Shopify Dropshipping using AliExpress One product store | Let's go

Best of luck brother. In December I was able to go 0 to 20k one product store.

Here's my mistakes so you can avoid it.

1- Use a dedicated credit card only for Facebook ads. Depending on your bank If you use same credit card for Aliexpress your bank might put blocks on it due to the volume of individual orders and if they block it you will wake up with your ads not running. Facebook hates getting payments declined and it might result in a Ban.

2- Contact your supplier and for their WeChat. Ask your supplier for shipping times, ask if they have all the variants and make sure they are good to go.

3- Set up your email marketing. Most of your emails will be from customers asking about their shipping times. Make sure they receive order confirmation with expected shipping times.

4. Test multiple creatives at all times.

5. Soon as your item is getting around 20 orders a day find a supplier or use Cjdropshipping. Aliexpress shipping times are not sustainable.

I can go on and on but best teacher is trail and error. I wish you the best it took me 4 stores to be profitable do not give up and keep pushing.

Thanks for the good advice. One question: why don't we use CJdropshipping in the first place since they claim to be cheaper than Aliexpress? Why wait for 20+ orders and then move to them?
 
Thanks for the good advice. One question: why don't we use CJdropshipping in the first place since they claim to be cheaper than Aliexpress? Why wait for 20+ orders and then move to them?

You can if you want most dropshippers start with aliexpress that's the reason why I mentioned after you start getting traction you should figure out a faster shipping method. Plus Cj dropshipping doesent have all the products Aliexpress does no point of telling Cjdropshipping to source a product if you havent sold any.
 
Day: 03

Sales: 00

Amount Spent: $27.66 :anyway:
Amount Made: $0 o_O
Total: -$27.66 (Loss) :weep:

Detailed information
I have 50+ Instagram likes on my video ad and only "one" like on the Facebook video ad. Facebook is a joke for this product. All the traffic is coming from Instagram too. My product only attracts females within all those IG ad video likes. I will reset my audience to female only. Budget should be increased for this conversion "purchase" ad but I'm leaving it at $10/day for maybe one more day and will remaster my targeting audience after tomorrow ends to see if I can pick up the loss. I'm posting on the Facebook page and the Instagram page about the product using a great picture of the product that I found from the original seller off AliExpress with a description. My sales page could be remastered around into a one item variant and remove the other color options and just have one color because it is several patterns of color that might confuse a buyer in my opinion but I won't mess with that till a few days roll by. Can't wait to get my tax return so I can get back some money for marketing :alien:

Let's hope I get a sale soon

Stay around for day 4​
 
Keep posting updates... Love to see your "struggle".... By the way how are you guys now doing with the Aliexpress issues and delays. I have a couple of sources in China and i don't hear really awesome things about delays of production. Anyone any experience with that?
 
Also whenever you start running ads, make sure you have a matching ad spend in 30 day visitor retargeting as well. My RT ads convert so much higher than my prospecting ads, it's insane.

Retargeting campaigns are the most powerful and underestimated campaigns, and I rarely see a business that uses them to their full potential.
To maximize the profit I recommend to segment the audience into 3 (7days, 14days, 30 days), and drive them through 3 different offers in the next 30-days. Visitors will migrate from one funnel to another. This will increase the potential of converting the majority of them. +Add the separate retargeting campaigns for ATC and buyers = $$$ :D

Split that retargeting budget to FB and Google ads, and watch your cost go down because you are not competing for the same audience on one platform only :)



Day: 03

Sales: 00

Amount Spent: $27.66 :anyway:
Amount Made: $0 o_O
Total: -$27.66 (Loss) :weep:

Detailed information
I have 50+ Instagram likes on my video ad and only "one" like on the Facebook video ad. Facebook is a joke for this product. All the traffic is coming from Instagram too. My product only attracts females within all those IG ad video likes. I will reset my audience to female only. Budget should be increased for this conversion "purchase" ad but I'm leaving it at $10/day for maybe one more day and will remaster my targeting audience after tomorrow ends to see if I can pick up the loss. I'm posting on the Facebook page and the Instagram page about the product using a great picture of the product that I found from the original seller off AliExpress with a description. My sales page could be remastered around into a one item variant and remove the other color options and just have one color because it is several patterns of color that might confuse a buyer in my opinion but I won't mess with that till a few days roll by. Can't wait to get my tax return so I can get back some money for marketing :alien:

Let's hope I get a sale soon

Stay around for day 4​

Small budgets in dropshipping don't give you much data. Break down the ad sets into age, gender, device, country, and check where are you losing the most. Don't jump to conclusions too fast because ads usually need at least 48hours to optimize.

You will have to test a ton before you find some winners, especially with countries.


Keep posting updates... Love to see your "struggle".... By the way how are you guys now doing with the Aliexpress issues and delays. I have a couple of sources in China and i don't hear really awesome things about delays of production. Anyone any experience with that?

Problems with coronavirus will just get worse. What you see it's just the beginning and will take a few months to get back to normal. A lot of people are trying to outsource from eBay. There are a lot of warehouses in the US, having almost everything Aliexpress is offering, that are listing products on eBay and shipping from the US.
 
Day: 04 & 05

Sales: 02

(New) Total Amount Spent: $57.21 :anyway:
(New) Ad spend: $41.21
(New) Product cost me: $8.10/each
Amount Made from sales: $39.98 (Shopify Fees not included) o_O
Venture Total: -$17.23 (Loss) :weep:

Detailed information
After my last update (Day 03) I got a sale right after that post. Day 04 I just left everything alone to see if the pixel would bring more results (nope). Day 05 (This post is on day 05) I got one sale not too long ago. I fulfilled them using Oberlo which auto fills info for you on AliExpress. FYI both of these purchases are not from USA. Both of the buyers are female and my Audience is set to only female. I may for real re-target now and see if I can better perform the ad, ex: change up age groups and remove countries that don't care for my product. I will trash this store if I Venture Total -$50 but right now it's -$17.23 because of those two sales.

We need WAY more sales

Stay around a little longer for day 06​
 
Day: 06

Customers: 04
Product sales: 08

Ad Spend: $65.52
Product Cost: $64.80 ($8.10/each times product sales)
Amount Made From Sales: $159.92 (Product sales times $19.99)
Total Amount Spent: $130.32 (Ad spend plus product cost)
Profiting: $29.60

Detailed Information
I delayed day 06 post so the edited ads could be approved as it would be a useless post if I said they was in review. After the review I watched and got two new customers who both purchased 3 items each from my store which brought me from a loss to a profit on this store. So far nobody from UK or USA has bought anything from my store so all you please don't limit yourself only to top countries. I used ZERO influencers. I have one sale from Facebook finally and the rest are from Instagram. I removed some ages in my ad and then duplicated it. I'm now thinking about creating a lookalike audience from the website clicks/traffic who's viewed my checkout page and then try to figure out how to DM all those people who have liked my ad video on Instagram a coupon code. That would help sales out but how would I do that besides going one from one?

I need more sales to get the profit up because $29.60 is worthless​


Why don't you try influencer shoutouts?
I never get what I want from them but if I try with this store I will have to find a lot of small guys who have good engagement bc the big guys to me have all been bad experience.


Good luck

You are gonna do well following!

Best of luck brother. In December I was able to go 0 to 20k one product store.

Here's my mistakes so you can avoid it.

1- Use a dedicated credit card only for Facebook ads. Depending on your bank If you use same credit card for Aliexpress your bank might put blocks on it due to the volume of individual orders and if they block it you will wake up with your ads not running. Facebook hates getting payments declined and it might result in a Ban.

2- Contact your supplier and for their WeChat. Ask your supplier for shipping times, ask if they have all the variants and make sure they are good to go.

3- Set up your email marketing. Most of your emails will be from customers asking about their shipping times. Make sure they receive order confirmation with expected shipping times.

4. Test multiple creatives at all times.

5. Soon as your item is getting around 20 orders a day find a supplier or use Cjdropshipping. Aliexpress shipping times are not sustainable.

I can go on and on but best teacher is trail and error. I wish you the best it took me 4 stores to be profitable do not give up and keep pushing.

You forget the CoronaVirus issue right ? It's fucked up now.

Good luck,I hope you're right.

Good luck following.

Wish you the best of luck!
Will you have any problems because of corona virus?

following this good luck OP

Hey dude, good stuff. Do you have a script you follow for testing ads whether on facebook / google ads? Thanks. For example, on google ads, bid $x / day, use SKAG etc.

Also whenever you start running ads, make sure you have a matching ad spend in 30 day visitor retargeting as well. My RT ads convert so much higher than my prospecting ads, it's insane.

Seems a well planned thread to follow, good luck on the journey

Following this for sure

I've never seen conversion ad on FB get more than 0 sales ever.
Make that budget shine, segment audience in adgroups, and there is a tool to test text:no-next ratio.

Nice journey. Hope I can learn something out of this. Keep us updated.

Good luck , following the thread.

Just one question which one is better, alidropship or shopify ?

Thanks for the luck guys plus thanks for the tips and to answer some of these questions or concerns,
  • I always use conversion ads and they WORK. When you want to actually figure out who will buy your product then conversions are the way but everyone has their own personal preferences regarding ads.
  • This is all Facebook ads manager. I use Facebook Pixel on my Shopify store and would recommend people to use Shopify if they don't mind paying the monthly fee.
  • Cronovirus so far has not had an effect that I know of from this store. I'm watching other stores that others own and the AliExpress sellers are doing everything normally. I'll be honest and say that this Cronovirus hurting shipping thing is a myth right now for my friends stores.
If you have anything you'd like to throw in this thread then feel free to go ahead and post :)
 
Great finally on positive side. Scale it up
Day: 06

Customers: 04
Product sales: 08

Ad Spend: $65.52
Product Cost: $64.80 ($8.10/each times product sales)
Amount Made From Sales: $159.92 (Product sales times $19.99)
Total Amount Spent: $130.32 (Ad spend plus product cost)
Profiting: $29.60

Detailed Information
I delayed day 06 post so the edited ads could be approved as it would be a useless post if I said they was in review. After the review I watched and got two new customers who both purchased 3 items each from my store which brought me from a loss to a profit on this store. So far nobody from UK or USA has bought anything from my store so all you please don't limit yourself only to top countries. I used ZERO influencers. I have one sale from Facebook finally and the rest are from Instagram. I removed some ages in my ad and then duplicated it. I'm now thinking about creating a lookalike audience from the website clicks/traffic who's viewed my checkout page and then try to figure out how to DM all those people who have liked my ad video on Instagram a coupon code. That would help sales out but how would I do that besides going one from one?

I need more sales to get the profit up because $29.60 is worthless​



I never get what I want from them but if I try with this store I will have to find a lot of small guys who have good engagement bc the big guys to me have all been bad experience.
































Thanks for the luck guys plus thanks for the tips and to answer some of these questions or concerns,
  • I always use conversion ads and they WORK. When you want to actually figure out who will buy your product then conversions are the way but everyone has their own personal preferences regarding ads.
  • This is all Facebook ads manager. I use Facebook Pixel on my Shopify store and would recommend people to use Shopify if they don't mind paying the monthly fee.
  • Cronovirus so far has not had an effect that I know of from this store. I'm watching other stores that others own and the AliExpress sellers are doing everything normally. I'll be honest and say that this Cronovirus hurting shipping thing is a myth right now for my friends stores.
If you have anything you'd like to throw in this thread then feel free to go ahead and post :)
 
Day 12

Profit: $100
Orders: 13​


This is now 6 days later on day 12 and I have 13 orders. Some people bought more than one item. I am at a profit of about $100 after ad, product, and transaction fees. A couple days ago I noticed my ad deliveries were going down a lot and thought it was because of all the editing I've done to the ads. Yesterday I disabled that ad campaign and created another conversion campaign with a bigger ad spend budget ($60/day). I know creating a new campaign will restart the learning process but I created this new one with bigger ad spend because I was able to make a profit in this store. The audience and everything is the same as my last conversion campaign. My goal is to get to $800 in sales within one month. I may have that opportunity now once after the algorithm kicks in again.

Started new conversion campaign because my last one started dipping out​
 
Do you have clients complain about shipping time. And cancel order cause of that?
 
Do you have clients complain about shipping time. And cancel order cause of that?
With the store I'm talking about in this journey thread the answer is that my store is too new and nobody has had enough time to complain about the delivery time. To answer your question with what I know from other stores that's been running for awhile then the answer is that be sure to have a refund policy and shipping expectation on your site. Don't send nobody the tracking code after their order so you can do this cool trick: There will be a very small few who will nag but you just reply with the tracking code with a discount code for their next future purchase on your store. That's a good way to have a reason to send them a non spammy email which gives them reassurance and a discount code.
 
With the store I'm talking about in this journey thread the answer is that my store is too new and nobody has had enough time to complain about the delivery time. To answer your question with what I know from other stores that's been running for awhile then the answer is that be sure to have a refund policy and shipping expectation on your site. Don't send nobody the tracking code after their order so you can do this cool trick: There will be a very small few who will nag but you just reply with the tracking code with a discount code for their next future purchase on your store. That's a good way to have a reason to send them a non spammy email which gives them reassurance and a discount code.
Thank you wish you success with this journey. DO you have a plan to buy product in bulk and than build a brand for it? like label it or print your logo in your package.
 
Good luck for your journey and really some great piece of advises already you poured in this thread.
 
I will recommend few tweaks in the Facebook Campaigns.

Create Separate campaigns for Facebook and Instagram. This way you will know which one is performing better.
There are different ad sizes for Instagram, do check that also.
If possible, create different campaigns based on location so that you can increase bidding for that country.
Try catalog ads to show multiple variations of same product.

I am really inspired by your journey till now.
 
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