How I made $8,873 Dropshipping Sunglasses

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Hey everyone it's David with Oberlin and today we're here with longtime store owner and overlay user Tim Kok Tim's, gonna break down the do's and don'ts, of launching your own store, Tim's, most recent store was part of a case study where he documented every step of the store building process we gave him one month to try to generate ten, thousand dollars in revenue and we're gonna check in and see how he did we're gonna give you the chance to win Tim's store so check out the link in the description for more details Tim. First off thanks so much for taking the time to chat thanks for having me it's a pleasure, now, this most. Recent store you did is not your first drop shipping store you've had lots of stores in the past some pyrius first off what, were some of the lessons that you took from your previous stores, that you carried through into, your newest, one I think the most, important part for me is to not overthink the whole process because, a lot of new, drop shippers tend to make this very. Common mistake to really overthink, the whole process to, really. Try. To find, a lot of trending, products, and all the stuff that they need a lot of research, and a lot of. Important. Or a lot of expensive. Tools to use to find. Success, now you mention products. In product selection you ended up launching a sunglasses. Store walk, us through kind of the thought process, and the logic behind choosing sunglasses. Over all, the other dropshipping products that are out there sure when I started it was spring, or spring was thought to rise and so I just don't buy into an intuition, that it's. Summer, is coming and everyone, would need sunglasses. And even. Though summer, at some point will end I want to have a sustainable business and at some places, around, the world there's always some so this was my unnecessary, assumption, but this was my my, way. To go through the process of finding a product okay, so after you decide that ok my store is gonna be a sunglasses, store what are the next steps to determining. You know not just the type of product you're gonna have but the exact products from certain suppliers with certain sizes how. Do you take that next step I'm. Subscribed, to a lot of influences. On Instagram, and check out what, they are promoting, right now because, a lot of big brands promoting. Their products, through influences, on Instagram, so I just checked out what they are promoting right now and just, take, a look at what, they did. And go by intuition okay. So once you've found some suppliers that you trusted the packaging, looks good the products felt good how do you determine, how. Many different, types of sunglasses you wanted to have in your store and then how. You would group them men and women's or different, styles different prices, what was the thought, process on, actually building your different collections so first, of all I just mostly. Get by intuition, in, the beginning, because I didn't want to overthink the process I want to get at bat as fast as possible, and so I just pushed in around 30 products, so, that's, about and I didn't, even include, man's, fashion, or, men's eyewear so I just put in females. Eyewear, and that's, about it it, was that the plan from the beginning to have it be ohmy women's or did you get. A better sense that that was the way to go after you dug into the products no it was because of the research I did and all, of the influencers, were. Mostly. Female and so I thought okay why not give it a try to only sell to female. Now, in addition to intuition. I understand that you also had some, help, determining, products that you should sell from from. A focus, group of one that would be your your girlfriend how did you go about getting feedback and input from your girlfriend on the the products he would sell yeah I just actually showed that all the products of my girlfriend and asked, her what she thinks, about the product and if, she would wear, it in public, then. I said okay why not give it a try and, sell. It on my store was, this process. Of asking friends and family, or girlfriends. In, the past is something that you use kind of to to, get a better feel for what, your target group might be thinking especially you know like you said targeting, women, she's. More qualified than you are to, talk about that so is this is this something you've done in the past as well yeah absolutely because, I have experience, in the past with I where I had, another, store selling probably, very, similar products. So I asked friends what. They think about the products to get, a better sense and feeling, of the products what are some of the key, criteria that, you used to, determine you, know which ones would be better in your store and which ones that your customers would be happier with one of the main criteria obviously for me is to have deep packet available.

Any Packet is a very fast shipping method from. China, to the United States and Canada and other countries yeah. Cool. Is a core. Component of a lot of successful drop shipping businesses, and we're going to have a link, in the description below explaining, a packet a little bit further if you want to know if, a packet delivery is available in your target countries so in addition to e packet, what are some of the other things that. You want to see from a supplier to make sure that you, can trust their products and that you can trust that your customers are going to be happy the, most. Important, part for me to really trust the. Supplier is to actually order products, to my house and do. The quality check on my own so I actually ordered. All the products, to my house and check, them personally you use Facebook a ton during this during this project, or process whatever you want to call it and, you've been using it you know over the last few years and there's been a lot of changes of Facebook well with the algorithm with the prices, of course, advertising. Getting more expensive. At. The same time the technology is getting better and the targeting is getting better what, can you say about the kind, of evolution, that you've seen in, using Facebook as a platform to promote drop, shipping products I think even though it's way. More competitive than. A few years ago, the. Development. Of the ad platform, and the ad manager itself is way, better as incredible. What you can do if you, know your, way around so, I, think it's, going, definitely in the right direction and if, they're keeping up that pace then adds to, create, profitable, ads will be way more easier in the future but still you have to put in work, and you, just can't, build, simple. Ad and expect to make, a profit out of it where, should a store, owner now, that you've had a few different stores get, started with Facebook you know there's you could have a budget as big as you want the potential, audience is a few billion people, it's. Daunting, you know to think about where, where, can I possibly start, in this massive jungle of Facebook, advertising what, what, have you had the most success with what did you do for this sunglasses, store and, kind of what are the you know the starting point as somebody should maybe be looking at I think the starting point should always be, looking, for content, views the first ads I'm running is always, not, for conversion. At least not for purchasing. But. For getting. A lot of data to get, people to my page, and, figure. Out what, of ads works. In the sense, of the copywriting, and all this stuff to really, get a feeling what kind of things. Working, in order to attract people to my store in, order to then later, on with, a second, or third that to, really, figure out what is necessary to, turn those visitors. Into customers you, talking your case study about the quote Facebook ad funnel, how. Do you conceptualize. This, funnel and, what does this look like you know at your store, no it was very, simple there, were three ads the first one aiming. For content, views the, second, one and for ED two cards and the third one actually for, purchases. And when you say content, views what. Is the content that they're viewing no a Content view is when a Facebook, user clicks, on my Facebook ad and, then when they get to your site you, know what what you want to show them to, get. Them to engage again what, are they gonna see is it a product page is it a blog post a video what's the what's, the meet that they're gonna get once they get there obviously. The product, itself, alright, so somebody clicks on this first ad and then, you you register, this content view then you know that they're they're part of your funnel how. Does the second ad differ, from the first it's, just an even better offer so I started, with just, advertising. The, product. And then in the next ad it's a 25%, off discount. So you develop a target, audience that you know is interested, via, this this first group of ads and then you you watch the second campaign which is maybe, a little bit more, revenue.

Minded, What. Happens to this first set of ads do you do, you put that on the shelf and not worry about that anymore does it keep running how, do you balance the the different campaigns that have these different objectives so you have to keep running all the ads because you have to generate new visitors, who, are turning to new customers, later, on okay. And then you're gonna generate more, content views that way certainly some more clicks if, somebody was interested with no discount, they might be interested that much more with 25%, off what's, the third step, because. Of the better offer a lot of people will, start. Their checkout, and will put in some products into their carts, and the. Thread is designed, to turn, those people who already put, something into their cards, to, checkout and. Give me a sale and then, when. You actually launch. The Facebook campaigns. What. Sort of targeting, rules. Were. You implementing, because of course you know Facebook has really detailed granular. Targeting, options there's basic. Stuff like age, and gender where. Something lives but then also their. Interests, things. Things, they like maybe their profession. Or their hobbies. How. Deep did you go down that rabbit hole and what were some of the the filters are the different segmenting, options, that you had the most success with I actually kept it very simple because I at. The beginning I've set my time limit to only four weeks to achieve my goals so, I said okay keep, it very simple and, only run ads in a way to first. Off find people then, attract, people and then in the end with a third ad to really. Make. Them purchase. On my website and the the, target audience you set out to create was. Yeah. You know women probably younger women who were in the market for their own new summer shades did. That end up being. The group that was most interested, in your ads I mean or did you end. Up attracting you know a surprise audience, that maybe you weren't anticipating, no well some in the end it turned out that exactly. The people I tried. To target at the beginning where my actual audience, in the end so your first round of ads weren't. Designed to get any money exactly, that's, counterintuitive, you, know to meet that you would you know have an e-commerce shop and be running ads spending. Hundreds. Maybe even a few, thousand yeah it, totally paid mm okay so we're talking four figures here you're running these ads. But. They're not even designed to bring. In money at least not yet is, that is that a tactic. That you had to learn, the, hard way or is this something you just came up with like. I said it seems a little bit counterintuitive yeah I definitely have to run it the hard way but I think it's, misconception. Right now in. The e-commerce place.

That The, first ads are not necessarily meant to make, money usually ecommerce, ads running, you have to spend money and then, you don't make a profit, out of the first ads you make the profit, in the retargeting, and this is at least for me how it works, out in the end the image in that retargeting. Is a lot more lucrative with. Facebook ads then then the first set of ads that, you need to get people into your funnel and then retarget, them before, you can expect money talk. A little bit about what retargeting, is and why that's more lucrative, than. Just normal advertising, most people don't buy instantly, from, your store because there are too many stores. Out there too many offers. Available so. You, have to have a. Warm, kind, of warm audience people, who who, are used to your brand who know your brand to. Build some trust and then, in the next step when you're doing the retargeting, then, people know your brand have some trust they you build some trust with your business and then, they're way more likely to, make a purchase in. Just on a very logistical. Level just, to you know make sure everybody understands, how, does Facebook know who. Among. Your target group is familiar, with your brain is this through, the Facebook pixel which is implemented. On your website or does it have to do with an ad impression, what one of the triggers that Facebook is looking for to. Identify the the, retargeting people yeah like the the Facebook pixel you mentioned is installed, on my Shopify. Website and then. You can create a, custom, audience out of the Facebook. Pixel data in, order to create a custom audience to. Really just target the people who, know, your brand and so then you could have an ad it's only displayed to people who have been on your website exactly, where so. Far we've only been talking about Facebook, Facebook. Ads and using Facebook segmentation. Why. Didn't you start at Facebook I think for me it's a most, easiest to start with I, didn't, had too much success, personally. In the past with Instagram, so that was the reason why choose. Facebook over Instagram what, are the reasons you think that that you've had more success with Facebook and you could you pinpoint what what the reasons are I think for me it's easier to really, bit a funnel, over there, like I mentioned and where, an Instagram, it is possible, to do the same but as I had a lot of previous, success, with Facebook I picked.

Facebook You, were saying not all of your Facebook ads were. A big success I think you had a few, bombs or a few duds in there let's, say what, were the what, were the common themes the you found in your facebook ads that didn't, work what were you doing wrong or what did you learn from those everything. I did just, by assumption went, wrong so every time I said, okay this could work or maybe this could work because of this and everything, I came up with personally. Didn't work out so I really have to go back and figure, out who, my target audience actually, is instead of just go by assumption now, I need to ask you because I know if I don't one, of our viewers will ask in, the comments, but I want to clarify between, you know revenue and profit, and so we'd. Give us kind of some some ballpark numbers about what, the breakdown was on how much revenue your store generated, and, then how much of that was over. And above what you spent on the ads and the product and the infrastructure, of this store yeah revenue, it was about. Eight thousand six hundred dollars and the. Profit was about four thousand, so, overall. Pretty good in. Just one month spending from scratch okay. So you were north of 8,000 dollars in revenue, how many sales, how many actual purchases, are we talking about they're slightly above 300. How. Many products, per purchase would, those 300 have. Made there was really different, from each customer so, some, purchase for way more than $100, and others, only purchased one product which was low, as $15, were, there levers, that you were pulling to make that happen or did it was. It just by chance that some people would spend more was there any you know thread there that you could see that ways. To increase, the average order value no, I tried, to increase the average order, value at. Some point when, I increase the prices from all the products, and it worked I made more than $5, per order more, but. I didn't get any hack or trick to, really. Get people to add more products to their, cart. The trick is to charge more yeah okay, and what, sort of price increase are we talking about here, I think, $5 though, was $10 okay, so, a product that would. Have cost 17, you bumped up to about 25 or 27 okay what, was the logic on that price increase, yeah one of the main goals I said for this case study for the business was, to make ten thousand dollars in one month so, I had at some point I had to increase the prices to. Get the revenue up and, what impacted that price increase have on on your conversion rate, nothing. At all actually. Okay, so maybe, you should have been charging more from, the beginning is that is that a takeaway that you had yeah definitely, okay when you have any advice for anybody, whether. It's sunglasses, or other products, any advice for for. People who are starting their, own store about how they, should handle the, the pricing question because every every store has this question what's the what's the approach that you would recommend yeah I think it's very tricky and you have to be careful, with, charging, too much money but. You really have to test a lot what kind of price is still, considered, to be affordable, and what, prices are way. Too low so there goes a lot of testing into it now. These these first sales that you're talking about if, I understand correctly they were fueled by a giveaway that you did walk, us through the giveaway and kind of how you how you turned that into your first sales the intention of the giveaway was to have, something in order to capture leads to capture very cheap leads so, I figured, out that makeup. Brush set could. Be something a lot of the people from my target audience could, be interested, in so I set up a giveaway with it all with, the tool called. King sumo and for. Every share. And for every friends there refer, the. People, who entered you know get a new entry so this was kind of viral, and I ended up getting. More than five hundred fifty leads, through this and. The product itself only cost $150. So that's very, cheap per, lead and one. Method, to get more entries was, to become a brand promoter, and this, brand promoter, program. Was actually just, a discount, code and as soon as someone used. This discount, code I would reach out to them and giving, them the, opportunity to become. An affiliate, for the, business okay, what was the logic behind using.

A Makeup, kit as the giveaway. Prize how did that come about I didn't want to give away a product, from my store because I didn't want my customers. To get in a mood that they're, just, waiting for the next giveaway and that they don't want to purchase, my, product so I want to give away other people's product where did you promote the giveaway possible, on the, stores Instagram, page and also on the website itself so as soon as a new visitor visit, the website, the store then, a pop-up came up promoting, the giveaway now, a hundred and fifty dollar. Giveaway, might strike some people as a little bit expensive but as, you said you got several, hundred leads, from this is this, something that you've done in, the past to you, know spend money to get leads and kind of what, might seem like an unorthodox way yeah, I think but it works pretty well that, in the end it was around twenty, six cent per, lead which, is very cheap compared, to other methods. So. It. Turns out very well for me alright so you accumulate, these leads for twenty, six cents a pop and, then what what happens to the leads after that they automatically, go to my mailing, this on MailChimp. And, unfortunately. I didn't have the time to really. Take advantage of, that list because it's at the deadline to just one month but. In the next step I definitely would have used email marketing in order to take advantage of this list all, right so we're. A couple of weeks in your store you've, done the giveaway you've, gotten, some traffic you've made a few sales how. Did you really ramp, things up to. The point where you're able to you know break, into the the five six, seven eight thousand, dollar. Revenue marks, that you hit I think it was when I really, figure out what. Kind of things I had to do in order to make. My Facebook Ads convert, so, this wasn't the end the. Main marketing, channel for me to really bring in a lot of traffic and then turn those visitors. Into customers with, the mentioned, at, funnel and when, you. Say that you found. Ways to get, those ads to convert with. The changes that you made taking, place on the the Facebook ad side or was it tweaks that you were making to, the store once, they got there actually, both but, mainly. On the ads itself, I tested, a lot of the targeting. And the copywriting, and the creative.

Part Itself so, but on the other hand I figured out that a product. Page I test, I tested two product pages and. A B test and one, with a very simple copywriting, and another one with a very long, in-depth, description. And this one converted. Way better than, the simpler one so it was a mix, of poles which made. The success in the end okay so at this point you have your. Facebook Ads going you have an Instagram campaign going give away email. Marketing going on it's. A lot to keep track of what. Might you have done differently or how could you optimize that if, you were gonna do it all again I think next time I would hire a freelancer, from for example up work or, ask, friends to help me out there and so if you use freelancers, what are some of the things that you would have maybe, you, know pawned, off on them and what would you've hung on to yourself it would definitely not give away the stores. Key right everything with just money related I would keep my own and have you worked with freelancers in this capacity, in the past not necessarily with freelancers, but with prints who helped me out there what sort of complexity does that add you, know it's it's tough. Enough to run a store you know when you're doing it by yourself and I wonder if there's a you. Know well. It's helpful to have you know an extra of a pair of eyes extra pair of hands working on this if there's, maybe new. Complexities, that that introduces, yeah I think, you. Don't necessarily have to outsource a lot of processes, even though you probably can outsource, a lot of processes, it doesn't mean that you have to so, only, if it really, takes a lot of time from, you and you can't, do, other work which is super important, like the order fulfillment, for example, then, I would, do, outsourcing, yeah and I ask you about this because I know you have a full-time job that you're also working on so I know, time is is at a premium so it seems like any help you get would. Be good absolutely, you've mentioned Facebook, business manager, Instagram, and MailChimp as, some of the tools that you really leaned on while, you were getting your business started, what. Would you say or if you must have tools for somebody, out there looking to get a business off the ground, obviously, Oh below which, played the good answer you get in and, then King sumo and sumo really, helped me out consumer. For the giveaway and some, more as, the Shopify app to, really, promote and capture email. Leads so, you were always going to to. Stop the store after, a month it was you know it was a test, it was a you know he went to launch launch this and that we're going to give it away so that was always part of the plan, but if you weren't giving it away if you were gonna keep this store what. Would you change from. Your original approach as. You as you move forward I will definitely do way more marketing. On, other channels I never, used Instagram, or Pinterest, or snapchat, but my target audience uses, these tools so, I figured this out in my research, so, these are definitely, marketing, channels I would take advantage of as, well as my email, list in the target audience do you feel comfortable, with.

You. Know targeting. Kind. Of millennial, aged women, is that is that a group, that you. Think you could have another store targeting, them or or when you want to try to, focus on a different group I think my tag nose was pretty good because mainly. There was blog. Out what people who would like to be a blogger I would like to be an influencer, because. This, not just mean that they, are say it coming in but the your, target audience actually promote, your. Products, for you on their channels, so it gives away more brand exposure and helps, in the end now. Another thing I'd be curious about if you were gonna continue working. On this store is if you would want to supplement the. Sunglasses which is your course, your core products with, other related products whatever that may be Beach, head wear or swimming suits or whatever whatever it was is that something that you'll be interested in to try to diversify your offering, or does. That introduce some complexity, that you wouldn't necessarily want though it can make sense definitely, so this is a beauty of lob, shipping it doesn't cost you anything to try, out and even if you fail so you just take the products, down and then you keep up what you're doing so these. Products, swimwear. Or some. Hats definitely, can work out yes then this whole time that you were you were building your shop and running your shop you also had a full-time job what, are some tips that you would give when. It comes to juggling, you, know full-time job that you know that's steady and that's gonna pay the bills versus. You know a new thing that you're trying to build from. Scratch how do you how do you handle those dual responsibilities. I get, up in the morning very early usually, at 4:00, a.m. to half this time definitely, safe on my business and then, whatever. Happens in, the afternoon in the evening I, have, done some work on the business. Most, of the time I spent, the evening's working, on the side business there's, no magic bullet just not getting up before. Awesome. Well Tim we can leave it there thank you so much for taking the time to chat thanks for having me now if you would like to win, Tim's store and all the social media accounts that go with it be sure to check out the link in the description below to see how you can win and if you have any questions about anything we've talked about today Tim will be happy to answer them just drop a note in the comments below and finally if you want more ecommerce, and drop shipping videos be sure to subscribe to the overload YouTube channel until next time happy dropshipping.

2018-08-15 07:05

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