Shopify Dropshipping or Amazon FBA?

[dwillglobal]

thanks for being extremely informative. can i bug you for a couple final questions?

1. i was wondering how you get by with longer shipping times w/ customer being happy? if shipping from china, i'd say customer would receive product in about 2 weeks...seems a little *too* long? or do you pay more for COGS for a US supplier?

2. for newer brands launching ads w/o much of a following on tik tok/fb/ig ads, how do you get customers to take you more seriously? how do you get them to trust a new brand?

Hello, Sure & No problem.

For shipping, I would recommend you stray away from AliExpress as much as possible. There are companies out there with waaay faster shipping & better quality products like "Cj Dropshipping" or "Zendrop" etc.. there are a few out there that can get your product to your customer in about a week or so with nice packaging. I personally use Cj the most right now. Cj also gives you the option to buy in bulk once you start doing volume and still not have to stock the product yourself—it'll go to another warehouse closer to you. & that can give you 2-4 day shipping. You also get a personal agent whom you can use to find products, talk to suppliers, customize products, etc.

If your a new brand and want to build a bit of social proof behind your ads before you launch this is what I do that works for me. First you want to make sure that your Instagram, that you're driving traffic to has a few pictures posted about 2-3 rows so you can look professional. Also, if it's a new account, you can buy a few followers (around 1-2k just to give it a little sauce and add to the first impression. It's not mandatory, but something I do every now and then. Make sure your bio is nice and neat, don't pull anything out of the air.. find a competitor's Ig that's killin it and model the set up after them with your own sauce. Once you get into Facebook and launch your creatives, another trick i do is from another Facebook account comment on your creatives and act like you received the product and you love it, basically adding social proof yourself, so when a potential customer sees it, they're that much more likely to convert because nobody wants to be the first person to buy something, especially if it's from a business they've never heard of before. If you do this, I'm about 9/10 percent sure it will help your ads pop off.. Again, none of this is mandatory because if your creative is on point, you're targeting the right audience and your product is good your ads are going to work regardless, even with a new ig account with 0 followers and no pics posted.. the methods listed above are meant to just help out the process.

 

[mr_helium]

Hello, Sure & No problem.

For shipping, I would recommend you stray away from AliExpress as much as possible. There are companies out there with waaay faster shipping & better quality products like "Cj Dropshipping" or "Zendrop" etc.. there are a few out there that can get your product to your customer in about a week or so with nice packaging. I personally use Cj the most right now. Cj also gives you the option to buy in bulk once you start doing volume and still not have to stock the product yourself—it'll go to another warehouse closer to you. & that can give you 2-4 day shipping. You also get a personal agent whom you can use to find products, talk to suppliers, customize products, etc.

If your a new brand and want to build a bit of social proof behind your ads before you launch this is what I do that works for me. First you want to make sure that your Instagram, that you're driving traffic to has a few pictures posted about 2-3 rows so you can look professional. Also, if it's a new account, you can buy a few followers (around 1-2k just to give it a little sauce and add to the first impression. It's not mandatory, but something I do every now and then. Make sure your bio is nice and neat, don't pull anything out of the air.. find a competitor's Ig that's killin it and model the set up after them with your own sauce. Once you get into Facebook and launch your creatives, another trick i do is from another Facebook account comment on your creatives and act like you received the product and you love it, basically adding social proof yourself, so when a potential customer sees it, they're that much more likely to convert because nobody wants to be the first person to buy something, especially if it's from a business they've never heard of before. If you do this, I'm about 9/10 percent sure it will help your ads pop off.. Again, none of this is mandatory because if your creative is on point, you're targeting the right audience and your product is good your ads are going to work regardless, even with a new ig account with 0 followers and no pics posted.. the methods listed above are meant to just help out the process.

i've been taking your suggestions & have been researching products religiously the past 48 hours few days. i have a quite few niches/products in mind but stuck on how to narrow them down.

would you suggest to sample all these items, build stores, and run small test ads on them? it seems like costs would add up just from purchases and ad spend for little testing results. how would you go about this?

 

[dwillglobal]

i've been taking your suggestions & have been researching products religiously the past 48 hours few days. i have a quite few niches/products in mind but stuck on how to narrow them down.

would you suggest to sample all these items, build stores, and run small test ads on them? it seems like costs would add up just from purchases and ad spend for little testing results. how would you go about this?

Ok, great. I would first test the products that you feel from your product research have the best chance of working. For example if you found some of your products from finding competitor ads I would test the ones first that had the most engagement. If some of the products you found are in the same niche build a niche general store around those and test those first. Basically, make a list of your products to test and go down the list. Don't spend over $150 when testing a product, the winners will jump out at you, if the products are not working even if you really feel like it can MOVE ON... no emotions only go by the data you get from ur ads and I can almost guarantee you will see success. You only fail if you quit. Even when your spending money on ads, don't look at it as spending money your buying data.

 

[mr_helium]

Ok, great. I would first test the products that you feel from your product research have the best chance of working. For example if you found some of your products from finding competitor ads I would test the ones first that had the most engagement. If some of the products you found are in the same niche build a niche general store around those and test those first. Basically, make a list of your products to test and go down the list. Don't spend over $150 when testing a product, the winners will jump out at you, if the products are not working even if you really feel like it can MOVE ON... no emotions only go by the data you get from ur ads and I can almost guarantee you will see success. You only fail if you quit. Even when your spending money on ads, don't look at it as spending money your buying data.

would you recommend start with tik tok/fb or throw google PLAs in there too?

 

[dwillglobal]

would you recommend start with tik tok/fb or throw google PLAs in there too?

I would start with whatever platform you are most comfortable with, and once you master that one, move onto the next. I'd like to say start with Facebook ads because that's my bread and butter and almost any product will work there, but I must warn you that it's becoming increasingly difficult to advertise successfully on fb without random bans unless you really know what you're doing. Tik-tok ads work as well and is way easier to advertise without all the random bans, but I have had much more consistent success with Facebook. If you choose tiktok have multiple creatives ready to go, they burn out way faster on tiktok.