The Dropship Unlocked Podcast

3 Steps for E-Commerce Success in 2025 (Episode 122)

• Lewis Smith & James Eardley • Season 1 • Episode 122

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🗣 In this episode, Lewis Smith and James Eardley break down the three crucial steps you need to follow for e-commerce success in 2025. The landscape is evolving rapidly, and if you’re not taking action in the right areas, you could miss out.

👉 Prefer to watch this on YouTube? Check it out here ➡️https://youtu.be/lfb7l5OTna8

Topics Discussed:

  • Building a Solid Business Foundation: Lewis and James talk about the importance of choosing a business model that can scale and give you the lifestyle freedom you're after. High-ticket products, reliable suppliers, and systems are the foundation.
  • Mindset for Success: It's all about having the right mindset. Lewis shares how focusing on progress over perfection and setting achievable goals can help you push through the inevitable challenges in business.
  • The Importance of Mentorship and Community: Learning from others and being part of a community can help you fast-track your journey. Mentorship gives you access to the strategies and accountability you need to succeed.

Links and Resources Mentioned:


Key Takeaways:

  • Focus on the Foundation: Your business model should allow for scalability and should align with your personal goals for time and financial freedom.
  • Mindset Matters: Resilience is key. Mistakes are just feedback, and setting small goals helps build momentum.
  • Mentorship is Key: Learning from others and being accountable to a mentor or community can prevent costly mistakes and speed up your journey to success.


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★★★ Dropship Unlocked - Lewis Smith ★★★
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This year provides a really big opportunity for E commerce businesses, but it's crucial that you've got to approach your business in a different way this year, I think, with the way things are at the moment, this year, you simply can't afford to the difference between success and failure often come down to this one thing, the difference between taking years to succeed with this and reaching your goals in months all comes down to just having if you're starting out right now and you want to fast track your success, then I'd say you should start by. You might be thinking, Well, can I really even do this? Can I build an E commerce business? Is it for me. Can I do something that's scalable and profitable? Well, the truth is, welcome to the drop ship unlocked Podcast. I'm Lewis Smith, the founder of dropship unlocked, and with me is our client success coach, James Eardley. Now when we're not recording podcast episodes or running our own e commerce businesses, you'll find us helping aspiring entrepreneurs launch their own high ticket drop shipping stores. So if you're ready to build your own six or even seven figure online business, then head over to dropship unlocked.com forward slash, start now, sit back, relax, and let's unlock your potential with the dropship unlocked podcast today, we're going to be discussing between Lewis and I what we think are the three key steps that will set you up for E commerce success This year. So Louis, I think it's clear that the landscape is changing fast in E commerce and online business generally. So we're going to try and distill this right down to the three main things that we think people should focus on to have huge success this year, and more so in this year than any more before. So let's reveal all in this conversation straight away. Let's dive into what you think is that first crucial step for people to understand. Well, I think if you're looking to start physical product, e commerce, business, the foundations that you build that business on are probably the place to start, especially reverse engineering. What you want to achieve from the business eventually. What's your end goal? What's your you know, is this a lifestyle business for you? Is this something that you want to to replace your income and create a certain amount of freedom and autonomy and control, in which case you probably want to make certain decisions that might be different from what some businesses would would have you do versus if you were creating a business that then becomes your full time job and that you're chained to a desk all day or Going into warehouses. And you know that there can be very different roads to go down, even within the E commerce space. Certainly, my approach was always to take higher value products to sell higher ticket e commerce products, purely because it meant I needed less of them to make the desired income. But it also then allowed for less admin. It meant less customer service to have to work with. Meant making more profit per sale. It meant being profitable on sale, number one, so not having to be as good with ads and things like that. So I think that's key. The other bit is around suppliers, and quality of suppliers, like domestic suppliers or UK based suppliers, for ensuring that you get fast delivery out to customers and easy returns, like nice, friendly customer service and customers that are happy with the quality of the products that they're receiving. Those would be the foundations I'd I'd think about when if I was going into this for the first time this year, and it's good to have the kind of end in mind from the very start. So you know what type of business you want to have in a year or three years or five years time. So then, when you have that vision in mind, you know the decisions that you're going to make to put the right foundations in place for a business that actually allows for that lifestyle. It would be quite easy to just jump into a business because you're quick you want to make quick cash online in the next month or two, but that would make sure that you make very different decisions based on if you're making decisions based on a real lifestyle vision that you've got in mind. Is that how you got started initially, when you had your online business? Did you think about the future from the very start? Yeah, I did, and I probably didn't do it as strategically as I would now, but at the very, very beginning, yeah, I wasn't familiar or even aware of the options. They say that you don't know what you don't know, right? So if I was thinking, well, I want a business. I want a life of freedom. I want to be able to run it from a laptop. I didn't at that time understand the economics and the like, offsetting the cost per acquisition with something like paid ads with a nice, profitable, high ticket sale on the front end. I didn't really get that. So I guess I didn't. I went into it a little bit naively, a little bit blindly and just thought, well, I'll just sell the kind of like low end, cheaper products that I think I could sell and that i i think I'm worth, you know, in terms of as an E commerce beginner at the time. And, yeah, that probably set me back a little bit that misunderstanding or that naivety around the model. But over time, you just continue learning you can. And you're progressing. You make some mistakes. You know. You're not striving for perfection. You're just trying to make those 1% improvements every day, and along the way those mistakes, I think you just have to view them as feedback. You just look at them and say, okay, that went that wasn't quite right. I wasn't profitable enough. When I was selling those low ticket products, I ended up with an inbox full of customers that weren't happy with the items and the suppliers being in China and stuff. So I set small, achievable goals to avoid burnout, both in terms of income goals, but also lifestyle goals. Um, like one of which was moving, being able to move to Thailand, being able to leave my corporate, um, nine to five job at the time and travel the world and run my business through a laptop. And so because I kept those things in mind, I it's almost like a a sat nav in your mind, like you've set the destination, you know, the target, place that you're trying to get to. And then along the way, your brain's very good at figuring out the journey and figuring out the mistakes and the pitfalls and the things you need to avoid to get there, as long as you keep reminding yourself of why you're doing this, what the end destination is. And for me it was a life of autonomy, freedom, control, not being chained to a desk, not having to deal with 1000s of customer service tickets every day and to make nice high ticket and profitable sales with customers that were really happy with their orders. And for me, that's why the domestic what we call the home turf advantage model, where you're selling higher priced items from UK suppliers who can offer next day delivery to customers. And that's why it made sense, and that's why it makes sense. But you have to understand, we've been through these mistakes. We started by going with a e commerce business that was low ticket and poor quality products that were being shipped from around the world. And what that led to, even a few years ago, was unhappy customers impatient customers, because rightly so, they're waiting weeks for their products to arrive. And the straw that broke the camel's back for me was when I received a return back from Canada to the UK that had been shipped to the customer from China, and that the emissions must have been crazy for this order. But the camel that really broke my back was when I opened the package, and the smell of the return I've still haunts me to this day, because I'm sure that that customer did something to the product, but to smell that bad, or maybe that's how it arrived, and that's why I wanted to return it. I don't know, but it's just an example of sometimes you put yourself into these positions, if you don't make a conscious decision from the very start how you want your business to look with really low returns and quick deliveries and friendly customers, as much as you can possibly make. It makes a big difference to the actual running of the business when you've made those decisions up from, yeah, exactly. And it's not like it's all, you know, bright on the other side in terms of like, you're still going to get difficult customers, but if you only need one sale a day, or even, like, a few sales a week to replace your income, I can deal with one or two difficult customers here and there that maybe have expectations that are up here and unrealistic, and especially if the profit that I'm getting from those orders gives me the budget and the buffer to be able to hire somebody who is a pro customer service ninja and can just jump in and do that work for me, so I don't have to Even because I find it quite socially draining when I'm having to kind of be the front person to the business at the same time as, like, do everything else, wear all the hats I'm just I'm not particularly cut out to be like the person managing support tickets in the inbox. For some people, that's their kind of that's their strength. That's their forte. So you know, they're super organized. They like, they don't get emotionally affected when a customer's asking for a return or whatever, or, you know, is unhappy about something because a courier broke a product or something on the way, because it's not their business. It's not their baby. They're not like they've not got that same level of pride and but they can absolutely still offer amazing service, especially if you kind of align the incentive structure correctly, and, you know, incentivize them for getting positive customer reviews and things like that. And it can really help. So, yeah, absolutely. I don't know what that customer did to the product that they returned to. Maybe they put a stink bomb in there or something, and then, like, wrapped it up, but some something nasty. But yeah, there's all kinds of weird and wonderful stories that you end up getting when you when you do sell directly to customers that I'm sure there. I'm sure we've got an inbox full of those kinds of stories, right? Exactly. Yeah, that's it. It was all a good lesson, and I'm thankful for it. In the end, I think it was probably some sort of stink bomb. And he thought it'd be hilarious, because he knew he had to deliver it back from Canada to the UK. And to be fair, hold my hands up. I just you know, it was poor service, and I just didn't understand the business that I was building at that time. I hadn't given it enough thought. I didn't realize the foundations I was putting in place was just these types of things were inevitable. And so I was always like, logging into my Facebook business ad account, and I'd see comments of people that understood that those cheap products I was trying to sell for Aliexpress were just cheap products from China. And that was the comments I was getting on my Facebook ads, and I was having an inbox full of things to deal with, and it all reminded me that you got to make these decisions up front, because it'll impact how you run your business long term. So I mean, now more than ever, I think we need to understand that customers are more savvy, I'd say. And I wonder if you agree with this Lewis, in terms of fast delivery, quality of product. Products, the quality of ads that they see, the quality of service that they're going to receive, I think, is a different ball game compared to how it used to be, yeah, for sure. And the the types of customer comments that you refer to there is funny. I see it sometimes, because I'll get targeted with an ad that I can see is, is drop shipping a product from a supplier in China, from Aliexpress or Alibaba, or whatever, and or temu, or, you know, all these other ones popping up now, and the comments on there, it's almost like people playing the role of vigilante. They're almost just like, I'll save you from paying $30 for this little kitchen scrubber widget thing. Like, here it is, felt $2.99 on AliExpress. Go and order it. And you just think the business owner there, like, felt that they could kind of create a business around this arbitrage of, like, I'll find it where no one else will find it for that price, and then I'll just mark it up by 10 times, and that's how I'll make my money. What they fail to realize is that those suppliers are just selling directly to consumers from China now, and you know that that speed is only going to get faster. So I think that, yeah, those days are really gone. The businesses operating on that model are withering away. But I do think if you're selling products from suppliers in the UK who don't sell directly to the public, who don't have a desire to be a direct to consumer brand, because they have a partnership of our network of retailers who do the direct to customer facing relationship, they do the customer service, they do the marketing and the advertising. You think about it for a second from their view, put yourself in the suppliers shoes. If you wanted an easy life as a supplier, you can totally understand why they do it. Can't you? Because if you just said, Well, I don't want a massive operation of like, having to have hundreds of things going out, left, right and center, orders coming back in. Like, I just want to have a warehouse with two people that work at it, that just send out orders as and when we get orders through, and we just collect the cash from the the retailer. They do the marketing, they do the ad spend, they do all of that stuff. We just and so they can give it to you for a trade price, you know, a wholesale price at maybe 40% discount from what it would be at retail, or 30% discount. And then when you're marking it up, you're not marking up a product that someone could have gone on the internet and bought for 40% cheaper elsewhere, because they're not selling it to the public at that price. Instead, you're just selling it at the same price as all of the other retailers, and so you're not going to get those vigilante customers commenting being like, hey, you can get this for, you know, 40% cheaper on this website, because that isn't the case. And And the next question that people often ask is, Well, why would someone buy it from you versus others? And we've done episodes about that in the past, haven't we, but like, it's not just price that you can differentiate on, you can actually make your website buying experience a lot better than others. There are other value ads, there's customer service, there's free gifts, there's buyers guides, and actually the best thing of all is there's just they found you first visibility. So if you're better at running ads, and your ad appears first most customers when they click that they're not, then looking for other products elsewhere because they've clicked yours, and then over the next few days, they see a retargeting ad on Instagram and another one on Facebook, all with your brand on it, and eventually they just make the decision to purchase as long as there aren't any big, glaring red flags preventing them from trusting you. So I think that's the key, yeah, and there's lots of things that we can do to differentiate ourselves now in the market as well. You know, we can create a brand around our business, our website, because it's our own website, it's our own brand name, which will resonate with certain customers, so that they choose us over going to suppliers direct or other retailers, if that's if the suppliers sells direct anyway. So lots of things we can do now to be more savvy in today's market. And when it comes to ADS, I think the key thing there you mentioned is, as long as we run our ad campaign in a way that's getting to customers first, then, like you say, we're putting our ad in front of people who are already looking for the product, and we have the exact product that they're looking for at the same price everyone else is selling it, and we're a trusted retailer authorized to sell those products. And that's how we make a big business, through running these these kind of operations. And so clearly, I hope you found it at home. The initial thoughts you have around the foundations you put in place will be crucial for how your business succeeds, not just in the first few days, weeks and months, but for years, we're still making sales every day with the businesses that we've set up years ago because we put the right foundations in place from the very start, moving on to the second step for everyone to consider. I think it's important that we tap into the mindset that's more important now than ever before as well. What would you say is, like the big step around mindset that people need to understand this year? Well, ultimately, the mindset that you go into this with will determine the actions that you take, the steps that you take to actually achieve the results that you're going after. So it really is the foundation of everything else that that your business is built upon. If it's built on a an uncertain or a shaky mindset, the whole thing comes tumbling down. So there's why we have, inside the dropship unlocked programs. We have a very, very kind of intentional starting point where we help you shift that mindset away from perfection. Because I think. Sometimes people come into this and what holds them back is they're like a deer in the headlights of like, there's so many things you could do if perfect was the end goal. You know, if like, perfect was the point where we said we all must get to before we do anything or launch, we would all be just like, stuck in this kind of analysis paralysis, procrastination, not sure which way to turn. There's an overwhelming amount of things to do, and what happens when we get overwhelmed by all of that stuff, we just shut the computer up and walk away, because it's almost like, well, I don't, I don't know where to start. There's too much there, and I can kind of pretend to myself that I'll get round to it. But if I, if I am fundamentally aligned with like, I have to get to perfection before I can launch, then I will never get launched, because we're never going to get perfect until we're launched. Because it's an iterative process. You build it over time. It's the 1% per day, per week, per month, incremental improvement. So I think, yeah, focusing on progress, not focusing on perfection, and just making sure you're setting those small, achievable goals, those milestones, celebrating them as well, when you achieve them, when you get your first supply assigned, when you launch your ad campaign, when you make your first sale, when you make your first 10k like, those things really kind of take some time to just document that and be proud of yourself and look back at how far you've come. Not give yourself a hard time and just make sure that as long as you're moving forwards and you're kind of enjoying the journey and enjoying that progress, and you're learning and you're absorbing every day, you're in the right direction, so you don't have to beat yourself up and think, my not. My site's not as good as this site, which has been there for 10 years, you know, and they've developed and developed and developed like you. You have a great starting point with Shopify. It makes it easier than ever now to get something live, professional and looking amazing and looking very established from day one. It's easier than it's ever been to do that. So really, I think that's the key shift going into this year. It's like, get out of that deer in the headlights mindset and just start moving. Just start taking one step after the other and moving in the right direction, and you'll start feeling that momentum and recognizing that this feels good. I'm actually moving here. And as you move, the more momentum you get, the better you feel, the more you want to do, the more action you take, the better. So there's this great cycle. So that's what I see. The biggest shift is when people go from stuck to actually starting to get results, it's just that they started taking some steps so powerful this stuff. Because when we look at all of our members inside the drop ship are not masterclass, they've all got step one correct, because they've chosen a model that they've taken time to understand is the right for their lifestyle goals. And then the next biggest differentiator between the rest of the master class about who's going to have most success. It's not the skills they come in with, it's not the experience. It's a clear thread in the mindset of the most successful people. They come to us open to learn. They come to us with an enthusiasm. They're positive, they want to learn. They want to build a successful business. And crucially, they don't fall into the trap of perfectionism. So I think perfectionism is actually the way I've experienced it, when I feel that need to be perfect and to keep working on something before releasing it, it actually is a bit of a mask. I find perfectionism for myself, is like an excuse for procrastinating or dabbling or not going all in and taking the action. And so I think perfectionism actually masquerades as something that's a good thing, because you think you're doing a great job making something really well, but that's kind of the deadly side of it, because you don't think it's an issue, because you think you're doing the right thing. You think you're just improving or raising the standards. But as with everything in life, it's always a balance. And on that sliding scale of perfectionism, you can either be somebody that never takes action or always striving for something that's perfect before releasing and on the other end of the scale, it's somebody that's just releasing things without giving it any thought. And I fell into that camp when I started my first drop shipping business as a complete failure, because I was just keen to get started. So there is a bit of a balance. But where would you say, Lewis, that most people on our master class fall on that balance? Do they more lean toward perfectionism? Would you say, are they more leaning to just getting started, regardless of the standards. Yeah, is action. You've got to lean towards the side of action and launching imperfectly. What's the quote around like, if you're not embarrassed by your first version of your product, then you waited too long to launch? So yeah, it's and it's kind of true, and it hurts, because we all want to be really proud of the thing that we put out there into the world, and we and if you're a creator, and you enjoy the process of building and progress like I do, sometimes we mistake learning with taking action and progress. And learning is great up to a point, but there's only a point where it's like, the sponge can only take so much until it reaches saturation, and then the water just starts dripping out, like, it's like, I can't take any more knowledge, right now, I need to just start actually doing some stuff, and then I kind of free up capacity in the sponge to take in and absorb more, right? I think that the problem is sometimes people, like, put their sponge on the side and just pour water on it and hope that it's just going to absorb everything, and that that will be the answer. Yeah, it's like, no, the sponge has to go to work. It has to do something. It has to, you know, put put some steps into action, and then you can learn from your your journey, and learn from your process, and learn from what your customers are saying. And the first few phone calls you have with customers or emails and they're like, Oh, I couldn't find this on your site, or I didn't understand this. You're like, ah, light bulb goes on. I need to fix that. But at least I spoke to the customer. Now I can tell them I fixed it. Maybe we closed the sale. If we hadn't done that, we'd have never spoken to the customer. We'd have never known that that's what the customer wanted, and so there's no chance we would have ever closed the sale. Love it, yeah, I love this sponge analogy. It's so true, but that's how we pick up information, isn't it? And we we often think that you can just keep getting more and more and more information, and the more information you have, the better the outcome. But it's just not the case, is it? It's always about action on the information that you've been given, and that's where we need to hopefully help out with members or anyone listening today. It's about being action oriented, and that's going to lead to a lot more success. So yeah, if you were a sponge, stop taking up water and start washing the body or something, fill in the analogy. Okay, set three, then we've got the right foundations. We've got the right mindset in place. Now, I think something that's crucial in what both of our journeys is that we've always got around people and communities and mentors to help us with learning and basically speed up the success that we've seen. So do you think this year, that is a crucial part for people to be successful is to get around others, absolutely, yeah, in the post pandemic era where, like, kind of a lot of that connection was lost, but then a lot of the world went online, and, like, loads of people stopped working from an office and started working from home, and we kind of lost that sense of connection and community. And I really do think that if you're working in isolation, on your own, on a desert island, like trying to just, you know, head down, I'm just going to do it all myself, and it can be a very difficult and unenjoyable learning curve, because you you're getting no feedback mechanism. You're getting no kind of course correction as you go. You could just be driving in the wrong, direction with no sat nav and not no until you're miles off course. And so it helps you avoid that learning curve. I think having having that mentorship, having that community, and what that does by avoiding that learning curve is then saves you a lot of time and money that you would have otherwise wasted. And because those are the two resources, aren't they, that you're ultimately going to expend by trying to do it on your own is that you you're going to spend a lot of money, because you're going to waste loads of money on ads that don't work on, you know, building things and paying for subscription services and paying for mechanisms and apps and agencies and stuff that just doesn't do what you need it to do, and is kind of misdirected spend, but you'll also waste a load of time trying to fix those problems and figure that stuff out. And you know, if you could just kind of cut all of that time and ask people who are already on the path that you want to proceed down what they did, not only do you save the time, but you also can direct the money that you get to get a much higher return on investment along your journey, so you're only spending money on the right things along the way. So I think, yeah, mentors can provide insights strategies that you might never have even stumbled across on your own. But also, there's the element of accountability I think now really helps as well. It's making sure that you are focused on the right tasks and that you're doing what you said you were going to do. And you're not a just a sponge, just absorbing information, but not doing anything. It's making sure you've got someone there to kind of check in with you and say, like, okay, so when we spoke last week, you said you're going to do that. Have we done it yet? Where are we at? You know? And then there's that sense of like, if you know that that coaching call is coming up and you haven't done the thing yet, you know say it's happening today at 6pm and you're thinking, I haven't thinking, I haven't done the thing that I know they're going to ask me about on there. Maybe that's the kick that you needed to actually get the thing done. And so that's why it can be this kind of like secret weapon for you, and having that accountability and that support network to get you up and running. Yeah, it's so healthy. It's like a healthy pressure, I see it to have somebody on your side that wants you to succeed. Um, when it's just you doing something, it's so easy to let yourself off the hook. If you say that you're going to launch by x dates, and you just hold yourself that well, if you don't make that date, you don't let anyone down, and you don't feel like you've actually changed the the way that you're perceived by anyone, because it's only you that you've let down. So you do take a big hit in sort of self confidence, which is something that we shouldn't overlook as well. But crucially, it's a lot easier to let yourself off the hook if you don't have somebody around you, and if it's something that you aspire to be, if you someone that inspires you, that's even better. I think you often hold yourself to higher standards if you're putting yourself around somebody that you feel inspired by, because you want to put your best foot forward. You want to show your best self in front of those people. That's something behind having a mentor as well that you probably turn up differently to somebody that you aspire to be like, rather rather than just a friend or somebody on the same in the same peer group. Would you? Would you agree with that? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. If you can get around people that you're aspiring to be like, you naturally raise yourself up to the average of those people in the room. So, yeah. Join a community, or get around a group of people that that are where you want to go. That's, that's going to be the best way for you to kind of learn by osmosis and start to level up, because if you don't, you're the odd one out. And that's, that's a huge advantage, 100% we're all about advantages here and shortcuts, I think, yeah, accountability for me. Once I joined the dropship unlock master class, I saw my business so much more differently. I saw it like I was taking a lot more seriously when I told people that I was doing it, rather than the the mistake you talked about already on the podcast today was when I went into a drop shipping business, I thought up, I'll just do this on my own. I won't tell anyone, and then, yeah, you don't take it as seriously. I certainly didn't. Anyway, something that I would like to shout out would be Episode 101 of the podcast, because it's related to what you're mentioning there, Lewis, about how you can save 1000s if you take the right except from the very start. So episode 101 to queue up after this one I'd recommend is about the top five drop shipping mistakes that we see people make that can cost people 1000s. So yeah, have a have a read through of that or listen to that one as well. Now for somebody to start, they've got the right mindset, they've got the right foundations. They've got the accountability in place with a mentor, where would you suggest that they actually take the first step once they finish listening to today's episode? Yeah, to avoid the overwhelm, I think you just got to start with the very first step. Don't worry about the, you know, huge long term game plan, yet, just start small and then build out that vision as you go, once you understand what's possible. Now the first step, this is a good news is always the hardest, because that's the one that most people avoid taking. But once you take that first step, it's like you've stepped out of the headlights. You're the deer that stepped out of the headlights, and now you're moving. Now you're walking, and then momentum will follow, because you'll feel good that you're now not paralyzed by indecision and fear, and that you can keep moving forward and keep progressing, and keep taking imperfect action every single day and improving. And so if you're not sure where to begin, that's why we created dropship unlocked.com forward slash, start there. You get everything laid out for you. The first steps to take the accountability you'll need to get you out of the headlights and start moving forwards. Are you enjoying the podcast? We'd love to hear from you leave a comment or a review, and we might feature it in an upcoming episode. And for detailed show notes and resources, visit dropship unlock.com forward slash podcast. If you found value in any episode of this podcast, please. Could you take just 10 seconds to leave us a quick five star review on your favorite podcast app. It helps us more than you can imagine, and who knows, you might just hear your comments read out on the show. Thanks for being a part of our community. Your support helps us keep delivering new episodes to you every week. Now it's time in the podcast to answer a question that we've received from a listener. So we'd like to do this because if you have a question on your mind, we'd love to answer it for you. So you can comment beneath the YouTube video version of this episode to get your questions answered. And it won't just be answered in the comments. It may also be answered on an upcoming podcast episode. So that's exactly what somebody has done online, and their YouTube handle is quite topical. Actually. It's called, tomorrow may be too late, 5853, and funnily enough, they've asked a question, similar to what we were talking about today, and they've asked a question, will the market not be saturated? Will the market not be saturated? Yeah. Well, thank you for your question. Tomorrow may be too late. And that is, that is very true. Tomorrow maybe too late. And no, the market is expanding. You know, that's the reality. It's not shrinking. It's all like E commerce is declining every year, and people are buying less and less online, and the high streets are starting to really boom, and everyone's going like, that would be a totally different reality, wouldn't it? We all know that more and more people are building that online presence. They're getting the confidence to buy stuff online when maybe they wouldn't have before. And I think as more people are beginning to shop online, competition that appears online is a sign of demand, not over saturation. It's just it's a sign that there is so much more demand online that retailers are going there because they can see that's where customers are now spending their money. So because more people are shopping online than ever before, with a much broader age age range as well of customers becoming regular online shoppers, remember the days where, like, the older generation would be like petrified of putting a credit card in online initially, when kind of the younger generation were more familiar with the Internet. It's just not the case anymore. Like with Apple Pay, Google Pay, people are buying stuff on their phones from the sofa or their iPads every day without, um, without even considering the kind of the types of things that used to hold them back from it, like, oh, will my card be safe? Like that. Stuff with Shopify has almost just disappeared, so now it's just a case of value proposition. And can you give someone the service and the experience and the product that they're looking for and make it an easy shopping experience, because they're going to buy it somewhere. So why not have it be from you? So with any thriving market, as you do start to get more competitors, it just means that if the market. Markets expanding, the pie is expanding. So yeah, there might be more people in there like requesting a slice, but if the overall pie is growing and expanding, you're able to still benefit from that growth while only still taking your reasonable size slice of that pie. We're not looking to acquire the entire market. You know that would be a different story. Remember what we said about how there are other ways that you can stand out as well through your brand positioning, so you can make a really nice, curated selection of products, or provide excellent customer service, or provide a really slick user interface and nice customer shopping experience. You know that I think those are just some examples of ways that you can stand out beyond just trying to discount and be the cheapest. So yeah, I think the competition in the market is a good thing. It shows that the model works. It shows that other people are succeeding. They wouldn't be there as competitors in business, earning money if it didn't work. And it shows that the concept of drop shipping, as they call it. But the reality is, it's just direct, online dispatch from from suppliers. It is a viable model. Now, drop shipping is a broad umbrella term, right? So if we're talking about the products from Aliexpress doing that thing we talked about earlier, buying something at $3 marking up to 30 in that sense, I think you're right. It is saturated with people trying to do that arbitrage model and just trick people into hoping they don't see the AliExpress or the team who listed version of that product. But in terms of buying trade from a supplier and selling at retail to a customer, I mean, that's not going away anytime soon, because that's been here since before the internet that is a proven, tried and tested model in which suppliers get their products to market. So make sure you you set your business up and offer your customers value, because if it resonates with them, and they get a great service, they'll stick around. They'll buy more from you. And if you'd like more insights on how to navigate competition in the world of E commerce and drop shipping. Check out episode 32 of the dropship unlocked podcast, which was titled, is drop shipping too competitive? Perfect. Yeah, great question. Quite a common one that we receive, and did a great job there, Lewis, of overcoming that. And there is more episodes that we've dedicated to it. If you want to learn more. Now we're going to highlight a recent review that we've had for the podcast, because, again, we'd love to hear the reviews that you're leaving for the podcast, and it means an awful lot. So a big thank you to OE luxury, who has shared their thoughts in a YouTube comment, actually, and they've said this is so helpful and full of great insights. Thanks. VA, thank you for the review, OE luxury, we really appreciate it, and we're very glad to hear that you've been enjoying the podcast. Now, if this episode resonated with you, perhaps you would consider sharing it with someone who might benefit from it. Your recommendation helps us grow our community and continue delivering valuable content like this. So a quick share with a friend could make a big difference to someone you know. Thank you for joining us on this episode of the drop ship unlocked podcast. We hope you are leaving with new insights and inspiration to fuel your entrepreneurial journey. To kick start your E commerce business. Head over to dropship unlocked.com, forward slash, start. It's the perfect place to start and get access to resources that will help you build your business from the ground up. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button for more episodes packed with strategies, tips and success stories, plus, if you enjoyed this episode today, a five star review would mean the world to us, and you might even get a shout out on the next episode. Thank you for choosing to spend your time with us today. We can't wait to bring you more insights on the next episode of the dropship unlocked podcast. You.