 Hey what's going on guys, welcome back to another video. So in this one I'm going to be showing you the 10 most common mistakes made by beginners in Shopify dropshipping in 2023. So I've been speaking to probably a couple of dozen people via Instagram. I'm bringing a series in the next couple of weeks where I'm going to be reviewing subscribers Shopify stores and pointing out the sorts of things they need to improve in order to help them be more successful. Of the 10 to 15 stores maybe that I've reviewed what I've done is I've put a list together which I'm going to go through today and if you make these changes to your store it will help you convert more people and ultimately make more sales. If you want to be part of that series make sure you head over to Instagram and follow me look out for these stories and what I do is I'll put it out once a week asking people to send me their stores so then I'll then feature them on YouTube in a review the following week. So that being said thanks for tuning in hope you enjoy it hope you find it useful. Any questions by the way put them down below I read every single comment so I will get back to you I want to try and help as many people out as this as I can and that brings me on to point number one which is AliExpress stock images. I reckon nine out of 10 stores I see are using the same imagery that is on AliExpress. There is a number of reasons why this is bad for business but the two main ones is number one Facebook will scan your website it will see what kind of content is on your website and if there isn't original content on that website it will harm the performance of your Facebook ads. If you don't believe me stay tuned I'm going to show you where Facebook actually says that themselves and the next reason why you need to be creating your own imagery is because you don't want to blend in with the crowd you probably won't be the only person selling your product if you're truck shipping so therefore when somebody comes onto your store if you have the same AliExpress stock images as the next store that they saw selling the same product you're going to blend into the crowd they're going to assume you're the same business and if they didn't buy from them at that point they're not going to buy from you at this point. So use a tool like Canva that's like 15 quid a month it's Dead Sheet it is one of the best tools I have ever used across all the different businesses that I've started and 100% worth the money. Put your AliExpress images into Canva remove the background put your own background with your logo in the corner whatever it may be perhaps I could do a tutorial on this if it's the sort of thing you guys want to see. Number two recycled content for ads this doesn't just go for ads either this goes for your social media posts the content you put on your Facebook pages the content that's on your Shopify store. So this is actually a screenshot of a highlight taken from the Facebook website perhaps I'll put a link below if you guys want to go and check it out it is worth a good read actually some night time reading but attributes of low quality post click experiences included landing pages so basically what I was saying earlier is your product page on your Shopify store lack substantive or original content and what Facebook calls this is a bad attribute this will decrease the performance of your ads essentially making them more expensive. Number three is hiding delivery times again probably seven eight out of ten stores I see hide their delivery times I can't remember the last time I ordered anything online without having some idea of when it's going to arrive if a company is hiding their delivery times something isn't going to smell right if it's a brand new business somebody has come across on social media because they've seen an ad and they have no history of that business and no prior experience of that business then they're going to be they're going to have their guard up they're going to be suspicious to say the least so if you're hiding your delivery times it will 100 harm your conversion rate you can get apps like this one which display and like a nice infographic that looks pleasant on the page this is actually taken from poor effect house which is a really big dog niche drop shipper and as we can see this video is recording on the 10th of March this is their current delivery times which is saying two weeks they are one of the biggest dog niche like Aliexpress type drop shippers so if it works for them then it's definitely going to work for you so don't hide your delivery times be upfront with your customer the other reason is where why this is super super important is because if you start getting bad feedback on Facebook it's going to affect what's called your Facebook page score and once this gets below I can't remember so either 1.5 or 2 then there comes a point it may be a bit lower than that that Facebook just ban you outright because people aren't enjoying your ads and your essentially like scamming them or they're not happy with how you do business basically so Facebook will just ban you so it's super important that customers have all the information and they fully expect when to receive their product point number four is boring unproven not unique products I could probably do a video specifically on this topic but the amount of times I see somebody or somebody will come to me on Instagram and say hey I've been advertising I spent 400 quid advertising this sponge holder and nobody's bought it like what's going wrong does drop shipping even work so to give you kind of like the top things that need to be thinking or considering to help you when it comes to your actual product selection tell you what next week I'll do a specific video on how to select the right products with the right potential number one check Amazon and eBay if these two platforms are flooded with the very same products that you're trying to advertise and people are already aware that product is on Amazon somebody's just going to go to Amazon and buy it versus your Shopify store can the customer buy it locally can they go into their local department store the local DIY store the local home and leisure store and buy it there because if they can again what would you do would you go to your local store where you can buy it you can touch it you can feel it you can check the quality of it you know exactly what you're paying you've got comebacks if you don't like it or would you buy it from a business you've never ever heard of before that's just popped up on your Facebook news feed you're probably going to go and buy it from your local store so try and stay away from products that are available to people locally if you're selling a boring product like a sponge holder people aren't going to get excited about it they're not going to stop and click your ad or even take notice of it if you're advertising on social media platforms tiktok facebook instagram everybody's competing for the same eyeball when you're on your phone scrolling through your phone watching content or taking in what's on your news feed it's usually really a tension grabbing to get you to stop and watch it so if you're advertising a super boring product people are going to take like literally less than one second to decide whether they want to watch your ad or not so if it's super boring and not unique and they're not interested they're just going to keep scrolling past it and continue watching funny animal videos does it have a wow factor i've kind of already um covered that is your product new and never seen before is it a product that's been around for many years and been kind of advertised to death and again there's tons of it on amazon tons of it in ebay if it's a new exciting designed kind of shelf or dog toy that nobody's ever seen before that's the sort of thing people are going to get excited about yes you may come across those unicorns which nobody has discovered yet and you might be the very first person to find it and discover that one winning product however it's unlikely especially if you're a beginner so try and stick to those products that you know for a fact that they're winners and there's evidence of them selling and people buying them number five too many people are short sighted drop shipping is a real and legitimate business too many people treat it the offset of that they see it as a quick way to make money they try and get a store up and running in the space of a week to then go out and make thousands of pounds the following week unfortunately yes it is possible if you know what you're doing but for the majority of people with zero experience it's highly unlikely so the takeaway from this one number five is take your time building your business avoid all the points i'm going to go through in this video order the product from your supplier touch it feel it see what kind of quality it is take your own pictures of it in a white background or in a real life setting wherever it may be send a few out to families and friends or influencers get them to film some short form content for you it's dead cheap nowadays to get people to do that plaster it all over your socials it'll be really good for building super social proof and ultimately just try not to beat in too much of a rush take pride in the work that you're doing and make sure that you get it right to the best of your capabilities from the very beginning number six unbranded stores so when somebody comes onto your Shopify store it should be 100 clear who your target market is and people should feel at home so last week i did a review of rich wallet the second you go into the store you know exactly the type of customer they're going after they're going after people who have a little bit of spare money they take pride in their appearance their into fashion and kind of like luxurious type items you know straight away by the type of fonts the colors the graphics all those sorts of things kind of add up to present a package that people get a first impression from so depending on what type of store you're building what type of products you're selling you need to decide and have already kind of like a picture in your mind of who your ideal target market is and then you need to build a store which makes those type of people feel instantly at home number seven is not understanding the data again it goes back to rushing people throw up a store they find a product to sell they recycle content for their ads they run it for a couple of days spend maybe 50 quid don't make a sale and then they don't know what to do next this is because they don't understand the data i've done a purely specific video on this exact topic i recommend everyone go and check it out it came out two days ago on monday so it should be the previously uploaded video make sure you head over there and check it out number eight no foundations super super important when you build a house the majority of the time goes into the preparation of the actual building of the house it goes into the foundations of it and without right foundations the house is going to fall down it's the same for your business at the very least i'd say get a separate bank account if you're running your business from your personal bank account trust me it's going to cause you an absolute headache get a separate bank account doesn't have to be a business bank account it just has to be a separate bank account number two is register your business where we're doing it as a limited company sole trader partnership whatever it may be there'll be a accountants out there which will be able to advise you the best number three have a lump sum for your startup funds and then following on from this have accounting software so what these three things alone business registration startup funds and accounting software will do it will make you take your your business serious if you register it then you know you're in it for the long run something that could be going on five or ten years it'll make you take your business more serious if you have accounting software and a lump sum to begin with and you're keeping an eye on that on a weekly basis every time you see those funds go up or go down it's going to reset your attention and you'll know exactly what you need to do to try and fix that and if it is going down and the closer it gets to zero again it's going to focus your attention and make you put more time and take your business more seriously so make sure that you turn it around if you don't have a lump sum to begin with what you may end up doing is just chucking more and more money into your business and before you know it you might have spent too grand to see nothing in return for it so have a specific amount you're going to start with and then stick to that number five is insurance to be honest i'm 100 up front i didn't have this for the first couple of years in business it's only since i've moved into this place where i has a kind of like two in one sort of thing i have product insurance and i also have content insurance and finally get a business address you can run it from your home address if you want to but if you don't want to put your home address online or give it to customers you need a business address to make you look like a proper outfit to make you look professional number nine too many people are quiet on social media if you're trying to sell a product so let's say i'm a consumer i see an ad for a product and i've never come across this business before i want to check them out and make sure they're legit i go onto their facebook page and they haven't posted in six months i go into instagram they haven't posted in nine months so i check them out on tiktok and they haven't posted in two months that's not a very active company how do i know they're even going to see my order am i going to trust them probably not i'm going to move on so as a guideline try and be posted in every single week just to show people you're still active you're still there and one step on top of this that i recommend everybody do is reply to comments on your post every single post if somebody's tagging their friend just say hey thanks for the tag if you want to check out our products or if you've got any questions just let us know so here on screen is a great example somebody is posting on instagram this girl just ordered all of the colors available company's gone straight back and said you'll absolutely love it say goodbye to nail salons last but certainly not least maybe even one of the most important number 10 boring offer sometimes it is not enough just to offer 10 pound off your product sometimes you need to juice it up with a free ebook or a free kind of upsell offer or a free cross-sell offer so if you're selling a wallet like that rich wallet you get a free money clip or a free money band just some sort of exciting offer that they won't have seen somewhere else just to give them more of a reason to buy it from you and not a competitor as an example so every friday i show you guys two proven products and that's selling really well last week was a juicer it was a way of creating baby food that you can then take on the go so let's say me as a consumer i have two options i can buy this juicer from company a which is just a juicer for 10 pounds off or i can buy it from company two which is the juicer 10 pounds off there's an ebook on how to wean your child and it comes with 10 extra free pouches the extra cost for that company to give away that ebook and those extra pouches is probably less than a pound so why the profit margin on the front end may not be as good they probably convert double what company a does because they have a more exciting and higher value perception on the offer and so with that being said guys i'm going to wrap the video up there are all 10 things let me know what you think hope you enjoyed the video anything that can help you out with comment it down below i read every single one so we'll get back to you i upload videos every single monday wednesday and friday today is wednesday of recording this so i'll see you on friday cheers guys