that's completely fine, but don't ever feel its a requirement to be successful.

Hopefully this post inspires or helps people figure out the right approach to dropshipping by hearing how I did it. I'm happy to
answer more specific questions in the comments!

Edit: Created a short video of Shopify's dashboards verifying the sales from the screenshots.

 103 Comments
96% Upvoted

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StrongestVCardHolder 12 points · 2 months

ago
First off, props to you for taking your time and effort to write all this. It's very helpful and I'm really grateful for the information.
Asking for everyone's opinion here, do video ads actually work better than single image/carousel ads? To give you a context, I'm
selling bags like backpacks, duffel bag, sling bag, etc. What do you think?
 
I guess I'll have to try video ads sooner or later so yea just hoping to get some do's and don'ts from experienced people since
I've no experience whatsoever in video ads. :(
Thanks again for the amazing article.
 Reply Share Report Save

EcomWizard  4 points · 2 months

ago
I’m glad it was helpful! I’ve found video ads work great on Facebook because it gets people to stop scrolling and focus on your
content more than image ads. That doesn’t mean that image and carousel ads don’t work though! Fashion items like yours
 
actually tend to do pretty well with image ads, since they don’t necessarily require a video to demo how the product “works”. So
don’t be discouraged if you don’t have videos to use at this point.
 Reply Share Report Save

StrongestVCardHolder 2 points · 2 months

ago
Yea, carousel ads was alright. It's just that I don't have a Facebook pixel due to my store running on insta rather than
  shopify(closed due to really bad results on local consumers). So I don't think I can retarget audience or do many things that
others did. :(

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VerySlump 1 point · 2 months

ago
  A Facebook pixel tracks all visitors, not just from Facebook
 Reply Share Report Save

StrongestVCardHolder 1 point · 2 months

ago
No, what I meant was that I was unable to implement facebook pixel because instagram is not a website. Unless I'm missing
 
something here? If so, please do tell me. I'd really appreciate it.

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VerySlump 2 points · 2 months

ago
When you add a Facebook pixel it will automatically track all visitors. It doesn’t have to be setup for each website you
 
advertise on. You can then use that Instagram audience and retarget them later on as LLA’s

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iHasABaseball 2 points · 2 months

ago
  He doesn’t have a website. His shop is on Instagram.
 Reply Share Report Save

VerySlump 1 point · 2 months

ago
  Oh I see, thanks for clarifying! I thought he was just driving traffic from there
 Reply Share Report Save

brokeyyy 9 points · 2 months

ago
  Very inspiring, thanks for sharing.
 Reply Share Report Save

EcomWizard  3 points · 2 months

ago
  Glad you enjoyed it :)
  Reply Share Report Save

TGlev 3 points · 2 months

ago
  Do you use nichescraper to find these winning products?
 Reply Share Report Save

EcomWizard  3 points · 2 months

ago
I do! I originally created the tool for myself then opened it up to the public. It's pretty much all I use for research, but I will
 
occasionally browse Facebook and look at other stores ads to get more ideas

 Reply Share Report Save

thomashlc 3 points · 2 months

ago
  The motivation I needed this morning, thanks for doing this!
 Reply Share Report Save

EcomWizard  1 point · 2 months

ago
  No problem! I'm glad people find it motivating :)
 Reply Share Report Save

Forgetfulcunt 3 points · 2 months

ago
Hey u/EcomWizzard how do you like to show people who you are/ what you do.
You briefly went over retargeting. I was curious to know if you had a plan for showing customers what your store is all about.
i.e. do you run “like campaigns” for single products, or your store in general to your niche. Capture interest, and then retarget
 
them with a product. Do you do it with a Facebook page post (boost). What specifically do you do to capture audience interest to
retarget them later. So when they see your ad they go.. “oh that’s them!”
Also great post OP.

 Reply Share Report Save

EcomWizard  2 points · 2 months

ago
That’s a great question, and something I’m actually still actively testing to this day. It depends on the product, but a lot of the
times it’s a blog article I’ve written. For example, if the product solves a problem (like a tool), I may write an article related to that
problem and subtly mention the product without trying to sell it too much. Then the retarget ad will be that tool is on sale. This
  works great because they understand the problem and how the tool solves that problem, and they’ve also heard of my website.

Writing articles tends to be a lot of work though, especially when testing. So another option is to have a demo video of the
product without pushing too much of a “buy now!” vibe. Then retarget with an image ad and a discount

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NataDelRey 2 points · 2 months

ago
  Thank you very much for sharing this, it was a wonderful ready and appreciate all the advice, success to you all
 Reply Share Report Save

EcomWizard  3 points · 2 months

ago
  Thanks for the kind words, I’m glad you enjoyed it :)
 Reply Share Report Save

astralduelist 2 points · 2 months

ago
General or niche store?
 
Gratz on q4 sales

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EcomWizard  1 point · 2 months

ago

 
   Thanks man! This store was a niche store, which is what I like to recommend to others

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tresslessone 1 point · 2 months

ago
Interesting. Lots of gurus recommend general stores instead. I’m a beginner, but I’m personally going down the niche route
  because I believe it allows for laser focused targeting.
What are your arguments for niche over general?

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rosalina888 2 points · 2 months

ago
Thank you. I started a store in November and have made hardly any sales with none this month at all. I think i added too many
products. I'm in the cat niche also two of my customers products was lost in the mail. I'm not giving up i want this to work. Cat
 
products like toys and apparel is hard to come by in pysical stores usually they have 3-4 products for cat toys so i know i have a
market but facebook ads elude me i don't understand it marketing is my challenge i know nothing about it.
 Reply Share Report Save

plusownented 3 points · 2 months

ago
  I work with cat niche too. I'm starting.. But I have sales selling gloves
 Reply Share Report Save

evenyourodds 2 points · 2 months

ago
congrats on the success. really inspiring.
do you only do dropshipping from Aliexpress?
 
and how has the 1 month shipping time affected your business? do you get lots of customer emails about shipping?
thanks in advance
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