Shopify + Dropshipping From Scratch

blazekhai

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Hello everyone.

I’m here once again with another journey thread.
I believe that when you was a kid, people would ask what you want to be when you grow up. For me, I remember seeing I want to an astrounaut or an engineer. I’m currently studying in the engineering and electronics line and I just finish my internship ( just waiting for gradation to collect the cert) so I’m free now. I did got an offer from my internship place to continue working before I have to go to the army for 2 years(my country is compulsory) and they offered me $1.8k. Well, it’s quite a good money but well I wasn’t enjoying anything there as the management was a little bit bad.. So I decided to find something to do to get extra income while I’m in the army.


Note: To skip intro, search ‘Let’s get started’ by ctrl + F.


INTRO

I dumped my first journey which was using the OGads + IG method even though I did hit $20 per day which was my initial goal. I admit It was a quick and fast way to get easy cash but I didn’t enjoyed every single part of it. It was quite a hassle worrying about accounts being banned, trying out proxies, buying accounts, making more domains etc. There will always be people saying ‘ who likes the job we do nowadays?’ but for me, if I’m going to work online, I rather do something I’m in love in and do it long term so I get to enjoyed the moment. I then stopped at early December and I realise I still have massplanner license left. I was having internship at that time and I didn’t had much to do so I decided to learn about Instagram. So I continued paying for license and proxies the month just to test it out. It was after awhile that I somehow taught to myself, why am I doing something and not getting money from it.


I started reading threads on bhw Instagram and massplanner forum(trust me both are goldmine), journey threads and in the money making section, even the old threads at the far back page as it holds so much information.

I currently have 7 instagram accounts ranging from 5k-17k followers currently all in different niches. I’m not interested in the niches so all I did was scrape pictures from other ig accounts and automate posting through massplanner. And since I’ve reading a lot of threads on differents forums, watching videos, I decided on starting dropshipping.


Why dropshipping you must ask?

I’ve always been interested in buying and selling. Even when I was younger when I was playing MMORPG games, I was always becoming a trader in the games as I didn’t want to spent so much time grinding and training for the ingame money.

During my holidays in 2015 and 2016, I imported branded shoes in sell in my local online market which is called Carousell. Sad part is that my country users don’t use ebay, so all of them will head to carousell. My country people are sceptical and usually won’t dare to order themselves through ali or anything so they rather pay higher price for replicas I did have a good profit during the months I’m doing that, as I set my price the lowest in the website. I did have a highest earning of $2k+ but the risk of selling fakes and I’m kind of afraid of doing anything illegal so I usually do it for only a few months. Sad part is that, I used all that money that I sold fakes with, I get myself authentic shoes for reselling price as I’m a big fan of streetwear and sneakers lol.

Let’s put that all aside, and I guess you should somehow guess what niche I’m doing. I chose this niche as I have good knowledge of it and I’m really interested in it.Yup it’s hard, but I know I will enjoy this J


Let’s get started

I’m planning to create a "brand" and for a long term journey(hopefully) . So right now, I’m in day 9 ever since I started my 30 day shopify trial. (yes the 45 days trial is no longer available). I just launch the store to public today after much editing.

To start off,I sold one of my Instagram accounts which had 3k followers for $50 to get a domain and to pay for this month’s massplanner and proxy payment as I’m kind of broke.


I have sourced out different suppliers and chose carefully products which are in the rising trend currently. All the suppliers I’m getting from are friendly and I ask a few questions before I choose products from them, like for example what will happen if customers ask refund etc.


So what I did for my store?


  • Used a basic free theme on shopify and customize it with different advance tutorial in shopify.
  • Made logo myself and added it
  • Added 160 products(adding more everyday).
  • Created discount banner at the top
  • Created submenu
  • Created notification when someone bought something( sales pop up)
  • Created pop up discount
  • Added trust badges(such as mcafee)
  • Added currency changer
  • Made a dropdown menu instead of customer clicking and it heads to category.


I’m currently changing meta descriptions, meta tags, titles, product descriptions. It’s tedious and I’m not sure how it would help BUT it makes my products description looks nicer. I passed around the website for my friends to view(I didn’t said I was the owner at first) and they really like the design & etc so I guess I’m good to go.


Apps I’m using

  • Oberlo(to import from ali)
  • Compass
  • Best currency converter
  • Shipping Bar
  • Mcafee secure
  • Sales pop
  • Privy
  • Plug in Seo
  • Photo resize
  • Quick view


So why free traffic?

My facebook account ad is banned when I first tried it early last year. My both cards are banned and they have not accepted my appeal so I have no other choice to look for other traffic. What’s more, I feel it’s better to start from scratch for the learning progress.


Instagram


I got the idea from https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/building-an-authority-network-niche-ideas.915461/ and I’m thankful I read that thread.

s2cohz.png


Good thing before I ended my internship, I used their wifi to create a lot of IG accounts on my phone browser. Yes, I have a better experience creating my accounts than buying them. I don’t get any banned, pv or email verify whenever I create the accounts myself.

I’m also going at a safe settings in F/U method in massplanner and I automate post my pictures through there.

I’m currently on have 4 accounts, I will branch more out when it all goes well.


Pinterest


I’m new to pinterest so I’m kind of unsure how it goes. I plan to do the same thing with what I’m doing with my IG accounts which I link everything together. I got this idea from massplanner forum.
For my main store accounts, I’m doing everything manually from repining to following and liking. I’ve yet to post any pictures from my store yet.


Facebook

Since I can’t use FB ads, the only thing I could do is promote to my friends and groups/pages. Good thing I have a fake girl account(looked really legit) so I would just post in my wall. I currently joined different groups and pages and just chat with other members and share my links there.

Reddit

I would use my 1 year account old personal account in reddit but the username is weird lol.

So Created two accounts yesterday, one for spamming and another one I’m planning to be a real poster and make people trust me. I’m impressed that I got 94 karma in just a day with just a few comments suggestions.
sv278k.jpg


What I did was I joined the few top subreddits in my nichi and I posted suggestions. During this suggestions, I link mostly to those famous brands BUT in the same post, I add in my own item from my store in addition so it doesn’t look like I’m just only promoting it. I’m sticking to a 3:1 method where I suggest other stuffs etc in 3 posts then 4th post I will link my store in there with some other authority and trustable stores/brands. I currently have a few messages from users in the subreddits asking me about stuffs etc and well I think I will just continue this method.

I’m also on different forums and I’m just casually talking there. I’m not just gonna spam anything on my first post as it will look suspicious and no one would click or buy from it. I tried a few guest posting too on different blogs.

Twitter

I used two of old accounts with good few hundred followers and set it up with IFTTT to automate postings from other big accounts to link back to my main account in the future. I've yet to post anything on my brand account yet. I will add in pictures from the stores soon.

In a few hours time, I’m only left 20 days in the trial. I’m not doing the free+shipping method, I give free shipping instead to USA users. Most of my items are in the less than $20 and even lower than $10. I only add on some expensive items just for it to be there. Yup I may earn a few bucks per sale but I put myself in the customers shoes and I believe that I would rather go for lower prices.

I’m not sure how this will turn out but I don’t plan on just reading threads over and over again and not try it myself. I probably won’t make any money but I’m just planning to test it out for a month or two and see how it goes. J What’s important is that I learn which will be better for my future projects. And what’s more, as I’m interested in this niche, I’m really enjoying adding products, trying to improve on the site etc. I’m sleeping at 8am everyday and waking up at 2pm just to continue on the site once more. These are my stats for the day currently, I think most of the traffic comes from reddit & forums.

3088oj9.jpg


I’m thinking of trying out google adwords due to the get free $75 ads after spending $25 on shopify. Should I? I will probably read up more about it if I should use it.

Thank you and I apologise for the long post, guess I got carried away from writing. I will add on more updates soon :) hope to receive any feedbacks or advices. thank you and have a good day sayang.
 
Last edited:
Hey, Interesting post ! I will have a look at some of the things you have talked about and are doing yourself!
Thanks for sharing the journey
Good luck with it!
 
wonderful stuff. and i am sure you will be successful.
Please keep writing.
All the best
 
These are my favourite types of threads, love following the journey!

Any updates so far ?
 
Nice share buddy you have clear picture of what to do NXT, it takes time to get sales but no in long run you will see massive growth, stay in touch.. bhw always helps
 

Nice mate, I am going to save this for later thanks.

Interesting and promising journey
Wish you the best of luck

Hey, Interesting post ! I will have a look at some of the things you have talked about and are doing yourself!
Thanks for sharing the journey
Good luck with it!

wonderful stuff. and i am sure you will be successful.
Please keep writing.
All the best

These are my favourite types of threads, love following the journey!

Any updates so far ?

Nice share buddy you have clear picture of what to do NXT, it takes time to get sales but no in long run you will see massive growth, stay in touch.. bhw always helps

Good luck:)

Thank you so much for the replies guys!

Here is update 2.

Well sad part is, I didn’t do much on Friday(it’s Saturday morning now as I’m in gmt +8) as I had something to do and I was out the whole day and only got back home at 2am. It’s currently 7.30am as I’m typing this and yes I have not slept yet as I just finish doing some stuffs for the website.


Below are the statistics from shopify report which is at the left tab.


These are the stats for yesterday, 92 unique visitors.

166gp7c.png



Still no sale yet but hey it's only the start right?


I checked my reports on referrer, and these are the stats so far.

xl9ton.png

  • Direct is where someones click my link, I think it’s more from me spreading my website links around as I’m kinda unsure where it comes from since it only states click on my direct store link.
  • For unknown, I checked and it’s from the guest posting blogs I did.
  • Search is from google search(not sure how it appear there too, maybe google crawl?)
What I really impress is from Social, here’s the stats.

2edczg6.png

  • For reddit, it’s mostly from the comments which I got so much so much karma for.
  • Facebook is from the groups I’m advertising my store to.


I’ve also checked Visitors by location( I didn’t add those other countries as they only had 1 visit)

10p11ty.png



Seems like I’m kind of targeting the right people since I have 141 visitors from United States. For Singapore, the 11 clicks are mostly from me. Right now, I just have to scale things up a little more since I think I’m heading in the right direction with traffic.



Things I did today.


Since I was out the whole day, I didn’t had much time doing anything so I only did the few stuffs below.


1)I added 5 products from my import list. I still had 160+ things which are my import list left but I launch the store first and plan to gradually add them slowly. I’m planning to add 5-10 new items and spreading them out throughout the day.
Below are the things I do when I add items through Oberlo app


  • Change title, tags, categories
  • Change the description to my own description, add the product details, manually add a table through shopify with the size of the product.
  • Variant: changing it’s name one by one, sometimes in aliexpress the variant name would be “in picture 1, in picture 2,” so it would look confusing in your shop if you don’t edit them unless you place the picture order exactly like the product in aliexpress listing. I also add in weight to each product. USA have free epacket but if other international people order from me, I would be in a losing end if I don’t add in weight to be calculated in the shipping prices to mail out to them as each product have different weight and prices to each individual countries.
  • Choosing the best pictures of the product


2)Guest posted on 5 more blogs today. I usually will read their whole blog post and comment related to their post instead of just spamming. The blogs I usually guest post too are those with quite a reasonable traffic and fans. Few of my guest posts got approve my the blog owner themselves and to be honest, they are really friendly. Good thing is that I got extra traffic because of them :)


Pinterest

  • Added 8 items from my store on my main store pinterest account. I’m doing everything manualy in this account, liking, following, commenting etc.
  • Created 3 profiled accounts to grow it.I plan to act as a real person and just repin my product pins as well as pinning and liking other people pins too. I’m also following/unfollowing using the mp tool.
  • Created 5 bot accounts which I just will plan to repin and like my products which are linked to my store.
This is a quote from someone in mp forum, ‘ What I have realized is Pinterest doesn't really care how many followers you have... Get a lot of repins and likes and your pin will be showed to people who aren't even following you, then you'll get even more repins and likes”

I’m reading a lot about Pinterest and try to find more information from other forums as well. I’m still new to it so I’m just testing it out as I know it’s good traffic for my niche. Not sure how it would work out but I’m just gonna try other methods if this doesn’t work.



Reddit

Currently, my karma is currently 128.

v7czgg.jpg


Yup karma is not really that important but in the few subreddits I'm in, they really do care about how you are regular poster and gives good suggestions. So I've been posting regularly in the sub niche. I’m also spamming with a separate account I made(which doesn’t bring any traffic currently).


Well that’s all for today.I'm so sorry as I'm really tired as it’s almost 8am now and I have not get any rest. Bad thing is I’m heading out again on weekends as my family have plans so I will continue my work once I’m back. I will probably update in the wee hours again. Hopefully, things will get better soon can’t wait to see results!



Btw, should I try using Google Adwords and test it out? Since they have the coupon of spending $25 and get $75 free.
 
How do you manually create so many accounts with not getting flagged?
 
How do you manually create so many accounts with not getting flagged?

IG or Pinterest?
Well I never did got any problems with ig before with creating accounts with same ip as I go slow settings with it.

For pinterest,
I'm quite new to it so I'm not sure about how the algo is.
So I plan to stick to the 2-3 accounts per ip creation. Other than home wifi, own 4g, parents 4g, macdonald wifi, starbucks wifi, public wifi etc. :)
 
IG or Pinterest?
Well I never did got any problems with ig before with creating accounts with same ip as I go slow settings with it.

For pinterest,
I'm quite new to it so I'm not sure about how the algo is.
So I plan to stick to the 2-3 accounts per ip creation. Other than home wifi, own 4g, parents 4g, macdonald wifi, starbucks wifi, public wifi etc. :)

Ye but you still need to operate them under the same proxy... I guess it's best to buy some dedicated proxies and use different browsers for creation/operation. Thanks for your input though.
 
This is the kind of journey I like to follow. Very detailed. BTW, I'm planning on getting into the Shopify world, too. Your thread gave a few insights I had absolutely no idea about. Thanks OP. Good luck with your journey. Following this thread.
 
nice and detailed journey to follow!
good to a dropshipping newbie like me!
thanks and good luck!
will closely follow this!
 
I'm not big on following journeys, but this one looks pretty neat. Best of luck to you!
 
All the best op. You look very organized. Shall be following!
 
Some nice stuff. Good luck with your journey bro. I guess it might be the only Shopify Dropshipping journey where OP isn't using Facebook Ads.
 
Ye but you still need to operate them under the same proxy... I guess it's best to buy some dedicated proxies and use different browsers for creation/operation. Thanks for your input though.

Thank you very much for the reply and the explanation :)

I know it's better to get proxys and make your account through them. During the last few months(even when I was doing the OG+IG method), I've did tried different ways and methods on creating ig accounts. I've realise that even when I create account through dedi proxy, there's a high chance of getting pv and email verification or even banned.

I then tried using ip addresses instead and creating them through different browsers and devices. And somehow it work well for me. Some accounts in other niches I have has been lasting since October, maybe I'm just lucky as there's no pva or anything I don't really know but somehow it works better for me.

For pinterest wise, followers doesn't really mean much as your photo will still been seen by others as long as you get repins and likes. If the accounts I use to just repin/like my photos get banned, I will just recreate them.

Once again, thank you very much for the reply and share. :D


This is the kind of journey I like to follow. Very detailed. BTW, I'm planning on getting into the Shopify world, too. Your thread gave a few insights I had absolutely no idea about. Thanks OP. Good luck with your journey. Following this thread.

nice and detailed journey to follow!
good to a dropshipping newbie like me!
thanks and good luck!
will closely follow this!

Thank you very much! There's a lot of information in the shopify forum as well. ;)

I'm not big on following journeys, but this one
looks pretty neat. Best of luck to you!

interested, good luck on your journey

Good luck!

very good journey

All the best op. You look very organized. Shall be following!

Good luck with your journey bro!

Thank you everyone for reading! It's an honor :)

Some nice stuff. Good luck with your journey bro. I guess it might be the only Shopify Dropshipping journey where OP isn't using Facebook Ads.

Thanks man :). There are old threads on people using free traffic too. But well, too bad for me as I won't be able to use it due to my card being banned.




Hello everyone,

It's 7am right now and I'm heading to bed as I'm really tired. I'm gonna do an update soon on what I've been doing for the site. I came back at night just now and I was just watching a lot of videos and reading threads on google adwords. There's the spent $25 and get free $75-100(depending on country) on ads which I think I should not let the opportunity go.

I'm also changing my theme design which would only take 2-3 hours at most. I've much more time tonight so I will probably get that done as well. Reason of changing is mainly because, even though my site speed is only 1 second +, I just feel my sites not look trustable and not 'professional' enough for someone to buy from it. Also, I found out that there are other free shopify themes which are not in the shopify theme store itself. I saw one theme which I really like as it looks so so much better. Even though the theme is not in the theme store, the owner have a quite a number of apps in the app store with good reviews. So I guess I could trust him right? :)

My traffic wasn't as much today as it was yesterday as the time I had today was quite limited and I spent it mostly on learning google adwords. Good thing is, I'm still getting views from the reddit post which I made. I've also found other different traffic options other than the traffic I'm using currently.
I will update everything tonight(gmt+8) .

Goodnight everyone!
 
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