TiagoS Dropshipping Shopify Journey

[TiagoS]

Greetings folks ! I`m creating this thread to show you guys a little of my journey that is already taking place and is giving me incredible results already (1 week).

What I did and what am I doing ?

The first step was to find a product. I found a pretty cool jewelry product related to a tv show, the price was 0.99. I did some research around the internet and couldn`t find anyone selling this product, but to be honest, it doesn`t really matter if more people are selling it or not, I`m targeting people that never seen such product.
Knowing the product, I went to Shopify and signed up for their trial and started building my store. I won`t get into details here, but I added the product for "free", ripped some pictures from the Aliexpress seller posting and made my store theme as clear as possible. The product price was 0.00 but I am actually charging $9.99 for the shipping on the last step. First, the users add the product to cart, fill everything out, address, name , email (pretty important to build a list) and on the last step, the $9.99 shipping fee is shown.
I`m only targeting Americans since I can choose e-packet as the shipping option and it arrives in 2-3 weeks and sometimes sooner.
You guys may be wondering how I advertise, and pretty much , I can`t really disclose of this, for now. It`s a golden method. All I can say it`s Facebook ads and a fan page of mine. I`m spending 5-10 daily.

FAQ

Q: What payment gateway are you using ?
A: Paypal

Q: Aren`t you scared of PayPal fucking you up ?
A: Actually I am, but I have a 4 years old premier account, so let`s see what happens.

Q: How much profit you get per product?
A: Around $6, excluding the ads. (Not a lot but I'm still optimizing and planning to scale)

Q: What`s your cr % ?
A: 2-3 %



Weekly Report :

I- First Week :

Pretty much the results on the first day were insane ! On the beginning, I was really demotivated until I found out that my store wasn't working at all ! I had 350 visitors and 0 orders ! People were adding to their carts but not checking out (That`s pretty common with this method, but I guess not with 300 people.) I ended up finding out that there were no shipping options for some reason !! Lesson learned : Always test !
After receiving many orders, I purchased a .net domain, connected it to Shopify and also purchase an email plan from Godaddy.
Below are the results of my first week :

** The refund was given by me without the customer asking for some reasons.

To date, I didn`t receive a single complaint and didn`t ship anything yet, because Aliexpress is asking for my documents since I tried purchasing same products 10x
I`m worried soon customers will start complaining and asking about their products, for that, I have my email and terms of service explaining about "promotional items" shipping. Keep in mind that I'm targeting teen girls from 13 to 21, so they probably don`t even know how to open a PayPal dispute.
So far, I have 2 ads active and I'm spending 10-15 per day. I plan to scale this up and also try Facebook Live streams. I have also a freelancer working on a share locker for my Shopify product page, to try to double the visitors.

Some questions for you guys :
- What you guys think of me raising the product price to $12.99?


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[Lunaaa]

Hey good luck on your journey! Awesome numbers so far. Are you doing ppe ,wc , or clicks?

 

[McHenzy]

$400 a week is really good. Great thinking of targeting girls of such age. Don't increase your price for now, run it for a month to establish trust, then you can increase but not up to $12.99.

Wishing you great greens

 

[LoftPower]

I agree that $400 a week is good. Keep working hard. I wish that you do succeed.

 

[instagramChief]

Good luck with your journey!

Some questions:
Didn't you contact the seller directly and asked for drop shipping thing?

I have heard about epacket. Do people wait for 3 weeks?
Sometimes the product doesn't even reach the customer. What do you do in such case?

Thanks!

 

[Motherdex]

A few questions
I think I know the answer to this but you site just has one product on it? Are there any variations to the product like color options etc..?
What documentation was Aliexpress asking for? I have only ever bought from them for personal use so I am unclear what type of documents one might need to provide if requesting a high number of single product orders.

Overall sounds great! Good luck!

 

[Motherdex]

Good luck with your journey!

Some questions:
Didn't you contact the seller directly and asked for drop shipping thing?

I have heard about epacket. Do people wait for 3 weeks?
Sometimes the product doesn't even reach the customer. What do you do in such case?

Thanks!

I'll butt in and say that as a customer of Aliexpress in the US it does take about 2.5 - 3 weeks to get ePacket so the timeline is about accurate. As the mentioned most dropship shops try to be abundantly clear about that point and esp if doing the Free + Shipping thing tell people they have to be patient to get the deal. As far as the product not making its destination from reading other journeys this seems to be a rarity and at this point the seller is hopefully making enough to reimburse the customer promptly and send them a freebie for their troubles. But I'll be interested in hearing the OPs plan.

 

[bionic]

I wouldn't change your price, you're already making a good return on your ad spend. Slowly start increasing your daily spend by maybe $1 a day and see how it affects conversions.

 

[WowLancer]

Good luck on your journey.

 

[TiagoS]

Pretty good day today, spent 12 with ads . I expect to close the day with 100 +. Answering some questions:

- I called some customers to see their reaction when I mention the 3 weeks shipping, they seem to be very understanding about it, but I always mention "Promotional item shipping" .
- My site only has one product.
- Aliexpress is asking me to verify myself and that I own the credit card I used to purchase the items. They are freaking slow, been 5 days already and they are still verifying it.

 

[bionic]

Is it because you have a new account?

 

[TiagoS]

Is it because you have a new account?

Mind to explain ?

 

[rashow]

how do you limit people to only ordering "one free product"?what if they order the same product multiple times?

 

[SunnyLeon]

isn't there a limit to paypal's transaction fees per year or something ? that`s what scares me about this method.. cheap product, lots of transactions, how much will it take before you get grounded by paypal ?

Edited to ask another question Are you going FB ppc for website views ?

 

[TiagoS]

how do you limit people to only ordering "one free product"?what if they order the same product multiple times?

Good question, I`ve set up $9,99 shipping price per unit, so it doesn`t matter. Sometimes it`s even better for me because i can pay only one shipping on aliexpress, so extra profit. And yes, it does happen a lot, people buy 2-3.

isn't there a limit to paypal's transaction fees per year or something ? that`s what scares me about this method.. cheap product, lots of transactions, how much will it take before you get grounded by paypal ?

Edited to ask another question Are you going FB ppc for website views ?

I`m not aware, i don`t think there`s a limit at all.

 

[rashow]

Good question, I`ve set up $9,99 shipping price per unit, so it doesn`t matter. Sometimes it`s even better for me because i can pay only one shipping on aliexpress, so extra profit. And yes, it does happen a lot, people buy 2-3.


I`m not aware, i don`t think there`s a limit at all.

Can i ask how you do that? do you use a special addon? because i can only set rules for weight and price. Can't set shipping rules pet unit..

 

[MatteoMatt]

Hey I like this method, been reading about it and flip flopping on trying it because I have so much else going on, but I already bought a domain and shit.

The only thing I am wondering is this, is it possible to start this method if I am broke? For example if someone buys an item from my store will I be able to use the money they paid me to actually buy the item off aliexpress? If not I am considering getting a credit card or having some money in my account to buy the items with.

Of course FB Ad money is required too but that is different, and I can get free traffic too.

 

[bionic]

Mind to explain ?

AliExpress asking for verification. Is your account new?

 

[Jeffersontalks]

@Tiago Don't really want to post this in public but good to share with all of you to know who are into dropshipping. Take note that there is a transaction limit per credit card nowadays due to anti money laundering law. And there is a lot of chargeback issue when you receive payment from clients. This is another aspect that you have to be careful about. No doubt paypal buyer protection program do not cover shipping and handling charges but you can still get burn with funds held in paypal account during the period for investigation.

Both Aliexpress and Amazon takes serious stance when the buying volume is abnormally high for a single credit card usage. Some people might argue on this but I have been through and done this.

 

[VisuallyDesigned]

how many likes does your fan page have? was it newly created or did you have it from before, like a previous project or something?