The Dropship Unlocked Podcast

The Top 5 Dropshipping Myths That Kill Your Dreams (Episode 58)

April 15, 2024 Lewis Smith & James Eardley Season 1 Episode 58
The Top 5 Dropshipping Myths That Kill Your Dreams (Episode 58)
The Dropship Unlocked Podcast
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The Dropship Unlocked Podcast
The Top 5 Dropshipping Myths That Kill Your Dreams (Episode 58)
Apr 15, 2024 Season 1 Episode 58
Lewis Smith & James Eardley

Get your copy of Lewis’ new book - The Home-Turf Advantage ➡️ https://htabook.com/?el=podcast-58-5-myths-that-kill-dreams

🗣 Lewis Smith and James Eardley debunk the top 5 dropshipping myths that might be holding you back from pursuing your e-commerce dreams. 

With their combined expertise and real-world experience, they set the record straight on these misconceptions and offer valuable insights to help listeners navigate the world of dropshipping with confidence.

👉 Prefer to watch this on YouTube? Check it out here  ➡️ https://youtu.be/OF3Al_PfIh4

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Topics Discussed:

★ Myth #1: Dropshipping is Dead.

★ Myth #2: Long Delivery Times.

★ Myth #3: Only Cheap Products.

★ Myth #4: It’s Not Serious Business.

★ Myth #5: Learn With YouTube In 3 Videos.

---------------------------------------------------------

For Aspiring Business Owners or Side Hustle Seekers Based In the UK…

New Book Reveals How To Launch A Low-Maintenance High-Profit E-Commerce Business Using The UK "Home-Turf Advantage”…

While also enjoying more time with your family, being free to travel, and setting the hours you work.

Click here to get your copy >>> https://htabook.com/?el=podcast-58-5-myths-that-kill-dreams

---------------------------------------------------------

Links and Resources Mentioned:

Get Shopify for £1 a month for 3 months: https://www.dropshipunlocked.com/shopify 

Get a free trial with a professional phone line: https://www.dropshipunlocked.com/circle 

---------------------------------------------------------

Key Takeaways:

★ Debunking Common Myths: Lewis and James address common misconceptions surrounding dropshipping, including its viability, delivery times, product quality, professionalism, and the effectiveness of self-learning through YouTube.

★ Practical Strategies: They provide practical strategies and real-world examples to debunk each myth, emphasising the importance of adaptation, niche focus, local suppliers, high-ticket items, professionalism, and structured learning.

★ Actionable Advice: Lewis shares actionable advice for listeners, stressing the importance of arming oneself with knowledge and starting with a solid understanding of dropshipping through resources like 'The Home-Turf Advantage' book.

---------------------------------------------------------

FOLLOW:

Thank you for listening to the Dropship Unlocked Podcast! Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform.

Show Notes Transcript

Get your copy of Lewis’ new book - The Home-Turf Advantage ➡️ https://htabook.com/?el=podcast-58-5-myths-that-kill-dreams

🗣 Lewis Smith and James Eardley debunk the top 5 dropshipping myths that might be holding you back from pursuing your e-commerce dreams. 

With their combined expertise and real-world experience, they set the record straight on these misconceptions and offer valuable insights to help listeners navigate the world of dropshipping with confidence.

👉 Prefer to watch this on YouTube? Check it out here  ➡️ https://youtu.be/OF3Al_PfIh4

---------------------------------------------------------

Topics Discussed:

★ Myth #1: Dropshipping is Dead.

★ Myth #2: Long Delivery Times.

★ Myth #3: Only Cheap Products.

★ Myth #4: It’s Not Serious Business.

★ Myth #5: Learn With YouTube In 3 Videos.

---------------------------------------------------------

For Aspiring Business Owners or Side Hustle Seekers Based In the UK…

New Book Reveals How To Launch A Low-Maintenance High-Profit E-Commerce Business Using The UK "Home-Turf Advantage”…

While also enjoying more time with your family, being free to travel, and setting the hours you work.

Click here to get your copy >>> https://htabook.com/?el=podcast-58-5-myths-that-kill-dreams

---------------------------------------------------------

Links and Resources Mentioned:

Get Shopify for £1 a month for 3 months: https://www.dropshipunlocked.com/shopify 

Get a free trial with a professional phone line: https://www.dropshipunlocked.com/circle 

---------------------------------------------------------

Key Takeaways:

★ Debunking Common Myths: Lewis and James address common misconceptions surrounding dropshipping, including its viability, delivery times, product quality, professionalism, and the effectiveness of self-learning through YouTube.

★ Practical Strategies: They provide practical strategies and real-world examples to debunk each myth, emphasising the importance of adaptation, niche focus, local suppliers, high-ticket items, professionalism, and structured learning.

★ Actionable Advice: Lewis shares actionable advice for listeners, stressing the importance of arming oneself with knowledge and starting with a solid understanding of dropshipping through resources like 'The Home-Turf Advantage' book.

---------------------------------------------------------

FOLLOW:

Thank you for listening to the Dropship Unlocked Podcast! Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform.

Lewis Smith:

If you're in a position now where you haven't yet made your business and you get to decide what you want your business to be like, That's the ultimate advantage for you, you get to choose

James Eardley:

these missiles really

Lewis Smith:

well I hate to see is that it stops people taking action, because they believe them to be true. So it's the same with drop shipping, it's just evolved. It's moved on from the days of AliExpress and oberlo, and throwing up a quick burn a Shopify store and then chucking some Facebook ads traffic towards it and hoping you're going to make the millions that way. So

James Eardley:

inevitably, with any market, the customers are going to decide what they'll accept. And now it's clear that customers want fast delivery

Lewis Smith:

transforms the business model, it means that you get to make so much more profit per order,

James Eardley:

making higher profit per order over 300 pounds for every single sale, compared to 10 to 20 pound I know which type of business I would run. with it. The most important

Lewis Smith:

step you can take is just making sure 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 ecommerce 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 HT a book.com to date, and let's get you started. Now sit back, relax. And let's unlock your potential with the dropship unlocked Podcast.

James Eardley:

Today we're tackling the top five dropshipping myths that kill your dreams heddle. These are the myths that might be holding you back from starting an online business. Or they'll have you second guessing your next move, Louis, I know you will have heard these all before. But it's time we set the record straight, isn't it?

Lewis Smith:

Yeah, absolutely time to set the record straight. There's so much misinformation out there when it comes to drop shipping. So yeah, we really want to try and help our listeners understand what drop shipping really involved today. And if it means busting some myths to do so then. So bit. Yeah,

James Eardley:

so I guarantee people listening will have heard these myths. And these myths was really well I hate to see is that it starts people taking action, because they believe them to be true. So it's important that we bust these today, the first myth, okay, from the top five is dropshipping is dead. You may have heard this around before. So it's a big one, we'll kick off with this one. So people say that drop shipping is dead. What's your take Louis,

Lewis Smith:

drop shipping isn't dead. That would be the myth being busted. It's just merely evolved. It's a new kind of drop shipping that is working in this day. And age is a bit like saying social media is dead, because nobody uses MySpace anymore. You know, it then became Facebook, and then became Snapchat Tiktok. Whatever it is the kids are using now. It's like whatever the next platform is, doesn't matter. Social media as a concept isn't dead. And so it's the same with dropshipping. It's just evolved. It's moved on from the days of AliExpress and oberlo. And throwing up a quick burn a Shopify store and then chucking some Facebook ads traffic towards it and hoping you're going to make your millions that way. So the people seeing real success with drop shipping now in this day and age are the ones that are focusing on building a quality brand. And they're going really deep on niche markets. So they're building out their brand, they're building customer trust, loyalty, and they're taking it seriously treating it like a real business. So it's far from being dead. And I think it's more important now than ever to understand that there are just different types of dropshipping businesses. When you hear the blanket term of drop shipping, it's very easy to kind of just write off the whole model. But the model that I teach at dropship unlocked is what I call the home turf advantage model, which is built on solid, long term foundations, the business fundamentals for building a long term brand an asset that you could one day even decide to exit and sell. So our episode with one of our members feel is a really good episode into this because it showcases how dropshipping is very much alive and thriving. For those who adapt and focus on adding value. Phil started from zero and joined as a member at dropship. Unlocked in our masterclass program fairly recently, and has reached 162,000 pounds in sales in his first five months. That's starting from zero. And that's in Episode 43 of the dropship unlocked podcast. So definitely want to have a listen to if you have any doubt as to whether dropshipping is still a viable model or not. Well,

James Eardley:

we hear it so often. But that's why it's so important for us to have guests and members on the podcast because you can hear from people that have just started drop shipping businesses this year or a few months ago, and you can see exactly how they're getting on. So whenever I see this dropshipping is dead tagline that obviously gets clicks. It makes me laugh because I can just look at my Shopify store analytics for the last week and question what I was If not dead, if we've done sort of 20k in sales in the last week, it makes me chuckle. Oh, obviously, I can see the intentions behind people trying to hype that up. But as you say, Louis dropshipping is such a broad word. That purely means the logistical model of getting your products to your customers directly from suppliers. How can that as a logistical model die? Because it's so cost effective for every retailer getting started? And so hopefully, we busted that myth which had to be approached number one, I think. So Myth number two for you. Now, Louis is long delivery times, is often associated with drop shipping, and you hear about the notorious three or four week delivery time that you'd expect if you're going to set up a drop shipping business. So what do you think about that? As an idea? Do you think three to four week delivery time is essential? Or you can achieve with a drop shipping business?

Lewis Smith:

No, definitely not, we can bust this myth immediately. My average delivery time on one of my stores just for example, is less than three working days. Right. So compare that I mean, when you said three to four weeks, I think even that's fairly optimistic for some of these stores where they're shipping products from China, because that doesn't account for things like holidays in the country in which you're shipping them from, or items getting delayed at the border, you know, hitting like customs, export duty charges and being kept at the border. So really like getting the products out the very next business day, or certainly within one to two to three working days is a realistic approach with the home turf advantage model. Now, with that being said, I'm not dropshipping products across the planet, there's a reason why we're able to achieve that on our stores. And it's because I'm not selling products directly from China, and having them dispatched straight to our customers from China, I'm partnering with a UK based suppliers and having them shipped, or not even shipped just dispatch the items directly to customers in the UK, usually. And that means that those items can be delivered very, very quickly from within the UK. And so what that means is that they can be delivered usually the very next day, which just makes customers so much happier, it means they're simpler from our side, from a fulfillment standpoint, we can just add a shipping tracking number to the item to the product. And then the customer gets notified by SMS or by email about the status of their delivery. And so just using local suppliers can slash delivery times down to days, you're going from like 3060 days, sometimes ridiculous delivery times where items have traveled around the globe. And maybe they don't get dispatched until a shipping container is full, or which point they get sent out. By the time it arrives, the customers forgotten about it. So if you can get your items out to customers, within days, there's just a game changer for your customer satisfaction. And so I know where the myth comes from, it's the myth from the traditional dropshipping model that sparked the initial explosion of interest that we saw in dropshipping, where the advice was just a sign up with suppliers on the other side of the world aliexpress oberlo, TV, whatever the you know, the new shiny site is that's doing that. And the reason for that is because there was a really perceived low barrier to entry, it just was easy. You just go on you sign up, you order the product, and it's great, and you put a huge markup on it. And no one asks any questions and the customers delight, like the customers aren't delighted is not realistic, it takes ages together, if it ever arrives at all, the items are usually very poor quality. And so coming back to the home turf advantage model if you can build strong relationships with local suppliers. So by local we mean in the country in which your customers are based because that's the important part there. It's the distance between the two, you could be running the business from Australia or from America or from Brazil, you could be anywhere in the world running it from just your laptop or even just your phone. But it's the proximity between the suppliers and the customers that matters to significantly reduce that delivery time. And so it's like going from the days of having to post letters, you know, and go and write your letter on a piece of paper and put a stamp on it and then wrap it up and put it in your in the envelope and send it through the post box. Now you can just send a WhatsApp message to sell it right, it's the same end result technically they're getting a message they're getting a text or message. It's just that it's so much faster. When you adopt the more efficient system. You know, customers eventually get their products with the old type of drop shipping, but it's just way more efficient and faster and sets a much higher standard of customer service for when customers receive their items very quickly. Certainly one to two working days.

James Eardley:

Yeah, times have moved on from that old style of dropshipping, where you'd expect a few weeks for your suppliers to be able to get the products to customers, and then moved on because the markets moved on. Customers have moved on that they no longer can accept that. When that initial thing that sort of craze happened. I guess customers weren't aware of how long it was going to take. But inevitably with any market, the customers are going to decide what they'll accept. And now it's clear that customers want fast delivery. We've adapted to that. And the home turf advantage model that you teach Louis is all about that having a home turf advantage being able to get products from ours. suppliers to our customers within three working days at a maximum. So no, it's fantastic. And it really is a difference that we can have over you know, different drop shipping stores. The third myth is that you can only sell cheap products. And the idea of having a drop shipping store is that you drop ship Bill cheap trinkets. Is that true Louis? Do you think that you can only dropship cheap products? Well,

Lewis Smith:

this is another myth that needs to be busted. So it's funny. Yesterday I was out shopping with my wife, we went to a shopping center and I had to buy some new gym clothes, or I needed some new stuff for running at the gym and stuff. I went into good old trusty sports director I'm sure we've all been there. We know the drill. It's very it's kind of packed up to the ceiling with like, unopened stock boxes, there seems to be products like so high that I don't understand how anyone could ever get to them. I just needed to buy a couple of things. Right. So I picked up I think it was like two T shirts and two sets of shorts for the first challenge you experience in there is like, how do you find anyone to help you there's not a single staff member. In fact, there was one lady who was like behind the tail of that 15 People in the queue. So eventually, I did get her attention. I just said we're just going to try some of these on in the changing rooms. And she looked at me and she was like, can't take four items in there, you can only take three. And I was like, like, I think she thought I was going to like try to run out and steal the all of the gym clothes was carrying my clothes out the store. So just like all in all, just a really poor experience, you know, just from start to finish, like of course, yes, I got the end product, but the way that it was kind of managed, like I felt like I was almost being accused of theft before I'd even purchased the item. Contrast that to a store I went into later and walked into Reese their clothes shop. And as I picked up one of the shirts, it was like, you know, we've got that like premium white kind of paper that's like, wrapped within the shares. So nicely folded, you almost feel like it's ruining the display to even pick it up and like, check out the clothes and look at it. It's just such a different experience. You're asked to try something on? And they're like, yes, absolutely. So please take a seat like here's the changing rooms. And it's like luxury velvet curtain, it's really nice, high end. Now the funny thing is that cost to make the two items that the ones from the high end shop and then the ones from the low end shops probably isn't that far off. If you kind of compare like actual factory manufacturing costs, yeah, there's probably a bit of a difference, because they're definitely better quality. And the margin percentages will be weighed, because the experience in the high end shop is so much better. And because of that people will pay so much more for that premium service. And so the quality of interactions as well. If you imagine that you owned both of those shops, right? You're the owner, you're the shopkeeper. Imagine your interactions with and how customers treat you and interact with you in those two environments, they're worlds apart, aren't they, the high end shop is going to attract people, probably with more money, more disposable income, they're going to probably be more pleasant to deal with, because they're not looking just for the best deal. And it's like price price price, possibly, you know, there's gonna be a bit more patience, you can work in a more calm environment. Now, I'm not knocking Sports Direct, they're both good shops. But for me, I know which one I would rather have my business actually resemble, you know, if I was the business owner of that. And it's the same with E commerce by focusing on high ticket items. So higher priced items, it transforms the business model, it means that you get to make so much more profit per order, you don't need as many items there. Therefore, you can offer a way either level of customer service better quality customers usually coming through because there's higher requirement to buy the items financially. So it just transforms the type of business and it's like going from, you know, running a pawn shop to owning a flagship boutique store in a high end shopping center. And so selling higher quality products as well means that you need fewer customers, which means you have fewer customer issues to deal with, you have better margins to deal with. And it's just a much better ownership experience. Now, of course, both of those models can make money and I'm sure sports director very profitable. But the point is, it's a different game. It's a volume game, isn't it, it's not necessarily a like luxurious experience that you're then going to go and tell all your friends about. That's not what they're aiming for. But at this stage, if you're in the position now where you haven't yet made your business and you get to decide what you want your business to be like, That's the ultimate advantage for you, you get to choose. And so if you are at that fork in the road at the moment where you think actually, I like the sound of a higher ticket business and I'd prefer to offer that premium luxury level of service to my customers, then check out episode 26. We did have the dropship unlocked podcast where we dive deep into the model of high ticket drop shipping and we really explained the benefits of selling higher ticket high quality products. The episode title was called three steps to build a high profit drop shipping store and it was episode 26.

James Eardley:

Yeah, and the key there is that we have a decision when we first start a business about whether to sell cheap products and therefore a high volume of orders with a lower quality of customer on the whole or you have the choice to go into a high profit per order store with large larger items with the often in excess of 1000 pounds and And so you've got less admin less customers to deal with. And you have that choice from the very start. And we both run low ticket stores. And we've now run high ticket dropshipping stores, and my two stores have average order values of over 1000 pounds. And I can say from experience, you can do both. With the same level of skill and expertise, the difficulty to sell a high ticket product is exactly the same as selling a low ticket product. So when we have the choice, I think making higher profit per order over 300 pounds for every single sale, compared to 10 to 20 pounds, I know which type of business I would run. And that's the way I do it. And I'd recommend for everyone else. Myth number four, Louis, is it another common one that we hear? And it's more about the perception of dropshipping itself? There's a myth that drop shipping is not a serious business. And so people think when they hear about somebody that's a drop shipper, or whether to start a drop shipping business, they almost don't take it seriously. So my question for you, Luis, is, do you think that drop shipping is a serious business? Yeah,

Lewis Smith:

I've heard this one many times as well. And when I hear it, I kind of just smile, because inwardly I know that it very much is, it comes down to how you treat the business model. You know, when you go into it, what your expectations are as a business owner, because your project, the type of business that you create, if you treat dropshipping, with a professional approach, and you go into it and say, This is a serious business that I'm going to create as a brand that one day I want to go and sell, then it kind of becomes a self fulfilling prophecy, you know how they say you should dress for the job that you want, not the one you have, will do the same thing with your business, create the business that you want, not the one that everyone tells you maybe isn't a serious business model, because I can assure you there are many global businesses that started out as drop shipping businesses and then maybe even evolve. And actually, there are many that didn't need to evolve Wayfair, for example, who become a globally recognized extremely profitable brand, who still predominantly use drop shipping as their primary source of or method of fulfillment straight from suppliers. So if you take it seriously, from the outset, if you focus on the fundamentals, if you build really strong foundations and just view it as this long term venture that you are building, you're growing a brand, you're building it so that one day, you could sell that business as an asset with the right strategy. dropshipping can scale like any other business. So it doesn't have to be viewed as just an entry level business model. Although it is a great entry point into entrepreneurship, you can absolutely take it to the next level. It reminds me of one of our members that has done exactly this, a gentleman called Jared. And he started out considering all the different business models, I remember having a call with him. And he was kind of looking into the different options that he could run having not run an online business like this before. And I remember having a chat with him about whether this was a serious business model for long term growth. He was an ambitious guy who wanted to make sure that the model he went into had scalability opportunity baked into it and it wasn't going to hit a ceiling or get to a point where he realized that the whole thing wasn't viable. And so he followed and applied my home turf advantage model with his business and is now hit or million pounds in revenue and growing from there. It was a really interesting conversation we had with him recently on the podcast, we dived into his journey start to finish or not finish start to where he's at now. That was episode 39 of the podcasts. So that that is worth a listen to episode 39 is a testament to the seriousness and potential of dropshipping. If you treat it like a real serious business,

James Eardley:

it comes down to that old saying that if you treat it like a hobby, it will pay you like a hobby. If you treat it like a serious business, then you'll get paid, like a serious business gets paid. And that's up to you and how you approach it. And I know for me when I joined the dropship online masterclass that flicked a switch in me to make sure I knew I was taking this seriously. I had a proper Trading Coach, you know, had you as a mentor, and I knew, therefore I would take it seriously and make your work. And so it's paid me seriously now. Now my first brand that I still got is a drop shipping business. But now I'm doing things like kit sponsorships, we're a kit sponsor for a football team, no serious business moves that you can make with a business, even if drop shipping is your fulfillment model. So you can absolutely have a serious business, I think a lot of the time is the way that you approach it. As long as you approach it seriously, then you'll get paid seriously, as well. So the final myth, Louis, that we hear a lot. Myth number five is that you can learn how to dropship with three or four free YouTube videos. And you're promised the world sometimes with how quickly you can learn drop shipping and maybe watch 110 minute video on YouTube and your way and your your generate 1000s The next month question for you there. Louis, do you think you can learn everything from YouTube?

Lewis Smith:

Well, it's here's a funny one. There's no doubt there's a lot of information on YouTube, but it's kind of it's funny. So yesterday I was sitting down with my son in the playroom and He's two years old, right? And he's sitting down and he's like daddy come and play with me. So I walked into the room and kind of got to distract him before dinnertime. Otherwise, he's like wandering around, you know, trying to cause havoc in the house. And so he's surrounded by puzzle pieces because he's got like loaded different puzzles out. And so he's like dad helped me do the puzzle like help help me with the puzzle. So I'm sitting down, picking these pieces up and I was like, right, let's start with the corners. You know, that's my puzzle strategy. We start with the edges and then try and kind of work your way into the middle. I'm like, Okay, I've got five and Sam corner there. So I put that there. And then oh, that's the helicopter yet from 5%. And then the next minute, I'm like, that's a goat. That doesn't, didn't seem right. But I was like, Okay, well, we'll kind of put that there. And that looks like the bottom right corner bit is slightly bigger, but okay, that's fine. And then I'm like, you know, looking around, and then suddenly, there's a helicopter, and there's a Peppa Pig character. And like, every big slot from fireman sound like the totally did. And I realize we're doing like, three different puzzles. These just like mash together in this bag, haven't got any of the boxes anymore, I think tore those out. So now we're trying to piece together these three different puzzles. And I'm like, no wonder he's struggling with this. He's got no box photo to follow his piece in the thing together from all these different puzzle pieces, half of them are like upside down different characters. Some of them are like chewed, so the ends are missing. And so it made me think this is what it's like, for people trying to piece together everything themselves without knowing what they're aiming for, or having that blueprint to follow without having the the box that the puzzle came into following. It's like, fragmented learning, you know, there's no doubt YouTube has a valuable content, for sure. But it's scattered. The primary goal of people on YouTube is not to necessarily give you a systematic step by step process is to just get views for their videos. That's how they make their money. So it's like trying to complete a puzzle with all the pieces from all the different sets where one person's telling you one thing and other person is contradicting it because they've got some vested interest in a different way of doing it. And then before you know it, you've got all these like half kind of formed ideas, it becomes very expensive, you end up making all these mistakes. And you think, why doesn't it fit together? There's no congruence? See, there's no one to ask because there's no single source of information. And so it's just why structured learning is always the model that I would go to now, if I'm trying something new for the first time, you know, I want to invest in a structured program, or mentorship that can guide me and accelerate my learning journey and get me to success with the fewest errors and costly mistakes possible. Yeah,

James Eardley:

and no doubt there's information out there on YouTube. And that's the way I started when I first wanted to learn. The difficulty is that you then need to source the videos, and you're often listening to different people's perspectives. People in different countries, people have different business models, people have different advice, different opinions, and trying to piece all that together to create a business that works all together is very difficult to ask. Or instead, if you just follow one piece, you know, one person or one person's advice, and learn how they made it work, and then just follow that from start to finish, you're going to give yourself a much better chance of succeeding. So let's wrap up today's myth busting session, then Louis, if you could share one piece of actionable advice for people to take away from this episode, what would that be? Well, I

Lewis Smith:

think the most important step you can take is just making sure you arm yourself with that knowledge that blueprint, the puzzle photo on the box is going to be the antidote to all of the doubt and the foundation of any successful business will always come from making sure you have the right strategy to follow in the first place, it stops you spinning your wheels, needlessly trying to figure it out. So it's why I always recommend starting with a solid understanding of the model. So understand the Drop Shipping model that you're building your business around. And there is no better place to start than with my book. The home turf advantage is a comprehensive guide that firstly debunks the myths that we talked about today. But it also then walks you through the steps of building a successful e commerce business grounded in the reality of today's e commerce market, like we talked about in today's episode. So to check that out, head to H T. A book.com that I think really is a great first step towards building a business like this that aligns with your dreams, your ambitions, and if you want to be a real serious brand owner and a business owner, and that is a great place to start. Remember, it's not just about knowledge, knowledge is scattered all over the internet all over YouTube. But it's about having a strategy and implementing that strategy correctly to get you towards success.

James Eardley:

Enjoying 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 detailed show notes 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 that 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. Now

James Eardley:

it's time to answer a question from a listener. So remember, if you want your questions answered on a podcast episode, all you need to do is drop a comment underneath the YouTube video version of this episode. And that's exactly what Ilyas Khan has done. So thank you for your question. So he's asked he said well, very informative podcast first, but how do we analyze the niche that we are going into before When we find a supplier is

Lewis Smith:

a great question because it's absolutely essential to analyze a niche before we go and start finding suppliers. That's definitely the first step you want to do, because baked into that analysis of the niche is finding out whether there are suppliers that will work with you. So it will save you a lot of time and wasted effort and rejection. by just doing that research. First, to answer the question to analyze a niche and find out whether it is going to be a winner or will have potential to succeed, we'd want to take any niche ideas that we have, through our nine step validation criteria. So that means that you're only ever going to be actually building the store or signing suppliers and then running ads, once you know already, that your niche has potential and is proven to already have succeeded with other retailers. For example, if you had an idea for a high ticket, drop shipping business and you thought I might sell and ski equipment, for example. Right? So you decided that was one of your niche ideas, I would take the idea of ski equipment through my nine step validation criteria. So that would involve looking at the average price of the items you're looking at, that would involve looking at search demand, how often are these items searched by customers in the market you're selling to? We can use tools online to do that. What about price consistency? Are they the same price across different retailers? Are some undercutting horrifically and ruining it for everyone else? Don't wanna go into a market like that? Is it really seasonal? Or is it only popular in the winter? For example? Do people only ski in the winter and look for that equipment in the winter? In which case, do I want my business to be contingent on one popular period? And then the rest of the year it dries up? Probably not? Is it a trend? Is it something like you know, fidget spinners or those those kind of hoverboards that everyone used to go on, and then suddenly there was a boom in them, and then they kind of seem to just disappear? Is it something that is a market that people can get passionate about because it can just really help with your marketing, if it is so there are all these different criteria that we look at. And then once we're sure it meets either all or enough of those criteria for us to be happy that we can move ahead. And it's based on data not on emotion. At that point, we would proceed with the next step, which would be then building the actual store. So for full details of how we choose a niche, how we sign suppliers, and do that whole process. If you check out episode 22 of the podcast, it's called how to sign UK dropshipping suppliers. Perfect,

James Eardley:

great question. And yeah, that process of finding a winning niche is like gold dust because you can take any idea you've got an ad before you start before you start running ads before you start citing suppliers, you know that it's already been proven before you can start. So thank you for that answer, Louis. Now let's highlight a recent review that we've had in for the podcast as well. And a big thank you to PAPR brewed for sharing your thoughts on Apple podcasts and their review. They said I've been looking for a solution like this for years I signed up in the latter part of 2022 and all questions have been answered. Thank you dropship are not amazing. Thank

Lewis Smith:

you very much for your review. Really glad to hear that you've been enjoying the podcast and more importantly that you've been enjoying the master cast program and the community there as well. Do you want a chance to join our dropship unlocked masterclass community for free? If so, simply leave us a review for the podcast on your favorite podcast platform. check out episode 52 of the podcast for full details on how to enter that competition. Thanks

James Eardley:

for joining us on this episode of the dropship unlocked podcast. We hope you're walking away with insights and inspiration. to

Lewis Smith:

kickstart your E commerce 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.