Shopify Dropshipping

Nice. I have 1 dropshipping site, and also act as the vendor for some dropshippers.

Is your volume consistent? Fall/winter heats up 1 of my stores but drops another.

What do you do for traffic?

>>1663167
I like that.
We are based out of Australia and we mainly sell summer stuff so during summer (now) we get a lot more traffic and sales. Not too sure about winter and fall yet since we've only been up and running for 3 months.
Probably pivot into selling winter stuff during the cooler seasons.

I use social media influencers, facebook ads and Instagram ads.
Brings in the most Conversions per cost. Ran some google ads but that was mostly for SEO. Got us little traffic and no sales.

>>1663160
what are your payment options?
if you have cc as an option, with which company did you set it, was it hard?

from which site are you dropshipping and did you have to talk to the vendor before doing it or do you just place his items on your site and when people order you buy from him?

>>1663177
Just Paypal.
We accept CC through PayPal.
Dropship suppliers all from AliExpress.
We talked and asked them if they would be able to cater to a large amount of orders if we ever got big. After we got their numbers we went ahead and started working with them. Shopify has nice plugins to work with dropshippers. It's all automated. Customers order and the order details are sent to the dropship supplier. He/she just sends it to the customer from there.

Can someone explain what dropshipping is

hey man id like to do this too, any tips how to get started?

>>1663187
The simplest way to explain it is, you never hold stock of your online store.
You can sell anything you want. Let's say shoes for $55. You can get those shoes from a supplier from China for $30.
Someone buys from your website, they pay you $55, with that money you buy from supplier and give the supplier the buyers details. You keep $25 profit. Rinse and repeat.

>>1663195
>with that money you buy from supplier and give the supplier the buyers details
So I don't actually do any handling or shipping of the product myself?

>>1663188
There are a lot of tips but also not much to it. Any specific questions?
Otherwise find items you like on AliExpress. Open a Shopify account, sell those items for more. Get social media, advertise etc.

>>1663206
Correct

>>1663206
If so it sounds like a no brainer

>>1663211

what happens if a customer wants a refund?

>>1663211
I had been selling Chinese "handmade toys" on Etsy this entire time dealing with shipping bullshit when it could have been someone elses problem?
Is there anything the internet cant do?

Do you have to manually purchase the goods from the supplier and enter in their shipping details for each order?

>>1663215
You ask them to return it to "this address" being th chinese supplier. You then give them a refund. Same with change in sizes etc. Just make sure your supplier accepts those things.

>>1663218
You can if you're starting out but good practice to start correctly from the beginning. If you use shopify there are a lot of good plugins that automatically send customer info to the suppliers. If you don't use shopify, there are still a lot of good third party plugins for Woocommerce or just standalone things too.

>>1663229
show us your website, to see the products etc..

>>1663234
Sure. It's www.bombora.co.nz
We have a 50% off sale going on, feel free to use it. If you do end up buying something include 4Chan somewhere on the notes or something and I'll make sure to throw in some freebies etc.

>>1663237

nice

Who made the website?

>>1663247
I did.
It was a free theme. We just bought a premium theme and I'm in the process of setting that up.
None to minimal coding language required for setting up a Shopify website

What are the upkeep costs like?

What exactly are your expenses?

>>1663251

but if your client receive the package (sent from the supplier) it will not be written 'bombora" on it

>>1663253
Monthly shopify subscription which is $29.99 USD a month..
A few plugins for analytics and dropshipping $20 USD a month.

Everything else is an extra. We run Facebook ads worth $250 a week.
We run Instagram ads worth $200 a week.
Giveaway about $100 worth of stock to influencers a month.
Pay some friends to get memes to post on our Instagram. (Like $3-5 a meme depending on how much effort there is lol)

I think that's about it.

>>1663256
>Pay some friends to get memes to post on our Instagram. (Like $3-5 a meme depending on how much effort there is lol)

kek

>>1663255
You can get custom packaging on your items.
I am a big fan of good packaging so I made sure to get that sorted. Our packages don't have any chinese supplier packaging.

>>1663259
Tell me about it lmao

>>1663256
>>1663260
How about initial investment? You mentioned custom packaging, what other initial fees are there?

Also, do you have employees? If so, how do you pay them? And how reasonable is it for a single person to do all the work?

>>1663263
read the fucking thread, no packaging, no need for employees once the site is set

>>1663160
What was your initial startup cost?

>>1663263
See the comment below you.
No other initial investment. Custom packaging just makes the item more expensive. E.g: Instead of getting the shoes from supplier for $30 I get it for $35. So I just adjust my prices accordingly.
No other initial fees.
Have meme employees. $5 a pop.
No other employees. Just me and the other founder. One person can easily do the job themselves.

>>1663272
See,
>>1663273

Can the janitors/mods archive this thread please?

>>1663276
why?

>>1663273
Is this a full time job for you?

Also, how do you know if a supplier is shit or not? Considering it's cheap Chinese, I imagine they must be awful.

How much is the shipping time from China to Australia?

Is it possible to do this without a relationship with the supplier? How did you tell the guy in China that you would be selling his products for a profit? Also, what do you tell antsy customers because shipping from china typically takes quite a while?

>>1663187
do you even '4 hour work week' by tim ferris? hello-o! get with the PROGRAM already duh-uh. like 5 years ago called...and they want their RETARD back!

>>1663160
Do you have tools to automatize the transactions, between your website and the real shipper ? ( Tools that transfers buyers details, ect)

>>1663278
I'm studying Mechanical Engineering at Uni because I want to have a nice degree.
I am purely studying for information. No plans on working as an engineer.
So this gets me by while I study. Helps me pay off Uni, buy a nice car and live relatively free.
Might make it a full time job after I graduate.

Yeah, some items were duds. We always order 1 of each item before putting it on the store. We check how good the items are and the quality.
We went through some shitty products before settling down on what we have here.
It's Chinese but very good quality. You have to go with your gut and remember if something is too cheap, it's probably trash.

>>1663281
Depending on the item, we have some stock that we can send out within Australia since we're based here.
Otherwise it's around 2 weeks or 10 days.

>>1663282
You can read our FAQ. I think I explain the shipping times there. If not, my bad I'll add it.
Basically we just say we ship from our overseas warehouse.
You could but having a relationship is always better. They know that you are selling their shit for a profit. They don't care lol

How do you deal with a pissed customer?

And what kind of laws do you need to be worried about? Here in the US we have a lot of laws protecting consumers. Worry about those.

>>1663284
Yup. Read previous replies. Everything is automated. Did things manually at the start because those plugins cost and you don't need it when you sell like 2-3 items a week. But once you have 10+ a day you want to automate.

And how do you deal with taxes?

>>1663289
Pissed ones are about shipping times so we just keep contact with them to ensure they don't think we scammed them or anything.
Otherwise mostly it's people wanting a size change. No one has gotten very pissy at us yet.
As to laws, there are no laws we gotta worry about as long as we operate legitimately. We pay tax, have our company incorporated and have a good TOS and PP.

>>1663237
>www.bombora.co.nz
hooo well aint that some shit.? the Faggot Store done called.... they want their merchandise back!! ha ha whooosshhh

>>1663293
Taxes are incorporated into our prices. We record all our sales then we pay tax when we transfer funds from our PayPal account to our bank account.

>>1663295
Huh. Why incorporated rather than llc?

>>1663296
lmao you good my man? How big is your belly?

>>1663285
Kind of curious how you found the articles you're selling. Did you set out knowing that you would sell clothing or did you just happen upon it? Have you tried selling other things? When you started out, did you simply hop on Alibaba/Aliexpress or something and shopped around for things you thought you could sell?

>>1663300
llc usually a U.S thing.
Aus and NZ we usually just Incorporate when starting a company. We also own the company 50% 50% with a partner.

>>1663304
We knew summer was around the corner for Oceania so we just looked at Ali to see what looked good yet was relatively cheap. Ordered 1 of everything we thought looked good. Spent around $150 on that.
Then weeded out the trash items and went with the good ones.
Took pictures of the items and used it with models etc.
But yeah just thought "what would we want?" and went from there. Helps both of us are part of the demographic we are trying to sell to.

>>1663302
actually, i'm currently starving to death because may dad only pays me $1.50CAD per meme produced and won't let me move out until i pay him back for all the titty milk i drank when i was a baby.

>>1663307
Wow you took the pictures yourself?

Looks really professional. Did you outsource that?

Would it be safe to do this with some of the counterfeit goods that can be found on aliexpress

>>1663311
Won't be able to get too big from that. If let's say Adidas wanted they could sue you but if you're relatively small (Less than 100k a year revenue) they won't go after you. (Don't quote me on that, I'm assuming). So it's not a sustainable business but you technically could. You're better off just selling that on FB groups and to friends and family desu.

>>1663160
post more proofs boi.

>>1663307
Sounds pretty straight-forward. Maybe I've missed it, but how long did it take you overall, from finding the right products, to checking them, to setting up the shop and selling? Any problems you ran into along the way?

>>1663310
Thanks!
Yeah we did. You'd be surprised what a good camera can do. We got a friend who studies Photography to take the photos for us. So that probably helped. She did it for free. That was cool

If you work for Shopify you are doing a great job.

>>1663316
E-mail us at [email protected] and I can reply to you telling you you're a faggot.

>>1663319
Lmao. Nah I don't. To be honest, once we grow a bit more, I'm migrating to Wordpress Woocommerce. They don't take as much of a cut from each sale.

How much of pure profit you get in a month?

>>1663317
Yeah pretty much.
Finding right products: 3 days
Ordering and checking them: 3 weeks
Setting up store and social media: 1 week
First sale after set up (that wasn't friend or family): 7 hours

We started selling a different pair of glasses and they ended up being shit. A customer bought them for $20 and they felt like $2 glasses. Cheap plastic. Had to refund him and stop selling that item. This was after we spent $100 on advertising the product. So that was dumb. The glasses were the only thing we didn't order and check before selling. So again, always order an item first and check it yourself before selling it to the public.

>>1663324
Last month we made approx 10,000 revenue. Around $7300 profit. Split that into two with the co-founder.
$3650 each. Put around $3000 of it back into the business. So did the co-founder.

>>1663327
>>1663329
Congrats, looks like you're on your way. How much do you work on it each day?

Great thread mate. It made me think about some stuff I can start. You're the legend!

>>1663335
Cheers!
It completely depends.
It's pretty much on auto pilot. Today I've been working on it all day because I'm redoing the website but some days I won't spend a minute on it.
I'd say on average I spent about 50 hours a week during the starting period and spend about 20 hours a week now.

>>1663337
Cheers man, glad I was able to help. Don't hesitate to hit me up if you need any advice. More than happy to help.

How long have you been doing this?

>>1663346
This business for 3 months now.
But had an Instagram marketing business that I sold a year ago. Also been doing some e-commerce on the side before then.
So not completely new to the scene.

>>1663349
Any resources for doing this sort of thing for someone totally new?

>>1663349
Well done, lad. Congrats!

>>1663345
What kind of plugins for analytics and dropshipping do use/recommend?

Nice congrats. I tried dropshipping with clothing from aliexpress but the sizes were all fucked up due to weird asian measurements. people started complaining and i closed shop. i see your sticking with mostly accessories so you wont have this problem.

good luck charles.

>>1663351
Shopify offers some really good success stories and tips and tricks. I've learned a lot from those. Reddit droshipping AMA's are pretty good.

>>1663354
Oberlo is amazing. Mailchip is a must. Retargeting by adaplo is a nice marketing touch.

How did you develop your PP and TOS? Write it yourselves?

>>1663160
How do you get people to see your shit that is for sale? Isn't it hard to get visitors?

>>1663355
Yeah, we have that problem with our shorts currently. I am smaller medium fit so I fit M. But my friend is a larger Medium fit and he can't fit the M's. We are trying to sort out either custom sizing or warn users upfront that they should probably buy a size bigger.

>>1663370
Shopify gives you a template to go off. We used that and talked with a Commercial law lecturer to help us make sure we don't have any legal loopholes that could fuck us.
Maybe might have to be a bit more comprehensive if you're based in the U.S though. With all your suing laws and shit.

>>1663371
It was hard as fuck at the start.
Friends and family is your first go to. Then Influencers. Give free shit to Instagram users with 1000-10000 followers. They have a good reach but aren't too demanding because they don't have millions of followers.
Post around blogs, make 4chan posts, Reddit posts, Keep social media flowing. Make posts no matter how little engagement you get. It will grow trust me. Our Instragram posts have on average 20 more views per new post. Keep content up and people will start flocking.

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>>1663195

>$25 profit

>>1663385
It's an example you mouth breather

Is it a single paypal account? What if there is a dispute?

I've heard horror stories of paypal accounts getting locked up over simple disputes.

>>1663391
Single.
I've had that happen before.
Worst case it gets locked up for 1-2 weeks.
So far no shitty customers.

>>1663256
What do you mean by influencers?

>>1663396
Kids who have large social media followings.

>>1663394

if even one customer complains and pretends it's not the same product, won't paypal lock your account?

>>1663399
Nah. There is an investigation into it. We can provide receipts and shipping info of the item they ordered etc. It's easy to clear charges. The worst is when the account gets locked while this investigation is in process for 1-2 weeks

What kind of money does Shopify take? And by what means? Do they track sales on the site and just take a cut off the top?

>>1663160
Hay man, don't know if I missed this but if you use AliExpress, do your customers complain about shipping times? I remember shipping was usually weeks and it cost a shit ton to reduce it. How long are your shipping times?

>>1663403
2.9% + 30 cents.
Yeah from each sale.

>>1663405
We can do express shipping for some items because we have some stock. That takes max 5 business days overseas or 1-2 days Aus NZ. Otherwise 10-15 business days for other shipping.

>>1663407
Interesting. I found that AliExpress was cancer for comunicating with supliers. What dropshipping plugins do you use? Just Oberlo? And where do you store your stock?

>>1663398
Do you contact them directly and just ask?

>>1663409
Stock is in my house. In a cupboard. Have about 100ish items there.
Yeah it kinda is. AliBaba has cancer suppliers. Express has better communication I found.
You don't need much communication anyway so no big deal.
And yeah Oberlo does the trick

>>1663409
Another thing, do you only ship to Aus and NZ? I shipped to USA for my biz and shipping times took fucking forever. I know u can customize all that shit on Shopify

>>1663410
I used to run a social media Influencer agency for Instagram. Made a lot of contacts through there. I contact them by starting up a convo like "hey remember me?"
Otherwise if I don't know them, yeah I just contact them. How to contact them and what to say could be a whole another thread in itself.

How long does it take china to ship out your items to customers?

Do you ever have problems getting your product thru customers

>>1663414
Free shipping to NZ and Aus because we can express ship it for $2 something.
I make sure I work with suppliers who ship fast. All of my orders are received by end customers within 10-15 days. I know some Ali suppliers can take upto a month. I don't work with that shit.

>>1663416
See answers around you. Answered this many times.
No problems, about 5-10-15 days depending where.

>>1663419
So you ship to US and Europe as well? All within the 10-15 day time period? Fuck me I need to find me better suppliers. Anywhere I can contact you at?

Yo I would appreciate if you guys could give us a follow on Instagram or like us on Facebook.
Will be running giveaways and shit. Have sales but wanna grow the social media channels dudes.
facebook bombora2016
instagram bombora_nz

>>1663160
How much capital might I need to start something like this, if any?

>>1663422
Yeah.
You can contact me at [email protected]
Or message through the social media channels. I'm on it 24/7

>>1663423
Will do that now. Great thread man, keep up the good work bro!

>>1663425
If you want stock, $1000 +
Dropshipping I'd say around $200
$100-$150 on stock purchases ad quality control. Then the rest on Shopify or Wordpress Woocommerce set up costs

>>1663251
>www.bombora.co.nz

how much did the website and domain registration cost?

>>1663428
Cheers man appreciated!
Always open for advice.

>>1663431
Domain was $19.99 NZD. That's around $14 USD.
Hosting is done through Shopify. Shopify costs us $29.99 USD a month.
This will be your highest expense at the start.

>>1663429
Yo man earlier you mentioned moving to WooCommerce right. Do they have similar dropshipping plugins? Also I can't ode for shit but I've used shopify before. Is WP easy to make a site like Shopify is?

>>1663436
How do you advertise and get people to your website?

>>1663429
Thanks man.

>>1663438
Yeah they do!
WP is harder than Shopify because with most Shopify themes you will never code. All changeable with a touch of a button.
With WP you're able to code. So you have a lot more freedom but most themes are a lot more crude because of that. Might need to code. Still not that hard though!

Do you get a better price for the product than the retail price a consumer pays? I mean you are selling it for them en-masse shouldn't they give it to you for a bit cheaper than usual?

If so, how did you manage to get them to give you the product for less?

>>1663440
Answered above!

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>>1663380
>make 4chan posts
>mfw that first sip

at last I truly see

>>1663445
I do now yes. At start I buy it for whatever a consumer buys it for. But after around 50 purchases you can start to develop a relationship and get around 10% off the usual price. Just tell them that you wanna keep a long and healthy relationship but don't wanna lose them as a supplier etc. Spin yarns my dude

>>1663448
Meme marketing is where it's at my man.

>>1663446
What the fuck you only have 70 followers on instagram. How are you reaching such a large sales?

>>1663452
You know those companies you never hear of who have 100k followers on Insta? They buy most of their followers lmao.
You don't need followers to get sales. Hence why I'm trying to grow social media. It makes us look like a shitty small company. But don't wanna buy followers.

>>1663456
How much of your own money did you spend starting this up?

>>1663456
Also take the memes off your insta page, it makes it look tacky

>>1663456
>>1663462
Don't listen to him, keep the memes on

>>1663462
Peoplle eat this shit up. Gets a buzz going. Once we get our own brand then we can pivot to becoming more "serious". Right now no need for that. You gotta learn to cater to what your customers want. No matter how you find it yourself.

>>1663460
$150 myself, $150 my co-founding partner.

>>1663468
What were the expenses on?

>>1663487
Answered above

>>1663488
Hey great thread, just wanted to let you know on the stainless steel ring youre selling it needs an extra "s" on it, its misspelled.

>>1663496
Thanks for that! Appreciate it :)

>>1663503
How do you know what to charge for shipping on the customer?

>>1663516
seconded

Good stuff man.
Just one question, how do you go about finding reputable suppliers, that fit your criteria (fast shipping, decent quality, custom packaging)?

great thread man, my small contribution is that you have a spelling error with the sign up popup (it mentions 50% off)

you spelled "immediately" incorrectly

>>1663276
business is ever growing and changing. If you're successful because of this thread, keep it here. Dropshipping is common knowledge to those who seek the opportunity.

>>1663516
Shipping is free from AliExpress. And at most it's like $3. I include that in the price of my products.
We also work with a shipping company for items that I ship from home (We hold small stock)

>>1663527
You talk to them! The suppliers are open people man. Just hit them up.
For quality you gotta buy 1 and see for yourself. For packaging you gotta ask if they can do custom packaging. And ask about fast shipping.

>>1663540
Thanks for that. Will change that up!

>>1663160
Is it much better, sales wise to have a website rather than say an ebay store?

>>1663669
Depends. Short term sales they are about the same. But long term growth potential is much bigger for a website.
It's much harder to start making like $400 a day on eBay within 3-4 months.

>>1663160
How do I make it so the factory ships the product directly to the customer using this format?

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>>1663307
>Took pictures of the items and used it with models etc.
pic related
So by this you actually mean you contacted the suppliers for pictures without the watermarks?

But other than this everything else seems to check out.
You using Franklin Hatchet's method?

>>1663735
>>1663766
Just read the About Us page, effortless bullshitting.

>>1663256
>Everything else is an extra. We run Facebook ads worth $250 a week. We run Instagram ads worth $200 a week.

How do you get to run the ads and they cost you that much or..?

Also OP, do you take your own personal pictures of the items and post it on your website (i.e. get a model to wear a shirt your selling)

YOU MISSPELLED IMMEDIATELY ON YOUR WEBSITE.

LOL.

>>1663160
OP I am intrested in buying a stock in your business's. Like a 1/3 option as an inactive partner.

>>1663216
The Internet can't manipulate reality and make memes come true.

Oh wait

>>1663273
>meme employees
what

>>1663385
you do realise the majority of businesses selling goods have this sort of markup?

This looks very promising, I've read everything you write in this thread and it looks like it all makes sense, gonna do a bit more research and maybe go in aswell

>>1663309
>>1663296

this is a top tier memelord right here yes sir

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>>1664059

>>1663160
Not too bad for probably not knowing much about really optimizing data. I'm not too much into white hat myself but I remember my first big days of black hat when I was making $5k days.

>>1663319


Kek

>>1663726
That's what dropshipping is? Don't understand your question

>>1663792
You can have as little as $5 ads a day.
We choose $250 a week

>>1663804
Some things yeah. Went to the beach the other day and got some stuff. Will be posting them later on.

>>1664000
Lol, we aren't giving away any shares currently but feel free to e-mail us at [email protected] and I'll talk about it to my partner.

>>1664619
if your FB ads are generating a positive ROI why don't you scale them?

>>1664020
Read above where I explain lol

>>1664032
Good luck! Always open to questions.

>>1664631
We aren't pros at doing large scaled fb ads. I am contacting some people I know to assist us with that. But yeah definitely in the books as it's needed.

>>1663160
Link your website plz

>>1664651
Linked higher up.
But here again,
www.bombora.co.nz We have a 50% off code going on if you use the code BOMBOFF50.

>>1664648
i'm going to give this a go as a project of sorts, ill see if i cant make it a success. Thanks OP

>>1664660
Dropshipping or large scale fb ads?
If you crack the formula for successful big budget fb ads, do let me know please!
Good luck!

>>1663160
Thank God you're here, anon. I pull in roughly 100-200 visits a day through facebook. I use Teelaunch as fulfillment and sell regular T-Shirts and Hoodies. I've been getting no sales. What gives? I'm positive my designs are fine.

>>1664663
That's good. How long have you been operating for?
Can I see a link to your website? If you don't wanna post it here feel free to message us through our social media and I'll check it out.

>>1663160
>>1664663
Also if you don't mind sharing, which Shopify theme do you use?

>>1664667
Haha you can't tell? I thought it would have been obvious. Glad it isn't I guess. We use Brooklyn. (it's free too!)
Thinking of changing it to a more professional premium theme.
Thoughts? Like this one or is it in need of a change?

>>1664662
I asked about scaling because I have a lot of experience scaling campaigns on FB, and using the pixel. if you want to work you can reach me at [email protected]

>>1664674
Will do. Thanks for that.

>>1664662
maybe both, im thinking if i was in your situation though id probably run a decent amount of ads (10-30 different) at 5 bucks/day, after a week or fortnight id see a difference in traffic generated between the different adds. at that point its just a matter of trimming the fat and promoting the more successful ads. is that what you've done?

>>1664678
Yup that's exactly what we've done. It's crucial to actually start seeing a ROI from fb ads or any digital ads for that matter.

>>1664678
As someone who has spent 5 figures on FB ads in the past 3 months I can tell you this is mostly incorrect. $5/day isn't really enough, even after a week, to get enough data to make decisions about 10-30 ads. yeah you might get some useful CTR info, but traffic doesn't count, conversions do

>>1664685
but for a start it would be decent right? obviously id have to change it up after a while when funding is available

>>1664691
I'd say start with your 3-5 Best ad ideas in a campaign, with a $20 a day budget (preferably for each ad). the amount you have to spend to get data depends on the price of the thing you're promoting

If I try to do this with electronics (headphones, usb sticks, mouses, audio, all other shit which doesnt require some regional adjusting, what should I take in account?)

>>1664716
i can only imagine it would be difficult to get started with just small electronics

>>1664716
The easier to sell to the consumer the better. It will take a lot of convincing to make a consumer purchase from you for $100 +. Easier to convince them to buy something for $5-$25.
So it will be harder to start getting sales but it's possible.

>>1663237
Why does your website have so few items?

>>1664747
i sort of understand why but wouldnt mind a response either

>>1664747
Makes quality control easier. If we have 100 items from 40 different suppliers it becomes a logistical nightmare. We only have 5 different suppliers and that makes shit easy. Thinking about employing people. Then we might expand.

>>1664745

Appliances like headphones, mouses and chargers are rarely above 100%. I thought it could be easier because there is less mess like with sizing and so on which there is with clothing

>>1663160
How long did it take you to get set up? Any videos or books or resources you would recommend looking at before getting started? How did you decide on your products?

>>1664771
Meant 100$

>>1663323
>They don't take as much of a cut from each sale.

Authorize.net gateway is compatible with Shopify. CDGcommerce merchant provides Authorize.net gateway for free. I don't know if Authorize.net will apply $0.10 USD/transaction fee and $0.10 daily batch fee, but the cost of CDG is worth exploring for $10/month (== 0.30% + $0.15/transaction). CDG also offers $100K cyber breach policy + virtual scans + more for $15/month. I'm stil crunching numbesr myself, but PaymentDepot merchant + Authorize.net might also be worth your consideration with flat rate processing (0% + $0.10-$0.15 depending on which plan you choose).

>>1664813
Alright will look into that mate. Cheers for that

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>mfw realizing I could do this myself with minimal investment of time and money

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>>1664853
Seems to good to be true, which is the only reason I have not started yet.

>>1663160
In for later

what percentage of visitors actually buy?

Thanks for the great thread, OP. I'm currently in the middle of setting up my own clothing line that is going to effectively be a dropship business out of Japan. Super helpful tips.

>>1664853
>>1664884
Or you could come up with a unique product and sell that instead. Not as easy, but higher potential.

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>>1663237
>anchor bracelet
>$19.99

>>1664853
>>1664884
most people fail

Around what number of visits did you start having buyers?

>>1664928
No worries man, hope it helped!

>>1664903
We have around a 3.5% conversion rate. With special deals etc (christmas, halloween) we get around 5%.

>>1665004
Friends and family bought immediately. We got random sales after around 120 visits.

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>>1663423
Is this you? How come there a no links to your site?

Do you plan on putting logos on your products?

>>1665043
Nah we're not them. They tried to tell us to change our IG handle and there was a bit of drama from that. We are bombora_nz
They are just some random kids. We might collab with them though. They take nice pictures.

>>1664670
Web designer/dev here, Your theme works. Simple & effective is the way to go. The most you should do is enhance the look you already have.

>>1665103
Appreciate the tips. How would you suggest enhancing it?

Regarding your suppliers, isn't there usually a minimum order required? Like, 10 or 20 items.

>>1665144
That's with AliBaba. AliExpress doesn't have that.

>>1665145
Alright cool, thanks. Do you include any branding on your products when you order from a supplier?

Keep up the good work.

>>1665152
Not yet but some suppliers definitely give you the option to. Make sure they are a factory(producer) too if you want that.

>>1665130
Small enhancements, such as badges on categories that include sales (e.g. Some indicator that there's a sale in shorts or hats). Something to lead the user straight to what you are promoting from the homepage. Right now I have to dig a bit to find a sale. Hero/Jumbotron portion could also provide sale information.

>>1664989
I only work 20-25 hours a week as it is, I could easily do this.

>>1665175
Thanks mate!

>>1665182
what happens if a customer wants to return an item?

>>1665430
Answered earlier in the thread

>>1663285
>Fell for the Ironman meme

You need to switch major to business management or something along those lines if you're not planning on an engineering job because that's all you're going to attain with that degree.

Business management can at least provide a few insights that might benefit your business and expand your profits

Theres plenty of time to learn to build mechanical arms when you have the capital to waste

>>1665470
That's completely wrong in my opinion.
You can always learn a few business skills from experience and reading books. Self teaching engineering is a much harder thing. I want to start an innovative tech startup (non computer based) hence why the Mechanical/Mechatronics degree. I believe I have most of the startup knowledge under my belt already. Combine that with the technical skills taught at uni and I will be much better prepared. If needed, will work in field for a few years to get the hands on practical knowledge.
And hey there's always MBA's. Bachelor's of Business are a sham. Sorry to burst your bubble buddy.

>>1664646
Yeah I do have a question, how long did it take for you to turn a profit on this business, and how much did family and friends help out in the start?

>>1665482
This may have already been answered.
But what is the process to get initial traffic and advertising on your site?
Did paid advertising create your first revenue stream, if so where did you soruce the first few clients from?
I'm stuck in a situation where I had hired a dude from Highschool who is still a NEET, to manage my WP/WC pop up store.
He had managed to accidently kill the site.. I have just got it back up and have 12 days to get some sales going,,,
Please advise if you could!

>>1663160
Thanks op, will come back and re-read thread. Pretty insightful stuff.

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>>1663256
>get paid to make memes
Fucking sign me up famalam

Still here op?
I like this idea. The only thing is, aliexpress delivers in arounde 4 weeks here. While webshops deliver the next morning. How can you ever compete?

>>1665693
Keep some stocks for yourself and restock from Aliexpress?

>>1665698
Yeah, that's the only solution. But you're not dropshipping anymore at that point. So i guess, op is not doing this.

Also, if you have bad luck you have to pay import taxes. Which costumers arn't going to enjoy getting a tax letter 3 weeks after they recieved their item?

>>1665703
No he did mention earlier in his thread that he has stock in his home

do your customers know you're dropshipping?

What keeps a potential customer from going to your supplier and buying directly?

Oh, also kudos for your business sense.

>>1663160
where do you find reliable and cheap manufacturers desu sempai ?

>>1665482
I also run Shopify stores but my biggest problem is getting a good Facebook Ad campaign going. What's your strategy? My newest store did $725 in sales in its first week using mostly Instagram influencers, but sales have slowed. I'm trying to get a good Facebook ad campaign going. Between my two stores I've spent easily more than $700 on Facebook Ads and I have yet to find a winning campaign.

>>1663237
>The Navy coloured bracelet is the perfect addition to your summer accessories. The vibrant feel and colour of the bracelet allows it to become your most stylish accessory for summer. The anchor is made of stainless steel with durable nylon rope as the bracelet's connecting component.

hire a copywriter

>>1663456
Advice: Turn your IG private and start following the followers of the people that follows you. Once they follow you back, unfollow them and repeat.

OP, what percentage of traffic / conversions comes from your ads alone? For being up for only 3 months and generating the amount you make, im going to assume ads is your main source of traffic. ive looked into creating ads in the past and its not easy; it costs a lot just to find out which ads convert. can you please briefly elaborate on how you started with making ads and how they became successful? did you make them yourself? was it just trial and error? can you also break down your % of earnings through ads, social media and organic searches? thanks and congrats on your success

how do you pay your contractors, btw?

>>1665514
My founders parents invested $500. Instead of making them shareholders we treated it as a loan and repaid it when we made the money.
Family and friends made maybe 4-5 sales.
It took us 2 weeks to turn a profit.

>>1666247
Hey great timing that you just responded as I was lurking

So do most of your sales come from Australia and New Zeeland or do you have a lot of sales globally?

>>1665537
Ugh incompetent devs are the worst. I suggest you learn just enough so you can do it all yourself. I manage our shopify dashboard stuff but that's easy. I also used to manage WP sites. It's fairly basic once you get a hand of it.
Our first revenue stream was Influencers. We gave a free bracelet to a local kid on Insta who had 8k followers and he made a post about us. We got 8 sales from that. Around 720% profit. (money spent on the influencer vs what we earned)
I suggest you try to get Influencers on board. Or make cross promotions with other businesses who are in your field but are not direct competitors. I suggest reading Coopetition
Book by Adam M. Brandenburger and Barry Nalebuff. Has some amazing business advice. Will put you in a great mindset.

>>1665647
Send me some memes to [email protected] alongside your PayPal. If we feature them you'll get paid.
Check our Instagram out. We use relatively "normie" memes but are open to better memes. As long as they aren't completely NSFW.

>>1666247
Hey, thanks to your advice, I'm starting my own dropselling siote rn. Do you have any tips on making my name popular?
Great thanks!
(be sure to take a look at www.theaccessoriesshop.be) It's still under construction but you know... Every start is hard ;)

>>1666250
53% come from NZ. 30% come from AUS and 17% comes from the rest of the world predominantly USA.

>>1666264
>www.theaccessoriesshop.be
Just bookmarked your site to see what it turns out like mate ;)

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>>1666264
Make a landing page before you want people to check out your website. That looks ugly af.
Have a nice page briefly explaining what you do with a newsletter sign up.
This should take you maximum 2-3 hours so you can do it while your website is still under construction.

>>1666266
Thanks man!

>>1665706
To your first question,
Yes we dropship and it takes 10-15 business days with the suppliers we work with. Some Ali suppliers are faster than others. Look into that if you wanna have faster shipping.
2. Yes we do have some emergency stock for either taking promotional pictures of or express shipping. Around 100 units stocked.
3. You generally don't have to pay import taxes for small value items such as clothing and accessories. If they did however we would gladly pay that for the customer.

>>1665745
Nope. You generally don't want to tell your customers "Hey so when you buy this in reality you are buying the same thing from a Chinese supplier that you could have gotten for 100% cheaper if you bought directly from them!"

No dropshipping site tells their customers they dropship.
A savy customer can go directly to them through reverse image search. Hence why we are going to be uploading our own custom images we take.

>>1665802
Answered above. AliExpress or AliBaba. Go with your gut and test their product to see if shipping time/packaging/quality is good.

>>1666277
I dont get this.
How do you handle the shipping? Do you only ship your emergency stocks, and is the rest being shipped by some company? If yes, by who?
How do you ship if you ship it yourself? (I have no experience with shipping anything)

Do you think this style of business would only work for certain items? I can see how stuff like clothing can be advertised on places like instagram but stuff like electronics probably couldn't be.

>>1665866
Trial and error. A/B Testing is a must. It's a tedious process but once yo find the sweet spot you will be golden.
Make sure the ad looks good and catchy. There is a call to action and preferably it's a giveaway/tag your friend/discount code etc.
If it's just you showing them a picture of some shoes they won't be into it.
Be creative.

>>1665871
Yeah need one now. If anyone is up to the task e-mail me at [email protected] otherwise I'll just look at fiver to be honest.

>>1666272
woops, i forgot to add the https://
so the right link is:
https://www.theaccessoriesshop.be/

>>1665941
Nah private business instagrams are dumb. People aren't going to request to follow a brand unless it's Gucci.
And regarding the follow/unfollow thing, that's bad IG etiquette. But might have to do it to grow the following I guess.

>>1666023
They send me an invoice and I pay them. PayPal or Bank Account. Paid 1 guy in BTC.
Relatively straight forward.

>>1665997
Ads make 45% of my conversions.
Social media Influencers are %50 of my conversions and organic searches is %5.

Questions regarding ad structures are answered somewhere in the thread!

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>>1663160

you sell a white tshirt for $30...

wtf how

>>1666303
Only 5% are organic searches?

Have you done search engine optimization?

>>1666295
Sweet.
1. It asked me to make an exception as it was an insecure link. So make sure you go live with Shopify to fix that.
Otherwise looks good. Get rid of the "preimum theme by" part. Also again, a landing page while you're building the site is good. With shopify that's like a 30 minute job.

>>1666305
$30 NZD
That's $21 USD.
We also have a 50% off code going around. So that will be $10 USD.
Once the codes are done we will reduce prices.

>>1666307
Minimal. It's weird doing it with Shopify. You don't have as many options.
Also I see SEO "specialists" as a waste of money so don't wanna pay anyone to do it. Feel free to change my mind on this topic.

>>1666311
Thanks! It's actually my first time working with shopify, so I'm still figuring everytinhg out :)

>>1666315
Nah man I would never pay someone to do that for a small site as yours, however I would recommend you read a book about it (I'm sure there is one in English), might boost your sales a bit, especially since you are an internet store only

>>1666285
We work with a shipping company. They come and collect the item from us and package it up. We work with FastWays NZ.
If we ship ourselves, the answer is what I just said.
If dropshipping the supplier handles the shipping and we don't touch shit.

>>1666287
I have a friend who dropships electronics and makes like 20k a month.
Dropshipping can be done with most things.

>>1666319
Yeah been thinking about that for a while. Watched some YouTube videos but most are general knowledge no "tips".
Have alt tags on images, include your keywords in your titles etc etc. Straightforward stuff.

>>1666324
Thanks! I'm not sure if you would know this or not, but what other avenues would you explore for advertising non-wearable items?

>>1663160
How long does it take for the merchandise to arrive?

>>1666321
So, the supplier is the one who you buy from at AliExpress, right? I'm very green in the shipping topic, so excuse my noob questions.

>>1666336
Not too sure of the top of my head sorry!
Maybe fb ads, google adwords, get local sponsorships and get cross promotions with other brands. (get a clothing store to giveaway one of your speakers and tag you in it saying you are sponsoring the giveaway)

>>1666340 >>1666341
Answered above. 10-15 business days.
And yes the guys on AliExpress are our suppliers.

>>1666343
Thanks again. Did you just learn all this stuff through trial and error?

>>1666373
Reading books, watching YouTube videos, attending startup accelerators, talking with like minded individuals and trial and error.
I've learned through a lot!

>>1666377
Damn man, sounds like you put a lot of initial work in before getting started. Any recommendations?

How do you keep delivery times low from china? Everytime I buy from china it takes a month.

>>1666393
Elon Musk's biography

Coopetition
Book by Adam M. Brandenburger and Barry Nalebuff

Google and YouTube "Starting a dropshipping business"
"How to run effective FB ads"
"Aliexpress dropshipping"

Read "Zero to One" by Peter Thiel
Watch Silicon Valley the TV Show (research whenever they talk about something you don't know/understand)

Read Steve Jobs' biography

Read "How to win friends and influence people" by Dale Carnegie

Learn basic Mandarin such as "hello and thanks". You will be surprised how you can positively effect a Chinese supplier by adding a simple xie xie at the end.

All of the above is just for general good business knowledge as well as dropshipping.

>>1666418
To add to that,

Learn about Social Media Influencers and Influencer Marketing

Learn how to use social media, when people are online the most and how to engage with an audience

>>1666418
>>1666421
Thanks man, I really appreciate it!

>>1666412
Some suppliers have shorter shipping times. Find them!

>>1666434
I will try then, thanks. Is aliexpress the way to go?

>>1666446
AliExpress and AliBaba are the most reliable and easy to use ones for sure.

>>1666450
do you target men or women?

Do you do custom designs? How do you facilitate that?

>>1666455 >>1666459

Men's Clothing and Accessories should answer your question.

No custom designs yet. Have plans for it in the future.

Protip:

Get Ordoro for shopify

Started a hunting store as a hobby today, will start marketing tomorrow. Did not even remember it to be this fun.

PS. Dont go too heavy on marketing before you get good conversion rates

The real question is how much do you spend on ads?

I could come here bragging I make $500 a day drop shipping but leave out I spend $1,000 a day in ads.

Are there any suppliers for decent /out/ gear? I have a YouTube channel with a few thousand subscribers and was thinking of starting a web shop instead of just making change on Amazon affiliate links.

>>1666513
Good point.
I spend around $150 on ads a day. Another approx $20 on Influencers.
So my ad spending is around $170 a day.

Check out AliExpress, I'm sure someone has what you're looking for.

What is a dropshipping site and how to I start one up

>>1666524

read the thread

All this fucking bait

You guys think this guy is real, he has no fucking followers on any social media. He uses 4chan to get fucking attention

>>1666553
Dropshipping works, you get sales with ads not followers

>>1666560
Prove me

>>1666553
I wasn't even planning on linking my website until people asked.
I am not here for attention, I enjoy contributing to the conversation and helping people out as I was in that situation too.

>>1666580
You came here to brag, u knew people would ask for your website because they're despirit and wanna copy your shit

>>1666585
Shut up you petty angry little nig, he is revealing so much useful information to us that I am thinking of trying it myself.

>>1666589
Hahaha, This useful information...
Search on the fucking internet, there are alot of these dropshippers with the same items

>>1666594
Do you have a point to make? You talk like a typical angry asian

>>1666596
i'm angry bro

Anyone who dropships via redbubble or teespring?

>>1666609
They take a massive cut of profits and it's quite hard to make yourself stand out if you don't already have a massive social media following you can market to. But they are decent.

>>1666616
i just started dropshipping through redbubble so i can make enough money to make my own shirts here in holland

>>1666625
Sounds like a plan, good luck with it all!

>>1666626
Got 9 orders in the 1st month, and i make my own Tshirts

thanks for all your answers, appreciate it.

Couple more curious questions, please.
Do your customers assume you're a brand of your own? If so, do your items come with brand tags that give away the actual source of your items?

>>1666632
Everything comes from China bro. Normies pay for the luxury of you dealing with suppliers for them.

>>1666631
Interesse in een partnership?

How do you find influencers?

And when you do, how do you know they'll even post your stuff?

>>1666646
Answered above.
I used to own an Influencer marketing business. It recently got acquired but I had craeated relationships with a few that I just hit up.
Anyone else can just hit up a social media influencer agency and work with them. Or find them yourself. Find people with a lot of followers and gauge interest. Most won't scam you and throw their reputation down the drain for a free t-shirt.

>>1666632
Can't speak on behalf of my customers. I'm assuming they know we're not a brand of our own since we don't have our logo on our shit and stuff. But eventually will start doing that.

>>1666638
Sure contact me on [email protected]

good thread. I'm sort of a COO for a startup. We designed our own product and sell mostly to usa, ca and aus (we're based elsewhere). We sell 80% online with 90% traffic coming from fb and ig. We spend cca 2k on ads per day and sell cca 250 units priced $25. Im responsible for growth so im very familiar with ads. In fact with 3 campaigns I made I outperformed our adv. agency so I have some idea of what im talking about. So what i see working for us:
Promoted posts instead of regular ads(so go get those likes but dont buy them. Grow them so you have people in your target demographics like your page. The trick is when you promote the post their friends will think they liked the post where in fact it shows that the friend merelt likes the page. Hope it makes sense. Also dont segment (narrow targeting( that much . The more targeted the audience the higher real estate cost for advertising. Tip for your store. Instead of the LP popup for newsletter or discounts. Ask them to like ur page and theyll get 30% off. U know two birds with one stone.

So now i need something from you guys :) the plan is to go out on my own but im not developer so pls let me know what kind of plugins and stuff for shopify based stores are best. I hope I helped someone with my tips for acquisition. Cheers

How much does paypal cost you? WHat plugin do you use for it?

>>1663160

how do i start from scratch?

How did you start?

What did you do to learn how to do this.

>>1663256

is everything in USD?

>>1666728
Free. It's included with Shopify.

>>1666733
I believe I have been answering questions relating to that all around the thread. Read around, I'M sure it'll be useful!

>>1666434

After reading all this thread, this is the question I keep getting back to. How do you find suppliers there that have acceptable shipping times, without hours and hours and scanning the site, and then trying it out yourself?

Excellent thread, btw.

I got two domains .which is best you guys think to start and why. Lootdigger.com, or Manlyattire.com.

>>1666849
Depends on what you're selling. What is it?

Can you post your website OP

Can you post your website OP

Can you post your website OP

>>1666886
He did

>>1663160
sup OP, been doing drop-shipping myself, managed to sell some shit. my main problem is picking a profitable niche and setting up well-targeted FB ads.

Can you show your FB ads targeting if that's not a problem?

vumb

>>1666854

clothes

>>1666901
We target 16-35 Aus and NZ males. Liked include shit like nike adidas stussy etc.

>>1666925
Lootdigger sounds good.

>>1666945
i know its more complex than that, can you post a screen of how you make your ads? you can black out certain interests if that is necessary?

>>1666960
Not really. A screenshot would just show my results and my budget. The rest is what I've already told you!

>>1663160
I was wondering did your suppliers offer you credit or have you been bankrolling this with you and your partner?

>>1667052

With dropshipping your client is basically paying for the item first, then with the money he just gave you you are buying the item. So no startup capital.

If you go with Amazon dropship though you can run into problems, as they will hold the funds for 14 days, meaning you need capital if you are going to be making $100's worth of sale a day, to buy, ship, then receive compensation.

What I was wondering is how OP makes so many sales with so few items on his website.

Care to explain? It seems a bit naked. This has got my brain working though, already found some hawt shit on alieexpress i can shill.

>>1666854
Was thinking loot would be good for a general store of cool shit,and attire for mens clothing and accessories.

I've been contemplating doing this with popular chinese android phones as there's no sellers I can easily find anywhere on google and even nobody is doing it on amazon or ebay. Everyone is wanting to move away from current ISP models of only having the most expensive $800 flagship phone. Is dropshipping with $80-100 items a bad idea?

>>1667213
Nope but that's probably the max you wanna do.

>>1667246
Just out of total curiosity, I've been on flippa and seen a lot of dropshipping businesses/sites for sale. Why would you ever want to get rid of it if it was working, since the entire job of this is to get traffic, and just click order x amount of times per day? Do people want to return shit over nothing too many times? For example biggest problem with my phone idea is going to be idiots and the tech support side of it. Although I would imagine you would have in the TOS that you are buying this product as is and you don't get support. Just curious why anyone would ever want to sell it.

>>1663160
Hey OP, I have a question about the pricing on Aliexpress and how you factor that into your pricing. I'm wondering if the "discounts" on items on ali are temporary or always on-going. Then I'm wondering if you factor that discounted price or the actual price.

OP, what about product standard certificates?

Did you have to consider those when buying from AliExpress? For example, when using plastic for and of your products.

>>1667348
Nope. People don't eat my shit so don't have to.

>>1667290
Most dropshipping sites on Flippa are scams. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

OP, did you have to register a trade at some authority office?

For those wondering how to find a supplier with fast shipment, try looking for those who ship from the United States.
I`m in South America and it`s a pain to wait for the product, it usually takes 30 to 60 days, in some scenarios 90 days. I can`t dropship with that, shipping time is great part of this business (In my view).
So, I`m looking for United States shippers, and already found a estimated 5-15 days.
Lurk more

In your FAQ, it says that you keep the customers' order updated through automatic emails. How did you set them up? Are those covered within shopify?

>>1666501
Anything in particular about Ordoro that appealed more to you than Shipworks, Shipstation, Shippo, etc.?