Millionaire Tries Drop Shipping Side Hustle For The First Time!

So today, I’m going to be paying different people on Fiverr to create all the parts of a drop shipping business.

And I mean everything from the Shopify store to the logo, to the social media advert. Then I’m going to throw it all together and see if we can make some of that sweet profit.

I’m super excited because when I was growing up the internet unfortunately didn’t even exist. And mobile phones were the size of a house brick.

We certainly didn’t have modern day methods such as drop shipping, which can be done from anywhere you like with nothing more than a laptop and an internet connection. So I’m currently standing in one of my warehouses.

And as you can imagine, these have huge running costs. The beauty of drop shipping is that you can let somebody else handle all of that for you, which is really, really great ’cause you can concentrate on making the profit.

But if it’s so great, why do I have warehouses? Well, I’ll give you my opinion on that a little bit later. Now with that said, after some research, I’ve decided to sell these oversized blanket hoodies as they’re one size fit sold, pretty unique.

And they’re perfect for summer barbecue nights when things get a little bit chilly, but you still want to stay outside. I also bought a couple for my family at Christmas and they absolutely loved them.

So I know they’re a good product. They all sit around nice and cozy while I’m sat there shivering. So I think the right price to sell these for is $45.

And every time we receive an order, I’ll purchase the product on AliExpress for $18, leaving us nearly $27 in profit. Of course, minus any advertising expenses.

If we want this store to be really successful, we need a catchy name. So I’ve come up with a good domain name and I’ve also secured the dot com domain name.

There are tons of great choices here. I’ve been comparing prices and service quality for the last 20 to 30 minutes. And I think I’ve narrowed it down to three choices.

I’m going to give this all in one package a shot. As some drop shipper claims, he can create a converting one product Shopify store, and that’s exactly what we’re after.

$175 is a very good price for a website. However, for my first Shopify drop shipping store, I think it’s a pretty steep investment. But I believe a good website can last for years to come.

Now we need a logo for the business. And I found this woman that creates really clean and simple logos. And I think $25 is fairly cheap for a logo as they stay with a business for years and sometimes even forever.

Let’s see what she can do. Lastly, we need some video adverts and this guy says he can create a drop shipping video ad and this is exactly what we need.

$20 is a fair price for a few high quality adverts. And these can also last for months, so not bad investment. So I’ve placed the three orders and they should be ready in the next few days.

We’ll check back once they’re complete.

One week later. Right, all the orders have been delivered. I’m really excited to see how it’s all turned out. Let’s start off with the logo. I’ve actually been going back and forth with the designer for a few days now.

This was the first design that she sent me. Personally, I’m not really a fan of it as it doesn’t really get across the feeling of quality and comfortable hoodies.

To be honest, it looks more like a street wear brand. I asked for a few changes and this is the first time I’ve looked at the final version. Well, it’s better, but I don’t think it’s really what I’m looking for.

At the end of the day, we only paid $15 for this. So, let’s keep it as a backup option and move on to the other orders.

Next let’s check out the video we’re using for our main advert. If that isn’t enough to scratch, potential customers are just going to scroll past leaving us zero chance of actually securing any sale.

Do you know what, I actually really like the ad. I think we’ve picked some really great shots as everyone seems really happy. And the hoodies are shown both indoors and outdoors.

Another trick I’ve seen a lot of people do is purchase the item for themselves. Then they can take a more unique video and photos than the ones that are available online.

This can be a great way of getting ahead of the competition. Now it’s time for the big one, which is the Shopify website. The effort’s great, but the website doesn’t look professional and trustworthy.

We’ll end up paying to get customers on the website that never actually buy anything. The customer could even go on to purchase the same product elsewhere.

This means that our marketing would benefit our competitors, and we definitely don’t want that to happen. So let’s load up the website. Well, I think he smashed it totally out of the park.

The images look really high quality and that’s important as it means people are far more likely to trust the site and part with their cash. I also see that he’s created a logo as well, which is really nice.

And it’s definitely more the style I’m looking for as it looks premium quality. I’m glad there are added photos of both men and women, as it opens us up to both demographics.

Meaning we have far more potential customers and therefore a higher chance of profitability. Let’s fire up the app on a mobile to check out if everything works smoothly. This is very important as if we are going to be advertising on social media. It means most of our customers will be visiting the website via their phones.

I’m not going to completely forget about the desktop version of the website, but it’s certainly less of a priority. Having reviews is equally important.

And I’m glad he didn’t just use the five star ones and included four star ones as well. As personally when I buy something, I look at the reviews and if they’re all five stars, then it looks a little bit odd to be honest.

It’s also great that the designer crossed out the old price and put the product on promotion. This makes it more appealing to customers and should lead to higher sales.

I have learnt that it’s very important to put your product and advert to the test. A perfect way to do this is through paid promotion from influencers and large theme pages before jumping onto Facebook ads.

I managed to find a few large Instagram influencers in the fashion space. Unfortunately, many didn’t reply and someone had over $500 for a 24 hour story post.

I did get a reply from an influencer and she offered to post our advert on her Instagram feed and story for $150. But you know me, I had to haggle a little bit and get her down on her price. And I managed to secure a $100 by making payment upfront.

I made sure to use PayPal goods and services just in case something went wrong and I wanted to get my money back. I’ll get the hoodie sent off to her and I’ll check back once the ads are live.

So it’s been a little over 12 hours since the ads went live and I must say, I’m extremely happy so far. But before we jump into the results, I want to address something.

We may have overpaid for the website and the adverts, which is going to make it harder for us to hit a profit. However, a good website can last a business for years. I once purchased an entire business because their website was so good. And I still use that website to this day. And my return on investment has been sky high.

The same goes for social media adverts. These video ads can often be used for months to generate far more revenue than I’ve been able to do in just one day.

Now, I’m really excited to share these results with you. I think the marketing strategy really paid off as we got over a 1,000 visitors to the website.

This definitely shows we made the right decision to use a social media fashion influencer to promote our products. So she obviously had the right audience. So in total we received six orders which came to $550.

0.54% is a pretty good conversion rate for a Shopify drop shipping store. I think on the surface, these results seem pretty great but the real question is, did we make any profit.

Let’s crunch the numbers and find out. For each unit sold we make on average $26 and 30 cents in profit. So using quick math, I make that out to be $315 and 60 cents gross profit.

I totally didn’t use a calculator for that. But seriously, $315 in gross profit is fantastic, but we haven’t yet subtracted our expenses. So let’s add it all up.

We paid $175 for the website, $15 for the logo, $20 for the video adverts. And lastly, a $100 for the paid Instagram promotion.

I’m not going to include the Shopify plan in my expenses because Shopify provides all new users with a 14 day trial, which is pretty good for us.

So our total spend comes to $310, which isn’t anything too crazy. This only leaves us with a total profit of $5 and 60 cents. I know this doesn’t sound like a lot, but the one-time expenses are now out of the way.

We have a great website that can generate sales as well as a catchy social media advert to drive traffic towards us. And I can’t really help but wonder what the results will be like if we trialed this for a week or more.

To be honest, I didn’t even expect this to be profitable, but this definitely leaves the question, is drop shipping a sustainable business model?

I personally think it can be a great side hustle. However, if you want to take it to the next level and build a sustainable long-term business, then I believe it’s important to take the leap and physically stock the products yourself.

But, remember I said products require costly warehouses with loads of other expenses. At the end of the day, stocking products will give you full control over your business and ultimately provide your customers with the best experience, which is the most important thing.

Happy returning customers spreading the word is the best kind of promotion you can get. I see drop shipping as a gateway business. It is a great way to get a taste for business and develop an understanding of how things work.

A great example is Gymshark. They started out by drop shipping back in 2011 while the owner worked at Pizza Hut. Fast forward 10 years and this business is now valued at over 1.3 billion with distribution centers all over the world.

This really goes to show that anyone from anywhere can start a business. If the owner of Gymshark can start from his bedroom then so can you.

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