[Ask Dennis] Shopify + AliExpress Journey

Hey,

This is my attempt to open an E-Commerce store and make money online after reading and researching about Shopify + AliExpress.

I've decided to follow Adrian Morrison's method of Just Pay Shipping, i.e. Free + $9.99 shipping fee (I don't know if this method was started by Adrian first, but I definitely learned it from him).

For this thing to work I've created or used the following:
* Shopify store
* Oberlo app
* AliExpress account
* Facebook ads

In order to setup my Shopify store, I read the article "How to Launch an Online Store with No Cash Investment" by Shopify.

Also, I installed an FB page view and conversion pixels code in my Shopify store, after watching a YouTube video about this.

Also, I bought a .net domain (because the .com domain was taken) and it has the same name as my shopify name. For example, if my Shopify name is "5dollargifts.shopify.com", then my domain name is "5dollargifts.net" (note that this is an example and not the actual name of my shop).

For my niches, I searched for "Just Pay Shipping" ads in Facebook, and then spied on their shopify stores. Basically, you can append the following text to any Shopify store URL to see their best selling products (I learned about this after watching a YouTube video):


Obviously the products that I choose has to be less than $5, preferably below $2, so that the shipping fee can cover all the cost associated with the product. Also, I look for high orders for each product.

When selecting suppliers, I look for good feedback and ratings, I will message the supplier when ordering with "This is a gift (dropshipping). Please do not include your invoice." Most suppliers are happy to oblige. Also, I make sure that my suppliers have "ePacket" shipping for USA as I intend to sell to USA.

As I heard about good and bad things about suppliers on AliExpress, I decided to order several products on my store to test each of my suppliers.

I was on Facebook today, and I met someone, who had bought Adrian's Ecom Success Academy course and is reselling it to 50 people at a fraction of the original price. As it was a great value, I decided to purchase the product from him.

(Note: I received my first product from AliExpress today and I will update about it in my next post).

Good luck for your success man ...

Good luck on your journey

Good luck! How long did it take you to get a conversion from Facebook ads? I am about to start this also

I'm still in beta testing phase, i.e. I haven't started sending traffic to my store.

I won't be advertising my products until after I have tested each of my suppliers.

Today, I received a package from AliExpress that I ordered 10 days ago.

(1) The shipping was faster than the expected delivery time of 15-34 days.

(2) There was no invoicing from the supplier and the package was a plain envelope.

Item cost was $2.42 with free shipping.

Good luck to your Journey!!!

Good luck with your journey mate, why not use woocommerce? Lot cheaper than shopify.

thanks for sharing the info. Good luck! I'll follow your journey

+1 for woocommerce.

Will you make enough profit on each sale to cover the facebook ad charges?

Good luck! I think shopify is a good choice to get up and running quickly. As with woocommerce you need to worry about more technical stuff.

Good luck man ! i also completed the same course today !
Time to take action !

I think it's time for an update....

I launched my store on 2-July-16 mainly driving traffic from FB ads.

I started with 1 product and added 2 more products - I have 3 products on offer now using the F+S model.

Each ad had a daily budget of $5, but I found that you could start even lower if you want (the amount you spend does not correlate with sales).

On the first day there was no sale, but I basically skimmed through Adrian's video. In hindsight, I should have paid more attention.

My second and third day, I had to readjust my ads after watching Adrian's video again.

These were some of my initial mistakes:

(1) I didn't setup my FB pixels properly and hence my ads were not training my pixels properly.

(2) Also, I didn't do sufficient research for my keywords and targeted too broadly.

Spending more time on research and Adrian's video, led me to:

(1) tighter budget (lower cost per day) of $4 per ad daily

(2) better ad learning and conversion through FB pixels

(3) more targeted audience through keyword research.

My fourth day, I got my first sale. Although my ROI is still negative, but this sale validated my research and fine-tuning process.

That's all for now.

Congrats on your first sale! yeah i would go with woocommerce if i was you...seems like ur spending on something u dont need....29.99+15? Anyways, also my opinion is testing the suppliers seems like over kill if ur suppliers are top sellers just leave a note saying not to include prices...should be fine!

Yeah, it does sound like an overkill. I tested for product 1 & 2, but stopped for product 3.

I just assumed that most packages would look the same (as long as they're from top suppliers).

Woocommerce is something that I would like to explore in future. Thanks.

Product #1 - This is a high end product (I'm an affiliate that earns 30% commission).
Basically, I found the product on FB and they were accepting affiliates hence I joined.
For the FB ad, I used a video ad that was taken from the product's web site.
While I did get a lot of engagement for the video ad, ultimately sales wasn't there and
I had to kill the ad. Total spent $90.

Product #2 - This is a $2 product dropshipped from AliExpress. I found this niche through
working examples from E-commerce course. On hindsight, these niches are probably
the worst to start with as most students will probably choose the same niche.
For the FB ad, I created a video ad that basically showed what the product looked like,
after I ordered one from AliExpress. I think the market for this product is oversaturated
because many courses were using this niche in their examples. As there was no sales,
again I had to kill the ad. Total spent $90.

Product #3 - This niche I completely found by chance. After watching a YouTube video
of another E-Commerce guy, I googled for his product and came across a Shopify store
selling it. Then I used the HTML code to sort by best selling products, and that's when
I discovered this niche. I used Adrian's software to spy on the FB ads and found an ad
that had lots of engagement. Basically, I copied the ad and created my own target audiences,
and this ad set is still running.

I've had 6 sales from my Product #3 so far, where most sales are from overseas. I've tried
segmenting my audience further, and I found that my sweet spot tends to be women aged
34-45. I'll be killing some of the ad sets that are performing poorly and scaling those that are
doing better.

I learned a lot especially about FB marketing even though Product #1 and #2 didn't make
any sales. I'm trying to find a similar product to Product #3, as I have the audience setup
already. So, it's just a matter of selling the similar product to same audiences.

Also, I'm trying to research a new Niche #4, but so far I've not identified any good niches.
My ideal niche would be one that is non-saturated, but consists of buyers especially women.

That's it from me.

Good luck in your journey man and nice job on the 6 sales. Hope you find lots of success too, will be following.

Thanks for keeping us up to date..looking promising.

Hey OP, what tool did you use to spy on FB ads? Can the tool uncover darkposts?

Also, have adrian's course. Its the best one by far, going through it right now. If anyone is interested in it, hit me up.