Post: #1

1. Product

The first stop obviously, is to pick a product. I picked clothing targeted towards students (if you want to see my site, PM me). There's a lot of information out there saying pick a product that you can sell for $20-$70, but as long as your margins are good, it doesn't really matter. My products cost me anywhere from $3-$10(including shipping), and I always make around a 50% margin. Just browse Amazon + Aliexpress, see which products have a lot of orders, five-star ratings, all that jazz and build a store based on that. Pick a theme and stick to it. I sell womens fashion, and unisex accessories; I didn't both with mens clothing as women do most online shopping.

You can really make a store selling anything. I've seen fishing lure stores, women's cosmetics, yoga mats, paper, pens. As long as you can target a certain niche with your advertisements, you'll be fine. The problem most people have, is that they pick a product but don't know how they'll target that niche.


2. Setup Shopify

Once you have your product idea, set up a shopify. They offer a free trial, so you can test your store for a few weeks before actually paying. My favourite theme for online stores is 'Venture', and it's free. It's very non-programmer friendly, and you can set up a store within a day no problem.

Note: If you're selling clothing, make sure you add a sizing chart in the product description; it seems simple, but for a week I completely forgot to add a sizing chart, and lost a bunch of sales because of it..Rookie mistake.

Shipping rates: I use $5 within the U.S, $8 to Canada, and $10 international - but feel free to adjust those depending on your products, audience, and discounts.

3. Sign up for Oberlo

On Shopify, click on 'Apps', and search for Oberlo. They offer a month-free trial, so again - it's fantastic for testing. Sign up takes one minute. It automatically connects to your shopify. Use Oberlo with Google Chrome (it's an extension).

4. Upload Products to Oberlo

If you're on aliexpress, make sure your Oberlo plugin is enabled. Sort your product category by orders (the most ordered products will appear first). Only choose products that are highlighted in green (an Oberlo feature), and are available to ship via 'epacket'. Epacket is a quicker, cheaper way to cheap that is offered between Oberlo/Aliexpress. It cuts shipping time down by 10-15 days in most cases.

To upload to Oberlo, you'll see a blue circle with a white price tag in the middle - press that, and your products are directly uploaded to Oberlo. Fill in your own product details, choose which pictures to use, set your price and then hit 'Push To Shop'. Make sure you choose a collection in Oberlo so your products upload properly (i.e Women's Shirts, Mens Shoes etc).

If you're doing clothing, don't upload every variant. I chose 2-3 for each product. Your goal is to not give the customer too many options...people get overwhelmed easily when it comes to online shopping.

When someone buys with Oberlo, you simply need to click 'Fulfill'. You can choose to automatically do that whenever someone buys a product, but it's a bit iffy if the variant is suddenly not available, so I choose to manually do it.

5. Setup Social Media (Facebook, Instagram), and offer (optional) product to Affiliates

Create a Facebook and Instagram account for your store. Fill it up with content, use related hashtags. You may think it's not worth it, but spending a couple of bucks to buy some followers is important; social proof is big in the eyes of buyers. The same product can be offered by two accounts, one with 100 followers and the other with 5k, it's obvious who they'll buy from.

Most of my sales came from affiliates. Contact people (in my case, babes) who are related to your product with a lot of followers. Offer them a % per sale (Affiliatily is an app on shopify for this). I offered 15% per sale, but you can do more or less depending on the price of your product. I messaged about 50 affiliates, 15 got back to me. I sent the product express, and within a week I was receiving sales from my affiliates.

Download any app for instagram that allows you to preload pictures. No use going on yourself every day to post a picture. Preload like 30 pictures with hashtags and you'll be good for a few weeks.

6. Run Facebook Ads + setup your facebook pixel.

Facebook ads are powerful. Take a week to test ads at $5/per day. Target based on your product. I targeted women who shopped online for clothing, so an example of interests I used were: Zara, forever21, H&M etc...And make sure that your picture in your advertisement is good quality (use an image resizer).

Set your ads up for conversions and clicks, then track using your facebook pixel, which can be easily setup to connect with Shopify. I'd even recommend using a google analytics account. Test for a days, check results. If people are getting to checkout but not buying, it may be your shipping is too expensive.

Discounts - 10% off, 15%, free shipping discounts all lead to a lot of sales. 10% off $20 isn't much, but people go crazy for discounts. I'm currently offering a 'Summer16' discount on all clothing which is for free shipping, and I've already receiving 200 orders with it this week alone.

If you want to see my advertisements, PM me and I'll send you a screenshot.

7. Test, test, and test some more.

If some products aren't selling - remove them. If you have a good theme, and a good target niche, you will sell products, so keep testing. Took me a week to figure out exactly what my target niche wanted.

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In the end, I really like dropshipping. I know this step-by-step guide isn't everything you need to know, but it's a general idea. On my journey to location independence I've tried a lot of things; and this is by far my favourite. It's scalable, automated and relatively easy to setup with little cost. It takes some time in the research-phase, but it's an easy business model to learn.

Once your store becomes profitable, you can easily sell it and start a new one. I run two stores at the moment, and while I can't replace my current income, it's getting there.

In general, the process is: Research > Set up Shopify/Oberlo > Promote > Scale > Automate.

Links:

Oberlo - https://www.oberlo.com/
Shopify - https://www.shopify.ca/
Image resizer - http://resizeimage.net/

Post: #2

Great data sheet. Thank you WC.

Post: #3

Is there any customization / branding involved? Or it's just straight existing product?

(I.E. can the dropshipper alter text / design?)

Post: #4

(07-29-2016 12:09 PM)456 Wrote:  Is there any customization / branding involved? Or it's just straight existing product?

(I.E. can the dropshipper alter text / design?)

As I understand it, if you want to custom brand something, you need to go the old route. Contact the supplier, order in bulk etc...

Post: #5

Hey buddy great datasheet. Couple questions for you as I typically buy and hold inventory and these issues are what's keeping me from dropshipping although that really is my end goal as it's more condusive to location independence...

1. Do you get customers complaining about the long shipping time?

2. Do you have any issues using the ePacket tracking? In my experience ePacket tracking is confusing to track and oftentimes doesn't show any updates until the item actually arrives in the states which can be a week or more. Any buyers give you a hard time about tracking not being up to date or not providing tracking quickly enough as many Ali Suppliers wait like 3-7 days after the order before actually shipping?

3. Have you tried this method on eBay or Amazon? I would imagine it's easier with your own shopify site as quick shipping and tracking verification is not as important.

4. Most importantly how do you handle returns and exchanges? Obviously the nature of clothing in my experience your going to have at least a 5% return rate, possibly as much as 20% on Amazon although thats in large part because Amazon makes returns too easy. Anyhow, since Ali Express typically either doesn't accept returns or even if they do the return shipping makes it cost prohibitive to even bother with how do you deal with customer returns or ordering the wrong sizes?

Thanks

Post: #6

(07-29-2016 12:37 PM)jamaicabound Wrote:  1. Do you get customers complaining about the long shipping time?

In my FAQ section, I list shipping time as 10-20 days. Most arrive around 12-15 though, so I haven't had too many complaints. With anything you'll get complaints though, and I have had a few. Overall it's been positive though.

Quote:2. Do you have any issues using the ePacket tracking? In my experience ePacket tracking is confusing to track and oftentimes doesn't show any updates until the item actually arrives in the states which can be a week or more. Any buyers give you a hard time about tracking not being up to date or not providing tracking quickly enough as many Ali Suppliers wait like 3-7 days after the order before actually shipping?

For most of my orders, the ePacket processing time is 3-5 days, so I haven't had an issue. That being said, I own a second store (workout gear), and with the more expensive orders there, I've had an issue where people ask why tracking information isn't available. Thankfully, I haven't had 100s of complaints, otherwise it'd be a bit tedious.

As long as the supplier you link to is reputable, you shouldn't have a lot of issues. Although they say 3-5 processing time, most of the orders I've received have been processed in 1-2. I have heard horror stories though where the product doesn't ship out for weeks..In that case, obviously, a refund is required or some future discount.

Quote:3. Have you tried this method on eBay or Amazon? I would imagine it's easier with your own shopify site as quick shipping and tracking verification is not as important.

Nope. I've sold things on Amazon/eBay, but not using this method.

Quote:4. Most importantly how do you handle returns and exchanges? Obviously the nature of clothing in my experience your going to have at least a 5% return rate, possibly as much as 20% on Amazon although thats in large part because Amazon makes returns too easy. Anyhow, since Ali Express typically either doesn't accept returns or even if they do the return shipping makes it cost prohibitive to even bother with how do you deal with customer returns or ordering the wrong sizes?

My store hasn't been open long, but my return rate right now is around 3%, and I think that's partially due to the low prices of my products. My shipping policy is a 30-day full refund or exchange, except on sale items. In these cases, every single one has been exchange. What I do, is simply send them a new one.

I was selling a shirt for $19.99, total cost to me was $5. A girl wanted to exchange hers for a different size, so I just sent her a new one. Total cost to me was $10, and I kept a customer happy. Most of my customers are return customers, so spending a little to keep them coming back is fine with me. Obviously with more expensive products, this wouldn't be the best method. With my workout store, I make customers pay return shipping, which is under $15, but for more expensive products they'll do that no problem.

Post: #7

For this business model you really have to nail FB ads by using your custom audience and conversion pixels correctly. Can't stress this enough.

You should check out the Shopify Facebook groups. Best one is probably Kingpinning.

Just a warning, this is a popular trend at the moment and there are a lot of affiliate marketers and MMO guys jumping into this model (it is kind of the new FBA). Without an edge it might be hard in the future to compete as CPC will undoubtably rise. So get in before its too late !

Post: #8

(07-29-2016 01:04 PM)skptc Wrote:  You should check out the Shopify Facebook groups. Best one is probably Kingpinning.

Adding to this group, my personal favourite is the Cener Shopify Mastermind. It's free, and the guy is an absolute beast. Provides weekly webinars on dropshipping, as well as starting a t-shirt store.

Post: #9

(07-29-2016 12:54 PM)WeekendCasanova Wrote:  

(07-29-2016 12:37 PM)jamaicabound Wrote:  1. Do you get customers complaining about the long shipping time?

In my FAQ section, I list shipping time as 10-20 days. Most arrive around 12-15 though, so I haven't had too many complaints. With anything you'll get complaints though, and I have had a few. Overall it's been positive though.

Quote:2. Do you have any issues using the ePacket tracking? In my experience ePacket tracking is confusing to track and oftentimes doesn't show any updates until the item actually arrives in the states which can be a week or more. Any buyers give you a hard time about tracking not being up to date or not providing tracking quickly enough as many Ali Suppliers wait like 3-7 days after the order before actually shipping?

For most of my orders, the ePacket processing time is 3-5 days, so I haven't had an issue. That being said, I own a second store (workout gear), and with the more expensive orders there, I've had an issue where people ask why tracking information isn't available. Thankfully, I haven't had 100s of complaints, otherwise it'd be a bit tedious.

As long as the supplier you link to is reputable, you shouldn't have a lot of issues. Although they say 3-5 processing time, most of the orders I've received have been processed in 1-2. I have heard horror stories though where the product doesn't ship out for weeks..In that case, obviously, a refund is required or some future discount.

Quote:3. Have you tried this method on eBay or Amazon? I would imagine it's easier with your own shopify site as quick shipping and tracking verification is not as important.

Nope. I've sold things on Amazon/eBay, but not using this method.

Quote:4. Most importantly how do you handle returns and exchanges? Obviously the nature of clothing in my experience your going to have at least a 5% return rate, possibly as much as 20% on Amazon although thats in large part because Amazon makes returns too easy. Anyhow, since Ali Express typically either doesn't accept returns or even if they do the return shipping makes it cost prohibitive to even bother with how do you deal with customer returns or ordering the wrong sizes?

My store hasn't been open long, but my return rate right now is around 3%, and I think that's partially due to the low prices of my products. My shipping policy is a 30-day full refund or exchange, except on sale items. In these cases, every single one has been exchange. What I do, is simply send them a new one.

I was selling a shirt for $19.99, total cost to me was $5. A girl wanted to exchange hers for a different size, so I just sent her a new one. Total cost to me was $10, and I kept a customer happy. Most of my customers are return customers, so spending a little to keep them coming back is fine with me. Obviously with more expensive products, this wouldn't be the best method. With my workout store, I make customers pay return shipping, which is under $15, but for more expensive products they'll do that no problem.

Hey buddy, thanks for taking the time to answer my questions. One last question for you. I've done my fair share of Ali Express purchasing and in many of the categories I shop in sellers come and go, products come and go, etc.

Do you run into any issues where you go to order and that seller is no longer selling or that product is no longer available? Do you have a way to automate keeping an eye on this or adjusting products and prices or is this a manual process?

One more question, do you find the sizes run small or normal?

Post: #10

(07-29-2016 01:21 PM)jamaicabound Wrote:  

(07-29-2016 12:54 PM)WeekendCasanova Wrote:  

(07-29-2016 12:37 PM)jamaicabound Wrote:  1. Do you get customers complaining about the long shipping time?

In my FAQ section, I list shipping time as 10-20 days. Most arrive around 12-15 though, so I haven't had too many complaints. With anything you'll get complaints though, and I have had a few. Overall it's been positive though.

Quote:2. Do you have any issues using the ePacket tracking? In my experience ePacket tracking is confusing to track and oftentimes doesn't show any updates until the item actually arrives in the states which can be a week or more. Any buyers give you a hard time about tracking not being up to date or not providing tracking quickly enough as many Ali Suppliers wait like 3-7 days after the order before actually shipping?

For most of my orders, the ePacket processing time is 3-5 days, so I haven't had an issue. That being said, I own a second store (workout gear), and with the more expensive orders there, I've had an issue where people ask why tracking information isn't available. Thankfully, I haven't had 100s of complaints, otherwise it'd be a bit tedious.

As long as the supplier you link to is reputable, you shouldn't have a lot of issues. Although they say 3-5 processing time, most of the orders I've received have been processed in 1-2. I have heard horror stories though where the product doesn't ship out for weeks..In that case, obviously, a refund is required or some future discount.

Quote:3. Have you tried this method on eBay or Amazon? I would imagine it's easier with your own shopify site as quick shipping and tracking verification is not as important.

Nope. I've sold things on Amazon/eBay, but not using this method.

Quote:4. Most importantly how do you handle returns and exchanges? Obviously the nature of clothing in my experience your going to have at least a 5% return rate, possibly as much as 20% on Amazon although thats in large part because Amazon makes returns too easy. Anyhow, since Ali Express typically either doesn't accept returns or even if they do the return shipping makes it cost prohibitive to even bother with how do you deal with customer returns or ordering the wrong sizes?

My store hasn't been open long, but my return rate right now is around 3%, and I think that's partially due to the low prices of my products. My shipping policy is a 30-day full refund or exchange, except on sale items. In these cases, every single one has been exchange. What I do, is simply send them a new one.

I was selling a shirt for $19.99, total cost to me was $5. A girl wanted to exchange hers for a different size, so I just sent her a new one. Total cost to me was $10, and I kept a customer happy. Most of my customers are return customers, so spending a little to keep them coming back is fine with me. Obviously with more expensive products, this wouldn't be the best method. With my workout store, I make customers pay return shipping, which is under $15, but for more expensive products they'll do that no problem.

Hey buddy, thanks for taking the time to answer my questions. One last question for you. I've done my fair share of Ali Express purchasing and in many of the categories I shop in sellers come and go, products come and go, etc.

Do you run into any issues where you go to order and that seller is no longer selling or that product is no longer available? Do you have a way to automate keeping an eye on this or adjusting products and prices or is this a manual process?

One more question, do you find the sizes run small or normal?

I would recommend building a relationship with the vendor and getting off Aliexpress. You can negotiate pricing better too if you do this.

Post: #11

(07-29-2016 01:48 PM)skptc Wrote:  I would recommend building a relationship with the vendor and getting off Aliexpress. You can negotiate pricing better too if you do this.

For branded products, yes. For unbranded products, it doesn't matter. Most stores switch up product catalogs anyways, so building a relationship with a vendor for an unbranded product is unnecessary. At any given point in time, you'll have 10 vendors selling the same product at different prices.

Post: #12

(07-29-2016 01:21 PM)jamaicabound Wrote:  Hey buddy, thanks for taking the time to answer my questions. One last question for you. I've done my fair share of Ali Express purchasing and in many of the categories I shop in sellers come and go, products come and go, etc.

Do you run into any issues where you go to order and that seller is no longer selling or that product is no longer available? Do you have a way to automate keeping an eye on this or adjusting products and prices or is this a manual process?

One more question, do you find the sizes run small or normal?

There's a feature in Oberlo for this. When you're uploading your products you can tick an 'adjustment' box. If the product price changes, you'll be notified, and if the product is out of stock, or the vendor stops selling, you'll be notified as well.

Also - if a product is out of stock, Oberlo automatically tells Shopify. Shopify then fixes your store for you, so if a customer tries to buy a product that is out of stock, the button will say "out of stock" instead of "Add to cart". So you don't need to worry about items being out of stock, or vendors ceasing to sell. As I said above, you can find numerous vendors selling the same products.

Sizes run small. They're Asian sizes. In my sizing charts, I just adjust to North American sizes.

Post: #13

Can you sell the Oberlo products on ebay and make a profit, or are prices too high for ebay?

Post: #14

(07-29-2016 01:04 PM)skptc Wrote:  For this business model you really have to nail FB ads by using your custom audience and conversion pixels correctly. Can't stress this enough.

You should check out the Shopify Facebook groups. Best one is probably Kingpinning.

Just a warning, this is a popular trend at the moment and there are a lot of affiliate marketers and MMO guys jumping into this model (it is kind of the new FBA). Without an edge it might be hard in the future to compete as CPC will undoubtably rise. So get in before its too late !

Agreed I imagine you really need to be good at FB ads. I run alot of facebook ads but have never really found them to convert well for me so while I dont mind getting fairly targeted traffic for a penny or less or likes, I've never had much success converting sales with them.

I actually like the strategy however personally I'd probably go a route of something besides t-shirts as not only are you competing with every drop shipper out there but your also competing with every teespring and amazon merch seller out there as t-shirts are kind of a huge thing right now for everyone into online hustling.

There's a lot of really cheap BDSM stuff on Ali Express from Wartenberg Pinwheels to restraints and they have a huge markup so I may try to do something more along those lines.

Post: #15

(07-29-2016 02:50 PM)innocent21 Wrote:  Can you sell the Oberlo products on ebay and make a profit, or are prices too high for ebay?

IMHO this won't work on eBay/Amazon. Here's the reason. Amazon requires you ship products within 24 hours. eBay technically allows you to set a handling time but in reality you better be quick or customers will be pestering you for info.

Amazon is very good at tracking how quickly you print a label and create tracking as well as how quickly it's scanned by USPS. eBay isn't quite as advanced on Amazon but eBay rankings and seller metrics are also starting to be judged very heavily on that as well.

Also the buyers on both these platforms are the most difficult buyers in the world. Not only are you going to have a ton of returns because Amazon allows people to buy shit they dont want just to return it and eBay and Amazon both heavily favor buyers and want to provide a "positive buying experience".

Basically from the second the product sells buyers will be hitting you up asking for tracking. Shit is going to hit the fan when you can't provide tracking for min 3 days b/c that's just how Ali Express works and then when they are trying to track an epacket and its not showing up, again they are going to go ballistic.

I have literally sold items at 11PM on a saturday and had people call my cell at 6am sunday morning asking why they dont have the item. Hmmm, because Fedex doesn't pickup items at midnight on a sunday night and because items typically aren't delivered within 7 hours. This is routinely the type of shit you will run into though.

It will inevidbly lead to a ton of returns, chargebacks, paypal a cases and ultimately your eBay and Amazon accounts being suspended.

I'm not saying dropshipping is not possible but you'll have to go with an actual dropshipping company who ships quickly. Using any chinese suppliers the shipping times is going to cause way too many problems.

One other problem with eBay, most of theese manufacturers are now themselves selling on eBay so the biggest selling point you have since you can't possibly compete with them on price is at least your in the USA. Many buyers will avoid chinesee sellers because they don't want to wait 3 weeks to get their item of they view anything comming from china as crap, even though everythiing they buy from eBay and Amazon in the USA is the same old junk just marked up because someone like you or I purchased it in bulk and are reselling it lol.

Post: #16

Powerful datasheet WC. Thanks a lot for posting this. I'm 100% going to try this out.

How do you set up quality pictures for your products on your shop? Do you just use the ones that they provide on Aliexpress, or take your own?

Post: #17

Good stuff WC!

This is a timely datasheet because I'm actually in the process of setting up my own store using this very strategy. The store itself is looking good and I've got most of the copy written. Unfortunately some personal issues derailed my progress lately, so I still need to finish stocking my store and then launching this sucker.

I agree with skptc on the fact that this method seems to be hot right now and will likely become very saturated in the near future. Now is the time to give it a try if you're interested in doing it.

Post: #18

(07-30-2016 10:59 AM)Zona Wrote:  Good stuff WC!

This is a timely datasheet because I'm actually in the process of setting up my own store using this very strategy. The store itself is looking good and I've got most of the copy written. Unfortunately some personal issues derailed my progress lately, so I still need to finish stocking my store and then launching this sucker.

I agree with skptc on the fact that this method seems to be hot right now and will likely become very saturated in the near future. Now is the time to give it a try if you're interested in doing it.

Goodluck!

It doesn't really matter if this method is becoming saturated. Ecommerce has been popular for years. What matters, is making sure that your store, and products are relevant, and that you can properly target your niche.

Post: #19

(07-30-2016 11:35 AM)WeekendCasanova Wrote:  

(07-30-2016 10:59 AM)Zona Wrote:  Good stuff WC!

This is a timely datasheet because I'm actually in the process of setting up my own store using this very strategy. The store itself is looking good and I've got most of the copy written. Unfortunately some personal issues derailed my progress lately, so I still need to finish stocking my store and then launching this sucker.

I agree with skptc on the fact that this method seems to be hot right now and will likely become very saturated in the near future. Now is the time to give it a try if you're interested in doing it.

Goodluck!

It doesn't really matter if this method is becoming saturated. Ecommerce has been popular for years. What matters, is making sure that your store, and products are relevant, and that you can properly target your niche.

Hey Cassanova, wondering if I can bother you with one more question. I'm definately going to give this method a try and I already have a great niche picked out. I"m pretty experienced with ecommerce but in the past have always held inventory never done the dropshipping thing.

I imagine maybe I'm really overthinking this and anticipating every possible problem that could possibly come up where as I should just be taking action and dealing with them as they pop up but over the weekend I had one more thought as a potential hurdle.

I was going to ask if you have your supplier blind ship so it's not looking like the item came from a company/site different than yours. THat said now that I think about it epacket packages generally come looking pretty generic ie plastic white bag with like the customs lable but I don't think I've ever had anyone insert a business card or any marketing materials or anything like that.

I guess one sticking point I could potentially see, just curious if you ever hear anything from your customers about this. Obviously were marking up these products so that $5 tee shirt were selling for $20 or $25.

If as a consumer I pay $5 for a shirt and it shows up in an epacket white wrapper kinda dirty, taped up etc I don't really care. On the other hand if I pay $20 or even $25 for a shirt and I see this dirty epacket wrapper show up taped I don't want to say I'd be upset but I'm not really getting the same "perceived value" of if the shirt came in some fancier packaging with my websites logo printed on the box or bag. I know at the end of the day its kinda dumb, the packaging is just going to be thrown in the trash but it seems when people pay more for something they want to be able to justify it was money well spent and I feel like thats easier to do with fancy packaging as opposed to an epacket package.

For t-shirts it may not really make a difference one way or the toher but for some of the other items I plan on selling, I may pay $10 for the item wholesale, I feel like with custom packaging/branding I could probably get $60 or $80 for some of these items but I almost feel like I'm forced to price it at say $25 because if I charge $80 I think people may take issue with a china epacket with no branding showing up. On the flip side if I bought this product wholesale in bulk, had my own packaging printed and private labeled the product I feel like I could probably get $80 to $120 for that very same item.

Just curious if that issue has ever come up for you or if you have any comment on that in general?

Post: #20

@Jamaica bound

I usually avoid Chinese sellers on eBay.

But a few times I've considered getting a gross from those guys, and either getting shipwire or FBA to handle it. So that the good are already in country and shows a us origin.

WIA

Post: #21

@jamaicabound: Sounds like you know a lot regarding ecommerce, you should bust out a datasheet for us newbs.

TIA

Post: #22

(08-01-2016 12:15 PM)jamaicabound Wrote:  I was going to ask if you have your supplier blind ship so it's not looking like the item came from a company/site different than yours. THat said now that I think about it epacket packages generally come looking pretty generic ie plastic white bag with like the customs lable but I don't think I've ever had anyone insert a business card or any marketing materials or anything like that.

I've never done a blind ship. I ship as is - a basic shipping package done via ePacket. The customers don't really care, as my stuff is unbranded. That being said, I've been opening up a branded watch store, and in this case, I had the supplier create a custom package for me, but I had to order a minimum order quantity (moq) for them to do this. You need to build trust doing it this way. For general stores/aggregates, however, you don't need to worry about blind shipping something.

(08-01-2016 12:15 PM)jamaicabound Wrote:  I guess one sticking point I could potentially see, just curious if you ever hear anything from your customers about this. Obviously were marking up these products so that $5 tee shirt were selling for $20 or $25.

If as a consumer I pay $5 for a shirt and it shows up in an epacket white wrapper kinda dirty, taped up etc I don't really care. On the other hand if I pay $20 or even $25 for a shirt and I see this dirty epacket wrapper show up taped I don't want to say I'd be upset but I'm not really getting the same "perceived value" of if the shirt came in some fancier packaging with my websites logo printed on the box or bag. I know at the end of the day its kinda dumb, the packaging is just going to be thrown in the trash but it seems when people pay more for something they want to be able to justify it was money well spent and I feel like thats easier to do with fancy packaging as opposed to an epacket package.

For t-shirts it may not really make a difference one way or the toher but for some of the other items I plan on selling, I may pay $10 for the item wholesale, I feel like with custom packaging/branding I could probably get $60 or $80 for some of these items but I almost feel like I'm forced to price it at say $25 because if I charge $80 I think people may take issue with a china epacket with no branding showing up. On the flip side if I bought this product wholesale in bulk, had my own packaging printed and private labeled the product I feel like I could probably get $80 to $120 for that very same item.

Just curious if that issue has ever come up for you or if you have any comment on that in general?

In regards to all of the above, you're giving the customers too much credit. While perceived value is important, it all depends on your price point.

For my clothing store, I don't care at all about branding. I advertise my store as an aggregate of fashion trends. Customers don't care at all about packaging in this case, since my positioning price-wise is $10-$20. I sell certain bracelets for $16.99 though, that you can find online elsewhere for $69.99. The only difference is they brand and custom package, so again, it depends on how you want to position your store.

My workout store, is a obviously positioned as higher-quality, and a higher price point, but again, it's positioned as an aggregate and still relatively cheap compared to the same workout gear elsewhere. Branding isn't important here, neither is the shipping package.

In saying all of that, I'm opening up a watch store soon. In this case, I got the supplier to create a custom package with my logo and promotional material enclosed, but I had to order a minimum order quantity(MOQ), in order to build trust with that supplier.

In short - customers don't give two shits, unless you position your brand as 'premium'. If you're selling random trinkets, no one will care. If you position yourself as a premium bracelet/watch brand, you better have custom branding on your packaging. I personally like the 'aggregate' stores, because they're easy to set up, make a profit very quickly, and I can sell the store to someone else quickly. This new watch company I'm setting up is a longer-term project because it takes a lot longer to set up and a bigger initial investment.

Post: #23

Man if I could rep you again, I totally would.

Post: #24

I'd like to hear more about the process of selling a store.

How many months of consistent sales do you need before you put the store up for offers?
Where do you find potential buyers?
What financial metrics are they most interested in?
What sort of multiple of income can you get?
How do you arrange the payment and transfer of assets and ownership?

Post: #25

Just bumping up to answer the question above, and provide a link to a solid free service I use when deciding on a brand name - https://namechk.com/. It shows whether that brand/username you want to use is available on a whole host of sites; FB, Insta, Youtube, Ebay, Wordpress, etc...saves a ton of time.

(08-03-2016 08:28 PM)Phazlenut Wrote:  I'd like to hear more about the process of selling a store.
How many months of consistent sales do you need before you put the store up for offers?

I've seen stores sell after 2-3 months of profitable, growing sales. An established store, will obviously sell for more. People love shortcuts, so as long as your store is reasonable profitable, it'll sell. I've seen a few sell for $1,000-$2,000, yet they had zero sales - they simply looked nice, and had solid traffic (no sales still).

Quote:Where do you find potential buyers?

Most of the stores I've seen sold, have been sold to members of mastermind groups -they're likely the most eager buyers.

Quote:What financial metrics are they most interested in?

We're not involved in M&A here. It's simple - revenue, and ad expenses; that's it. Find out how much he/she spends on the ad budget, look at monthly income, and make your decision based on that. Also, take a look at how much, if any, the shop owner is paying out to their affiliates.

Quote:How do you arrange the payment and transfer of assets and ownership?

Not too sure on this one. I think Shopify has a feature for that, or something, but you'd have to look further into it.

Edit: Completely blanked. Empireflippers.com is probably the best spot to sell your store. Awesome platform, trustworthy and has a ton of features.