Just like you and me, Shilo wanted financial freedom so he can take care of his basic needs and cater to those around him.
Naturally, he looked online with the hopes of finding something that will bring in serious profit with the work he was willing to put in.
After trying affiliate marketing, he stumbled upon dropshipping, and ever since then, his life has changed for the better.
Today we are going to follow him on his dropshipping journey with the hopes that you pick up a thing or two that can benefit you in your dropshipping endeavors as well.
Getting Into Dropshipping
There are hundreds of ways to earn money online, but not all of them fairly reward hard work with profit nor do you have the facilities to run them successfully.
This is what most people do not understand and they spend a lot of time and money on the wrong online businesses or schemes.
Hence you put in a ton of work only to get a meager profit in the end.
This is a reality Shilo discovered when he got to affiliate marketing.
He started out with affiliate marketing but then realized that it was not for him. In his own words…
“Dropshipping is not my first online business. Before I got into dropshipping, I was in the business of affiliate marketing. From what I experienced in the business, I realized that affiliate marketing is not for me. I put in the hard work but was just not getting the right amount of profit. I think affiliate marketing is for people that already have a steady community of customers who buy regularly and also continue to grow, people like that really can make profit from affiliate marketing”.
According to him, and most people’s claims, affiliate marketing is for people that already have a network they can sell to. So in retrospect, it’s not for everybody.
This is in contrast to what dropshipping is – Anybody can dropship! You really don’t need any specialized skills to sell on eBay. Just an internet connection and a computer.
As Shilo said…
“I think affiliate marketing is something that can make profit to specific people, but it’s hard to really make a good profit in this business as just anybody. Unlike dropshipping that everyone can make a very good profit with the right tutorial and the right action”
Shilo discovered dropshipping after his brother introduced him to the business model some months back.
Now he has been in the business for over 10 months and he has recorded significant success.
His major reason for going into dropshipping was the fact that just anybody can do it…with the right information of course.
And to top that off, he was making a killing in profits.
When asked about his margins as compared to his previous online business involvement, here’s what he had to say:
“I think dropshipping can make more profit than affiliate marketing. It can be 10-20 times better. Although this is not a specific number because it depends on a lot of things. But as far as profit goes this range seems just about right.”
In just a few months he is recording up to $6000 in 31 days.
To him, he thinks he can do better, make even more.
And he’s right. With dropshipping, you can make much more than you think if you have the right tools and put in the hard work.
The advantage of dropshipping is that it is very scalable.
Even when you start small as a beginner you can always work up the ladder to a position where you are raking in profits by the thousands.
Now it’s not all rosy and jolly, especially in the beginning.
And we’ll later see where he made drastic mistakes when he first started, but in dropshipping even when you make mistakes it is easier to retrace your steps and do better.
Making Mistakes and Recovering
We are all humans, and as humans we make mistakes.
Shilo’s dropshipping story fits this age-old cliche.
Like most people getting into something entirely new and out of their knowledge and expertise, Shilo started out dropshipping with little experience. But it started rough.
“To be honest with you, I personally do not think I started it properly. I started with some free tutorials on Google which can be very good but I think that it’s better to buy some courses that can give you focus and direction on what you really need. I think anyone that is serious about the dropshipping business needs to get good tutorials at the beginning stages. It can be free or paid; however it is, he just needs to get the right tutorial that really can help him with this business. People that start without that (like me) can make a lot of mistakes that they will be sorry for in the future.”
Not to take anything away from free Google tutorials on dropshipping, but you should do better.
Free tutorials might give you some foundational knowledge on how conventional dropshipping works, but you should know where to get them.
In this day and age, information is the new currency, and you need to get the best information to successful.
Lucky for you, there are sources like senseidrop.com that give well-rounded information about dropshipping, tips on making good profit, and all the thighs you need to avoid in the business like the VeRO list for example.
This was one of the mistakes Shilo made in the beginning – listing VeRO items.
VeRO Issues
This is one of the common mistakes beginners in dropshipping make.
Now if you don’t know what VeRO items are, they are restricted items with copyrights.
So you are not allowed by law on eBay to list them. If you do list these items, you might be banned.
Though not immediately, you will first get a series of suspensions but that alone will get you on eBay’s radar.
Shilo was making this mistake over and over again because he didn’t know any better at the time.
His free tutorials didn’t mention VeRO items so he didn’t know what they were.
As a result, he found himself always making these mistakes.
But after getting the right information from the right places, he found himself free of any violations.
Customer Relations Problems
Besides the VeRO violations, Shilo made other mistakes too.
One of them was his customer relations skills.
Even if you get everything right, the way you handle your customers can cost you a sale. Not only that, it can cost you your reputation.
eBay has a system where customers contact you for a particular product and after series of discussions and negotiations (if need be) you sell to that customer.
Afterward, the buyer will be prompted to give you feedback.
If you make them happy, they will give you good feedback. If the opposite is the case, well…you know where this is going.
Negative feedbacks mean a bad reputation.
And this can affect your ranking as well on eBay.
eBay will want to show its best customers to potential buyers regardless of how much you put into optimization.
It is best to always make your customers happy at all times.
Shilo had a problem with this and he usually found himself losing huge sales and recording bad customer feedback.
Market Research Plight
He also had no idea about market research.
Oftentimes, he will list products that have no clout or trendy vibe about them.
That’s why at the beginning of his dropshipping journey, he was making ridiculously low sales. Sometimes, he would sell just one product in the space of one week. That was bad even for a beginner.
You should be making at least 5-10 sales per week. But this was not the case for Shilo.
If you are a beginner, you must know that market research is very fundamental in rapid growth and success.
A good, thoroughly conducted market research will ensure you are not wasting your time on products that will hardly sell.
This is what happened to Shilo in the beginning.
His very first product was a TWS AirPods.
It was difficult for him to make a sale when he first started with this product.
We are not trying to say TWS AirPods are bad or will not make a sale, but at the time he listed the items, those AirPods was not the trendy item of that time.
Good market research would have suggested a better item for that particular period. After a month of trying hard with no results, he was introduced to quality tools like Zik Analytics for his market research.
Zik Analytics is an amazing tool that does all the analysis you will need to do your dropshipping business smarter.
Shilo started using the tool, and as time progressed, he started making better choices in the products to list and sell.
Product Listing Dilemma
Not only did he have problems with product research, but he also had problems with product listing.
There are different products that can have several variations.
Some can even have up to 100 variations. If you are manually uploading these products, you can find yourself sitting in one spot in front of your computer for hours.
This is valuable time you can spend on all the things like improving your business, exercising, taking other professional courses, and even vacationing with family.
But unfortunately, if you don’t have the right tools you can be in this predicament.
This is the same thing Shilo faced in its first three months of dropshipping.
“Unfortunately I found KalDrop after 3 months of dropshipping. And I usually upload products daily. Sometimes, I will upload products with 50 variations and even 100 variations. I remember how it would take me a lot of time to upload just one product those times.
There was a particular time I found some shoes with 100 variations that I wanted to upload to my store. It was hectic! I don’t know if you know what it means but 100 variations uploaded manually can take up to 3 hours of your time…as it did mine.
The craziest part was, the shoes didn’t even sell because I didn’t know much about market research at that time lol.”
Successful Dropshipping Journey Onward
Like every success story, there has to be success somewhere. Shilo’s story wasn’t any different.
Granted, he made his mistakes, as any beginner would, but he was able to retrace his steps and gain traction in the dropshipping business.
Today, he makes more than $5000 in sales in just one month.
The numbers keep rising as he keeps gaining more customers and educating himself on the tips and tricks to navigate the dropshipping world.
Key Takeaways and Shilo’s Advice
The good news about all this is that you don’t have to make the same mistakes Shilo made.
He started all on his own with little education and none of the tools that would have made his life easier in his first 3 months of dropshipping.
Although he went through the hard way, he got to a fulfilling end where he makes over $6000 per month.
It took him a while to get there but yours can be different. You can leapfrog into earning huge profit in just a few weeks of dropshipping.
But not so fast, you need to put in the hard work. As Shilo advises:
“Dropshipping it’s not something easy. People sometimes think that it’s an easy business and an easy method to make money — that’s wrong. Everyone has to work hard to get results. So this is my advice — work hard, don’t be lazy, and invest a lot in this business. It can be very profitable for the people that make the right decisions and get the right tools.”
As you have seen from Shilo’s advice, you need to invest in dropshipping to get better returns. As you will invest in a business you want to get into to bring good results, dropshipping is no different.
Conclusion
To recap cogent points from Shilo’s story and the advice he has for dropshippers, you need to:
- Get the right education and information about dropshipping.
- Get the right tools to make life easier and less frustrating
- Put in the hard work
If you do these three, the success of your dropshipping business is guaranteed!
