The Ultimate List Dropshipping Do's & Don'ts
DON'TS
1. DON'T restrict yourself to one niche
Multiple criteria already filter down the millions of e-commerce products to a select few winning products. By adding ANOTHER filter (niche), you're limiting the selection even more.
And you gotta remember that the goal is to make money... NOT follow your passion.
It might be good to start with what you know and are interested in so you can get your feet wet, but it's important that it doesn't stay like that. There could be a massive winner in another niche you're missing out on because you don't want to sell it.
Once you find your first winner with Sell The Trend or Minea, THEN you can stick to whatever niche that winner is in.
2. DON'T try to compete on price
You have to accept that Amazon and Walmart will always have lower prices. They are near trillion-dollar companies that operate marketplaces with billions of users, so they can operate with razor-thin margins and still make tons of profit.
And you're just one person!
You have to compete in marketing.
The better you market your product, the less likely the person will leave your store and buy from Amazon or Walmart. Your goal should be to make visitors think that you invented the product and your store is the ONLY place they can buy it from...
And if you do this correctly, you can charge much more than sellers on Amazon and Walmart.
3. DON'T sell high-ticket products
Dropshipping is so profitable because of impulse purchases. Consumers don't think too much when a product is only $30 or $40, so getting them to buy is much easier.
But as the price increases, they start to think if they really need it or not.
Yes the margins are better, but selling anything over $100 will require fantastic copywriting, tons of retargeting, and expert strategies.
I recommend using $50 as the maximum if you're a beginner.
You just want to see some orders come in, and it will be infinitely easier to convert visitors into customers by selling a $30 product instead of a $100 product.
4. DON'T worry about SEO
In the dropshipping world, trends change very often. A product can be a winner one month, then the next month, it's too saturated to sell.
SEO is the opposite. It's a long-term game where it can take many months or even years to rank for keywords and get significant traffic from Google.
Don't try to mix the two.
Focus on paid advertising to get traffic to your site instead of SEO.
5. DON'T try to use multiple advertising platforms at once
If you spread your focus to multiple advertising platforms (Facebook, TikTok, Google), learning the skills and strategies you need to be profitable will take far longer.
And you will be outcompeted by others focusing on mastering one platform.
To truly succeed, you need to get REALLY good at marketing on one platform.
This also applies to other parts of a dropshipping business and life in general.
Michael Jordan is one of the most famous athletes in the world because he is the best basketball player ever, not because he was mediocre at every sport.
You'll succeed because you're the best at 1 thing, NOT because you're mediocre at 10 things.
6. DON'T use hope as a strategy
If you think you can just throw a product on a store, send some traffic, and HOPE someone buys... you're in for a rough time.
Yeah maybe you can get an order if you're charging $10 for a product, but there's no way you can get sustainable, profitable orders.
Also, similar to the last one, you will be outcompeted by a marketer that is dedicated to their craft and spends days/months researching, strategizing, and executing.
7. DON'T rush the process
Like any business (or anything else worthwhile), it will take some time to succeed despite what you might see online. There are no overnight successes.
Every successful person you've ever seen has relentlessly grinded for many months and years to get to where they are.
There will be roadblocks. There will be L's.
Find a way to enjoy the process, and you'll have a much better chance of succeeding (and be much happier too).
8. DON'T stop learning
One of my favorite quotes is from legendary investor Warren Buffett: "The more you learn, the more you earn."
He is worth over $100,000,000,000, so I think he knows what he's talking about when it comes to making money...
Keep absorbing as much information as possible, and you might discover that one secret you need to succeed.
DO'S
9. DO get started
While it's important to keep learning, you must also take ACTION. Too much preparation and thinking will lead to analysis by paralysis, and you'll NEVER get started.
It's important to strike a balance between both learning and executing.
Focus on doing one thing first, like opening your Shopify store for only $1, and then learn as you go.
10. DO research your target audience
To write copy that converts readers into customers, you MUST understand them.
You need to know what their pain points are, what feelings they have, etc.
To do this, you need to research your audience BEFORE you ever try to sell to them.
The very least you can do is read through Amazon reviews to better understand the product and why people buy it.
Once you do this, you'll have a much better chance of successfully selling the product.
11. DO keep iterating
"I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times." - Bruce Lee
"It’s not 10,000 hours; it’s 10,000 iterations." - Naval Ravikant
Your first few iterations of selling a product will almost certainly suck.
But as long you improve something on each iteration, your chances of success WILL increase.
And once you've performed many iterations, your entire funnel is drastically better than the first iteration.
And eventually, you'll reach a point where you've made so many improvements that your funnel is good enough to get profitable purchases.
12. DO focus on one product
Similar to my point about using multiple advertising platforms, you need to focus on being really good at marketing one product.
If you spread your focus across many products, you'll only be able to do a mediocre job selling each, which means ZERO profit.
Big money will come when you become a master marketer of one product (one of the reasons why I recommend a one-product store).
BlendJet got so popular because they first mastered selling their portable blender. THEN they branched out to other products.
Snow got so popular because they first mastered selling their teeth whitening kit. THEN they branched out to other products.
13. DO focus on ad creatives
The second most important part of a dropshipping business (behind the product) is the ad creatives you use.
There hasn't been a single dropshipper that succeeded without great ad creatives (here's the best place to get ad creatives).
That's how you can persuade an everyday social media user to make an impulse purchase from a random store they just saw for the first time.
And because the ad creatives are so important, performing many iterations is much better than switching from product to product, hoping your first couple of ad creatives will be profitable.
