An introduction:

• There is not a better time than now to start your online business. Internet sales are rapidly increasing. There are 2 billion users on Social Media.

• You don't have to be technology savvy to be able to trade on the internet. Making use of today's modern technology anybody can master IT user skills free or at low cost in no time.

• There are a lot of free or low cost tools online to start with. You will learn as you go, apply what you have learnt and be able to spend more and more on online tools and courses to your benefit.

Pros and Cons of working from home - Financial freedom or the safety of your Comfort Zone?

✔ So you are fed up with the 9-5 rat race? You had enough of early morning congestion on the bus, the metro or the roads?

✔ You dream of firing your boss and becoming your own master? You are desperate for financial freedom and to earn a sustainable income?

✔ But you don’t know where to start?

✔And it scares you to the core to give up the financial safety that your pay check gives your family month in and month out?

If you are still contemplating to quit the 9-5 rat race please find below some Pros and Cons of setting up a business from home.

Pros

● It’s cheaper to set up an online business from home, than commute every day on the bus, the metro or on the roads

● It’s less stressful in the comfort of your home than enduring early morning and evening congestion on a daily basis

● You can spare the time of commuting and improve your work life balance

● You gain personal freedom, have no boss, no dress code, set up your own working schedule

● You have more quality time to spend with your family and loved ones, including holidays

● You have more leisure time to pursue pleasure, able to make your dreams come true

● You are in control of your finances, income and budget

● You are the sole decision maker of your business

Cons

● Lack of the relative safety of a pay check received regularly at the end of each month. It may give you a peace of mind that your basic expenses are covered, but on the flip side it condemns you to mediocrity and holds you back to excel in your abilities and make your dreams come true.

● You will have to do all the work. Especially at the beginning setting up your own business will require extra efforts and time. So you may end up working more than when you had worked for someone else.

●The quality of your performance will directly affect your income. You won’t be able to blame anybody else when due to your fault you lose money or a client.

● Business operations entirely depend on you. In case of an emergency i.e. sickness or other unexpected incidents, or going on a holiday will arrest work, thus stop the flow of revenues.

● Working from home tempts you to work long hours which can adversely affect your work life balance.

● Loneliness, lack of direct communications with colleagues can be discouraging.

● You must have discipline, commitment and focus on your business to avoid the manifold distractions that might influence you in a home environment i.e. kids and family, TV, internet, social media, household matters, taking vacation etc. and keep yourself motivated

What does it take to become a successful home business owner? Are self-restraint and sacrifice worth it?

To start your own business is a big decision. It requires a great deal of planning, risk taking and commitment from your side. Not everybody is ready to work hard and commit to become a successful entrepreneur. Taking the responsibilities and carrying the burdens of the venture all by yourself can be overwhelming at times, but with persistence, faith, constant self-training and surrounding yourself with people who have got a positive impact on your endeavour, you will retain your zeal and make your dreams come true – become a successful home business entrepreneur.

Abundance of free or low cost digital tools on the internet make online marketing attainable for everybody!

Here are some links of courses which have helped me a great deal on my journey to online marketing:

For IT user skills   http://www.ecdluk.co.uk/ecdl-courses/trials/online-classroom-training.html

Anybody can master IT user skills at low cost in no time. At ECDL course you will learn basic IT knowledge fast.

The global drop shipping market is growing at an outstanding rate, valued at $102.2 billion USD in 2018 and expected to hit a compound annual growth rate of 28.8% between 2019 and 2025.

The major driving forces behind this exceptional growth are an increased preference for online shopping, and the rising trend of cross-border e-commerce trade. The rising market share of smartphones, along with increasing consumer disposable income, promotes the growth of the e-commerce market, and drop shipping in the wake of it.

This highly lucrative market attracts a growing number of merchants, as well as suppliers.

Drop shipping involves selling of products through online stores where the retailers do not keep an inventory. The retailer passes on the orders from the customers along with shipment details to the supplier (manufacturer, wholesaler) who then delivers the goods directly to the customer.

Prerequisites of a successful drop shipping business are Efficient Marketing, and a Sustainable and Scalable Drop shipping Store.

Meowingtons gradually developed their brand by designing a cute cat logo, expanding their cat product lists, and setting up social media channels prevailed by charming cat photos. To develop their own customized product lines they have entered into partnership with a local cat cafe and a foster home for abandoned cats.

District of Clothing is a print-on-demand success story started out as a side project in 2014. Yet in 2016, it yielded $29K of extra income. Valid messages conveyed by their products, updated product designs of late, and viral marketing campaigns benefitting influencers and story-telling constitute the secret of their success. 

Launched in December 2017, HYGO quickly became one of the biggest Shopify drop shipping stores in general gadgets because they offer a wide range of products at discounted prices and frequently update and expand them. They make videos to showcase their products and a review of each product accompanied by photos. HYGO’s partnership program includes affiliates and influencers.

Warmly is a niche drop shipping store selling furniture and decor accessories for the home. Their revenue is estimated between $566,000 and $1,100,000 per month, which is remarkable for a store younger than 2 years old. It’s unique that most of their traffic comes from a less popular social media site: Pinterest. Their market philosophy is “Know where your niche is located and focus there. Don’t be afraid to invest in the unpopular channel.”

Notebook Therapy are into Japanese-inspired stationery, gadgets, and tote bags, mostly focusing on young women. Their sales are estimated between $350,000 and $700,000 per month. They massively invest in social media. Customers’ hearts are won over by their store design, charming illustrations, bright colours, free worldwide shipping and a 30-day return policy. They hold it essential to customize your store to your market’s preferences and that customer experience is key.

In December 2017, Marc Chapon quit his full time job and took a plunge into ecommerce. In less than a year, he made sales worth 60 thousand dollars per month. Here’s his tips to build a sustainable and scalable drop shipping store.

Facebook groups, YouTube videos, courses on the Internet - all to help you develop your e-commerce business.

You will need about $1000 to set up a Shopify store, and run Facebook ads.

Using the drop shipping model you don’t have to spend on inventory. Through Spocket he could find products and launch his store at no upfront cost.

There are no saturated niches. Choose one or more products you are passionate about. Know everything about them. Then do an exhaustive research about your competitors, the amount of traffic they generate. Check the amount of revenue the niche produces and its profitability. A sustainable business is possible if you choose a niche that is persistently doing well.

Marc loved animals, had a dog and cat of his own and knew the needs and problems of dog owners. Products for dog lovers were trending and so, after some research, He chose dog-centred products as the theme of his store. The traffic was great, and a reasonable profit seemed viable. Once He had extensively researched the niche, He picked and chose everything dog related.

Competitor research revealed who his competitors were aiming at, and what they were doing effectively. He studied the lifestyles, characters and attitudes of his potential customers. They came from the US or Europe, aged 21-65, fancied following dog accounts on Instagram and made their purchases at PetSmart. This was perfect for a start. He kept testing and experimenting as time passed by.

He needed manufacturers from the US and Europe, with great products and fast shipping. A simple Shopify search led him to Spocket. They had a suitable collection of dog bracelets, tags and necklaces to be shipped from the US. The profit margin was also fair. He found customizable products, too.

25-50 amazing products worked well for him.

He made sure to work with suppliers He trusted entirely. Winning products are a mixture of the right product, the right audience and the right marketing. 

Social media ads are the most effective tools for your store to generate sales: a large number of people can be reached relatively fast and it’s not expensive (Facebook, Instagram)

Add value through community forums such as Quora or post on Pinterest – to raise brand awareness.

Marc’s final tips:

• Be organized and keep your finances in order.

• It was hard. But it is possible.

• I made countless mistakes along the way, admitted them, and corrected myself.

• I tried new things every day, tested new ideas and was determined to make it.

• Anyone can build a successful ecommerce store through drop shipping.

Kamil Sattar, also known as “The Ecom King” is a British E-commerce entrepreneur. At 20, he has gathered an annual sale of $3,000,000.

Clue to his success? The keywords are resoluteness, tenacity, concentration, consistency, hard work. He decided to master drop shipping and was ready for all it took. Dropped out of college, quit his part time job, reckoned with his toxic friends, set up a daily routine and clung to it every single day until he encountered success.

One of his winning products was the privacy phone screen, and he created a one product store to market it. After 11 months of adjustments and scaling, he boxed 1 million in revenue making 24% net profit. He also ran a Christmas store selling gifts ranging from children’s toys to beauty products.

He reinvested the money into more mentors and courses, learnt different marketing strategies like YouTube ads, Bing ads, Google ads, Tik Tok ads, Facebook ads and strategies and updated his skills regularly.

Also, his ability to quickly adapt and implement solutions served as a key factor for his success.

For example, due to the pandemic, consumers’ buying behaviour has changed and Kamil changed course to sell products that suit their demand.

Kamil’s tips to those starting out as drop shippers

Break up great goals into weekly tasks and focus on them independently.

Kamil markets his products with Tik Tok influencers in a fun and entertaining way. In his opinion, Twitter and Tik Tok are the best marketing platforms right now.

Within 8 months Irwin Dominguez from San Diego garnered $1,000,000 in profit as a drop shipper. On his best day of e-commerce, he pulled in a cool $30,000 and on average pulls in $10,000 a day.

He started out

Learning about e-commerce online

Opening a Shopify account

Importing products into his ecommerce store from drop shipper Oberlo platform

He made his first sale using Facebook ads and attributes most of his success to that marketing tool. However he calls the attention of beginners how important it is to balance the cost of ads with profit margins.

His quest is for winning niche products, new products in the same niche or in an entirely different one.

At the beginning of 2019 Erin quit her full-time job and built a drop shipping business on her own. Within a few months, she generated nearly $70,000 per month—per store. How did she build an extremely successful drop shipping business from scratch?

She doesn’t recommend venturing for a general store because it is extremely difficult to engage the right customers.

Using Shopify apps helped with her business a great deal. The customer support was outstanding and building her store was straightforward.

She made sure all return policies, privacy policies, contact information, legal information and FAQs are accessible on every page so that customers could see her as a legitimate business.

 She had installed Spocket because was instantly hooked by USA drop shipping suppliers and branding. She found a lot of products matching her stores and with good profit margins.

Her ecommerce marketing strategy constitutes one of the clues to her success, and it can be summed up in three words: Personalised Sales Conversations. She used social media to find her target market. She initiated conversations with the people. She would research groups and hashtags on Facebook, Instagram and other media. These conversations are by all means personalised, with her individually recommending them products.

In time she gathered a team of equally passionate people around her to share the workload.

She has loved Snapchat and Instagram ads from the beginning, but nothing can be better than directly talking to people.

As a supplement to her unique, personal marketing she makes her brand stand out with freebies added to customers’ orders, notes and postcards in her own handwriting.

Additional marketing tools she uses are social proof by way of UGC, Influencer Marketing, Email Marketing, and Uniform Shipping Rate.

She highly recommends to incorporate your business - It releases personal liability, it lends your business a sense of professionalism and is a perfect tax strategy! ‍

Make all your conversations with your customers personal—be it as sales or support or marketing.‍ Text messages has proven to be a great strategy in recovering 50% of abandoned carts.‍

Donating to a cause is a complete win-win. It should be something you really care about.

Shopify apps recommended

SaveMySales SMS/MMS Marketing – for abandoned cart messages

AfterShip Returns Centre

Apps that allow bulk-editing, sticky-carts, adding trust badges and creating product videos

Erin wants to help other entrepreneurs to set up a drop shipping business through conversations.

Kyle Borawski started his webstore back in his senior year of college, and had continued to develop his store after his graduation in May 2019. He raked in over $224,923 in sales from August to October 2019.

Cornerstones of his marketing strategy:

1.       Quality: Products you want to sell should be of high quality. Be assured of quality of goods found on Spocket.

2.       Manufacturer: Look for trustworthy and competent drop shipping suppliers.

3.       ‍Communication: Make sure the drop shipping suppliers are good at communicating, are trustworthy and reliable. Spocket has a supplier page where you can check the order fulfilment success rate for every supplier.

4.       ‍Ethics:  You want to create a brand that can last forever. “You’ve got to always think about the customer.”

Conclusion

Kyle, Erin, Marc, Sattar and all the others in the article who have become successful drop shippers came from different backgrounds, lived in different circumstances, had different levels of knowledge of ecommerce and online marketing and different amount and quality of experience. Yet they all have a common denominator what made the difference for each one of them. These heroes made a resolute decision to acquire the knowledge and expertise that would allow them a financially independent lifestyle and make them able to pursue their dreams, come what may. They all relentlessly attended online courses, webinars, conferences, read blogs, eBooks, and books and did research. They were ready to pay the costs of their success. They did not run away when faced challenges and took on the sacrifice needed. They had no plan B. Their perseverance, consistency, hard work paid off at the end, though none of them knew how long it would take when they started out. They never gave up. And you should not either!

Make a firm decision and stick to it! Be focused and consistent! Persevere! Educate yourself continually! You will make mistakes along the way, but don’t bother! Think of Edison! He did not fail a thousand times before inventing the light bulb. He just learned a thousand other ways it didn’t work.

Online trade is not a quick fix. It’s hard but possible. Kyle, Erin, Marc, Sattar and the others are all ordinary people with extraordinary resolve. That’s the key. You can be the next hero. Take the challenge!