Dropshipping Gameplan help

DonkeyBrains

DonkeyBrains

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Howdy BHW,

So i've been researching dropshipping for about 2 months now and I think i'd like to start a store. However, I don't wanna go in blind and just waste my money so I need to develop a gameplan.

So here's my newbie gameplan so far:

1. Pick Niche
a. I am leaning towards the cannabis niche because there are so many cheap accessories that you need. Planning on making some accessory bundles if possible
b. I've also thought about a fishtank site or a sportfishing site but I think the audience might be too small

2. Set up shop through shopify
a. As for plugins, i've heard a lot of good things about Oberlo so I will probably be using it
b. Load store up with relevant items
c. Looking for plugin that will let me take email signups to my store (any suggestions?)
d. Mailchimp so i can mail out coupons
e. Perhaps a review service to boost legitimacy
f. I can create logos myself, planning on using a store theme for the rest of the site
g. Get a paypal account and plugin


3. Acquire traffic for my site
a. I will be making an Instagram account and asking other high-follower accounts to do shoutouts, I wanna do rev-share but not sure what % is appropriate for this. 25%?
b. I'm already attending a large traffic conference in January, I'm thinking that I can find a few sources of traffic for my site from CBD email lists or something.
c. I've heard quite a bit about SEO being dead from my friends/coworkers but i'm still considering it along with SEM. If I do this it will probably be a few months down the road
d. Buy followers for instagram account??

4. Keep site updated
a. Type up an About Us page for the site
b. Type up a FAQ page
c. Product descriptions (will likely be adding these as I add products to the site)
d. Have regular discounts and sales
e. Keep Instagram account updated, repost from high-follower accounts and do periodical shoutouts



So how does my donkey-brained gameplan look? I'm worried I don't have things prioritized correctly... As I said before i'm kind of a newbie so feedback is welcome, planning on having this whole thing up by late January or early February. Thanks for reading
 
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I'm in a similar boat. Just getting into ecommerce and IM.
I'll be following your thread.
Your plan looks decent, no doubt there are many more steps to fill in the space between each item you already listed.
 
Ye don't want to buy followers for the Instagram account, not only does it make the engagement look bad but Instagram also shows your post to 10% of your followers and you really don't want it showing posts to fake accounts instead of real potential customers.
 
Good luck - looks like your plan is solid so should work!
 
A donkey would actually have a better plan...

1. Dont try to dropship cheap products then everyone can get locally. In North America we can get cannabis accessories anywhere very cheap and fast without waiting for a package from China.

2. Shopify is an over-hyped platform, why pay for something you can get for free.

If you've ever peeked at the shopify user questions and feedback section on the shopify site you'll see hundreds of people with failed stores who had the same plan as you...

Why not start with a static html website and use a paypal buy now button on your product page to see how things will go before you go down the garden path of broken dreams.
 
AceWallGromit said:
A donkey would actually have a better plan...

1. Dont try to dropship cheap products then everyone can get locally. In North America we can get cannabis accessories anywhere very cheap and fast without waiting for a package from China.

2. Shopify is an over-hyped platform, why pay for something you can get for free.

If you've ever peeked at the shopify user questions and feedback section on the shopify site you'll see hundreds of people with failed stores who had the same plan as you...

Why not start with a static html website and use a paypal buy now button on your product page to see how things will go before you go down the garden path of broken dreams.
Click to expand...
Shopify is the mainstream nowdays. So called IM gurus ruined the market for all of us because they wanted to make some money of their shitty courses. WOOcommerce is the better way nowadays also, I agree with you dude he has no plan.
 
AceWallGromit said:
A donkey would actually have a better plan...

1. Dont try to dropship cheap products then everyone can get locally. In North America we can get cannabis accessories anywhere very cheap and fast without waiting for a package from China.

2. Shopify is an over-hyped platform, why pay for something you can get for free.

If you've ever peeked at the shopify user questions and feedback section on the shopify site you'll see hundreds of people with failed stores who had the same plan as you...

Why not start with a static html website and use a paypal buy now button on your product page to see how things will go before you go down the garden path of broken dreams.
Click to expand...
correct, i agree, why pay monthly service when ou can create your own store, i have several stores runing woocomerce with some plugins that help me with the logistics, i am trying to keep my cost as low as posible
 
AceWallGromit said:
A donkey would actually have a better plan...

1. Dont try to dropship cheap products then everyone can get locally. In North America we can get cannabis accessories anywhere very cheap and fast without waiting for a package from China.

2. Shopify is an over-hyped platform, why pay for something you can get for free.

If you've ever peeked at the shopify user questions and feedback section on the shopify site you'll see hundreds of people with failed stores who had the same plan as you...

Why not start with a static html website and use a paypal buy now button on your product page to see how things will go before you go down the garden path of broken dreams.
Click to expand...

1. 90% of the dropshipping stores i've looked at have very cheap products which are available locally, isnt that the point? My market advantage would be almost purely in the prices I could offer. Another counter to this is that I will be trying to see if I can get manufacturers to ship bundles of products and offer a subscription service for monthly deliveries of that bundle. Secondly, I'm going for a worldwide audience, not just North America.

2. After doing some research over the past couple of weeks I actually 100% agree with you on shopify being overhyped and overpriced, The problem is I cant code in HTML very proficiently so I will have to re-learn this to start up the Woocommerce site.

I have not changed my mind about buying IG followers but i will clarify what I meant:
There are several services available (even a few on this site) which will grow your instagram account through several different bot methods. These services go for 20-$50, and I honestly do not have the time to put into growing an IG account in an honest way. I plan to stop using services and go 100% legit after reaching a set amount of followers. This will save me tons of time and effort as growing an IG page organically is apparently really hard from what i've read across several forums.

If I can balloon an IG page up large enough and take some space in whatever niche I decide to go with I will also be able to monetize the page by charging similar pages for shoutouts on my own page.

Thanks for engaging yall, I will begin checking this regularly now
 
You can start a developer account on shopify, and make a free store. I found out how on this site. Just search for it. And then you can play around with it before you actually spend a dime. That's the route i went and man its mind boggling making a site especially if your a neat freak and perfectionist. But That is the way I would go. Just dive in and get your hands or i guess fingers dirty.... lol
I'm pretty sure if i remember correctly your first 50 sales are free of charge and then they make you pay from there on out.
But if you make it to 50 sales you'll have enough confidence to buy the real deal and better upgrades.
Good luck!
 
AceWallGromit said:
A donkey would actually have a better plan...

1. Dont try to dropship cheap products then everyone can get locally. In North America we can get cannabis accessories anywhere very cheap and fast without waiting for a package from China.

2. Shopify is an over-hyped platform, why pay for something you can get for free.

If you've ever peeked at the shopify user questions and feedback section on the shopify site you'll see hundreds of people with failed stores who had the same plan as you...

Why not start with a static html website and use a paypal buy now button on your product page to see how things will go before you go down the garden path of broken dreams.
Click to expand...
You're right, dude! I kept meaning to use Shopify , but after calculating how much it would cost me I just backed out. It seemed to be quite expensive. I chose WordPress after all.
 
DonkeyBrains said:
1. 90% of the dropshipping stores i've looked at have very cheap products which are available locally, isnt that the point? My market advantage would be almost purely in the prices I could offer. Another counter to this is that I will be trying to see if I can get manufacturers to ship bundles of products and offer a subscription service for monthly deliveries of that bundle. Secondly, I'm going for a worldwide audience, not just North America.

2. After doing some research over the past couple of weeks I actually 100% agree with you on shopify being overhyped and overpriced, The problem is I cant code in HTML very proficiently so I will have to re-learn this to start up the Woocommerce site.

I have not changed my mind about buying IG followers but i will clarify what I meant:
There are several services available (even a few on this site) which will grow your instagram account through several different bot methods. These services go for 20-$50, and I honestly do not have the time to put into growing an IG account in an honest way. I plan to stop using services and go 100% legit after reaching a set amount of followers. This will save me tons of time and effort as growing an IG page organically is apparently really hard from what i've read across several forums.

If I can balloon an IG page up large enough and take some space in whatever niche I decide to go with I will also be able to monetize the page by charging similar pages for shoutouts on my own page.

Thanks for engaging yall, I will begin checking this regularly now
Click to expand...

You are already on the right path, just execute it. If you are not expert in HTML and web development, just focus on your strength - building your business instead of spending time learning new things just to save couple dollars.

Business requires investment - money or your work and time. Personally, I choose the Shopify and Oberlo for starting dropshipping business. Off-course there are other alternatives, but I prefer to start it fast and learn as much as possible, make more sales so I can pay all business overheads and expenses.

In business, cheap or expensive is relative, if you spent $100 but make $1,000 it is cheap. But if you spent $1 but you only make $1.1, it is expensive..
 
shinshugita said:
You are already on the right path, just execute it. If you are not expert in HTML and web development, just focus on your strength - building your business instead of spending time learning new things just to save couple dollars.

Business requires investment - money or your work and time. Personally, I choose the Shopify and Oberlo for starting dropshipping business. Off-course there are other alternatives, but I prefer to start it fast and learn as much as possible, make more sales so I can pay all business overheads and expenses.

In business, cheap or expensive is relative, if you spent $100 but make $1,000 it is cheap. But if you spent $1 but you only make $1.1, it is expensive..
Click to expand...

Thanks for the encouragement! The first step feels like it's going to be a doozie but i'm confident i'll be able to make this successful if I plan and set it up correctly. I think if I keep my mind ROI-focused as you described (with regards to both time and $) I will be on the right path. I'm pretty set on setting it up with Woocommerce

What i've done in the past week:
I've set aside a budget of $1k for this project and i'm now aiming to start really building everything out in January. Currently researching HTML site-building services, instagram bot services, and site plugins for Woocommerce. As mentioned in the OP I am headed to a traffic conference in january so I am also researching attending companies for shopping traffic across several niches. not sure if paid traffic will be effective but i'm willing to throw a test at it, i worry my main problem regarding this will be that my budget is too small for large companies with decent traffic as they usually require a $1k deposit. If anybody knows companies with decent traffic that will take a smaller deposit please let me know
 
Look at this playlist then look at his latest playlists. This guy is great, he is pushing his app but everything is doable just with oberlo. You will have here a "gameplan" with details on how to do every step. You will learn a lot about Facebook ads, choosing products, making your shop, choosing a name and a domain and many more.

Code: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqiDImRoleY&list=PLKmKkEoJtB-C4dugQTfjn13Y1aL1dcu76

Now go and make some money!
 
DonkeyBrains said:
1. 90% of the dropshipping stores i've looked at have very cheap products which are available locally, isnt that the point? My market advantage would be almost purely in the prices I could offer. Another counter to this is that I will be trying to see if I can get manufacturers to ship bundles of products and offer a subscription service for monthly deliveries of that bundle. Secondly, I'm going for a worldwide audience, not just North America.

2. After doing some research over the past couple of weeks I actually 100% agree with you on shopify being overhyped and overpriced, The problem is I cant code in HTML very proficiently so I will have to re-learn this to start up the Woocommerce site.

I have not changed my mind about buying IG followers but i will clarify what I meant:
There are several services available (even a few on this site) which will grow your instagram account through several different bot methods. These services go for 20-$50, and I honestly do not have the time to put into growing an IG account in an honest way. I plan to stop using services and go 100% legit after reaching a set amount of followers. This will save me tons of time and effort as growing an IG page organically is apparently really hard from what i've read across several forums.

If I can balloon an IG page up large enough and take some space in whatever niche I decide to go with I will also be able to monetize the page by charging similar pages for shoutouts on my own page.

Thanks for engaging yall, I will begin checking this regularly now
Click to expand...

1. The prices you think are competitive have you worked out shipping, materials, the time it takes to pack stuff, processing fees etc. All of that eats into a business that is focusing on price. IF your sole business model is to focus on price then your going to fail, because this is what happens:

- Local store sells it for 10
- You decide to sell it for 9
- Next newcomer comes in and sells it for 7
- You need to compete, so decide to sell it for 5 with free postage

Within 6 months your profit has gone from everything to make a few pence and now it becomes a number game, this is what happened with the tech industry I remember being able to sell a TV or Computer make 200-300 on the unit and that's without the upsells now you would be lucky to make 10% of that..

Forget the price model go back to your other idea of bundling products. Compile a pile of products if it all costs 30 to buy separate do it for 24.95 or 26.95 whatever the margins allow without giving it away. You want the customer to feel they are getting a deal without it costing you in the long run.

If needs be, use normal RRPs and discount against that it's all about how the customer perceives it. If and when bundling end in 5s so .45, .95 rather than .99 keep .99 for discounts or single product prices.

IF your going subscription base your going to want to get your units in stock so you can ship them your self as soon as payment comes in. Last thing you want.

Someone pays out for a subscription and then waits 30 days for the product to arrive and then they are at the next billing date before they had the first subscription order. Your just going to burn through a customer list.

Figure out some products you can sell as a package and then offer a subscription for the consumables such as cleaning cloths or what ever it maybe!

2. I'll let you figure that out.

3. DONT BUY TRAFFIC, FOLLOWERS OR ANYTHING for an ecomemrce site. All your going to do is screw up your marketing audience pool, have a pile of users who don't buy. Converting social media users is one of the hardest things you can do when your running an ecommerce store it's all about the numbers the last thing you want to do is fudge up that data and the pool your marketing to.

If you don't have time to grow it, forget about going into a business it's going to eat your time. You can't be lazy, nothing is fast it all takes time. Chip away at it. And build a solid following base if your posting decent photos, images and content using the relevant hashtags people will come. Just set a daily alarm to post at 5 different times of the day, people will follow. Keep active they will come. Buying anything and your shooting your self in the foot.

The last bit you made about selling shout outs.. SIGH. Your store is YOURS now after you worked hard on getting all them customers you want to tell them to buy from a competitor? Do you think PEPSI tells it's audience to go and buy COKE? NO! As soon as you start to market your social following your giving up on the shop and moving into a different game altogether.



Ecommerce is not the industry for fast returns the .com days are long gone, you can read about people hitting a target on here or some figure not many say if that's profit or turn over. And people can type whatever they want online - that's the internet for you!

If I was you, I would take that $1000. Put 900 in the bank and use 100 to go buying from competitors. Look at what they are selling, see how they ship it. See if there are any manufactures marks you can go and source it. Once you done all that then build a business around being better than them.

They where slow shipping? - Be faster.
Customer service sucks? - Be a nicer business owner.

Find out what's shit about your competition and be everything they are not. Make that your USP and NOT PRICE.

Good luck.
 
8bit_production said:
Look at this playlist then look at his latest playlists. This guy is great, he is pushing his app but everything is doable just with oberlo. You will have here a "gameplan" with details on how to do every step. You will learn a lot about Facebook ads, choosing products, making your shop, choosing a name and a domain and many more.

Code:

Now go and make some money!
Click to expand...

Thanks for the study materials, will definitely be taking some notes

t2van said:
1. The prices you think are competitive have you worked out shipping, materials, the time it takes to pack stuff, processing fees etc. All of that eats into a business that is focusing on price. IF your sole business model is to focus on price then your going to fail, because this is what happens:

- Local store sells it for 10
- You decide to sell it for 9
- Next newcomer comes in and sells it for 7
- You need to compete, so decide to sell it for 5 with free postage

Within 6 months your profit has gone from everything to make a few pence and now it becomes a number game, this is what happened with the tech industry I remember being able to sell a TV or Computer make 200-300 on the unit and that's without the upsells now you would be lucky to make 10% of that..

Forget the price model go back to your other idea of bundling products. Compile a pile of products if it all costs 30 to buy separate do it for 24.95 or 26.95 whatever the margins allow without giving it away. You want the customer to feel they are getting a deal without it costing you in the long run.

If needs be, use normal RRPs and discount against that it's all about how the customer perceives it. If and when bundling end in 5s so .45, .95 rather than .99 keep .99 for discounts or single product prices.

IF your going subscription base your going to want to get your units in stock so you can ship them your self as soon as payment comes in. Last thing you want.

Someone pays out for a subscription and then waits 30 days for the product to arrive and then they are at the next billing date before they had the first subscription order. Your just going to burn through a customer list.

Figure out some products you can sell as a package and then offer a subscription for the consumables such as cleaning cloths or what ever it maybe!

2. I'll let you figure that out.

3. DONT BUY TRAFFIC, FOLLOWERS OR ANYTHING for an ecomemrce site. All your going to do is screw up your marketing audience pool, have a pile of users who don't buy. Converting social media users is one of the hardest things you can do when your running an ecommerce store it's all about the numbers the last thing you want to do is fudge up that data and the pool your marketing to.

If you don't have time to grow it, forget about going into a business it's going to eat your time. You can't be lazy, nothing is fast it all takes time. Chip away at it. And build a solid following base if your posting decent photos, images and content using the relevant hashtags people will come. Just set a daily alarm to post at 5 different times of the day, people will follow. Keep active they will come. Buying anything and your shooting your self in the foot.

The last bit you made about selling shout outs.. SIGH. Your store is YOURS now after you worked hard on getting all them customers you want to tell them to buy from a competitor? Do you think PEPSI tells it's audience to go and buy COKE? NO! As soon as you start to market your social following your giving up on the shop and moving into a different game altogether.



Ecommerce is not the industry for fast returns the .com days are long gone, you can read about people hitting a target on here or some figure not many say if that's profit or turn over. And people can type whatever they want online - that's the internet for you!

If I was you, I would take that $1000. Put 900 in the bank and use 100 to go buying from competitors. Look at what they are selling, see how they ship it. See if there are any manufactures marks you can go and source it. Once you done all that then build a business around being better than them.

They where slow shipping? - Be faster.
Customer service sucks? - Be a nicer business owner.

Find out what's shit about your competition and be everything they are not. Make that your USP and NOT PRICE.

Good luck.
Click to expand...

1. You don't have to worry about shipping, order fulfillment, or inventory with the dropshipping method of business. The manufacturers will handle all of that. This leaves me with the ability to solely focus on driving traffic to my site. I know i will be at a disadvantage when it comes to shipping (China doesnt have 2 day shipping worldwide lol) but i beleive I can compensate with pricing and good marketing. Coupons, Deals, bundles, my customer service, and the overall feel of the Instagram page + site.

2. Working on it still

3. Instagram will be my source of "organic" traffic once the page gets big enough. i'm hoping it will begin snowballing but not planning on it. The email marketing or CPC ads would be supplemental and I will have to test out quite a bit I fear. agree 100% with having to find out where I can out-compete competitors, thanks for the rest of the advice!


LIFE UPDATE:

My Laptop pulled the Blue Screen of Death on me today, looks like i'm either running this off of my iPad or buying a new laptop :/ Life is a real kick in the nuts sometimes.
 
AceWallGromit said:
A donkey would actually have a better plan...

1. Dont try to dropship cheap products then everyone can get locally. In North America we can get cannabis accessories anywhere very cheap and fast without waiting for a package from China.

2. Shopify is an over-hyped platform, why pay for something you can get for free.

If you've ever peeked at the shopify user questions and feedback section on the shopify site you'll see hundreds of people with failed stores who had the same plan as you...

Why not start with a static html website and use a paypal buy now button on your product page to see how things will go before you go down the garden path of broken dreams.
Click to expand...
mhtro said:
Shopify is the mainstream nowdays. So called IM gurus ruined the market for all of us because they wanted to make some money of their shitty courses. WOOcommerce is the better way nowadays also, I agree with you dude he has no plan.
Click to expand...


Hi guys,

Shopify isn't a good option if u expect to sell in different currencies (just a mess, the cart does reverse the purchase amount in the single store currency while checking out >>> lots of abandoned carts), if you wanna share your products or manage multiple stores, and even multiple language isn't that good. Moreover they charge 2% per transaction, and u have to pay monthly for each little plugin.... To finish, internal security is a total breach, don't espect any scaling with such a crappy tool.

Woocommerce may be a better option, cheaper (but not that cheap cause it's also monthly payments with most of woocommerce modules). Problem there is bugs, lots of plugins incompatibity, not-stop plugin new versions, weird CMS layered structure, all of this isn't really stable.... Security isn't very good too, but on the external side. But at least, for internal, this is not the Shopify total amateurism. In my humble opinion, Wordpress is GREAT for landing page. For serious business, i don't trust much this plateform.

Personnaly, after lots of researches, i'll opt for Prestashop : native multi-everything, without having to pay for everything every month. U pay one time, and that's it. U can scale ur business and share your work for every products on multiple stores and that's it. Internal security is awesome (u can tune every single right for every single function for every single user).

There are lots of other offers on the market that need investigation (Joomla, etc....), but to be honest, i don't have time to look after each of them. On sure thing, is that Shopify is expensive, not secured, and very low functional for multi-currency sotres.

I understand you want to use Shopify mostly because of the Oberlo plugin... Most plateforms have their own Oberlo.... In fact, without Oberlo and Aliexepress, Shopify wouldn't even exist in the e-commerce plateforms landscape... Think about success, my friend, and scaling capabilities, if success occurs... :)
 
Last edited:
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