Lesson Category: eCommerce & Dropshipping

Parting words of advice:

• Just like everything else: dive in and start making mistakes
• Don’t be a moron about customer service
  • My personal templates will be shared with the replay
• Walking a fine line RE: copyright infringement is playing with fire
• Dropshipping Delays & Lost Products
• Chinese New Year a.k.a. the Lunar New Year
• When to move from dropshipping to warehousing your own products
  • Only really advisable if you’ve established a brand or VERY unique sourcing
• Helpful apps & future expansions for your eCom store
  • Social proof notifications, scarcity/countdown timers, retargeting apps, and more…

Fulfillment depending on the business model:

• Managing inventory yourself? Either you or an employee are packing & shipping.
• Working with a fulfillment center? Likely some sort of app integration or csv sent daily.
• Dropshipping? Likely Dropified or Oberlo.

It’s all already in the training…

• Lower budget? Content marketing strategy taught at FIMP and “put on steroids” through IMP
  • Getting traffic for an audience via keyword research/SEO/content marketing
  • Using conversion optimization, monetization training, and email marketing to monetize
• Higher budget? Facebook ad training taught in A8 & A9 at IMP
  • Much faster track, but also a lot more expensive ($X,XXX minimum)

• Two major categories: Seeking impulse buys vs. establishing a brand
  • Impulse buyers: Have to REALLY spike emotions
    • Likely forces you into a constant product launch cycle
    • “Here today, gone tomorrow” — Often burn bright but very quickly
  • Establishing a brand: Typically more expensive, but also much more dependable & long-term
    • Will likely have long-term, multi-purchase customers
    • Is a more valuable sellable asset
    • Makes it easier to pursue your own products & house more inventory
• Keeping this in mind during niche selection
  • Seeking impulse buyers?
    • Quick validation or failure, easy to pivot, fast (but often short-lived) cashflow
  • Establishing a brand?
    • More market research, a “marathon” mindset, will cost more & take more time to validate but will also stick much longer if you find a winning product:audience match

• Purchasing In Bulk vs. Dropshipping First
  • Working with a decent budget & existing audience?
    • You might consider securing inventory first: purchasing in bulk or seeking consignment.
  • Lower budget, no audience, and seeking the simplest approach?
    • Probably not worth the risks that come with inventory: dropshipping is probably the better first step.
• Pros & cons of securing inventory first
  • Pro: Better profit margins
  • Pro: MUCH better shipping times
  • Pro: Typically happier customers
  • Con: Harder & more expensive to ship internationally
  • Con: Requires inventory management labor & expenses
  • Con: Large up-front costs and therefore a lot of risk
• Pros & cons of dropshipping
  • Pro: No inventory management or labor
  • Pro: Very little up-front costs or risk
  • Pro: Easy & cheap international shipping
  • Con: Usually costs you at least 50% of your profit margins
  • Con: Pretty dismal shipping times, especially in an “Amazon Prime” world
  • Con: Much more customer service intensive, resulting in spiteful customers & chargebacks
• My recommended path to most people…
  • Unless you have a lot of capital and a VERY strong understanding of an existing market: dropshipping is probably a best first step to get proof of concept
    • You can scale out from there
  • But what about sourcing products?
• Sourcing products for either model
  • Inventory/consignment: Wholesalers, trade shows, Alibaba, and similar sites
    • Almost always room for negotiation when buying in bulk
    • Consider finding a good sourcing agent or trusted contact to avoid “Gold Samples” and other commonly-employed tactics
    • “A section of its own” — We’ll talk about this more in-depth in a later IMP section
  • Dropshipping: AliExpress is most straightforward & common
    • Many others have cropped up (and will continue to) in time
    • Likely want at least $20 gross profit on each item
      • Which is where “perceived value” becomes very important
    • Diving into AliExpress so you know how to search & what to look for

Regardless of the platform, set these elements up from the start:

• Facebook Pixel
• Google Analytics
• Terms & Privacy Policy
• Shipping Policy & Clear Disclosures

Woocommerce, Shopify, or Something Else?

• My initial mindset toward these options
• My experiences with Woocommerce vs. Shopify
• Why I’ll always use Shopify for the foreseeable future

Giving this section some context…

• My background on this side of the industry
• My thoughts on cash-strapped entrepreneurs in this space…
• “Dropshipping is Dead”
• Setting realistic expectations
• What you’re going to walk away from this section with.