Instagram Journey to $100K

Congrats buddy. I have to start journey thread like you. Good luck for you earning now.

Congrats on 1 million!! Very happy for you!

After reading all 14 pages, could you elaborate on the drop shipping and aliexpress setup? So are you basically doing something similar to how you can setup a link (like Amazon) and then if they buy it under your link, you get commission?

So in the end affiliate marketing?

Or are you actually stocking inventory and doing the shipping yourself? (Because if you do this, I can't imagine the international shipping costs..)

________________

Also, why didn't you start monetizing with 10k followers? Like CPA offers ("click the link in the bio!")? Is that too little to start?


Thank-you in advance for your response.

ChancellorH said:

After reading all 14 pages, could you elaborate on the drop shipping and aliexpress setup? So are you basically doing something similar to how you can setup a link (like Amazon) and then if they buy it under your link, you get commission?
So in the end affiliate marketing?
Or are you actually stocking inventory and doing the shipping yourself? (Because if you do this, I can't imagine the international shipping costs..)________________
Also, why didn't you start monetizing with 10k followers? Like CPA offers ("click the link in the bio!")? Is that too little to start?
Thank-you in advance for your response.

Click to expand...

1. I plan to buy low, sell high on my own website. I will open up my own store. I will buy a $1 product and sell it for $14.99. I'm being exactly like a mini Walmart, Best-Buy, or any other store in existence. I am designing the store in such a way that no one will know where my products come from, who my suppliers are. Initially I will use the same photos found in AliExpress, but I have plans to hire professional Models and Product Photographer to make my own photos.

2. I won't have any products in stock. I keep zero inventory. The factory with the products will send it for me. This is the essence of dropshipping. (This can be done through AliExpress).

3. I will use my affiliate status to also gain 5% on that $1. So this is a secondary, NOT PRIMARY, way of making income. Making money from CPA is cool, but if you earn $100 from CPA, imagine how much they must be making... 10x the amount. So why not be your own CPA offer too, then you make money twice, as the 1) CPA Link (5%) and 2) CPA end-product-offering (1500%).

4. Shipping - I will pay extra for e-Packet shipping on everything to avoid the 40-Day deliveries and issues with customs.

5. I didn't start monetizing for 4 reasons:

5a. I created a solid business plan. The plan didn't require me to make money at all costs right away. The plan did require me to have at least 1 Million Followers, so if .001% of my followers respond which is EXTREMELY low, what a poor number!, thats still 1000 buyers. and if I can upsell them $50, that might be $50,000. And if I have them on email lists with email drips, I can get them as repeat buyers exactly like a normal e-commerce business. Theres a reason why Email is still king. If Instagram discovers my accounts and bans everything, I still own my email lists. If IG changes the algorithm over and over, doesn't matter I still own my email list. Email list = owning your own Social Network Platform where you set the rules.

5b. I had 5 micro niches ideas and didn't know which one to do. I didn't feel passionate or super strong about any of them yet. Then I recently discovered a 6th idea that was perfect.

5c. I've been EXTREMELY busy, moving continents, finishing school, packing house

5d. I didn't need the money, I have plenty of savings to give me a lot of runway not to rush into anything. I'm treating this like a proper business giving plenty of time to think, plan, test, review. Too many impatient kids on this forum just rushing into everything, getting everything banned, and getting luke-warm results. The good thing I have seen is, even if you do a bad job at marketing, you can still make money, despite yourself.

5e. I didn't want to be that annoying Instagram account that sends advertisements constantly. I unfollow those right away. If I'm going to send out something annoying, I need it to matter. I want it to be a product that I can sell 1000 of and profit 1000% from. So I've been a Sleeping Giant, waiting patiently, not annoying anyone, waiting for the moment coming up.

Ive been following your journey and all I can say is bravo!
Your journey is a step by step to creating a true IG powered $ site.
I have been drop shipping using Shopify + Oberlo + AliExpress (Even Alibaba at times since I keep inventory at times)
Powered by Facebook but looking to multiply my efforts with IG so I commend you and thank you for your knowledge that you are sharing
I wish you great luck monetizing your Ecommerce

I have a question for you, when you scrape images you automatically sync them to your google drive and you set up massplanner to post images from this file?

ladyboyboom69 said:

I have a question for you, when you scrape images you automatically sync them to your google drive and you set up massplanner to post images from this file?

Click to expand...

Thanks for your comments. Its cool to know others using Oberlo. Are you a big fan of it? How long does it take for you to complete someone's order. Like if you get 10 orders, how much personal time do you take to process that?

Yes, the process is simple. Scrape a lot. CURATE. Only hand pick the highest quality ones. Usually 1 in 20 photos make it. Then yes, add to Google Drive. I import manually into MP, add my own Spintext caption, and set the post to re-add the post to the list after posting to recycle forever.

Im a fan of Shopify. Unfortunately Woocommerce didn't cut it for me. Its great to start off but there are too many factors that can and will go wrong. One time I sent so much traffic to my site it crashed. Another time a plugin broke functionality to the site so I lost sales.
After a while I got fed up and switched to Shopify. But maybe I used the wrong plugins who knows. I really like oberlo makes ordering from Aliexpress a breeze. Its great because all you do is browse aliexpress and if you find perfect product just import at the push of 1 button and all details get pushed to site. Once you receive order it takes you though some steps to process order but everything gets processed in no time at all and all info is exported from Shopify to Oberlo and Oberlo to Aliexpress seamlessly.

I think you will not have 1000 sales immediately. This process will be delayed maybe to 100-160 days.
It is also not clear what niche you have chosen, but to fly in the clouds you nobody forbids.
If you look sober, it may be a maximum of 100-400. I think.....
I know from my own experience. Need to find target audience.
If you do not correctly selected your target audience, you will have very small profit.

I had 3 IG accounts. I collected only the target audience and it gives about 1000 users = 300-400 sales.
I had no more than 20K followers and that's enough to monetize....

The number of followers doesn't matter, it's just a number.


P.S. Sapienti Sat

rich13 said:

I think you will not have 1000 sales immediately. This process will be delayed maybe to 100-160 days.
It is also not clear what niche you have chosen, but to fly in the clouds you nobody forbids.
If you look sober, it may be a maximum of 100-400. I think.....
I know from my own experience. Need to find target audience.
If you do not correctly selected your target audience, you will have very small profit.

I had 3 IG accounts. I collected only the target audience and it gives about 1000 users = 300-400 sales.
I had no more than 20K followers and that's enough to monetize....

The number of followers doesn't matter, it's just a number.


P.S. Sapienti Sat

Click to expand...

Thanks!

ladyboyboom69 said:

Im a fan of Shopify. Unfortunately Woocommerce didn't cut it for me. Its great to start off but there are too many factors that can and will go wrong. One time I sent so much traffic to my site it crashed. Another time a plugin broke functionality to the site so I lost sales.
After a while I got fed up and switched to Shopify. But maybe I used the wrong plugins who knows. I really like oberlo makes ordering from Aliexpress a breeze. Its great because all you do is browse aliexpress and if you find perfect product just import at the push of 1 button and all details get pushed to site. Once you receive order it takes you though some steps to process order but everything gets processed in no time at all and all info is exported from Shopify to Oberlo and Oberlo to Aliexpress seamlessly.

Click to expand...

Thanks! Yeah I'm getting random wordpress issues sometimes, and I don't want to lose my chance to get massive sales because I'm being a cheapass. I'm not a developer, nor do I really want to hire one. So I'm starting to rethink Shopify as an option again.

@madblackhatter1000 Thank-you for the answers! I really appreciate how thorough you explained them. Do you mind me asking what your education background is and are you located in States?

ChancellorH said:

@madblackhatter1000 Thank-you for the answers! I really appreciate how thorough you explained them. Do you mind me asking what your education background is and are you located in States?

Click to expand...

Thanks for your comments!

I used to live in the States, but have now moved abroad (as of June). In terms of education background - I have 2 master degrees, 1 of which is an MBA from a university ranked in the top 10 worldwide. The business school really beat into me how to critically analyze opportunities from 20 different perspectives, be your own devil's advocate, how to discover risk and mitigate against it, and sharpen my ability to distinguish someone's story (this forum is full of "stories", "hearsay", "opinions") as a norm, an outlier, or complete luck.

Nice plan.
Can you answer some questions ?

1- How long it takes to complete the order ?(Ali to customer)

2- They don't complain about the package with chinese letters or why the product comes from China ?

3- How you justify the long delay ?


3- Can it work with others country than US(or any country withfast shipping)?
With 30-60 days of delay to complete the order ?

Wolfz said:

Nice plan.
Can you answer some questions ?

1- How long it takes to complete the order ?(Ali to customer)

2- They don't complain about the package with chinese letters or why the product comes from China ?

3- How you justify the long delay ?

3- Can it work with others country than US(or any country withfast shipping)?
With 30-60 days of delay to complete the order ?

Click to expand...

No complaints about packaging. You can tell customers its straight from your factory. Most people these days know a majority of their products come from China, ie iPhones, Macbooks, etc...

Long Delays - pay extra for E-Packet Shipping. Customer receives in 10-15 days instead of 10-40 days. I will incorporate this extra cost into my product pricing and offer Free Shipping.

Theres a youtube explainer video on EPacket -
I can't find the list of supported countries with ePacket, but I know for certain USA, UK, and Australia are included.

Congrats, you have a very detailed journey here. Really motivated me. I also started to manage 100 accounts recently and hope reaching 1M in the end of 2016. I'll be looking forward for your update so I could learn how you monetize this while my accounts still growing. Good luck

madblackhatter1000 said:

No complaints about packaging. You can tell customers its straight from your factory. Most people these days know a majority of their products come from China, ie iPhones, Macbooks, etc...

Long Delays - pay extra for E-Packet Shipping. Customer receives in 10-15 days instead of 10-40 days. I will incorporate this extra cost into my product pricing and offer Free Shipping.

Theres a youtube explainer video on EPacket -

I can't find the list of supported countries with ePacket, but I know for certain USA, UK, and Australia are included.

Click to expand...

They provide the tracking code ?

1,024,000 Followers

Wolfz said:

They provide the tracking code ?

Click to expand...

I am not 100% sure, but I think it does from what I've read. E-Packet tracking is somehow connected with the USPS Shipping and some have said its even better than USPS First Class shipping

What if customer buy for example 2 items from your store at once? 1st item added to his shopping cart, 2nd item added to his shopping cart - total price $50. He will expect to receive the items on the same day, because he bought them from one store (yours) at the same time, but actually the items are from two different AliExpress sellers.

Sorry for my English, I hope you will understand me what I want to say.

troin said:

What if customer buy for example 2 items from your store at once? 1st item added to his shopping cart, 2nd item added to his shopping cart - total price $50. He will expect to receive the items on the same day, because he bought them from one store (yours) at the same time, but actually the items are from two different AliExpress sellers.

Sorry for my English, I hope you will understand me what I want to say.

Click to expand...

This shouldn't be a problem at all. Even Amazon does this. When I order from Amazon, I sometimes get a message "Some products are in stock now. Your order may be split up and shipped immediately so that you receive it faster. The remaining products will be shipped asap (typically in a few days)."