Podcast Episode 2: Top Three Mistakes New Dropshippers Make

TUNE IN AT LAUNCHERS-ACADEMY.COM/PODCAST

EPISODE SUMMARY: In this episode, we are going to cover exactly how you can avoid the top three mistakes most beginner Dropshippers make and focus only on what to do so you can succeed! Whether you’re completely new to e-commerce, have been researching for months on end, or have been doing it for a while to see no results, this is a great episode for you.

Jaiden: Alright, welcome back. And today we’re going to be talking about the top three mistakes a lot of dropshippers will make. I’m going to let my co founders do to honour and ladies first. So Melissa, there’s a lot of like mistakes out there. And we can spend like four or five hours listing out all the mistakes we’ve seen dropshippers do with the students that we work with are also more importantly, when we’re doing ourselves. But there’s really three that we have to identify here, especially for you listening that one the end to Job shipping, you’re completely new, or also you’ve been doing for a while here, and you’re not aware of these top three mistakes, and we want to kind of help you at least see some results. And more importantly, do dropshipping the right way, not the wrong way. So the top three mistakes, we’re gonna break it down here for you all. So what’s number one?

Melissa:
The number one biggest mistake that I see new dropshippers as well as our students make is not doing enough product research. So this is where we see a lot of people choosing products that they like, and basically throwing money at these products to test them without first validating the product to see if there’s actually demand for it before spending a single dollar on advertising. And this is one surefire way to burn money because you’re going into it completely blind, and just basically throwing money at the wall and hoping that it sticks.

So in this mistake, what we really say to our students, as well as other people that we know who are making this exact same mistake is really knowing how to stick to a very strict product research system, that they are going to follow that so that they’re able to filter out losing products before spending a single dollar on the product to test it. And then it will also help increase your chances of getting into a winning product much faster.

And once you find a winning product, you know, believe us scaling it will pretty much be textbook but the biggest hardest part of this entire process is just finding that winning product. And in order to do so you have to make sure that you are doing enough product research so that you’re validating the demand for the product.

One way of doing that just to throw out a actual tangible step for the step is to look on Google Trends and make sure that people are actually shopping and buying for this keyword of the product that you are wanting to sell, whether that be the niche. So for example, if you’re selling a fitness product, you want to make sure the word fitness which is the niche of the category is people are actually searching for fitness items. And then whatever you know item that you’re wanting to sell, let’s just say it’s a fitness ring, you’re searching for these keywords to make sure people are actually searching for it. And there’s an active market looking to actress actually purchases products. From there before you even spend a single door on ads, you’ll know that people are actually looking for this so that when you set everything up correctly, such as your store, and then knowing how to properly start advertising to your customers and generating traffic to your store, you’ll know that you’ll likely get sales because you’ve already done your research.

Jaiden:
Cool, I love that and she kind of gave it away here a little bit with a Google Trends and that’s something that we can dive into a little bit more as well here of how you can probably use it. And we just kind of asked giving you a little bit more insight into how we’re helping our students find winning products and also how to help you find winning products to so tune in to the next episode because we are going to be talking about how to help you find your next winning product.

So I love that little advice here not doing product research and truthfully Yeah, you know, and then the day you’re just not doing enough product research what was hot like you know, a month ago probably not hot now, what’s hot like a week goes probably not hot now. Because the markets always changing directions every second literally is it’s pretty much like changing underwear. It’s something you got to do every day and the markets always changing underwear in a funny example, right? So if you want to be a good marketer, you have to always not rely on the same methods that worked a week ago or a month ago, or even a couple of hours ago because everything is always changing.

People are having different needs. And what product research exactly the same thing in a sense that hey, look, you got to be on top of your product research because something that you thought was really well passes a certain system or you know, look to me, it made a lot of sense if you’re done your research was great a month ago, it’s probably not going to be something that’s worth selling now, or even you know, a few days from now. So doing product research and being up to deal with is super important. So that’s the first mistake. And I love that. Now, Christy, what is the, you know, second top mistake that a lot of job shippers will make?

Christy:
Yeah, so I loved what Melissa shared earlier. And going back to our first episode, when we talked more about dropshipping, we talked about how it’s not an easy, get-rich-quick scheme. It takes hard work because 90% of products are losers in dropshipping and you want to keep testing products so that you can find your winner and scale it to the moon.

So how you really want to, keep pursuing this journey along with dropshipping is really understanding your why. So a lot of new dropshippers make the mistake of not knowing their why’s. And this is super important because it along the journey, you’re going to come across challenges, especially with products that might not have performed too well. And you’re going to not want to give up because you want to keep testing and testing until you find that winning product. This is why it’s so important to really know your why.

What this means is knowing whether or not you want to, you know, achieve financial freedom, whether you want more time with your family, whether you want to buy a house for your loved ones, or yourself so that you can have a more comfortable space. Knowing your why will really help you drive you along your journey to make sure that you don’t give up. And I also wanted to share some stories of our dedicated students as well.

So a lot of our students at launchers Academy, we’ve had families with children, recent college graduates, older people looking to start something new later in their lives, siblings looking to build something together, there’s been a lot of different people starting dropshipping. And it’s been amazing. And a lot of these people share their common values. And in terms of what their Why is. And we’ve been hearing that, you know, a lot of our students want to achieve financial freedom, that’s often the biggest goal that they have, which is amazing. They also want to spend more time with their family. Again, with dropshipping, you can achieve passive income, so that you can really spend your time more with your family with more of a flexible schedule. And then also, you know, earning enough to buy a home, that’s always been a really big goal of our students as well. And that’s what drives them throughout the program to keep on learning, keep on implementing our strategies, keep on working hard to build their store, and set up their video creatives as well as their ads.

So a lot of these all come together because of them knowing their why. And it really drives them along the journey to keep on going and keep on finding their winning products. So one of the ways I would say in terms of trying to figure out your why is you could you know, on a piece of paper, jot down what exactly you want to achieve with dropshipping, and who you want to do this for if you have you know, a loved one that you want to achieve your goal to make them happy. So that’s definitely one of the steps you can take in really understanding your why and keep on asking yourself, why do I want to you know, start dropshipping? Why do I want to achieve financial freedom, really understanding and just giving yourself some time to think about that. So that you can really ingrain it in your mind as you are embarking on the dropshipping journey is definitely going to be really helpful and really pushed you to keep on going along the journey to make sure that you reach success.

Melissa:
It goes back to what we were saying earlier, money can get you started, but it’s not going to keep you going. So having a bigger sense of y is what’s going to help you make sure that you’re successful in your journey.

Jaiden:
I love that, so spiritual. That’s awesome, right? And that’s the other thing too. It just kind of reinforced everything that Chrissy just said, Yeah, you know, if you don’t understand your why, and it’s very vague and is very broad, because sometimes when we just ask you what is your why and might not clue to you right away? What is your why? Right?

But do some soul searching understand exactly why you do what you do? Why would you want to get into job shipping? Why do you want to make $50,000 a month? You know, why would you go through all the hard work that it requires, again to dropshipping? Why would you want to get out of bed today, knowing that you’re going to pretty much go back and do the same thing? Why do you want to aspire to be better than where you are? Why do you want to get out of the rat race?

So whatever those reasons are, is it’s super important to identify. And here’s a little secret with your wife as well and just kind of like reinforcing what Christy was saying is your wife’s got to be bigger than just who you are. As a person. It’s got to be bigger than just your own selfish goals. And a lot of people who do succeed in dropshipping, or just people who succeed in general, is they’re more selfless than selfish. Meaning that you’re doing it for someone else. You’re doing it for something other than yourself.

So some of the successful students or just the people that we’ve seen that really stick to this are pretty much people that wanted to do it for someone else. We have students who are doing it for the kids, we have students who are doing it for their parents, we have students who are doing it for the significant other, or we have students who are doing it to prove everyone that’s been telling them no, no, no, that they can’t become successful at this or just in life, right?

So that’s what’s going to get you to wake up every single morning, that’s what’s going to get you out of bed every single day. And more importantly, that’s what’s going to get you to keep going. Because honestly, yeah, you know, it’s not going to be smooth, it’s not going to be, you know, eventful or positive all the time.

And you just have to accept that it’s just like, you know, the best piece of a piece of advice that I can, impart to you, you know, while we’re on this topic here, why before I go into my reason, is that, you know, the struggles are guaranteed in life, and the success is earned. So you have to earn your right to play the game, you have to earn your right to be successful at this. And that’s all about struggling and putting in the work. So, you know, before I kind of dive into my tip here, I want to kind of pass it back to, to Christy is like, there’s a lot of struggles here. So do you think that the struggle is still like, do the struggles go away? Or does it get better? The harder you work? Or where do you think the struggles lie when it comes to dropshipping?

Christy:
Yeah, I would say, you know, when you’re first starting out, and you’re just learning all the different strategies and materials, it does get a little challenging, and it might get even overwhelming because of there’s so much information. But really, if you just be patient, and really think about your why. So who you’re doing this for, it’ll really drive you through the process, and really motivate you to keep on learning and keep on you know, implementing the strategies, and making sure that you’ve reached your end goal of setting up a really successful dropshipping store.

So it does get a little challenging at the beginning. And then you know, once you find that winning product, because you’re also testing multiple products, and then once you find that winning product it’s actually really a smooth process. And as Melissa mentioned before, it’s you know, going by the textbook, really to scale it even further, which definitely is a really big goal for every dropshipper out there. So it is challenging at the beginning. But I would say it actually gets really smoother later on down the road.

Jaiden:
I love that. And you said it does get smoother. And that’s when you start implementing like, you know, people to take over certain roles and all that. Yeah. So here’s another thing I want to kind of pass it to Melissa. So Christy brought up a great point is like, yeah, you know, it’s going to be challenging. And you’re going to struggle here, the very beginning here. And of course, because you’re learning something new, you’ve never done it before. But do we find that it also gets easier? Because here’s the thing, a lot of people think that, you know, if you become successful, it gets easier. But what do we think about dropshippers? That because you’re making $50,000 a month, for example, things get easier does it there, Melissa?

Melissa: Well, I think things get easier in the sense that you now have a system that you know, consistently how to follow. So it gets easier in the sense of the technicalities of how you’re going to build your store, how you’re going to test your product, how you’re going to run ads because now you understand everything. Well, not everything. But you understand a lot of things as you kind of continue going through your journey and you pick up knowledge and experience.

However, I would say as you continue to be successful on this journey and as you get more sales, you’re going to be met with new challenges. So challenges that you haven’t experienced as an early dropshipper where you’re not making like, you know, $50,000 a month. You don’t have problems with fulfillment, you don’t have problems with running out of inventory with your supplier. So you’re going to be meeting new challenges as you go into different parts of your journey and continue to scale and go up.

However, your ability to tackle these challenges and these problems are also going to be a lot smoother. Because you’ve developed the mentality and the mindset of an E-commerce entrepreneur. You already know that there are going to be challenges but how you tackle these challenges is going to be based on what made you successful in the first place. I always think that at each stage of your business journey, you’ll have to become a new person to meet the challenges of that particular stage. However, if you got the mindset right from the beginning, even as you go through different challenges, it’s going to be easier for you mentally because you are already prepared for that with your mindset. So it all kind of goes back into a circle with making sure you have a proper mindset in place before you actually go and embark on this.

Jaiden:
I love it and I’m all about the mindset so the more I talk, the more I talk about spiritual mindset because obviously going back to it, the theme that I want you to understand as you’re listening – that the materials and resources and everything in the blueprint of recipe you need to succeed in dropshipping, are completely worthless if you don’t have the mindset, the grit and the perseverance to do it because nothing in life is going to be easy. If it was easy there, guys, then all of us, we billionaires with six-pack abs.

So as you’re listening to us, we are going to give you personal insights. And also, you know, a recipe. So you can do job training the right way and the wrong way. But really, at the end of the day, it’s down to you. Are you willing to catch the win and ride with it? Or are you going to turn your back because it gets too tough and the wind is blowing you too far, and you can’t handle it, you have to stand your ground. So I just kind of want to bring that up a point at that point up.

So with that being said, the final mistake that I see a lot of dropshippers make amongst the top three mistakes is being very niche-specific before they even get started. So what I mean by that is I see a lot of poor dropshippers and some of my students who get into it too. And that’s because of the wiring and advice you get out there because there’s a lot of advice out there. But not a lot of them actually work. So not all of them are great.

So it’s really important for you to understand where you’re getting your advice from. And I want to kind of dispel this for everyone here. When you get into very focus of the niche you want to get into, you base it off of really no data, sure you can do your market research and all that, but nothing is at hand or firsthand for you. And more importantly, because going back to it, the market is always changing. So if you look for example, if you want to get into beauty, that’s great. But maybe beauty was hot like a month ago and something else for example, like pet is really hot right now. You want to kind of be open to that.

So the biggest mistake I see a lot of dropshippers make is they don’t have any real e-commerce. Like data, they don’t have any real e-commerce experience. So they’re like, You know what, I’m gonna wake up one day, I’m going to build a beauty brand. And there’s nothing wrong with that you can be passionate about it. But you got to make sure you have actual data before you get so set in your own place. So here’s an example.

Let’s just say you listening right now you’re John. Okay. So Hey, John, you’re going to wake up one day, you want to get into dropshipping, and you’re like, you know what, I love the fitness market because I go to the gym all the time, I prep my meals, and you know, I’m ripped and I want to be selling and selling fitness products. And this makes sense, I’m super passionate about it. I can talk about it forever, I can be the best spokesperson or salesperson for anything fitness-related. Awesome. Okay, great. So you now have these fitness products, okay, and you’re going about your e-commerce journey. You’re trying to sell these fitness products, and you don’t pan out so well. You’re not making any money. And were you wrong to get into the fitness market? Probably because you’re not seeing the sales come in, because maybe fitness right now at that given time is not hot.

However, let’s flip the situation here, John. So let’s just say you now you wake up and you’re like, you know what, I want to be open to selling what’s making money. So let’s just say that’s a pet niche. So you’re testing the pet niche and pet products, and you notice that you’re getting sales. Now as you further along the journey, you’re making $1,000 a day. That’s awesome. Right? Wouldn’t you want to make an extra $1,000 a day? Well, of course, anyone would that’s like 30 or $31,000 a month. And that’s that’s more than just paying the bills. That’s, that’s gonna pretty much allow you to leave that job because most jobs won’t ever pay you $31,000 a month. Yeah, let’s be honest here.

So here’s the thing. All right, you’re doing the pet niche and it’s making you money. Were you super passionate about the pet niche, probably not as much as your fitness. You’re still the same John person and that has love fitness. But the theme here is that if the pet niche is making you more money than the fitness niche at the current time, would you be more passionate about something that isn’t making your money? Or do you be passionate about something that’s making you money, you probably be the most sane person and probably be passionate about something that makes them money.

Because here’s the thing, right? Passion can only get you so far. But sometimes if a passion doesn’t work out, you’re not going to be able to pay the bills because passion is not something you can go to the grocery market and go like here look, I’m passionate about the fittest market can I buy that $20 bag of groceries? No, they’re not going to accept passion. It’s not something or it’s not a currency. Right?

So, you know, super important to understand is you want to be open. Don’t make the mistake of being silly, like niche-specific and go like I only want to do beauty I only want to do fitness, the mindset you want to be in as you get into dropshipping. And more importantly, if you haven’t seen any results for yourself, is I want to find a niche that makes money. That should be your mindset going into I want to find a niche that makes money because we’re job shipping is all about testing and testing and testing. Whether that’s a pet niche, fitness niche, beauty niche, whether that’s you know, Home Goods niche, whether that’s a gaming niche, it doesn’t really matter. What really matters is just that product, because once we kind of dive into a little bit more about how you should be testing your products, and what kind of stories you should run, and also our hacks here, we’re going to also dive into more importantly, like what niches work and more of a technical background.

But what’s super important is we’re also going to start telling you that it’s all about testing a product and running with it. So the biggest mistake I see a lot of dropshippers make, and that includes our students as well, is being so niche-specific and not being product-specific, there’s a difference. If you’re nice, specific, you’ve already closed all the doors, you’ve only picked that specific-niche, and that might not be a good niche. And especially if you don’t have a mentor, or someone that’s telling you valuable advice that that niche works, you’re doing a blind.

Jaiden:
However, if you’re product specific and product focus, that means your goal is just to find a product that does well, and then build a brand off of it. So whether it’s like, you know, a specific niche, no one get into, it doesn’t really matter. And here’s the other thing to want to bring up is if you are really nice, specific, and it’s something you’re passionate about, you don’t have to completely rule that out. In the beginning, yes, but at a later date, you can I call it the hybrid.

And the hybrid is basically let’s say, you are really passionate about the beauty space, because you’re a makeup artist, or you’ve always wanted to build your own beauty brand. But as you’re testing your beauty products there, it doesn’t happen to pan out, right. But as you’re testing, like, for example, pet products, it happens a panel right and you are making $1,000 a month, you’re gonna have to focus on that pet product, because it’s going to put food on a table, it’s going to bring in revenue, but are you as passionate about the pet niche, probably not, you want to do beauty.

But here’s the thing, if you were to focus all your time and energy, at that stage, where you are making $1,000, or whatever amount of money you’re making with a pet niche that’s bringing in revenue, you can build it up so big, where you become super profitable, and start automating and hiring people to take care of the business for you, then you can take that capital, that you are not taking out of your own pocket, but you’re taking from the business because it’s profitable, then you can build your beauty niche, because you’re so specific, and you can take on more risk. Because it’s not your own money that you’re putting in, it’s the money you’ve made profitably from pretty much people buying into this, you know, great view, great pet product that you just discovered. So that’s why I call hybrid.

So don’t make the mistake of just going to wake up one day and you’re like, I want to be the best beauty person out there, I want to be the best fitness brand out there. Don’t have that mindset. Wake up and go like, I just want to find a product that makes good money and build a brand off of that. And then if you are very specific and very, you know, passionate about specific niche or industry, leave that to the side, leave that to the side be open to to different products and different niche.

So that’s my like, that’s the one amongst the top three mistakes, I find a lot of people when they’re starting drop shipping, or even when they’re currently doing drop shipping is they’re just not opening their horizon and being you know, being optic, being very open to different opportunities. They’re into different niches. So that’s mine.

Now, something I want to quickly popcorn around here as I’m kind of talking about this is just kind of keep people a little foreshadowing here. Of all the hundreds and niches out there, what is one that, you know, one can consider if they’re going to drop shipping to start expanding their search and there, Melissa, since you’re talking about product research.

Melissa:
I think, you know, given the situation that we are in right now, in 2021, in June, right now, where a lot of people are going outside and coming from the pandemic, a lot of people have been stuck indoors and they feel like you know, they need to go outside and do some experiences. They’re only starting to travel right now but a lot of people are still very hesitant to do that.

So thinking from that angle, it’s like okay, well what are things that people are doing right now? Well, a lot of people are very interested in outdoor experiences. So whether that be looking for some, you know, outdoor games to play activities that they can spend with their family, or their close circle, because now people are kind of expanding their circle of people that they see with the vaccination, everything like that. So it’s what can people do together as a group or even a small group. So finding outdoor experiences is one hot market right now especially now that is June and it’s summer, and people are looking forward to going outside.

Jaiden:
I love that. And what’s one you can throw to the audience there as well Christy?

Christy:
Yeah, weavin As you know, besides outdoors, you know, some people are still at home as well. And we’ve seen a lot of success coming from products within the home goods niche. So within home goods, there’s you know, a lot of different unique products, for example, for your living room or for your kitchen. You know, throughout your space. You want it to be comfortable when you are at home and there’s a lot of hot products right now in within that niche. So that’s definitely one As you can look into when you’re starting in dropshipping

Jaiden:
I love that and we’ll kind of dive more into this here for you listening pretty much how to find winning products and also niches that you shouldn’t you know stay away from and also niches that you should consider investing into. But those are our top three mistakes you know, just kind of summarise it up Melissa what’s mistake number one in short?

Melissa:
Mistake number one is not doing enough product research so making sure that you actually go into validating your product before you spend any money on it or before you even create a store for your product.

Jaiden: I love that and the top third mistake number three mistake here I feel like I’m losing my tongue here. But don’t be picky Priscilla. Okay, don’t be picky Priscilla just be open to the different niches and different products. Okay, so once again, you don’t want to be very niche-specific as you’re going to pretty much ruin the amount of chances and opportunities you’re going to have on other niches that are doing well at the current time. So we’re gonna dive more into that here in the next couple of episodes here so make sure to tune in.

But those are our top three mistakes there for any dropshipper. Whether you’re completely new to it want to get into it, whether you’ve been doing research for months and months on end, whether it’s you’ve already opened up your store and saw no results or you’ve been doing it for a while here. These mistakes that we just brought up here might not be something you’ve heard or something that you have heard but it was seeing your back your mind and this is a refresher, but this is more important for those that are looking to start here’s how you’re going to save yourself a lot of time, a lot of money and a lot of sleepless nights understanding this.

So those are our top three mistakes there guys and we look forward to hearing you come back to our next episode but yeah, A) you know doing enough product research B) is understand your why okay don’t do just for the money that’s where you give up because you will not see money come right away. And C) be open. Don’t be a picky Priscilla. And then you’re pretty much golden. So with that being said there, go out there crush it let’s make some money here in dropshipping.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top

LAUNCH YOUR WINNING STORE

LET US KNOW MORE ABOUT YOU