Can you lose money Dropshipping ? the short answer is yes you can. but in fact it all depends on your personal experience, how fast you adapt and learn and how much money you have to invest . all those are some factors that contributes to your dropshipping success or failure.
in this post i will tell you a little bit about my personal experience, and how can you loose money dropshipping , and what you have to avoid and do to reduce your chances on loosing money and instead make your business a success.
When i got into dropshipping in 2017 it was my first step into business world and making money online, and prior that i didn’t know anything about marketing or how to sell or how design a website … ect. at that time everyone is talking about dropshipping with facebook ads and promoting how is it is to find a winning product and scale it to the moon and make a lot of money.
the idea was so simple : find a product on aliexpress > make a store for it on shopify > advertise on facebook > get orders > fulfill them on Aliexpress > make money .
that structure was so easy to understand and seemed doable by a newbie like me, and while seeing results popping in front of me everywhere of people making 1K, 5K and 10K$ per day. why wouldn’t i make that too ?
i jumped in and opened a store trying a product after another, all kind of ads loosing money on ads and apps subscriptions and cost of products. when an idea didn’t work i close the store wait a couple months then try my luck again, at some poit it seemed like i was gambling on products the way i do it.
between all that i joined different internet marketing platforms learning about other ways to make money from CPA, affiliate marketing, Domain flipping, AdSense arbitrage….
it took me sometimes years to even grasp what i am doing and stop jumping from something to another, i spend around 10K on facebook alone not to count other advertising platforms, fees and subscriptions here and there and of course courses .
I wish i had someone to guide me or mentor back in the days when i was full of energy and motivated to do everything, as buying into scamy courses and trying and failing without seeing a results might break you or discourage you from even trying again.
so if you’re a newbie and you came to me asking “can you lose money dropshipping ?” here is what i would say:
Dropshipping is easy but hard at the same time it is hard: like i explained above the structure of dropshipping is easy to understand, but it’s difficulty is in the details. like finding a product ? what type of products ? is i allowed t be advertised ? which audience fits your product ? how your store should look like ? is there competition in the market ? what if people didn’t like it and started refunding after getting the order ? what if the seller didn’t ship your orders ? what to do if payment processors held your money (paypal does that a lot) ? ….
if you didn’t expect all this to happen or made plans to come over it, it will break you and you might end loosing money.
- Focus on one platform and learn it: one other mistake i did before is jumping from platform to another , sometimes i try facebbok then google ads the eBay dropshipping … so at first focus on one platform until you master it and you scale on it then only jump and branch out to other ads platforms.
- Market research before you start spending money: do your market research and don’t just go and invest on a product because you believe in it. take your time to study the product, the reviews from people who bought it and their pain points, also research your competitors and see what are they doing. there is so much that goes into product research but in short take your time with it.
- know your numbers: i can’t stress this enough but you have to calculate everything and know how much every dollar you spent brings in. know your ad cost, fees, return rate, average order value, shipping cost and changes… it will help you know what areas that need adjustment and how to increase your profit and cut losses.
- know the risks: dropshipping comes with it’s own risks including dealing with untrustworthy seller who ships a low quality product or even don’t ship them at all. another risk is relying on a platform to send you traffic like facebook they close your account and everything will be on hold…
- Have backups: have a backup payment processor and don’t only rely on one, have a backup of facebook ads account , google or snapshot account.
- be aware of fake gurus: those who show you the earnings , half done casestudies and talk about secret tactics to earn fast. just stay away! you’re theri product and they will do everything to convince you to purchase their 200$ course .
Check : Dropshipping Profit Calculator Download This Must Have Sheet
Hope you learn from my mistakes and take the notes above into consideration, i will try to break down each step in future posts, including how research a product, study you audience, create a customer avatar , and which courses deserve your attention and time.
Lately Tiktok ads is being advertised a lot so i suugest to take a look at courses of dropshipping with tiktok ads and take the free ones as a start.