 What's going on, guys? So in this video, I want to share with you nine of the biggest, most costly mistakes that you need to be avoiding if you're starting a dropshipping business. So these are going to be mistakes that I've made myself in the past, mistakes I see other people making. They're all going to be as valuable as the last one as well. So make sure you stay tuned until the end. And I can guarantee that if you avoid at least one of these mistakes, it's going to save you some time and it's definitely going to save you some money as well. So mistake number one is going to be setting yourself realistic expectations. Now, this is no fault of anybody's because it can be really easy to go on to YouTube, really easy to go into Facebook groups on Twitter, whatever social media platform it may be, seen screenshots from lots of different people making lots of money via dropshipping on Shopify. And it can lead to expectations of dropshipping being this get rich quick scheme. It's a really easy business model to make money in. It's really low barrier to entry. That is true. However, it's certainly not as easy as you probably think it is. Dropshipping definitely requires a bit of time, a bit of commitment financially and kind of mental resilience, trust me in the last since 2016, I've been doing this. There's been some horrific nights of just worry, basically not being able to sleep at night because I've been worried about how I'm going to pay that Facebook ad bill or what I'm going to do about certain customers that have got chasing me for certain orders. So it's definitely not a case of putting a store together, running some ads for a product and then walking off into the sunshine with millions of pounds is certainly not that easy. So if you don't make any money in those first couple of months, don't be disheartened because if it really was that easy, everybody would be doing it and everybody would be making lots of money. But the harsh reality is that I would say 90% of people probably don't even get that first sale. A way of kind of summarizing this point is think of dropshipping as like a marathon, not a sprint. If you try and do everything way too quickly, you're going to cut corners. You're going to fall over at the first hurdle. You're never going to get to that finish line of actually meeting and making your goals. Mistake number two is automatically thinking dropshipping equals AliExpress. Now, I can understand why people make that judgment because I myself, I mentioned that AliExpress a lot on this channel. However, AliExpress is not the be all and end all. It's somewhere you would go to to see if a product actually exists. But then in my opinion, you should be doing all you possibly can to try and source that product elsewhere. When I say elsewhere, I basically mean agents. So CJ dropshipping is a great one. They'll take care of a lot of things for you and they'll make sure the products is of somewhat decent quality. They are usually a bit more expensive, but they tend to do exactly what they say they're going to do, whereas AliExpress can be a little bit up and down to be fair. To AliExpress, it has got a lot better since they've kind of got COVID under control. But again, I would still try and source your product anywhere else if possible. So you go to places like CJ dropshipping. There's three or four different agents that I've worked with. I'm not going to name them in this video. However, if you do a Google search for dropshipping agents, you'll be able to find them pretty quickly. And what you can also do is try and find them locally. So if you're watching this in the UK, go into eBay, see if you can source that product. There's a lot of people selling products on eBay that are also on AliExpress for two or three pounds more expensive. So you can definitely make it cost effective. However, this is a little bit more difficult to set up because you do need to kind of get the supplier on eBay on your side. Not many people will be that happy about you reselling their products at a higher price. However, some will be it's just a matter of striking up conversation, asking the question and seeing what happens at the end of the day. They can only say no. Number three is starting with too little money. Again, this is no fault of anybody's because you only have to do a YouTube search for dropshipping and some of the most popular videos with the most views. I start dropshipping with zero dollars and I made X amount. The fact is to make money, you need money to make money. Basically, with any business model, if you are on a low budget, then dropshipping probably is your best option because I don't know of many business models that require less money than dropshipping to actually get started in. You can have what comes across to somebody who's never even heard of dropshipping or never even heard of you. You can have a really professional looking business like really legitimate and professional looking and you look like you've been established for years and years. If you know what you're doing with design, working that sort of thing for less than a hundred dollars. Just going back to my original point, though, you need more than zero dollars. You would say anywhere less than three hundred pounds and you're really, really going to struggle. The only way you will make it work with that sort of money is if you have the right product from day one with the right creative out to the right audience and you start making a profit from the very beginning. This is going to be extremely difficult to do. The harsh reality is this won't happen this way for most people. So preferably the closer you can get towards that sort of thousand pound mark as a starting budget, the better off you're going to be. Number four is reinventing the wheel. I see too many people trying to do crazy things when it comes to dropshipping in all aspects of it to be honest with weird and wonderful ad creative. Sometimes they come off and they work really well. They go viral, they get lots of engagement. Most of the time they fall flat on their face unless you are experienced marketer and you understand your audience. Just stick to the basics. Same thing with the products as well. Just stick to the basics that were something simple, easy to source and is in demand and fit for purpose for a specific market. And also same thing for your store as well. I've done countless videos on store design and picking products, that sort of thing. So I don't need to make this video an hour long, but just stick to a white background on your store with black text. Go for an easy to read font and remove any kind of connection to China as well. So any kind of Chinese labels or symbols or broken English or that sort of thing needs to be removed from your store. Number five, a real important one that a lot of people don't talk about. I don't talk about it that much either. In fact, so maybe I'll do some videos on this down the line. Is tracking your income and tracking your expenses. It can be so easy to just keep funneling more and more money into dropshipping and have no clue realistically of how much money you've made or how much money you've actually lost. This was a big mistake I made when I first started again, not to bore you, but I went from basically making about 20 grand a month within three within four months. Sorry, I'm actually starting dropshipping at the time that was unheard of money for me and I just assumed that I was rich and had lots of money. So I was buying laptops and computers and just stupid unnecessary stuff, which I just didn't need. And it wasn't until I started working with an accountant and we went through the numbers and it turned out I wasn't making half as much money as I actually thought I was plus I had taxes were just non-existent. I weren't considering taxes. So it kind of brought with it this whole load of headaches and things that I had to sort out basically and just become a lot more sensible and a lot more organized. So my advice to anybody watching this video is open up a separate bank account, whether it's a business one or a personal one. It doesn't really matter to be honest, put what you are willing to lose into that account, whether it's 500 pounds, a thousand pounds and then make sure every penny you spend comes from that account because at least then you'll be able to see the balance of that account go up and down and you know everything is dropshipping related. If you have it in your personal account and you see money go up and down every time you get a payout, but then your electricity bill, your phone bill comes out and these are all things which are going to skew your overall understanding of how much money you're actually making or losing. Point number six is not testing enough products. Too many people come to me and say dropshipping doesn't work when they've tested two products of met people who have tested this is again through nobody's fault because there's people out there that will test one product and make a hundred grand with it. However, on the flip side of that, there will be people who need to test 30 products before they make their first hundred grand. Everybody starts in different place because everybody has a different kind of understanding and skill level drop shipping is a skill. Picking products, picking the right product to dropship is a skill. Marketing is a skill. Store design is a skill. So everybody starts from a different place. So everybody's results are going to be different. The most important thing to consider to make sure you avoid this mistake is that you need to decide whether you are 100 percent committed to this as a business. And if you are, it doesn't matter if it takes you 50 products to test. You keep testing until you find that one product because as cheesy as it sounds, you are just one product away from drastically changing your life for the better. It only takes one product. Number seven is I see too many people trying to do the same as everyone else. Again, it's through note full of your own. If you are making this mistake, it can be easy to go on to YouTube, watch my videos and see some of the products I talk about, see other businesses and how they're selling it and just try and replicate them and do it exactly the same way. In my opinion, you can do that to some extent. However, to give yourself the best chances of success, you need to be doing it the same way with a spin with a better spin in a better way, if that makes sense. Because again, the harsh reality is 90 percent of people make no money when it comes to dropshipping. So if you're copying everybody else, chances are you're going to be copying that 90 percent and therefore you're going to get the same results. So what you need to do is find people who it's actually working for, copy them to some degree, but just make sure you reword everything. Different creatives, different store name logos. Don't replicate something that's illegal. Make sure you copy it or make sure you use it as an inspiration. I shouldn't use that word really copy. Use it as inspiration, but put your own spin on it and just do it better than whoever you're using as inspiration. Number eight, this is probably one of the most common ones, and this is understanding the data. In fact, I would say 95 percent of speak to of people, they have no clue what conversion rate on a Shopify store they need to be aiming for. They have no idea what the data means on Facebook. So when they run some ads for a particular product, if they don't get the results they're hoping for back, it leads them stuck, leads them thinking dropshipping doesn't work or some form of a scam. When in reality, that's just not the case. This is perfectly normal to fail on a product, but unless you understand what the data is and what it means and how to manipulate it, then you are going to be stuck and not know what to do. However, if you do understand the data, then you do know what to do next. When it comes to being successful at dropshipping, in my opinion, the proof. This is where people really prove what they're made of and how well their understanding is of this business model because for you to be successful at dropshipping, you need to understand what conversion rates are and what you need to be aiming for, how to manipulate them. You need to know what a CPC is, what a CTR is, what a CPM is. You need to know what the quality rankings mean and again, how to increase those and make those better. Finally, number nine then, probably one of the most important ones. So if you're stuck with me, I'm glad, this is waiting for the perfect time or the perfect product. Too many people spend months and months and months watching YouTube without taking any action. There's never gonna be a perfect time. If you were gonna start at the best time possible, it'd probably be about now or a couple of weeks ago because we're recording this at the very beginning of Q4. However, the perfect time probably doesn't exist. Well, the perfect time is now or a week ago, as they say. So the perfect time is now. Don't wait for whatever commitment or whatever project it is you're waiting to finish. Just get started now because the best experience you'll get running the business is actually running the business and not by watching YouTube videos. This also happens with products as well. Too many people wait or try and find a product that has zero bad points or zero negative points about it. But the truth is with every single product out there, there's gonna be negative points about it. So in my opinion, there's no such thing. No matter what products you look at, even the most successful products in the world, there's bad points about every particular product. So try not to wait until you find a product that ticks every single box. Just try and find a product that your gut tells you it's okay or that the data tells you that it's okay or potentially a product that I've featured on my channel. I stand by all the products I feature on my channel as great products. So just give them a go, dip your toes in, start with small budgets. And like I mentioned earlier in the video, you're only one product away from drastically changing your life for the better and you never know what's gonna happen. So just give it a go and the worst thing, what's the worst thing that can happen is you lose maybe 100, 200 pounds. And so with that being said then guys, that's the nine biggest mistakes I see people making as well as have made myself. I really hope you've stuck with me this long. That way you've seen all nine mistakes and I stand by what I've said in this video. If you avoid at least just one of these, it will save you some money and it will save you some time as well. Thanks for tuning in and I'll see you in the next one.