Millionaire Tries Dropshipping - My Reaction to @Mark Tilbury

what's up everybody i'm paul and welcome to my channel so recently mark tilbury or uncle mark as damien talks money affectionately refers to him as recently did a video about his experiences of setting up a drop shipping business as a side hustle and i thought this was a really interesting video and gave a really good insight into the process of setting up a drop shipping business but i felt that i could add some almost value to his video so i thought i'd do a reaction video and give my input along the way so hopefully it'll provide some helpful hopefully nuggets of information to anybody who's planning on setting up a drop shipping business and at the end the video i'm also going to give my opinion on drop shipping as a side hustle business because drop shipping is something that i've been aware of and known about for a very long time even though i've never actually started a dropshipping business i was in the process of starting one but i have actually known about dropshipping since 2009 which is what 12 years ago now because when i was actually in school i come across the dropshipping business model and was actually planning to launch a dropshipping business and over the time since i followed it through all of its incarnations when it was popular on ebay amazon and also shopify as well so i do know quite a lot about dropshipping even though i've never actually personally done it so with the introduction out of the way let's jump in and watch mark's video and i'll give my reaction along the way hi guys it's mark so today i'm going to be paying different people on fiverr to create all the parts of a drop shipping business and i mean everything from the shopify store to the logo to the social media adverts then i'm going to throw it all together and see if we can make some of that sweet profit i'm super so that's a bit of a different way of doing it is to outsource all the different parts of actually building the business a lot of people when they're just getting started with dropshipping aren't going to do this they're probably going to do a lot of it themselves but if you are planning on doing it especially if you plan on having somebody else build your shopify store for you i'd recommend going through and actually trying shopify out for yourself have a play around with the platform create test orders do some like customizations to your theme so you understand how the platform works before you just get this site and then you're trying to take live orders and you're not really sure what you're doing so first i would recommend having to play around the platform before you actually get started with your live site if you want to go and try shopify out they do do a 14 day free trial and i'll leave my link in the description to shopify below so you can go and try them out for yourself super excited for this video because when i was growing up the internet unfortunately didn't even exist and mobile phones were the size of a house brick was kind of giving my age away here but i do remember phones actually being that size my brother-in-law had one i was a bit too young to actually have one myself but i do remember them certainly didn't have modern day methods such as drop shipping which can be done from anywhere you like with nothing more than a laptop and an internet connection so i'm currently standing in one of my warehouses and as you can imagine these have huge running costs the beauty of drop shipping is that you can let somebody else handle all of that for you which is really really great because you can concentrate on making the profit but if it's so great why do i have warehouses well i'll give you my opinion on that a little bit later now with that said let's get back to the studio jump on the laptop and get this show on the road after some research i've decided to sell these oversized blanket hoodies as their one size fits all pretty unique and they're perfect for summer bbq nights when things get a little bit chilly but you still want to stay outside i also bought a couple for my family at christmas and they absolutely love them so i know they're a good product they all sit around nice and cozy while i'm sat there shivering so i think the right price to sell these for is 45 and every time we receive an order our purchase the product on aliexpress for 18 leaving us nearly 27 in profit of course minus any advertising expenses if we want so i think he's actually chosen a really good product on this one because it's got broad market appeal and it's unisex as well lots of people are going to be interested in this product but he did show one of the main problems with dropshipping and that was he showed the amazon listing and this is one of the big things with dropshipping you're going to be trying to go up head-to-head with amazon and in the screenshot it showed the pricing on amazon and that's the first thing where you're not going to be able to compete is the pricing the reason is amazon's going to be buying these in bulk or people selling on amazon are going to be buying these in bulk and using things like amazon fba whereas you're going to be buying them individual units and you're going to be paying just under retail price on aliexpress which isn't a good thing second thing with going up against amazon is amazon is always going to beat you for delivery because it showed in that screenshot that it was available on prime which means you're going to get it delivered next day if you're drop shipping from somewhere like aliexpress it could be anything up to six to eight weeks delivery which let's say you're just not going to be able to compete with and also customer service due to the reasons i've just mentioned with things like shipping and also returns you're just not going to be able to compete with amazon so you're going to have to do something quite special to get those customers to buy from you rather than buy from amazon this door to be really successful we need a catchy name so i've come up with cozy comfort i've also had to spell it in this way so i can secure the dot-com to name name i think that's actually a pretty good domain name it's quite catchy but there is a risk of going with things that are spelt slightly differently it can work really well in your favor it can also go against you as well because people just don't remember the name of your business and they could be able to find a competitor that's got a very similar name to yours that maybe ranks better in things like google so while it can work for your business it's also a risk as well going with something that's spelled slightly differently there are tons of great choices here i've been comparing prices and service quality for the last 20 to 30 minutes and i think i've narrowed it down to three choices i'm going to give this all in one package a shot as he claims he can create a converting one product shopify store and that's exactly what we're after 175 dollars is a very good price for a website however for my first shopify drop shipping store i think it's pretty steep investment but i believe a good website can last for years to come now we need i definitely agree with mark on this one even though it might seem steep when you're getting started if you have a good quality website built for 175 dollars it's pretty cheap to be honest now with this you're probably only going to get one of the free themes that's going to be modified you're probably not going to get a premium theme because they're not going to be able to buy a premium theme and then build the site as well because basically when you're doing this you're just paying for their time of actually building your website the logo for the business and i found this woman that creates really clean and simple logos and i think 25 is fairly cheap for a logo as they stay with her business for years and sometimes even forever let's see what she can do lastly we need some video adverts and this guy says he can create a dropshipping video ad and this is exactly what we need twenty dollars is a fair price for a few high quality adverts and these can also last for a month so not bad investment so i've placed the three orders so there's only real one issue i have with the way mark's actually gone about this and that's having somebody create the website and somebody separate create the logo because if their briefs don't really match up or the briefs are too brief you're going to get two different like things you're going to get a website that's designed in one way and a logo that's designed in another and they might not gel together very well if i was doing this i would do one then do the other so i'd either have the logo created then have the website created because the website designers can be able to take cues from the logo or have it done vice versa so you have the website done then have somebody create the logo based off the design of the website i wouldn't have it all done together because potentially you could run into some problems and these should be ready in the next few days we'll check back once they're complete one week later right all the orders have been delivered i'm really excited to see how it's all turned out let's start off with the logo i've actually been going back and forth with the designer for a few days now this was the first design that she sent me personally i'm not really a fan of it as it doesn't really get across a feeling of quality and comfort that's really not a logo that you'd want for your business that's something kind of dodgy and a little bit kind of i know criminal intent almost yeah i definitely wouldn't want that on my website comfortable hoodies to be honest it actually looks more like a streetwear brand i asked for a few changes and this is the first time i've looked at the final version well it's better but i don't think it's really what i'm looking for at the end of the day we only paid 15 dollars for this so let's keep it as a backup option and move on to the other orders next let's check out the video we're using for our main ever if that isn't up to scratch potential customers are just going to scroll past leaving us zero chance of actually securing any sales [Music] you know what i actually really like that i think he's picked some really great shots as everyone seems really happy and the hoodies are showing both indoors and outdoors another trick i think that's actually a really good advert lots of stock footage that's been used but nice clear font nice flow to the video as well yeah i think that's actually a pretty good social media advert i've seen a lot of people do is purchasing the item for themselves then they can take more unique video and photos than the ones that are available online this can be a great way of getting ahead of the competition now it's time for the just another note on that one as well i would recommend actually buying the products before you even do any of this when you're deciding which products you want to have because one you want to order it for yourself because you want to check the quality of the product because you don't want to be selling products that are so standard especially if you're asking kind of like 45 for it also you'll be able to check the shipping time on it as well so you'll know you're gonna know if it's basically really really long shipping time so if it takes like eight nine weeks to get there you know you're going to need to find another supplier and basically do the process over again until you find a supply that you can actually work with so you're getting a good quality item and the shipping isn't taking the mick too much the big one which is the shopify website if the adverts great but the website doesn't look professional and trustworthy we'll end up paying to get customers on the website that never actually buy anything the customer could even go on to purchase the same product elsewhere this means our marketing would benefit our competitors and we definitely don't want that to happen so let's load up cozycomfort.com well i think he smashed it totally out of the park the images look really high quality and that's important as it means people are far more likely to trust the site and part with their cash i also see that he's created a logo as well which is really nice and it's definitely more the style i'm looking for as it looks premium quality i'm glad he's added photos of both men and women as it opens us up to both demographics meaning we have far more potential customers and therefore a higher chance of profitability let's fire up the app on the mobile to check out everything so i think that is actually a really good website especially for the price of 175 dollars it looks like it's been presented really well it's got a good color scheme he's used good images the only thing i didn't like about it was the fake customer reviews now these may have been drawn from somewhere else like amazon but they aren't actually reviews of your business your website and your product they've probably been pulled from somewhere else or just created randomly i don't like this if you're gonna have reviews have genuine custom reviews don't use fake ones or pull them from somewhere else and also this pulls into what i just said before with having the logo creator and the website designer working at the same time but not having any kind of cross communication if you then presented that website to the logo design app they're going to have a better idea of what your business is about they're going to understand like your colors and things like that for your business and then they're probably going to be able to create a much better quality logo for your business so i'll do the one first then the other as i said earlier in the video i think works smoothly this is very important as if we are going to be advertising on social media it means most of our customers will be visiting the website via their phones i'm not going to completely forget about the desktop version of the website but it's certainly less of a priority having these reviews is important and i'm glad he didn't just use the five star ones and included four star ones as well as personally when i buy something i look at the reviews and if they're all five stars then it looks a little bit odd to be honest it's also great he crossed out the old price and put the product on promotion this makes it more appealing to customers and should lead to higher sales after speaking with sarah finance so i definitely agree with that one you do need to check your website on mobile devices it's something you always need to do because mobile traffic is making around 50 of the traffic to e-commerce websites now and it's growing you out on your so it is a hugely important part he's just covered reviews i reckon these have probably been pulled from somewhere like aliexpress so there are reviews on the product but they're not actually reviews for your business and i just don't like this just get genuine reviews on your product before you actually start listing reviews on your site i just don't like reviews that aren't around your business or you haven't attained personally for your product i'm kind of rambling a little bit there my last drop shipping video i learned that it's very important to put your product and advert to the another thing i just yeah it just went out of my head doing the kind of like fake markup and discount while that is a sales tactic it's not completely upfront and honest because is that product really 65 pound have you ever sold it for 65 pound as well because in the uk you do have to kind of say when the product was actually available at the full price so i don't really like that tactic it's a bit kind of underhanded to me not a big fan of that tactic test a perfect way to do this is through paid promotion from influencers and large themed pages before jumping onto facebook ads i managed to find a few large instagram influencers in the fashion space unfortunately many didn't reply and some wanted over 500 for a 24-hour story post i did get a reply from sophie she offered to post her adverts on her instagram feed and story for a hundred and fifty dollars but you know me i had to haggle a little bit and get her down on a price and i managed to secure a hundred dollars by making payment upfront i made sure to use paypal goods and services just in case something went wrong and i wanted to get my money back i'll get the hoodie sent off to her and i'll check back once the ads are live using influencer marketing is definitely a different way of doing things and it kind of goes against the ground with a lot of the way drop shipping is taught to just go and do facebook ads you can definitely get a bump in your business by going and using an influencer to get started with but as mike says you do need to negotiate with them if it's 500 and you're just getting started that is a big expense 100 it's worth the risk in my opinion so definitely something worth pursuing and yes if you're ever going to pay for anything you're going to send money to people via paypal always use goods and services because then you have come back if you send it as a gift you don't have any come back on that money and if anything goes wrong you're going to be that money out of pocket and that person is going to pocketed it and not basically about to do anything for it so it's been a little over 12 hours since the ads went live and i must say i'm extremely happy so far but before we jump into the results i want to address something we may have overpaid for the website and the adverts which is going to make it harder for us to hit a profit however a good website can last a business for years i once purchased an entire business because their website was so good and i still use that website to this day i actually don't think he's overpaid particularly for that website 175 dollars i think he's a reasonable cost for that website it looks good it looks professional it's got good images could you do that yourself for 175 i don't know personally i think it's a pretty good price you may be able to have got something for a hundred dollars but would it have been as good you don't know my return on investment has been sky high the same goes for social media adverts these video ads can often be used for months to generate far more revenue than i've been able to do in just one day now i'm really excited to share these results with you i think the marketing strategy really paid off as we got over a thousand visitors to the website this definitely shows we made the right decision to use a social media fashion influencer to promote our products she obviously had the right audience so in total we received six orders which came to 550 dollars i just hit so while generating six orders and 550 dollars in sales is really good from the initial 100 investment i actually think that mark might have been better off going for an influencer on a different platform the reason is instagram is limiting its reach and i covered that in my last video where i talked about his instagram good for business so maybe he may have got a better return on his investment for going for something like youtube or tick tock where the influencers have may have a much larger market reach and also it's going to be staying around for a lot longer that posters or that video so potentially going for something like youtube or tick tock could be a better option rather than going for an instagram influencer especially as instagram is limiting the reach of posts for its influencers just an idea hit the refresh button so you can see it's all legit 0.54 is a pretty good conversion rate for a shopify drop shipping store i think on the surface these results seem pretty great but the real question is did we make any profit let's crunch the numbers and find out for each unit sold we make on average 26.30 in profit so using quick maths i made that out to be 315 and 60 cents gross profit i totally didn't use a cap so that's a useful thing to know you actually sold 12 units from six orders because some people ordered multiple units which is definitely something you want with your e-commerce business you definitely want to try upsells to get more sales through the checkout and the reason for this is it's going to save you money on like basically by payment processing fees it's also going to reduce your shipping as well because you're going to probably get discounts on shipping for shipping multiple items to one address rather than shipping individual items to multiple addresses if that makes sense calculator for that [Music] but seriously 315 dollars in gross profit is fantastic but we haven't yet subtracted our expenses so let's add it all up we paid 175 for the website 15 for the logo 20 for the video address and lastly a hundred dollars for the paid instagram promotion i'm not going to include the shopify plan in my expenses because shopify provides all new users with a 14-day trial which is pretty good for us so our total spend comes to 310 which isn't anything too crazy this only leaves us with a total profit of five dollars and sixty cents i know this doesn't sound like a lot but the one-time expenses are now out of the way we have a great website that can generate sales as well as a catchy social media advert to drive traffic towards us and i can't really help but wonder what the results would be like if we trialed this for a week or more to be honest i didn't even expect this to be profitable but this definitely leaves the question is drop shipping a sustainable business model i personally think it can be a great side hustle however if you want to take it to the next level and build a sustainable long-term business then i believe it's important to take the leap and physically stop the products yourself but mark you said products require costly warehouses with loads of other expenses at the end of the day stocking products will give you full control over your business and ultimately provide your customers with the best experience which is the most important thing happy returning customers spreading the word is the best kind of promotion you can get i see drop shipping as a gateway business it's a great way to get a taste for business and develop an understanding of how things work a great example of this is ben francis who owns gymshark they started out by drop shipping back in 2011 while he worked at pizza hut fast forward 10 years and this business is now valued at over 1.3 billion with distribution centers all over the world this really goes to show that anyone from anywhere can start a business if ben can start from his bedroom then so can you so i thought that was a really interesting video but i did end up with a couple of questions the first one was did all of the customers accept their orders and what i mean by this is we drop shipping because of the long lead times between someone ordering and actually getting their product some people may wish to cancel their orders because they don't want to wait for the product any longer also with retail what you can have is people want to return the item maybe they're not happy with it maybe it's 40 did any of that happen on any of mark's orders it'd be interesting to see because as somebody who's run a retail business or an e-commerce business i know that returns are part and parcel of e-commerce the second thing is i'd love to see almost a follow-up to this to see if he decides to go and run facebook ads on the site which is kind of the traditional drop shipping method of building the shopify store then running facebook ads it'd be interesting to see if he decided to do that and just see follow up to see if he could turn this into a profitable business on a week-to-week basis just my kind of curiosity on that one so do i think drop shipping is a good side hustle kind of it's not the site hustle that i would actually recommend for me i think it's more of a research type business so you want to research if there's an audience for your product can you get sales on your product is the business going to be successful profitable then if it is if you can establish it in the drop shipping phase then you can definitely scale it up to a fully fledged e-commerce business but that's the way i would use it running it as a full-time kind of side hustle isn't something i personally would do i think there's much easier side hustles out there that you could actually do which are much less hassle because a lot of people have tried drop shipping have run to hassle with customers people complaining about lead times on their products people not being happy with the quality of products and even though it's supposedly a side hustle it can take up a lot of your time for me a side hustle is something i only want to put a few hours into a week and then that gives me some return rather than having hassle all day every day which potentially you could have with drop shipping so for me it's a great way for researching but i wouldn't actually want to do this on a full-time basis so what do you think of dropshipping let me know in the comments is it something you're interested in is it something you've done what's your experience of drop shipping because i'm always interested in your guys opinion so let me know in the comments and that brings me to the end of this video so if you found it helpful a like on the video would be very much appreciated also i'll leave a link to mark's channel in the description below so you can go and drop him a sub if you want to because he just produced some really awesome videos and don't forget to subscribe to my channel as well so thank you so much for watching guys stay awesome and i'll see you in the next one

Channel: The MoneySmith

Views: 263

Keywords: millionaire tries dropshipping, mark tilbury dropshipping, dropshipping, dropshipping for beginners, shopify dropshipping

Id: qapSGYrVfXk

Length: 23min 19sec (1399 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 25 2021