I’m still in exploration/research and testing phase with dropshipping.
I’ve made some sales with my eCommerce test store(s) which is a simple Woocommerce WordPress theme but recently I decided to set up a store with Shopify to see what all the hype was about.
Why Shopify?
While I was writing the ‘Top 300+ Shopify Stores in the World’ Post that I published the other day, I just realised how damn popular the platform is!
I’ve also come across some features I’ve really liked only to realise that they’re only available on Shopify.
For example, if you’ve been on an eCommerce site recently such as this one, you would have noticed a ‘Jennifer from United States Ohio Just Purchased a Harry Potter Scarf’ type pop up that loops itself with other products in the bottom right corner. Check out this store if you don’t know what I’m talking about.
They looks like this,
Coding is one of my weak spots so either I spend a lot of time trying to incorporate these features myself or I pay some money to test out these features in Shopify.
I chose the latter.
Shopify also has a massive developer marketplace with a tonne of neat additions to their platform and subsequently your store.
So with such an active and healthy developer community, I thought I’d check out Shopify.
Shopify Store – First Sale
This store is a bit more niche specific so I won’t reveal it just yet.
The concept is the same.
Send some targeted traffic to a variety of products, see which ones pick up the most and build a store around that niche.
I set the store up a day ago and have since made a sale with a few ‘abandoned carts’ which would have been sales as well but I hadn’t set up the store correctly so the orders fell through.
BUT, one complete order means the store is buy worthy, the model works and from my experience, it’s something to get into and master.
The product cost me $17 on Aliexpress which means a straight 100% profit margin! That’s $18 Profit which is huge!
Insert Gold Nugget Here
I’ll leave you guys with something interesting though.
I’ve been testing international traffic this last 1-2 days and results have been promising.
This sale was from someone in Germany.
If I could get an ‘auto-translate’ feature based on geolocation, I’m very confident it will bring me more sales.
Just to give you an idea of the traffic distribution,
Remember how I told you that you can’t just do the same thing that everyone else is doing?
Well, this is my way of being different.
A lot of people rule out international traffic thinking translations are a problem but the reality is that many of these countries can speak great english and have booming currencies.
They’ll buy something if they like it – I know this 100%
How do I know? Because I’ve sold over 50k worth of stuff to them in the past
Not to mention how cheap international traffic is since there’s hardly any competition!
Congratulations on the sale! I’m on woocommerce but have been looking at Shopify too. How much did you have to spend on the testing before the sale came through?
Thanks, $10.60.
Overall it’s profitable but wanted to make a dedicated niche site and set up proper email collections, discounts, upsells and things so hopefully, it can be a long term thing!
Hey there, this is Robert from Germany (no, i am not the buyer of your product, haha). Is this a dropshippingstore or do you have to buy the articles in advance and handle the shipping? If you need assistance with the German market, i can assist.
Hello Robert, almost got me there haha!
This is a dropshipping store. I don’t see the product as it gets purchased from the supplier and goes straight to the customer.
Thanks for the offer, I’ll let you know.
The german market is quite big, if you can learn good FB marketing, you have an advantage here.
Hi Mateen
I was wondering if you still sold on Teespring, and how are you still doing?
Hello Mini,
I haven’t done Teespring for months. I’ve been focussed on branching out to Dropshipping as it’s a more ‘business building’ model.
Nice job Mateen.
As you live in Australia, may I ask how you went about setting up your Shopify store as in regards to your address, banking and if you required an EIN number for taxes etc?
I’m from the UK, but live in Bangkok and am trying to work out if I need a virtual US address, a US bank account, EIN number etc. In order to set up a Shopify store. I Will look to market to the US and maybe even some of those top European countries you mentioned above, if that makes a difference.
Any help/tips or a link to such info would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks and keep up the good work.
Hey Mark,
I don’t recall the exact process but I’m confident there were no issues during setting this up for me. Any Tax Numbers, I entered my AUS TFN, (Tax File Number), and continued.
I used my Aus Bank Account and everything was Australian. I sell to U.S and pretty much everywhere around the world.
I don’t know what you’re seeing visiting the site from Bangkok but people have stores all around the globe so am sure it can work.
Is there any specific problem you’re facing?
Thank you for the reply. As I live in Thailand I can’t just set up a Thailand based Shopify account because of all the hoops needed to be jumped through in order to legally set up a business here as a foreign national, such as needing to employ 4 Thai nationals and other such complications. Anyway…since I posted this comment yesterday I have come across some information which suggests I should in fact set up a Shopify account using a virtual US address and US Bank (Payoneer.com was recommended). No idea about tax number though if needed. I’ll need to look into it more. Again thanks for the quick reply.
Wow, a minimum of 4 Thai nationals in order to set up a business? That’s crazy!
I know people who operated businesses in U.S from overseas and there’s a few services to open international bank accounts, etc.
Payoneer is one for bank accounts as you’ve mentioned. If you need a U.S phone number for verification and the likes you can try hushed.com. I was introduced to this just recently!
Goo luck Mark
Yeah work permits and setting up of an official business here are a pain in the butt. I think it was something like 4 Thai nationals for every one foreigner employed. I maybe slightly out on those numbers, but not far off. Either way It’s mental. I will check out that hushed.com for sure.
Thanks Mateen
Hi Mateen
What sources of traffic are you using? I have a store too but I am struggling a bit with how I can get traffic. I’m a bit skeptical of buying targeted traffic of websites like Fiverr. Thanaks
Buying Traffic is a whole different art. It takes time to weed out what works and what doesn’t.
For now my traffic comes from 100% FaceBook but I’m going to try Instagram paid posts/shoutouts.
For free advertising you can try reddit, forum signatures and FaceBook groups.
And don’t buy from fiverr, those are rarely quality and may do more harm then good!
Congrats!
I’ve seen many people moving to Shopify lately
Good to see that the business model is working for you. I’m also getting ready to try it out. Already decided on a niche and 40 products to start with. Ordered them all for myself three weeks ago, to evaluate quality. Now every time I walk to my mailbox I get a few packages from China. Pretty cool stuff.
If I, as a native German, may give you one advice: Do not use any auto-translation for the German language. Every solution there is creates nothing but a complete mess. Whenever I see a website use broken German it instantly loses my trust and I would never buy from the store. I think you’re better off just using English, the sale you just made is evidence that it works. Or get a professional translation. While Fiverr sucks in many ways, most translation gigs are actually pretty decent, from my experience.
Thanks for the advice!
With translations I use ‘onehourtranslations.com’ so it’s done professionally. I definitely agree with you on that anything ‘auto-translated’ will probably just lessen your chances of sales.
Hey Mateen,
Congrats on your first sale. Wishing you much success in dropshipping. I have been doing Affiliate Marketing for 3 years and want to expand to dropshipping/eCommerce also. What books, forums or blogs would you recommend for someone just getting started (besides your fine blog heh).
Thanks,
Harry
Hey Harry,
To be honest, I couldn’t find any eCommerce forums there for new – moderate ecommerce entrepreneurs. I might be starting an eCommerce forum soon since there’s been just so much interest in it and it would be great to get a bunch of similar minds sharing, learning and growing.
I’m connected to some FB groups. ‘Kingpinning’ is a good one right now, (travis patelle).
If you were to google, ‘top ecommerce bloggers’, there’s a list you can check out.
I’m still fairly new to dropshipping so am figuring things out right now myself.
Hello. Thank you for the great article. I have few questions.
1. How do you receive payments from people?
2. Is there any problems with goods delivery from Aliexpress (China) to top countries (USA, Italy, France, etc).
3. Is there any problems with goods quality and bad reviews (because you just take money and do not control the real goods & delivery)?
Thanks
1. Paypal/credit card
2. Haven’t had any complaints yet. I think you have to be selective with products and make sure you sell things with good reviews
3. Aliexpress have evolved into a very ‘customer first’ focused service so any issues on the customers end you can relay this right back to the supplier who will either refund or resend the product.
You may get the odd unhappy customer every now and then but as long as you fix it asap, your customers will be happy.
Hey Mateen.
Sorry to comment on a bit of an old post, but I have just come across this. I also live in Australia. I have just set up a shopify store in the last week and am dropshipping pet products direct from Aliexpress.
1. Could you please shed some light on how you set up your payment gateway for accepting credit cards? I have had a few payment gateway companies reject my applications simply because I am dropshipping – they say there is no supplier relationship and it is too risky.
2. Do you just receive your money in AUD? So your customers checkout in AUD no matter what country they are from? I have been told this is a bit off-putting when customers see this at checkout as it is not a well known currency like USD. Do you display your store products in USD or AUD (or something else)?
This is just all really frustrating – everything is good to go apart from not having a payment gateway set up! If you could please help that would be AMAZING!
Looking forward to hearing from you!
Alyssa
Hi Alyssa,
Sorry for the late comment but I think we’re discussing this in the forum if I’m not mistaken.
1. I use stripe. I honestly don’t recall having to prove to them what I do or how I do it. I remember just setting up an online account, verifying my identity and I was good to go!
2. No, it’s in USD as most of my customers are from U.S.
I hope you get around this 🙁 I know it’s annoying just having so many hurdles along the way but it’s just something we entrepreneurs have to keep moving forward on.