I QUIT

sexyaf said:

I have one bohemian clothing store and one general store where i sell trending products from big pages like dudegadgets,iwantone etc

My main problem is my cpa is almost breaking even.
Sometimes i make money and sometimes i loose it.
Since cpms have risen in usa ,its hard to get cost per purchase less than $20

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What kind of analytics you use to determine how you achieve your goals?

Do you use dynamic retargeting to show ads of previously watched / added to cart products? or only tracking the add to cart event itself.

when you identify winners in your general store you need to scale both ways - source the product for cheaper, for a bigger margin and better control, now that you have control, try to spread out of US for said product.

Optimize your campaigns, increase the budget for strong products, change their positioning on site, create UI elemetns that promote them etc.

Now when profitable,

Reach new audiences, create Look a Likes of your existing data etc.

When your CPA is low and youre always on the line you have to optimize to scale what is working and cut resource sink on what doesn't.

find your mistake and work on that.

FB ads do make sense when you have a nice build brand image and a lot of money to spend. Since FB ads are all about experiencing different audiences, you need too much money. If you have a good brand, people are more likely to spend money - they trust you. So you have much bigger chances of getting sales through your ads.

I recommend you to build your social media sites and focusing on SEO. Once you rank nicely, the sales are coming to you by yourself. The money you have put into the links will come back to you.

Social sites will generate some orders for free, build your brand and help your SEO. Then you can start to work on your email list and email marketing.

One of the most important rules here is to not make your ventures your only income.
As eveyrone else said here, you have so much analytics and experience to work with, dont give up so easily.
BUT, if this is your only source of income, maybe you need something more stable. You can't live by breaking even.

I feel your pain. Gave the dropshipping thing a try and I could not break even.
It's important to know when to quit.
However, like has already been said, don't give up until you exhaust all options.
Take a break from it. Think about it.
Talk to other folks. Look at other ways to bring in traffic.
Remember, there was an economy before social media. Tell a friend. Tell family.
Send out flyers. Do radio spots.
Do something.
Once you exhaust all other options, then you can end it knowing you gave everything you've got.

sexyaf said:

Even 100$ per day is great for me

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Are you making like $50 and that's not enough? lol. $100 are very good I don't see the problem.
I, myself am thinking in giving a try to dropshipping but I can certanly say that it's not for everyone.
Maybe you are cut for something else.
Of course you need to try a little harder and change some things about the way you do it.
Nobody will ever reach success if they don't try and fail once or twice. GUARANTEED!
Like our dear member said :

mickyfu said:

by switching holes.

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damusic2010 said:

I feel your pain. Gave the dropshipping thing a try and I could not break even.
It's important to know when to quit.
However, like has already been said, don't give up until you exhaust all options.
Take a break from it. Think about it.
Talk to other folks. Look at other ways to bring in traffic.
Remember, there was an economy before social media. Tell a friend. Tell family.
Send out flyers. Do radio spots.
Do something.
Once you exhaust all other options, then you can end it knowing you gave everything you've got.

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What do you do now?
I need to find some other work.

When

zionbar said:

Dropshipping in my opinion is one of the worst and hardest ways to make money online period.

Of course you can make money with it, but you can also make money selling poo. Doesnt mean you should. There are far better ways IMO to make money with, I myself hate dropshipping... 0 control + you get to compete with a billion other shit heads that are doing the exact same thing..too low of an entry barrier... every idiot thinks hell set up a facebook ad and make millions like the youtube super-gurus. lol.

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DO you base your opinion on perception or facts?

I am thinking these past few months to start the whole dropshipping thing but posts like yours make me reevaluate everything.

Similar to OP , I went through all of those courses from the best dropshippers. Also , the more I go through BHW I realize how little do I know about internet marketing , which is essential for dropshipping . Aaaagh

sexyaf said:

What do you do now?
I need to find some other work.

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Someone mention fiver and upwork. Go there. Find jobs that you might be good at.
Also, people are sometimes looking for help on this board as well.

If you want to do anything online the fundamentals are the same.
You cannot escape the fact that you need traffic and you need to promo your brand.

Coming here and getting ideas, reading journey threads and posts like these not only inspire, but they educate.
Stop paying for courses and taking lessons.

Step away from dropshipping if you must, but continue to learn as much as you can about IM.

Dropshipping can be a tough one to crack I think many who try go about it the wrong way. More so now as google is limiting less out going results and trying to answer everything on page I think trying to do anything with marketing in terms of a product is going be tough and getting any sales direct is going to be harder again over the coming years as you will need to build a loyal customer base to keep consumers returning which when drop shipping a single product or specific product line can be tough.

Few thoughts that may help and may have already been suggested on this forum.

1. Multi channel sell and list your product everywhere the more people you can reach the better your chances, try not to compete on price not all customers are driven by price BUT then can depend on your product so research is key.

2. Anything you do drop ship buy it first, get it home and set up some cheap photo shoots either you doing it or pay someone to take product photos for you plenty of services online do this for $5/£5 per product.. Once you got set of decent photos set up 3 brands. Low, Middle and High sell the same product 3 times change the wording and price point to target different classes of people. Selling one product for £50 on the low end is great selling the same product for £150 because of the 'appearance' of a quality brand is even better.

3. Any drop shipping service id look at selling something that the customer will always need or something that goes along with it. If its battery powered buy a wholesale pack of batteries from amazon 48 or more split them up to the number of batteries required for you product and set a quarterly email to the customer:

"Hey Joe, No doubt your having fun with your new toy Id imagine now the batteries are getting low if not run out take a look at this months offer we have 2 batteries for X. "

If your doing pet products summer offer a flea comb, Christmas a special (pet specific) stocking or toy, winter months dog collar LED < then tie this back to the batteries..

4. Spend $1/£1/€1 per day on finding real facebook users to like your page, use your page info to create ads to target people similar to them, half your research metric is done through the people who like your page now you just need to refine it and make that work for you and the product your selling.

Think dropshipping works but if you do it like everyone else your just another one trying to make it. Good Luck.

What I gather it is all about the niche/product, if you target saturated niches where there are so many ppl fighting over the same cx , then it is really hard.

But If you are able to find a "hidden" not yet explored line of products then you have a chance. In that case you do not need to be a fb ads master eitther, as long as you can hit some relatively good targets

night must fall said:

What I gather it is all about the niche/product, if you target saturated niches where there are so many ppl fighting over the same cx , then it is really hard.

But If you are able to find a "hidden" not yet explored line of products then you have a chance. In that case you do not need to be a fb ads master eitther, as long as you can hit some relatively good targets

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I kinda liked your answer and where can i find my hidden gems

sexyaf said:

I am doing dropshipping from last 1 year.
I have listened to almost every GURU out there and have taken paid course of Ecom Elites.
I have two stores , one general and one niche based.
I am getting sales almost daily, but still i am not profitable.
The dropship market is oversaturated now and lot of big players are trying to compete and they can afford to breakeven at frontend.

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I wish I have an website to make sales and 0 profit after everything.

Meddie said:

I wish I have an website to make sales and 0 profit after everything.

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run ads on my store and we can split the profit

sexyaf said:

run ads on my store and we can split the profit

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What profit if you said it`s 0?

zionbar said:

Dropshipping in my opinion is one of the worst and hardest ways to make money online period.

Of course you can make money with it, but you can also make money selling poo. Doesnt mean you should. There are far better ways IMO to make money with, I myself hate dropshipping... 0 control + you get to compete with a billion other shit heads that are doing the exact same thing..too low of an entry barrier... every idiot thinks hell set up a facebook ad and make millions like the youtube super-gurus. lol.

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sooo.... what ARE those far better ways in your opinion?

I won't tell you what everybody else is repeating, this path is not for all, good luck brother it was nice to see you around, good luck in your next endeavours... one thing is to quit without trying another very different is to try and realize this path is not for you... to know when to quit is a wise desicion.

Wooten said:

sooo.... what ARE those far better ways in your opinion?

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The way you market. I dont believe facebook ads is the best way. I think there are better way I cant know that because I dont do dropshipping, but if I had to i would try influencers make them promote it / do video reviews of your product ,way cheaper than the freaking facebook ads

or build a site make it rank and promote it as a "review" for your own products that you sell

idk just not a huge fan of facebook ads... Ithink we missed the train on facebook ads generally

night must fall said:

When

DO you base your opinion on perception or facts?

I am thinking these past few months to start the whole dropshipping thing but posts like yours make me reevaluate everything.

Similar to OP , I went through all of those courses from the best dropshippers. Also , the more I go through BHW I realize how little do I know about internet marketing , which is essential for dropshipping . Aaaagh

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Here are my facts

10+ years online, had success with MANY methods [some more others less, but still, made it work]
Couldnt make this method work.
spent a few thousands on facebook ads trying to make money with shopify
with proper research and a 'niche ' site
ROI - a loss of around 30% of the money

and it wasnt my first time buying traffic, i mean I made money with adwords for crying out loud [much more expensive than facebook ads] but the traffic on facebook nowadys for me was just shit.. plus facebooks whole purpose is to keep people on their shitty platform - they dont want to send them to your site and thats a fact I mean look at how they make you spend money in order to promote to your own facebook page fans! lol.

so maybe it can work but im not giving it another shot while i can make so much more money, with a wayyyyyy ( I mean wayyyyyyy) lower risk ... its just too risky / expensive to find out which freaking products will sell when these ads are so expensive

bottom line - not trying to discourage anyone thats just my experience, maybe it will work for others but just come with a big budget because facebook will drink your money like its a freaking protein shake after a workout.