🗣 Hosted by e-commerce entrepreneurs Lewis Smith and James Eardley, in this episode they dissect traditional dropshipping. Shedding light on its pitfalls and offering an alternative path to success.
They aim to debunk myths, untangle the misconceptions, and guide you towards a more sustainable and profitable e-commerce journey.
👉 Prefer to watch this on Youtube? Check it out here ➡️ https://youtu.be/0dwE02xXGWM?si=VkJad5Fq7mJ8XVHJ
★ Snapshot of Traditional Dropshipping: Traditional dropshipping often involves selling low-cost items with razor-thin profit margins.
★ Myths About Traditional Dropshipping: Lewis and James discuss common misconceptions, such as the idea that dropshipping is a get-rich-quick scheme.
★ The Reality of Traditional Dropshipping: Lewis shares how focusing on low-ticket items can lead to a never-ending cycle of selling without making a substantial profit.
★ The Home Turf Advantage: James highlights the benefits of high-ticket dropshipping, where you have the freedom to choose higher-priced products with better profit margins.
★ Traditional dropshipping often involves selling low-cost items with minimal profit margins, leading to frustration and inefficiency.
★ Beware of myths about dropshipping being a quick path to riches; it requires dedication and strategy.
★ High-ticket dropshipping offers the opportunity to choose higher-priced, higher-margin products, making it a more sustainable and profitable business model.
★ Opting for high-ticket items allows your work to compound over time, providing a lifestyle business with fewer administrative demands.
★ Informed action and strategy, not just hard work, are key to dropshipping success.
🗣 Hosted by e-commerce entrepreneurs Lewis Smith and James Eardley, in this episode they dissect traditional dropshipping. Shedding light on its pitfalls and offering an alternative path to success.
They aim to debunk myths, untangle the misconceptions, and guide you towards a more sustainable and profitable e-commerce journey.
👉 Prefer to watch this on Youtube? Check it out here ➡️ https://youtu.be/0dwE02xXGWM?si=VkJad5Fq7mJ8XVHJ
★ Snapshot of Traditional Dropshipping: Traditional dropshipping often involves selling low-cost items with razor-thin profit margins.
★ Myths About Traditional Dropshipping: Lewis and James discuss common misconceptions, such as the idea that dropshipping is a get-rich-quick scheme.
★ The Reality of Traditional Dropshipping: Lewis shares how focusing on low-ticket items can lead to a never-ending cycle of selling without making a substantial profit.
★ The Home Turf Advantage: James highlights the benefits of high-ticket dropshipping, where you have the freedom to choose higher-priced products with better profit margins.
★ Traditional dropshipping often involves selling low-cost items with minimal profit margins, leading to frustration and inefficiency.
★ Beware of myths about dropshipping being a quick path to riches; it requires dedication and strategy.
★ High-ticket dropshipping offers the opportunity to choose higher-priced, higher-margin products, making it a more sustainable and profitable business model.
★ Opting for high-ticket items allows your work to compound over time, providing a lifestyle business with fewer administrative demands.
★ Informed action and strategy, not just hard work, are key to dropshipping success.
I found myself in this difficult cycle of selling, but not profiting and being like, well, what's going on?
James Eardley:
My first route to go down was selling cheaper ticket items, because it's the first time you're doing a business. And often you think, Well, that would be more simple to sell. But all that really does is confined your margins so thin.
Lewis Smith:
You're basically like trying to run a marathon with a backpack full of bricks, you know, it's going to slow you down, it's
James Eardley:
going to make it harder. Something I'd never want to go back to it. It is difficult when you're trying to sell products that you don't believe in yourself. It ultimately comes back round to you. I was kind of like
Lewis Smith:
in denial at that point, because I thought, well, I don't want to admit that this isn't going to work.
James Eardley:
I've been through that. I mentioned that we've learned these lessons the hard way. And you definitely prove that with that story, Lewis
Lewis Smith:
suddenly you go from slightly profitable to actually making a loss on every sale. Not to mention, the thing that no one talks about is later. Welcome to the dropship unlocked Podcast. I'm Louis Smith, the founder of dropship unlocked and with me is our Client Success Coach James Eardley. Now, when we're not recording the podcast episodes, we're running our own e commerce businesses and helping aspiring entrepreneurs launch their own high ticket dropshipping businesses keen to build your own six or even seven figure business. My book, the home turf advantage is your blueprint for launching a profitable online store. Grab your copy at HTA books.com to date. And let's get you started. Now sit back, relax. And let's unlock your potential with the dropship unlocked
James Eardley:
Podcast. Today, we're going to be sharing the lessons that we've learned the hard way. So you might just look at dropshipping differently forever. We're going to be peeling back the curtain on traditional dropshipping, exposing the hidden snags, and revealing why some sellers are paddling in circles while others sail smoothly to profit. We want to dismantle the myths and lay out the blueprint today. So you can avoid common pitfalls and towards a more proven path to success. So Louis, to kick things off, could you provide a bit of a snapshot for us for what traditional dropshipping looks like?
Lewis Smith:
Yep, certainly. So I think when people think of traditional drop shipping, it usually involves selling lower cost items. So low ticket, you might hear it referred to low priced items. And what that means is what people perceive it to be easier because they think a low low price is less friction to buy. But what it really means is that you have extremely thin margins as a seller. And it often means that you're having to source products in extremely oversaturated markets and try and sell into very busy markets as well. So it's kind of like trying to squeeze water out of a stone, it's, you know, yes, it's potentially possible. But it requires a lot of effort for very, very little return. And there's easier places to obtain a water. So we say so, in my early days, I remember jumping into this model thinking that it was the ticket to freedom, this was going to be the way that I would run my business, I remember discovering the concept of drop shipping. And I just remember seeing those sales come through and just being underwhelmed by this mix of like excitement and thinking, amazing, I've just made my first sale my first money online, and then you realize you've spent more on advertising usually than the profit on the razor thin profit margin product that you sold, maybe you bought it for five pounds and sold it for 20 pounds. So there's a 15 pound margin to play with. But if it costs you 30 pounds to acquire the sale in ads, then obviously your your loss making and that's no way to run a business. So it's a bit like you're filling up your bucket, but the bucket has got a hole in it. So it's actually emptying faster than you filling it up. So it doesn't matter how much money you pouring to add, no matter how much you pour it eventually, it's never going to fill up and it's always going to empty. So yeah, there's a quick story about when I first started and I think it was probably the eye opening moment for me when I realized that, okay, this is not sustainable. I can't keep doing this forever, I will run out of money, I'll go bankrupt. And one of the low ticket products that I first focused on was selling men's fashion accessories and men's ties neckties, and I sourced them on Aliexpress like everyone else was doing and I thought I could run Facebook ads to this and increase the perceived brand value and you know, looking back now I was so naive and it's almost insulting to the customers to think that do you really think that they wouldn't just find it on Aliexpress or T mu or one of these websites and you think that you can build it up into this item that's worth 20 pounds instead of three pounds. But I did it I mean I created some cool video ads and it all was slick and it was working on Facebook and Instagram. And we did make some sales but before I did that, just rewind I ordered a few samples for myself because I thought okay, I'll get the blue one and the orange one that the green one and just see what they're like and see what my customers would be experiencing when these items arrived. And they firstly the packaging that they arrived in it was so underwhelming it was yours great from pulled up little packaging, I think they call it an E packet. And it had this Chinese customs writing on it, where it says like imported from China. And then it says the dollar price that we paid for it as sell it as retail, you know. So imagine a customer saying that I pay 20 pounds for this, and it says $3 or $2.58 or something. So there's that side of things. It took nearly two weeks for it to arrive. So think is about 14 days delivery time. And just a really disappointing experience. And I was kind of like in denial at that point. Because I thought, well, I don't want to admit that this isn't going to work because this is my entrepreneurial out. This is my venture. So deep down. Looking back, I knew that this wasn't the type of business that I'd be proud of. But I tried anyway, because I thought nope, I've got to just put those worries to the side. And, you know, I was a bit misguided with it. And I just thought let's just power through. But very quickly, my suspicions, unfortunately, were confirmed. And yeah, that first sale on the low ticket store happened overnight. So it happened while I'd gone to bed and gone to sleep. And the sale obviously came through overnight. I didn't know about that until the morning, woke up in the morning, had a look at my emails and that customer had completely flown off the handle because they thought they'd been scammed. They didn't get a tracking code straight away. They couldn't reach us. They said they'd left us a bad review, they'd sent me about three different emails that got increasingly more angry as they sent them. And you could just see this person was just had so much pent up anger and frustration that they wanted to vent on us as a reseller. And they demanded a refund and publicly wrote about our company on his Facebook profile. And yeah, he thought he'd been scammed. And it is really difficult because I woke up and again, there's this mix of emotions. There's like, I've just made my first sale, I've just made 15 pounds online. And then I realized, oh, oh dear, this is this is not good. Okay, and I'm reading the customer's increasingly angry emails. And yes, I made it right. I told him and eventually he was fine. He was okay. And I gave him a partial discount, and then explained the situation. And he did get his item eventually, two weeks later, or be it. But I just, I think deep down, I knew that it wasn't going to be viable. But I tried anyway. And if you're thinking the same as me, let me save you the heartache and just confirm that after a while I realized it wasn't viable. I know you've had exactly the same type of experiences for Oh, James,
James Eardley:
I have yet I had the same thing. I thought that was my first route to go down, we're selling cheaper ticket items, because it's the first time you're doing a business. And often you think, Well, that would be more simple to sell. But all that really does is confined your margins so thin, that it's easy to overspend on ads very quickly. And also the experience you're given to customers is obviously going to give you headaches, because you're getting bad reviews, you're giving bad experiences. And yeah, I've been through that. I mentioned that we've learned these lessons the hard way. And you definitely prove that with that story, Louis, it's something I'd never want to go back to it. It is difficult when you're trying to sell products that you don't believe in yourself, it ultimately comes back round to you. And as you say, your fears get confirmed. So there are some myths around traditional dropshipping whether that's ally express T mu dropshipping that you might have heard of, what are some of those myths? And are you able to sort of be a myth buster, and bust some of those myths today?
Lewis Smith:
Let's bust the myths. And yeah, so I love that show, by the way, Mythbusters they still make it, I think they may have stopped making that a few years ago. It's a first thing is that the myth that dropshipping is a get rich quick scheme, you'll hear loads of people talk about how I just started this drop shipping store. And now I've got, you know, a Lamborghini and a mansion. And I like fly around the world on private jets. And like the reality is, because of that rubbish fluff that fake marketing online, it makes many people underestimate the efforts required to build a real sustainable business out of this. Now, another myth that is almost like a second layer deep is that dropshipping doesn't work. You know, because that's kind of the opposite end, there's the people who think dropshipping super easy and really lucrative and really rich, like all I need to do is sell low ticket items and make millions. But then there's the other maybe more cynical side of things where people would say, it just doesn't work whatsoever. And that, again, is not true, because that's like taking it to the complete other end of the spectrum. There are businesses that have operated since before the internet was created, who have successfully use drop shipping, think of companies like Wayfair, you know, Argos dropship, a lot of their products. The concept of drop shipping as a business model is not going anywhere, but it's how you use it. It's how it's implemented. And I think believing in the myth that you can just do as I did and set up a cheap men's Thai store and buy products for $1.58 and sell them for 20 pounds and everything will be fine. It's a bit like if you say you're gonna go and open up a restaurant and you said, Okay, I'm gonna tell all of my customers in my marketing that only serve the highest quality, locally sourced ingredients that are, you know, hand put together by the best chefs in the industry. And then when they arrive out the back, I'm like, Oh, I just serve up some microwave meals. And hopefully they weren't realizing that when they taste the food, they'll think that it's a gourmet, high end restaurant, quality food. Now we know deep down is not going to work, right? Because we think, obviously, they're going to realize that sometimes like I did, we almost we think we've like, found a loophole in the system. And we have the audacity to try and fool people into thinking that it is restaurant quality food, even though we know that it's not. And what happens, reality comes crashing down. So eventually, we see the customers disappointment, we get the three emails demanding a refund, saying how disappointed they were in the whole service. And we just watched it all come crashing down. And it's a shame that you see so many newcomers to entrepreneurship and dropshipping and online business, they become dazzled by the amazing stories of overnight success, and the youtubers kind of touting how incredible a business model, it wasn't how easy it was for them, them to get up and running, not realizing the behind the scenes grind. It absolutely is an amazing business model, if implemented correctly, and with enough hard work and front loading of the right strategy to get it right. But if you throw a few products and just assume that, you know, we're going to make millions, then all we have to do is run a few ads, maybe some tic tock or Facebook or Instagram ads, we start to realize after a while that the YouTube tutorial video that we saw and follow to set up our Facebook ads, suddenly, before we know it, we've set our ad campaign live, we've spent maybe 60 pounds on all ads, and we've made maybe one sale or maybe Okay, well, it works but spent 60 pounds on ads. Let me just calculate my profit margin. But I made 12 pounds in profit on that sale. And so we realize we're losing money, and fine to do as your first few sales like that's the learning curve. But if you replicate that process enough times, eventually, you're either forced to just shut it down. Or even worse, you might not realize what's happening because Facebook might not be charging you the money straightaway for the ads. And then later on, you get a huge request to refunds you get your pay pal or payment processor accounts shut down or put on hold. And very quickly, it's easy to run up huge bills that you actually can't afford to pay. So fortunately, I saw the horror stories, I heard the people sharing these types of failures and problems online. And I halted my journey into that side of dropshipping, early enough before any long term damage could be caused. But yeah, I think as with anything, it's hard work, not shortcuts that are the cornerstone for any successful business.
James Eardley:
And you can either learn that by going the hard way, like we did, and tried to sell these products, or pick up on that straightaway and go into the right model. From the start. I'd say it is easy to be pulled in though by the illusion of success or overnight success that often is mentioned, as you say with sort of the traditional dropshipping method. And when I tell my friends, I run e commerce businesses. And then I mentioned the word drop shipping as the fulfillment route to get the products to customers. Often the first thought in their mind is the traditional drop shipping that we're talking about today it's talking about, okay, so you sell cheap products that you source from AliExpress, and you send to customers, and you have put a bit markup on them as if customers won't notice. But that's completely wrong. I've tried that method. And I've learned the hard way and realize that actually, the margins are so thin that it's so easy to overspend with ads, and instead of learning the way that we did, and spending 1000s on ad before realizing that it wasn't profitable, go the other way and give yourself room to play with which is the high ticket drop shipping business model that we'll be talking about today. So we know now that whichever success you go after, it will take hard work to get there. But crucially, at the start point, you have a decision of which hard work you want to go down. The working hard is similar to rowing a boat, you can roll as hard as you like. But if you're going in the wrong direction, you're not going toward shore, then you'll never get to where you want to go to board to set the right direction and then work hard in that direction. And that's where we get to when we first make a decision about growing a business. You've got to choose the strategy that you're going to implement. And hopefully we're doing a good job of explaining the traditional model of dropshipping and why there are definitely some pitfalls. So what do you think as a summary, I guess of what we've been talking about? What was the reality of traditional dropshipping for you? Yeah, well,
Lewis Smith:
selling low ticket items from T mu from AliExpress. From from wherever you source them from often from China. That's where the moment the lower priced items are often imported front, it just means that you're working harder for less profit. So it's kind of counterintuitive when you break it down like that. It just makes it incredibly difficult to scale effectively, because you're putting in more work because there's more issues around it in terms of like the long delivery times the customer support the import fees, like all of that stuff. But actually, you're not even, it's not even worth the extra effort. Because you are making such a slim profit margin to selling those low cost items. For such a slim profit margin. You're basically like trying to run a marathon with a backpack full of bricks, you know, it's going to slow you down, it's going to make it harder. And you still gotta run the long race. You still trying to build this business, but you're just doing it with, with like weights in your backpack? So it's, it's really difficult. And yeah, I found myself in this difficult cycle of selling, but not profiting and being like, well, what's going on? Like, this isn't business, I'm just losing money on every sale here. And you kind of feel like you're in the hamster wheel, you because you're thinking okay, well, I'll just run faster that that will be the the reason I'll just sell more, I'll just pour more into ads. But the more you pour into ADS, the more problems arise, the less profit you make, you know, you're you're moving, but you're not going anywhere, you're just spinning in your will. And so yes, switching to high ticket items, high priced items, high profit items, as we teach with the home turf advantage model, it really made things shift into my favorite. And it started to become clear that the model that I was trying to build my business upon was flawed. The overall concept of dropshipping worked, but it was the strategy that I was employing that was making it much harder than it needed to be. And it was like I was operating with one arm tied behind my back the whole time. So as soon as I went for higher priced items, the floodgates opened, and I realized, wow, okay, I didn't need to do any more work, I just needed to switch strategy.
James Eardley:
Yeah, and it's important to notice that and not to write it off completely is important just to see where you've gone wrong, but carry on and don't give up but just make a change and pivot so that you can be successful. And I remember a crucial reason for me to switch to the home turf advantage model. So high ticket dropshipping, instead of a low ticket store, was that your work and your hard work that you put into growing a business compounds on itself for years to come. So whereas with a low ticket store, you have to build a store, you build Facebook ads, you ride the trend, you ride the wave of a trending product, and then it all dies down again a few months later, with that low ticket store, you'll need to then do it all again. And all of that work that you put in goes to ACA might have made some money in those few months. But now you need to spin the wheel again, create a new store, create new Facebook ads, give your ad account time to start learning who your customers are again, you have to completely recycle the all the hard work you've done and put in already up to that point. Whereas with the high ticket dropshipping that we've got now, it's a long term sustainable business so that you're selling products that aren't just trending, you don't have to ride a wave, these products are going to be sold today. And they'll still be getting sold in 510 years time. So the work you put into get a store set up now, we'll be paying you back for years to come. You don't have to reinvent the wheel, you won't have to teach your ad account what who your customers are, because it will just continually optimize every month that you continue to run ads. So it is a lesson there to learn. And if you want to do work upfront hard work and put that in and get paid for years, then it's the high ticket model. If you want to continually put hard working and sort of go round like a hamster in a wheel, as you say, then the low ticket model is probably more for you if you if you like that repetition. Something else to consider is that traditional dropshipping is traditional for a reason. It's what most people go to, first of all, and so that can cause saturation. So how can market saturation affect new dropshippers? Yeah,
Lewis Smith:
well, saturation I mean, firstly, I guess competition, just separating competition from saturation. competition isn't necessarily a bad thing. People fear competition, they think I need to find their market with no competition. But we want competition. You know, we want to know that there is a market there where money is being made, so that when we go into it, we can be fairly sure that we're going after the right opportunity. But saturation is where it becomes problematic that leads to fierce competition. And often it means driving up advertising costs and it lowers your profit margins even further. And that's problematic when we're selling items where maybe we only make 30 pounds in profit on a sale because there's not that much room or advertising spend if that's your sale margin, and maybe you're spending 2530 pounds 40 pounds on ads, suddenly you go from slightly profitable to actually making a loss on every sale. So we can easily eat that up just in our ad spend. Not to mention, the thing that no one talks about is later when you start making some sales and occasionally a customer wants a refund. And they say you know what canceled the order Forget it but it's suddenly it's on a ship on the way from China and you're a week and a half into a 30 day delivery time. You realize I need to refund this customer because the item cost won't be sent back to China, the customer is not going to be be willing to do that, the supplier is not going to be willing to take it. So it means that we have to refund the customer out of our own pocket, which then means that all of the profit we made on the last five or six hours is eaten up by one refund that just goes contrast that with selling products from UK suppliers where you can just easily send the product back to the UK supplier, who can then just send it out. Again, when you make a sale in the future and you get credited the amount or you get refunded the amount is night and day. Right. So lower priced items are often what everyone thinks to sell first. And because of that, because they assume there's a low barrier to entry, it actually means that they are the most competitive. And so when you enter a saturated market like that, it's tough. You know, it's, you know, when you go walking through a shopping mall, and you see those market stands that are usually kind of those temporary stands and they have like water wall phone cases, they have like a wooden frame stood up, and then they just have like hundreds of different iPhone cases there. And if you think about the rent, that they have to pay to the shopping center to have their stand there, imagine how many sales of those phone cases they make or have to make in a day to make up the rent of just having the the spot in that shopping center there. You know, not to mention all of the issues and like occasionally someone buys one and it breaks and they have to bring it back and refund it. And they're not making that much profit on each one of those phone cases. But also even more annoying thing. And this is the saturation is for every one of those they look around. And there's there's five others probably within sight who are doing exactly the same thing, selling the exact same products from China, as well. And so you're seeing everyone else sell the same way that you are, and it's very, very difficult to stand out. And what that's like in the digital world is is the equivalent of us just putting up some products that we found on T mu or AliExpress, or something like that some other online product sourcing website, and just creating our online version of our marketplace stands selling iPhone cases. You know, this is like the symbolic of what low ticket dropshipping is like. But pivoting away from selling lower priced products is what really, really made this business model of dropshipping come to life for me. And you
James Eardley:
can pivot and you can go to it, a new world of opportunity if you don't go where the crowd goes. So this reminds me of walking through London recently, we had a great meetup with members of the masterclass. And the next day, my girlfriend and I were walking through London, and we went through Piccadilly Circus. And so we were sort of in the west side of London. And we were just chaos. It was a Saturday before Christmas. And you can move around, you're dodging, ducking and diving, weaving around people in Piccadilly Circus, you take one turn onto a road down in towards Mayfair. And suddenly you've got the whole pavement to yourself. It's lovely area, it's, you know, clearly the place, you'd rather be more comfortable area. And it's just from one turn. So it sort of reminds me now of going into low ticket being like Piccadilly Circus, everyone's there, it's crazy, it's difficult, it's not comfortable, or you take one turn into a Mayfair Road, and suddenly it's serene, peaceful, and the opportunities are there. So it reminds me a bit of an analogy, because that was in my mind recently. But there is a choice you have to make. And that choice isn't yours to make at the start, you'll most flexible you'll ever be before you get started. So this would be the time to make that decision, before making the the issues before having the difficulties in the losses. And before having more weight and sort of debt. And then your your identity is sort of welded to that initial idea. At this point, when you first started, you've never been so flexible to make a change. So I think people need to remember why they go into dropshipping in the first place before they make a decision about which model to use. So why do you think if people want to build a lifestyle business, why do you think they would choose high ticket dropshipping?
Lewis Smith:
Yeah, it's just that high ticket dropshipping is more conducive to a lifestyle business. Because simply having fewer orders required for the same amount of profit. It is, it seems like a no brainer. But what it means is that there's less admin required, there's fewer people required in your team to keep the business running. And then there's fewer customers that you have to serve for the same amount of net profit at the end of it all. So it is like packing up the phone case stand that we have at the market and saying we're going to upgrade now from the cluttered, noisy, overcrowded marketplace, we're going to pack up all of our cases. And we're going to now walk over to the exclusive boutique shop. And instead of selling the lower ticket items, we're going to now so much higher priced items. And that will probably be to a very different type of person as well a very different demographic. I remember the moment that I pivoted to selling higher priced items online with high ticket drop shipping within the first few days of running ads and but I wasn't feeling that well at the time. I think I was in bed and I was I had a by a bug of some kind, and I noticed my phone make a weird noise. You know, you haven't heard it before that Shopify catching sound that you hit. And I looked down and I realized that I'd made a sale for something like 900 pounds, right now, that would have probably been a profit of around 250 pounds on a single sale. Now, this would have taken me weeks to achieve with the previous model, in fact, it would have taken infinity because I was making a loss on each of those sailors of the men's ties before us. And so I realized at that point, it's not just about grinding it out and working hard. It's not just like, well, you just got to work harder, they hustle, hustle, hustle, like just keep doing the same thing. Because as we established before, if the numbers aren't balanced, then working harder and doing more of the same thing will just lead to you running out of money faster and sooner. So I realized I needed to have the right strategy to and to work smart, it wasn't just about working hard. And selling higher profit items means that we can spend less time working in the business. So what that means is we can then choose how we spend our time instead. So it becomes more of a lifestyle business because we we don't have to be there. Eventually, your boutique shop that you've opened, where you're selling higher priced, higher profit items, is now open, you don't necessarily need to be that you could hire someone to stand in there and serve customers for you and take the payments, I your hiring your VA, but you're still making the money wherever you are in the world, whilst your old friends are still trying to sell their phone cases in the crowded marketplace. And they're still making a few pounds on each sale in profit. And you know, they're competing with 10 other Market stores selling exactly the same product, ie all of the dropshippers, you know represented in the market. Remember, you and your friend both worked just as hard as each other to get there wasn't about who worked harder, and put in more hours. But it was the difference in strategy. And look at what difference that led to in long term results as well. You built a real long term, sustainable lifestyle business, which is what you were aiming for a saleable asset, something that you could exit and sell in years to come. Whereas they simply built a job that keeps them extremely busy and hardworking, and on a very low income.
James Eardley:
And I think with your experience of doing low ticket dropshipping, you then have a real appreciation of the difference. So when you start using the home turf advantage model, when you're selling high ticket items, you've got UK suppliers that are sending your products to UK customers, their high quality products, their brands that you believe in, you know that your customer is going to be satisfied, you don't feel like you're scamming them by selling them a product that you've had to mark up drastically, you have quick delivery. And it makes so much sense the numbers are on your side, and the opportunity is there for everyone. But once you've been through the low ticket item, it gives you a real realization. And when you make that first sale that you've made, for 250 pounds profit, the realization of okay, I would have had to make at least 10 sales of the other products just to make the same profit as that one. And suddenly that the admin is so much less as well. And it's a great feeling I had the same with my journey as well, I sell the cheap products, and then I went on to sell high ticket items. And immediately with the first sale, you realize you've made a great decision, because you can be profitable from the first sale. And you make so much money from one sale compared to how much you'd have to make from, you know, tons of sales. So we go into this topic of how to build a high ticket dropshipping store without any experience in a previous episode. That's Episode 27, which I'd recommend to line up after this one. So do check that one out for more details. But finally, Louis to sort of wrap up this episode to give people some actionable insights and advice to what they should do after this episode. What would you suggest? Yeah, just start off by
Lewis Smith:
researching high ticket items that have proven demand and that have good margins as well. You know, choosing the right products to dropship is going to be like you opening up the boutique store in the high end shopping center. As opposed to you try to sell the same phone cases as everyone else in that crowded marketplace. It determines the growth and the long term results that you will see from the business it just is dependent on which strategy you decide to deploy. The key lies in informed action and strategy as well. Remember, we said not just about hard work is not just about who works harder. It's about who uses the right strategy. So to set yourself on the path to your own success story, a great starting point is my book. The home turf advantage is a comprehensive guide to starting your high ticket dropshipping business, so head over to H T A book.com. Grab your copy. And who knows we might be discussing your success story on our podcast soon. Until then, keep pushing forward and remember your entrepreneurial journey is just one decision away enjoying
James Eardley:
the podcast. We'd love to hear from you leave a comment or a review, and we might just feature it on an upcoming episode. Also for D Telde shownotes and resources, head to dropship unlock.com. Forward slash podcast.
Lewis Smith:
If you found value from any episode of this podcast, please take just 10 seconds to leave us a quick five star review on your podcast app of choice. It helps us more than you could imagine. And who knows, you might just hear your comments on the show. Thanks for being part of our community. Your support helps us keep delivering a new episode every week.
James Eardley:
Now we're going to answer a question that's coming from a listener. So thank you, Sam, for sending in your question. So he got his question in by emailing us. It's podcast at dropship unlocked.com. So thank you, Sam. I'll pose your question now to Louis. So he's asked, first of all, thank you for the podcast, I really enjoy listening to it. I'm currently living in France, is this something that could work living here, but it's still operating within the UK?
Lewis Smith:
Thanks for your questions. And so first thing that I have to say is, we can't offer any financial or professional advice on this. So definitely, definitely speak with a qualified accountant who can help you with the specifics on this one. But what we can do is share what other people have done that we've seen, so take what you will from that. And we've definitely seen other people operate a UK focus to drop shipping businesses from outside of the UK. So doing it from France, for example, the flexibility of the Drop Shipping model is definitely one of the main reasons why people choose it. You know, it's that location independent. They can either target UK customers with UK suppliers, or even potentially you could serve the French market using local suppliers in France as well. Or maybe in mainland Europe, you can still apply the home turf advantage model however you choose to do it. Because if you choose to set up a UK Limited Company, then that's feasible to do whilst living abroad. Again, check with an accountant. But that's definitely something we've seen other people in our community do who don't live in the UK. But usually what they do is register a business address in the UK, which can be done really easily and efficiently through a formation agent or even through your accountant as well, you could contact the key though, is signing suppliers in a country where the customers are based, because that ensures the better service, the faster delivery and all of the benefits that come from the home turf advantage model. So it's just important to align your suppliers location with the customer base so that you've got real efficiency and increase that customer satisfaction next day or one to two working day delivery. That's what it's all about. That's what will keep customers happy and will keep the admin level for you nice and low. So definitely having a chat with an accountant, Sam, who can talk you through the intricacies of how all of this works. And then once you've made your decision following a structured program, like dropship unlocked, provide guidance on the nuances of operating an E commerce business in the UK from whichever country you choose to live.
James Eardley:
Fantastic. Thank you, Louis. And thanks again, Sam, for your question. And we're also going to highlight a review that we've had in from a listener as well. I love this part of the episode. This review today has come in from Chris. So thank you, Chris, for leaving your review for the podcast, Chris actually left his review inside the dropship or not Launchpad community that he has access to now that he's picked up your book, the rest from HTA book.com. So Chris said, is working his way through all of the podcast episodes. And this gives you a real insight into the platforms and systems that we set up to allow us to be successful. Absolutely. Quality from Louis and James. So thank you very much, Chris, for that review.
Lewis Smith:
Thanks so much for your review. Chris. We're so glad to hear that you've been enjoying the podcast and that you're enjoying the launchpad community as well. Thanks for tuning into today's episode exploring the pitfalls of traditional drop shipping from Aliexpress or from Teemu. If our conversation today is giving you new insights. We'd love to hear your thoughts. Leaving a review on your preferred podcast platform makes a huge difference for us. And if you're a fan of YouTube, drop us a comment below the episode. We might just highlight your feedback in an upcoming episode soon. Before we wrap up, why not pass this episode along to someone in your circle. If you know someone contemplating their e commerce venture, this episode could offer them crucial perspectives sharing it might spark an invaluable dialogue about making more informed choices in the world of online business.
James Eardley:
Thanks for joining us on this episode of the dropship unlocked podcast. We hope you're walking away with insights and
Lewis Smith:
inspiration. to kickstart your ecommerce journey. Grab a copy of my book The home of turf advantage at HT A book.com is a distilled guide based on real experience to help you build your E commerce venture.
James Eardley:
Don't forget to hit the subscribe button for more strategies and success stories.
Lewis Smith:
If you like what you heard a five star review would mean the world to us and you might just get a shout out on an upcoming episode. And finally, thank you for deciding to spend your time with us today. We can't wait to bring you more insights on the next episode of the dropship unwrapped podcast