Watch me go from $3.50 to $1K per month

[anti_businessman]

A pretty ambitious and silly goal, but f**k it - I am going to go for it.

I am going to see if I can build a consistent dropshipping store that brings me $1K per month in profit.

I have tried dropshipping before with various levels of success and failure.

The difference this time?

No difference, I am trying again with new lessons learnt each time.

My niche is relatively broad, in fashion and accessories. It can change over time if it doesn’t work.


Status update below:

Continuing product research. Have built a product list of 170+ items. Why the ridiculously large product list?

Testing a lot and testing fast is my goal.

I suspect I will continue to do product research for another 2 weeks. I feel like a massive breakthrough for me would be to find chinese specific sites to do product research. I have managed to find certain niches, but have not had any

Also, here's a midjourney pic I played with:



Moving on:

In the interim, I am awaiting for Google Merchant Center unsuspension. I hired an agency to help me resolve this issue. They found a really simple issue on my GMC, which I should’ve found by myself - think mispellings etc. So this was embarrassing.

Weekly Summary
Revenue: $3.50 (found a few coins in my car)

Anyways on to next week!

 

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[marius1037]

hey man! Do you ask for permission or something from the product makers
or can you simply sell them?

 

[anti_businessman]

hey man! Do you ask for permission or something from the product makers
or can you simply sell them?

it really depends. On Ali Express, you don't really need permission. But on any other platforms like Etsy or your local manufacturers, it's good to ask for permission. I have done it on Etsy and they're pretty chill - provided you that clearly highlight how it benefits them (e.g. $$$$$$).

 

[anti_businessman]

Update:

Continuing Product research. I am hoping to have a list of 250+ products to test. No luck with GMC atm.

I am also growing my newsletter, which I am framing as a journal for the above journey. Hopefully, it can pay off long term. Currently 12 subscribers atm.

 

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[StrikingViper69]

What lessons have you learned from your previous failures? What’s going to be different this time? Are you solving a problem or choosing a tool?

 

[anti_businessman]

What lessons have you learned from your previous failures? What’s going to be different this time? Are you solving a problem or choosing a tool?

There's a lot, but I'll start with those that come to my head:

• Let your winners continue to run. No need to pause ad to improve content or scale.
• Invest in product photography soon as you see a winner
• Test products that are highly abundant in variations and designs, and that the supplying country specialises in. E.g. if I was testing products from India, I would be testing shawls and sarees etc.
• Test fast and quick
• No emotions.

 

[anti_businessman]

Update:
Starting to build my shopify store. It should be a breeze. What's not a breeze is picking a brand name that fits an identity and making sure it has ".com" available. Product Research is continuing. I am jealous of those that can read english and mandarin. There's some great products on chinese websites.

My subscriber list for newsletter is currently at 17. I will need to do a few reddit posts

 

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[anti_businessman]

Update: MY GMC HAS BEEN APPROVED!!!!!?????? This was 5 months of work. Hopefully, it doesn't change.

I have also been getting DM's on reddit for people asking me questions about ecomm, which is nice because i guess it means I am providing some sort of value even though I am not an expert and I just only post what I see.

I did get someone comment I am a snake salesmen, so that's a first. I guess people are really skeptical in this industry, which is fair given how many gurus there are. Probably because I am also including a link to my journal if people want to follow, but that can't be a bad thing right?

Also. I've had some friends suggest to go down the CRO route because I enjoy breaking down landing pages. But I am not sure where to even begin - like do I need to do a course or keep working on my own store and use that as validation. Anyways, will see what happens

 

[anti_businessman]

Also newsletter / Journal is at 20 followers now

 

[anti_businessman]

Update:
Launched yesterday on Google ads. not much traction so far - had to improve product titles to increase the impressions because I jumped the gun initially. I realised my impressions were too low (even if it was first day). So updated the product titles and was able to double my impressions in the last 24h. Still minimal clicks and ofc, no sales.

Product research still continues.

 

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[anti_businessman]

Update:
So it's been 3 days since my last update and my impressions has just hit 10 fold, so looking at 1000's, which is good. This tells me either 2 things - a) my product title optimisation has worked and is capturing more impressions and / or b) Google needed some time to put my products forward.

So far no sales from a limited clicks. My overall CTR is just above 1%. I am hoping to see which specific products have a great CTR, which would suggest that in terms of initial impressions, people are interested in those particular products. The issue would subsequently be final offer, landing page and / or overall branding.

 

[anti_businessman]

Also, it's been exactly a month since I launched my journal / newsletter and I have gained 20 or so subscribers, which is not bad. I probably would've preferred double that but that's okay. I am sure there will be big weeks and small weeks scattered along the way.

 

[anti_businessman]

GOT MY FIRST SALE TODAY! pretty stoked tbh. anyways, moving on and hoping I can get sale no.2 soon.

 

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[anti_businessman]

In the negative by a approx 200-300 with a handful of sales. I am glad I am making sales but I'd obviously like to be profitable.

I have 50 subscribers to my journal now. It's just posting on forums and whatever.