[METHOD] Dropshipping made as easy as it can be

GRQ Thomas said:

Only via BHW

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GRQ Thomas said:

Hey guys,

Recently been trying to be more active on Blackhat since I'm liking this community - both for the intellect and the motive behind doing things. Nonetheless, I decided to post a method that's been working for me for the past 2 months with, in my opinion, pretty good results. It ain't nothing new, but I have a few tips that may help any newcomers. The method isn't really too milked either, so you can still jump into it yourself, I'm just moving on to other things (got bored lol).

Nonetheless, the method is - dropshipping on Etsy.

Ain't nothing new, as I mentioned before, but there's a specific way to do things since Etsy isn't very fond of people dropshipping on their website.

For starters, you'll need to pick a niche. I'd reccommend women's clothing, anime and TV shows(be careful with copyright infringement) and jewelry. If you want more detailed statistics of your own website or simply the trends, you can purchase a subscription on erank.com - $5.99/mo

You first step is probably the most crucial one. This is an issue I ran into multiple times. When you first create a store and upload your first products, it'll take about a week or so for you to be verified. Now, there isn't any DIRECT indication of verification, but I know it exists. Etsy moderators review your store. If they see you dropshipping products from aliexpress, they'll ban you. Simple as that. There is, however, one way around it. Integrate Printful into your store. Act as if you're going to sell POD shirts or whatever. This is *semi* allowed, so be careful about the niches you pick. Nonetheless, these shirts most likely won't generate a sale for you, since there's literally thousands of POD stores on Etsy. Nonetheless, a very crucial step to not get yourself banned instantly. Once the supposed verification process passes, you can add the aliexpress products.

Next, once you've made your store, you have your products, here are some little tips to optimise everything for as many sales as possible:
1) Make 25% discounts on everything. Advertise a 25% storewide sale. This means, take the price you want to sell something at ($19.99), divide it by 3 and multiply it by 4. That way you get the price you need to set your product at before the sale. Under marketing, sales and coupons, make the sale and apply it to all your products.

2) Keep your stock low. You have the ability to change the quantity of your items. If you keep it at 3-5, it'll say in red letters under the listing: "Only X left and Y people have it in their carts". Just a good lil motivator for people to buy the product. Make sure you edit the quantity every once in a while so your listing doesnt end, otherwise you need to pay to renew it.

3) Fake accounts and reviews. This is an important one. A friend of mine got banned in this way. Let the verification process pass (around a week or so) and then create 2 fake accounts and buy the items from yourself. This way you can write reviews for yourself and also increase the number of sales you have - alot easier to convince people to buy something from you if you have 2 sales rather than 0. Also, from these fake accounts, add all your items in to the fake account carts. Why? Well, inside the shopping carts, it says the same "Only X left and Y people have it in their carts", essentially just motivating people to buy your item before it supposedly goes out of stock. BE VERY CAREFUL WITH THIS, IF YOUR FAKE ACCOUNT SOMEHOW LINKS BACK TO YOU, YOUR ACCOUNT WILL BE PERMANENTLY BANNED.

4) Set your processing time to 3-5 days and your shipping time to 7-21 days. Say that it ships from China.

5) Not everything can be sold. Many things will get you sent a copyright infringement letter. Get 3 of those, and you're out. Research on Etsy, pretty easy to see what can and can't be sold. Just Etsy search it. If you can sell it, there'll be basically 1 on 1 copies of pictures from the niche. If there's drawings, look alike things, etc. - probably cant be sold. As an example - Naruto - can't be sold.

I'm personally in the anime and TV show niche and it's doing alright. Etsy have VERY simple advertising, which is great. It's a decent bit of work, but it'll be worth it. Also Etsy have a great app on your phone for sellers, so you can always stay up to date with whats happening to your store.

Lastly, I've attached my stats from the last week. I have to point out that this was a GOOD week, better than usual, so don't get too hyped. I've only been on Etsy for 2 months, god knows what'll happen in the 3rd. Truth be told, there is one incredibly good part of this - once your items rank in the top listings for a specific niche, they'll keep selling without any advertising. Last week, I didn't advertise at all, which is why it's so special. Of the $937 total revenue, $678 was profit, after fee's rounding to around 580eur or $600. My countries minimum wage is 450eur or around $470, so I'd say this is more than enough for this stream of income.

If you have any questions, be sure to message me on here or leave it in the comments of the thread. I'd love to integrate myself into the community more and become active. Good luck and work hard

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syphon88 said:

Hi there just saw your post and i must say that im interested in trying it out, would creating a store based on season festivities like halloween be wise? Also ive checked on Etsy and there are some who are already doing it, what would be the best way for a new store to beat them at their own game?

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nichefoxscout said:

Thanks so much for sharing this! Damn motivating!

After reading yours and a couple of other threads here on this forum about POD I opened up a Printful account and an Etsy shop yesterday and uploaded 10 designs right away, and another 10 today.

Is this even feasable?

I would love to make sure I'm going in the right direction and some quick answers could help.

A specific question i have is about testing: what do i test for?

I currently design simple quote shirts with a cute font geared towards teen girls.

The only variable is the quote itself.

The idea is to keep uploading to test hundreds of quotes and the one that sells I will put some work into for redesign to make it more appealing and get even more sales.


Is this the right way of doing things?

I also researched POD ads with the $1 subscription of adspy and have a library to steal from and redisgn them with canva.

I'm a big fan of copy paste worflows

The other question is actually about workflow optimization:

Currently I'm writing headlines and description myself which takes a lot of time.

Is it even necessary to customize each description?

How much effort do I need to put into the title or can I just customize the first three words and leave the rest filled with keywords?

Thanks

PS: Sorry for highjacking your thread feel free to delete if not wanted.

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GRQ Thomas said:

Hey! I'll do my best to answer all of your questions!
1. POD is (relatively) feasable. IMO too small profit margins to even try, but at least it's fully legit. It's sort of worth it for the long term, if everything works out. Long term = 1y+

2. Test the product. If you do POD, test designs. Just see what does best and you'll know the pattern to follow. Say you have 10 shirts, each in one color. You see the red one does best. Great - just add more red shirts and advertise them. Ofcourse, no guarantee the other red shirts will do good as well, but you get the point.

3.That is the right way of doing things!! I cannot recommend erank.com enough - GREAT for keywords and to see what's trending. You can also use the Etsy search, type in something generic like teen tshirt or cute tshirt and see what comes up, then try to do something similar.

4. About the headlines and descriptions - the headlines are all somewhat similar, but I like to differ the very begining of it. For example, two different shirts, but both in the anime niche could be titled " Hunter x Hunter Anime Shirt | Anime Gifts Clothing | Anime Japan Merchandise" and "Avatar The Last Airbender Anime Shirt | Anime Gifts Clothing | Anime Japan Merchandise". It's important to add a decent bit of keywords for Etsy and Google SEO. For descriptions, the idea is similar. If you're gonna do POD, you'll have the same information about the tshirts. I do my descriptions like this(Numbers are lines): 1. FREE SHIPPING 2. ___ Tshirt by storename blah blah blah 3. Information about the shirts like % of cotton, where its from etc. This way, you write one standard description, but only change the blank before the Tshirt to fit the idea, whether its pets or anime or whatever.

Thanks for reaching out, I love to interact with you all!

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GRQ Thomas said:

Nope, all good, you can be from pretty much any country. Also, it can vary. What I mean by that is - my shop is supposedly located in London, United Kingdom. Buyers see that location right under my name. In product pages, it says the item ships from China, which is obligatory to show since the items ACTUALLY do ship from China. However, my billing information is located in the country I'm actually in - Latvia. However, keep in mind that choosing your shop location will differ what payment methods you have. For example, if you choose Japan, you don't have the ability to join Etsy Payments, but you have PayPal. Since I'm in the UK, I have Etsy Payment, but not PayPal. Etsy Payment is essentially an online wallet on Etsy. They release payments 1 week after they have been made, whereas on PayPal it's an instant transfer.

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GRQ Thomas said:

The shipping carriers are chosen by the AliExpress sellers

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Jarvannis said:

Great method thanks
Can you buy Etsy verified accounts to do this ? If you do so, you don't have to process verification and Aldo you Can buy another one if toi get banned

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Ozzys said:

Do you use Printful or Aliexpress or both? Do you create designs yourself? I am an actual seller on Etsy, now I want to start POD business on Etsy.

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kurikata said:

I was curious how you handle invoices? If it's shipping from China, there needs to be invoice for customs. So your customers would see the invoice and know they paid more than you did.

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GRQ Thomas said:

You can message the sellers and ask that they don't display the price tag on the parcel for every order that comes from your profile

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