 Hello, everyone. Today, we have a very special interview with Patrick, a Facebook marketplace dropshipper who's had a lot of good success recently. And for those who don't know, the Facebook Marketplace is a great place for dropshippers today, because it's still an untapped marketplace, lots of profit to be had, and it's actually really easy to sell there. So let's begin. Hello, Patrick. Thanks for being here today. How are you? Hey, thank you for inviting me. I'm glad you're here. Please tell us a little bit about yourself, who you are, where you live, and what you do for a living. I'm originally from Poland, but I currently live in Los Angeles in the United States. And what I do for a living, I work in marketing and real estate marketing, but I've discovered dropshipping last year, eBay dropshipping and then Facebook dropshipping. And that's what I'm doing kind of like on the side. Hopefully, maybe this will turn into like a bigger business. But that's what I do. And I also have a YouTube channel as well about dropshipping. But I would say that my day job is the marketing thing. And then dropshipping is like a hobby side hustle. Okay. So you're working in marketing as a full-time job and you got your dropshipping as something that you're doing kind of as a side hustle to see, you know, check out the territory, see how it goes for you, and see if maybe one day you can turn it into your full-time income. I feel like I could make it a full-time income right now, because I'm doing okay, you know. However, my job pays well too. So I keep both options open, you know. But yeah, my dropshipping is on a pretty good level. I could probably ease off of it, leave off of it. But yeah, I keep both options open. Yeah. From experience, what most people do is those that were able to hit it as a full-time job, once you're making almost equal to what you're making on your full-time job, then it's a good time to maybe think about making that switch. Because usually at that point, you know, you can really start to scale your online business even three times or four times more than what it was. But that's something that I've seen that people have been doing. So I hope you make it to that stage. So my next question was, when did you discover dropshipping? But you just said that it was last year. So is that just Facebook marketplace dropshipping or other selling platforms too? To be honest with you, I knew about the dropshipping itself. I knew for a few years. I've done Shopify dropshipping in the past. I've tried all their online businesses in the past. So I knew about dropshipping for a long time. But the specific dropshipping that I'm talking about here is the retail dropshipping, which I assume, like, I'm sure you're doing it, or at least you've done it in the past. So I discovered retail dropshipping last year, and I discovered eBay dropshipping first. So, you know, I was browsing my Instagram feed and I saw someone posting something about eBay dropshipping. And then the next thing I know, I'm on YouTube watching millions of videos talking about it. You know, I started doing it. I put some random items. I went to Walmart.com, put some items on eBay. And within a few days, I sold one or two items. I sold with the loss. I lost money on it. But that's because I didn't really know how to calculate your break even correctly and your profits. Yes, exactly. Yes. Yes. That was the case. But, you know, once you learn everything, and then you try out and you discover what works well now, what are the prices, and you keep going. Facebook, oh, and Facebook dropshipping, this is something more recent. I would say I started this year. I think I started in January 2021. So, or maybe a little bit earlier than that, maybe like December, because I remember I was selling stuff for Christmas. So, I would say December, I think. That's the time I started. And yeah, Facebook has been really, really great. This is what I focus most of my time right now. It's most of the time I spend on Facebook, not eBay per se. But I have my eBay open, but Facebook is really great. And this is basically the most of my time right now. Nice. And I've personally been dropshipping for the last, I think, five years now. I'm still doing it up until today. But today, it's pretty much like 90% on automation. That's one of the things that I like about it the most. Facebook is not fully automated yet. I want to talk about that in a couple of minutes. But on my eBay account, it's automated. It's pretty much running by itself. I only spend, I think, maybe at tops an hour a day. But that's after you build up the base, and it's already working, and you've got a lot of feedbacks, and you got a good customer base, and it's pretty much running by itself at that point. I do believe that we're going to get to that with Facebook too. As you said, it's a very good platform. You started on December, which is, yeah. So, in the last six months, a lot of dropshippers have started figuring out about the Facebook marketplace. It's still very, very unsaturated. A lot of people have still not joined yet. So, anyone who still joins today is really enjoying the fruits. Another question I wanted to ask is if you're doing it as a side hustle, or if it's your main source of income today, but I know that it's a side hustle. Like I said, I know that you're doing a good job at it so far. I hope that you will be able to turn it into a full source of income soon, and also your YouTube channel. Yeah, sorry. I think my problem is I'm mentally not ready to fully switch. I have a lot of bills to pay, and I know what you mean. I'm still learning about the VA process. I hire a few guys from Fiverr to help me with dropshipping, to do product research, et cetera. I'm not fully automated. This is something that I struggle with. Yeah, it will come in time. Yeah, I'm sure that it's something that will come in time. I've seen it happen to quite a few dropshippers, to me also, I could say. But it is something that takes time. And for some people, it's not the perfect fit. Some people like having their day jobs and having it as a side hustle. And quite a lot of people have also turned it into their main source of income, which is actually also nice. We each have our own stories and our ways of dealing with things. People who usually have families, or people with lots of expenses, lots of bills, usually think twice before taking a risk, this kind of a risk. But you know what happens with people who also know how to take risks in this life? These are usually also the people that become huge and successful, but you also have the other side. So always think positive, think ahead, and see what's right for you. So another question I wanted to ask was, what actually brought you to Facebook Marketplace Dropshipping? You started with, I mean, you already have experience with eBay. You have experience with Shopify. And now you know that it's going to be all about Facebook Marketplace Dropshipping, and I'm guessing you put the other two things aside. So what actually brought you to, this is what you should be doing. This is the right platform. When you do eBay Dropshipping, Facebook is not that different. There are a few differences. Like for example, people are nicer on Facebook, because I think they see your face, and I think the customers are nicer to you. So I think that's one of the factors. But the process of like finding items, listing items is kind of similar. So if you're doing eBay or Amazon, I never tried Amazon, but I assume it's going to be similar. It's kind of similar process. Amazon is one of my favorites. Really? I never touched Amazon. I know much about it. Yeah, people are weary about them because retail and all of that. But if it works, it works, and it's been working for years. But yeah, go ahead. How long you've been doing it? For as long as I've been dropshipping, four or five years. They've been one of my main, yeah. Maybe I should tap the market too. Maybe. So you're talking about the people being nicer, right? But what made you want to still stay only on the Facebook marketplace? What made you decide that this is the one that you should be spending your time on? I was going to that. So when I started, I wasn't expecting to fully switch, or maybe not fully switch because I still do eBay, but focus majority of my time on Facebook. When I started, I just put a few items. I don't want to see if they're still, and I did sell them. But what really attracts me is when I see the fees. So on eBay, I pay about, I don't know, I think it's 18%, 19% of fees. Everything puts together. Yeah. If you're taking eBay's final value fees and PayPal's fees and the tax that you're paying your source when you're buying the product, yeah, you're getting to 20% easy break even. Right. So on Facebook, I go on Facebook, I only see 5%. 5%. That's right. And then there's a lot of people that, this is, I call it like a wild, wild West, because it's still like a new platform to drop ship on charter territory. Yeah. There's not much competition, low fees. I see way higher profit margins compared to like eBay. I decided it was an easy decision. I'm just going to focus most of my time on Facebook now since it's just better. You can make more money on it. So we got lower fees. We got a much higher chance of selling because not a lot of people are selling on the Facebook. I mean, a lot of people are selling, but not a lot of people are drop shipping on the Facebook marketplace. Exactly. So yeah, two big reasons why people need to join. And it's one of the things that I've been, product research is one of the things that really amazes me on the Facebook marketplace because you really don't need to know so much about product research. Not like you need to know on eBay or Shopify where it's really like hard core. You have to know exactly what you're selling. You know that if it's the market, you test it out so many things before until you find those ones that start selling. So it's not like that on the Facebook marketplace. Those are the reasons that brought you to the Facebook marketplace. And that makes sense. That's one of the biggest advantages that we really have there. So we know what brought you to it. How did you actually learn about it? Like, how did you know that it exists? I think I just watched YouTube and I found it, you know, I also, yeah. So it came from YouTube videos. Like you didn't just think about it one day. Hey, maybe I should try just like I've been doing on eBay and Shopify. Why don't I try it on the Facebook marketplace? I spoke to one of the big dropshippers on YouTube. He kind of convinced me to start doing it. So, and then I just watched you after that, after this conversation, I just watched YouTube videos and that's how I learned and I tried out. Yeah, most of the things I learned from YouTube. I also took the Facebook, not Facebook, eBay dropshipping course. So I learned from that as well. Was it helpful? Because there's so many courses out there. Yeah, it was very helpful. It helped a lot. I learned a lot from it. It was very, very, very useful. For free or did you pay? No, no, no, it was paid. Yeah, I paid for it. I wasn't yours because I think you guys have one too. Sorry, it wasn't yours. Yeah, I believe that everyone needs to learn how to do it from someone who's actually doing it and successful at it and not just people who are good at teaching but haven't actually done it because there's a lot of those too. So it's always good to learn from someone who's actually doing it and preferably from someone who's still doing it, not someone who quit because they did it, they quit because they weren't successful, but now they know how to teach. So yeah, it's always good to learn from the right sources and then the price doesn't matter as long as you're learning from the right source. For me, it was just enough to learn the basics and from there, how to create the account, how to link this with that and how to not get suspended and from there, it's yours. My biggest problem that helped me when I took that course was taxes. That was one big thing in customer service. You mean taxes that you have to pay to your country, like income taxes or taxes that you have to pay when buying the product from your source? I'm talking about sales tax and yeah, the income tax as well. Right, sales tax too. Right. Those are all questions that a lot of beginners have when starting on dropshipping, even on the Facebook marketplace and also on other selling channels. So we can just clear the air really quick. When you're a dropshipper and you're buying a product from your supplier, you will pay taxes. Most likely you will pay taxes when you're purchasing the product. So you're going to pay $20 plus, let's say $1, $2 tax. And when a sale is made on eBay, for example, I'm not sure about Facebook, you can correct me now. But I know that eBay also collects a sales tax when the customer pays you. So the customer is paying you also the sales tax and eBay deducts it from you, the seller. So you see it coming in and you see it going out, you have no control over it. So you pay the supplier tax, the buyer pays you tax, which eBay deducted from you. And you have to pay your own income tax from the country that you reside in. You need to check with your local. I'm talking basically now to our viewers, not to you specifically. But anyone who's dropshipping needs to know that how you need to pay, if you need to pay, and how much you need to pay when it comes to income tax. It's no problem, I'm doing it, and tens of thousands of people are doing it. But then you go to your accountant and talk to them. Yeah, that's it. You just need an accountant, hire someone, pay him once a month, send them your income and outcome files, and they'll do the rest of the work for you. That's one thing that you should do when you start dropshipping. But besides that, don't worry about taxes. It's all being paid for when you're buying and when you're selling. Yeah, I feel like when you're starting out, just start out. Don't overthink. Don't think about taxes. But you do need to know your break even. I mean, people shouldn't start without knowing how much fees they're going to pay and how much they can profit from this product. So they won't make the mistake of losing on their first few orders like you had. And I also remember having a few of those scenarios in the beginning. Exactly, yes. You've been dropshipping on Facebook Marketplace for how long now? Since January. So it's about March, April, May. So it's about five, maybe even six months now. Yeah. And out of that half a year, what struggles do you remember having? What difficulties? What blocks did you have on the road along the way? Same problems that I had on eBay, which is product research. That's the big one. Finding items that sell. And customer service. I think those are the only two obstacles that really, really matter. I know some people struggle with having... Some people don't have the shipping option unlocked. That was the case for me for a little bit. I was waiting a long time to finally get approved. But once I get my second account approved as well, and they get the shipping option unlocked. But once you pass that time that Facebook finally gives you the shipping option unlocked. I guess finding items and the customer service handling people. But people are nicer on Facebook. So compared to eBay, for example. And like you said, it makes sense because when they do see your face, then they don't look at you like just like some business who doesn't care about its people. They see a real person. So it's like a real human being. And the interaction all of a sudden becomes nicer, more polite. But I want to stop you right there because you talked a little bit about shipping options. And it's one of the questions that I wanted to ask later on. So we're just going to talk about it now. The shipping options is a problem for many, many people who want to drop ship on the Facebook marketplace. And I have noticed that a lot of people have been having this problem. So here, I also want to clear there a little bit. Right now at this point from what I have noticed, Facebook does not allow... They don't enable the shipping option for people who are living outside the US. And not just, but for now, people living outside the US, if you're logging into Facebook from a non-USIP or if you are logging in from a USIP, but the Facebook account was created, not when you were in the US. Or if you're not residing in the US and you don't have an old aged Facebook account, which was created in the US, you won't get shipping options. So Facebook will only give you an option to show your item to one specific city or state, and then a small radius on top of that. And if you're only going to get one state out of 50, then not many people are going to see your product and you're not going to be able to sell much. In the beginning, when you didn't see the shipping options and you do, and you are living in the US, you're from LA, the Facebook account was created from the US, but you still didn't see the shipping options in the beginning, right? Yes. Okay. And how old is your Facebook account? Very old. My main account, it's probably like 10, 11 years. So that's age. So what did you actually do to see the shipping options to have it enabled? Well, before I started doing Facebook dropshipping, I was selling locally. There was like another side hustle, I guess. I was selling items from like around the house. And I also was, I was ordering a lot of items in bulk from like a warehouse. And I was selling them to the local community to like, basically to people that live in a city. And I think that helped too, because that helped me to get more, what is it called? Feedback reputation? Because people are actually also giving you feedback as a seller on Facebook, and then they can see your seller feedback. Yes. So selling locally might have helped me. I'm not really sure. I know that a lot of people say that that does help. So maybe they helped me. But did you do anything? Any action? Any trigger that gave you the shipping options? Yeah, I think it did. It took me a while. It took a few months to sell on the market locally. But eventually I did get this option. So it just happened all of a sudden? You didn't reach out to Facebook or anything? No, yeah. But however, I have a second account, which is also aged. It's about like six years old. This account, and I didn't sell on it before. This account get the optional. Has the shipping option. Yeah, right. So yeah, right. So that's another thing. We can't really find out exactly what the trigger is and why some people have it, why some people don't. But if you do live in the US and you don't have the shipping options, you can also try just reaching out to Facebook, tell them that you are actually able to ship your products to any one of the 50 states and they'll open that option for you. Some accounts will automatically have it and some accounts won't have it. And in time they will have it like the example that we just heard. So yeah, so that's another thing that I wanted to talk about because that's another big issue that people are having. Why don't I have the shipping option and what can I do to see it? So we talked about some of the difficulties that you had. You talked about also about product research and customer service. So let's talk about that a little bit. When it comes to product research, how do you, I mean, how is it for you on the Facebook marketplace? And how do you compare it to product research on your other methods, on the other methods, on the other selling channels that you try to sell on eBay and Shopify? Okay. So with eBay, for example, there's a lot of tools and there are specific methods to it because I think it's easier to find products. There's a bunch of softwares that you can use. I use one to help me with product research. It's very useful. You can also try to look up other dropshippers. You can find other dropshippers by just typing, finding one item on Walmart, for example, and then putting it on eBay. We'll eventually find a dropshipper and then you can see what items he's selling and just trying to copy. And if he's selling it for a profit and if he is, then you know that you can get more products from him. But this is different from the Facebook marketplace because we can't really find other dropshippers and see their success because it just doesn't really exist yet. But you are still more successful at your dropshipping on the Facebook marketplace than, or it's easier selling on the Facebook marketplace than it is on other selling channels. That's right. But what I do, for example, I apply kind of the same rule from eBay to Facebook. I just look up for dropshippers on eBay and then I see what the items they're selling. If they're selling eBay, I spend my cell on Facebook. So I just go on Facebook and try to do that. Okay. Nice. So instead of, so the product research method is the same for you. You're doing the same thing that you did on eBay, except only now when you're listing the item, you're not listing it on eBay. You're just listing it on Facebook, but the product research method is the same. Yeah. Nice. Okay. That's also a nice method. I didn't think about that. What I noticed is with Facebook, it's hit and miss. Some items that sell like crazy on eBay doesn't necessarily mean they will sell really good on Facebook. Right. Yeah. I don't really understand how the algorithm works. It's also I've noticed sometimes I can list the same item twice. And one time I get like almost 100 views within the first hour. And then I list the same exact item, like say the next day or something. In the same category? In the same category? Same category, same pictures, same everything. And yeah, I'm not sure how it exactly works. I feel like within the first hour, they're just trying to push it to as many people as they can so they can figure out. Right. And eBay does the same. But if you did it with a second product, then it should have happened there too. So there's probably an algorithm thing going on there, just like you suggested. And it's the same thing also for eBay. You can import the same product in different variations, different colors. And one color is like really hitting it off and the rest of them is like nothing. So it's like either this color is really, really, really special or there's an algorithm thing going on here where it's random and you can't really put your finger on it. Yes. One thing that I could give us a tip here is, as you can see, not every product that sells on eBay sells on Facebook, but the product research method that you're using still works. You can also try things that are a lot more basic because not a lot of dropshippers are on Facebook right now. So you can try leaving eBay on the side, leave eBay for eBay. And when it comes to Facebook, just look for search for products that are simply selling, well, bestsellers on Walmart, bestsellers on Amazon, just take products from their bestsellers because those are products that have been proven to work. And at least for that selling platform, right? For that supplier or whatever. But that's something that's been working for us on our stores that we're running with our VAs. So that's another method. And it's a lot more simple. It's like, okay, this product is selling well, let's try. This product is selling well, let's try. And like you said, it's a hit and miss, but maybe you'll spend less time on product research this way and more time optimizing, analyzing, and scaling forward. So your main product research method is like you said, seeing what's going on in eBay and trying to convert that to the Facebook audience to get them to convert from Facebook. I do the same thing that you just described, too. I just go on Walmart, for example, and just pick the bestsellers that works as well. I mix the methods. Sometimes when I run out of the items on Walmart, the bestsellers, I have to figure out what else would sell. So I go on eBay and try to find all the drops, but I use both methods. And how many suppliers do you try to work with? How many suppliers do you mix in? I just use Walmart. Only Walmart? Yeah, I try different. I use Costway. I try Home Depot, but I just keep it to Walmart. I don't know. It makes stuff simpler and easier. So I know a lot of people who are working with Walmart, I've tried them out not so much, obviously not as much as you, but I would definitely, definitely, definitely recommend to add more suppliers to that list. You're already having success with one supplier, and you will definitely have with more. I'm sure of that. When it comes to Home Depot, that's a very specific niche for the home niche. So I'm not so sure about that, but try adding in more suppliers. I'm sure that you will see the results there. I know that you're used to Walmart, but sometimes you can get stuck. For example, like you said, you run out of a good selling product and you want more. So that's another reason where you can actually find it through other suppliers. But I'm not talking about suppliers like AliExpress for Facebook, Marketplace, Dropshipping. That's something that doesn't work. And that's because Facebook wants you to ship out your product within two days. Correct me if I'm mistaken? Two or three, yeah. Two or three. Pretty fast, basically. Right. And we can get that from Chinese suppliers. And even when we know today that AliExpress has warehouses in the U.S., they still usually do not, sometimes they do, but most of the time they won't provide a tracking number within the first three days. And then the customers will start asking what's going on and they can leave you a bad review when Facebook sends a survey after your customers buy from you. And those are some really risky things that can really get your Facebook, Marketplace accounts suspended or put on hold. So one thing that we do need to keep in mind is suppliers with fast shipping times. And I'm sure that Walmart, I see that they have two-day deliveries for most of their products. So that's something that's not a problem there. What is your... I know that it's only been half a year, but I know that you are successful. I know that you're hitting those sales and profits. What is your average monthly revenue? On an average number, you don't have to be really exact that you're making from Facebook Marketplace dropshipping, but also compared to eBay and Shopify. I don't make much money on eBay these days. I used to, but since I switched most of my time to Facebook, this is where I get most of my income. But when you did use to dropship there? Right. So last month in April, I made $3,000 from both. And then taxes after fees, after everything. Oh, so in profit. Right. Yeah, just profit. But I would say, I think like $2,500 was basically Facebook, and then maybe even more, to be honest with you. I don't remember. Most of the meat is coming from Facebook. Yeah. That's where I focus most of my time. This month is not going that well, because I didn't spend that much time on product research. I focus on a little bit of different things. I relax a little bit more. But again, I'm trying slowly to get VA's to do this hard job for me. So hopefully I'll be able to scale it up. But yeah, last month, April was pretty good for me. And most of the income came from Facebook. Very nice. And did you ever have any trouble with Facebook transferring funds to your bank account, which happens a few days after the customers receive their products? Everything always went through successfully. There were never any problems. No, I never get any problems. I mean, Facebook has this thing that I believe they deliver funds within four business days or something like that. Yeah. After the customer received the actual product? Right. But sometimes, let's say, I don't have a tracking number time, because sometimes the supplier doesn't give the tracking number or time. And I have to... And Facebook supports FedEx, UPS, and USPS. Only those three shipping options. Yes. Yeah. Oh, that's another thing. Yeah, they don't support one track or laser ship or anything like that. So when you have a tracking number on time or when you have to, when you get a tracking number from those different shipping suppliers, I have to put a fake tracking number or I use a different tracking number from a different product and then just put it in. So when that happens, you can wait longer for the funds. It takes like 21 days to get your funds. You will get them, but they're just a longer period of time to get it. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, you just need to know that it's going to take a little bit longer than usual. Right. So I'll explain why this happens. When you're using either UPS, USPS, or FedEx, then Facebook can actually be able... Facebook can track the progress and they can see that it got delivered to the buyer and within a few days, the money will be in your bank account. But when you're using a fake tracking number or if you're just marking it as shipped, but nothing actually shipped out and simply enough, they cannot track it using the tracking number that you gave, then they're just going to wait 20, something like that 21 days and then they'll release the funds to your account as long as the customer didn't open a case that they didn't receive the item or something like that. And that's how Facebook keeps themselves safe too. So it makes sense. And we're happy to know that both ways work that if you don't upload a tracking number, then I don't know, something bad will happen to your account. Everything will be okay as long as your customers are receiving their products. And they're happy about it. The product is as described, arrived within the right time. But we don't want to take any risks. I mean, we should definitely supply those tracking numbers and try to even work with suppliers who can give us those UPS, USPS and FedEx tracking numbers if we can. It's only going to make our jobs that much easier. Okay. So we talked about some of the struggles. We talked about the suppliers that you're working with. How many listings do you have today on your Facebook Marketplace account? About 300. 300. Okay. So that's nice. That's a good number. And how many sales per day do you have with 300 listings? 15. On average. It's never the same, but on average. 15. And what is the profit margin for each product that you are adding? Oh, you're talking percentage-wise? Yeah. Percentage-wise, I would say it's 25%. That's the average. Okay. Dollar-wise, it depends on the item, because I sell items that some items are high end tickets. So they cost like $200 and some of them cost like, I don't know, 20 bucks. So the thing with the high end items is usually the percentage-wise, the profit margins are lower, but dollar-wise, they're higher. And the opposite with the cheaper items. With lower price tags. Yeah. You can sell it with the higher average percentage-wise, but usually you get just less dollars. Smaller dollar amounts at the end of the day. Yeah. I definitely know. I'm definitely familiar with that. So are you actually working with a, like when you're thinking how much you want to profit from an item that you're selling, are you thinking of it percentage-wise, or are you just thinking of fixed dollar amount? I'm just looking for items that will sell, and I don't really care how much. I tend to stay on the higher end. I tend to look for high end items because you just get more money. More profit per sell. Yeah. But I really don't think about it. I just try to find an item that will actually sell. That's the main goal. So you know you got your 5% and you know that you're going to sell it for a much higher price than that. With this method, you can't really know at the end of the day, unless you're keeping some kind of Excel sheet or something like that to know exactly how much you're profiting. You're just seeing what's coming into your bank account, unless like I said, you have some Excel followers or something that's showing you exactly how much you're profiting at the end of the day. Otherwise, it's pretty much hard to tell. That's something that I feel like a lot of beginners struggle with and have problems. That's like my biggest tip. Start tracking your profits from the day one. It's going to help you for multiple reasons. You're going to know how much money you're making. You're going to know if you're losing money. You got to help you with taxes. You're going to keep track of the profits for tax purposes. So definitely start tracking that from the day one. Make a simple spreadsheet on Excel or use some software to do it. Definitely start doing it from the day one. For sure. I can definitely vouch for that tip. What about order fulfillment? Let's talk about that really quick. How are you fulfilling the orders that are coming in? So you get an email or you get a message from Facebook, an item sold. Boom. What's the next step? I try to do it right away if I can. Sometimes I can't. Sometimes I'm out or something or doing other stuff. But I try to do it as soon as I can. On the weekends, I just check once twice a day just to see how it goes and then do it within that time frame. But during the weekdays, I try to do it as soon as I can because I usually spend a lot of time in front of the computer. So I might as well just fill out the order. It gets hideous. It gets really... It can get time consuming. So if I get a lot of orders, I usually just wait till the end of the day. But if I don't get that many orders, I just try to do it as soon as I can. Yeah. That reminds me of my dropshipping journey about two years back, I think, before I began with automation. And I knew that it existed, but I didn't. I was having a hard time knowing who to trust and what to trust. And right now I'm controlling everything. And I like it this way, even though I'm very limited. And I cannot, you know, scale much, especially when you start hitting 10, 15 cells a day and up, it really starts to become time consuming, like you just explained it. And you're trying to think, okay, I need to find a time today to just take care of all these orders. So usually you leave it to the end because maybe you'll get some more orders. And then you have to fulfill them again. So you wait till like 8, 9, 10 p.m., fulfill the orders, watch TV and go to sleep. Yeah. I remember going through the same thing, you know, not on Facebook Marketplace, but we're going to get to automation too in just about a minute. What about, well, we talked about updating tracking information. So when you get an order, you know that you're going to fulfill it on the same day. You're not waiting to the day after, especially on the Facebook Marketplace, when you know that you only have two to three days to supply tracking information. So like, you know that, you know, it's always like sitting somewhere in your head. Like I need, this is another thing that I have to do. I have to take care of today. The more orders you have, the more, let's say, annoying it gets. I mean, it's annoying for the right reasons, right? You're making profit at the end of the day. So, you know, who are we to complain? But yeah, that's a good problem to have, you know, right? Right. We should only have these types of problems. So, and we talked a little bit about customer service. So you said that when someone has a problem, it's very easy to reach out to you, which is also much different than eBay and Shopify. A lot of customers on other selling platforms, usually they, some reach out, but most don't reach out. If there's a problem, they're going to open a case. And then you have to start, you know, talking to them within that case. And it's not always so practical and, you know, not so healthy for your seller account. If you got too much of that going on, but on Facebook marketplace, it's very easy for them to reach out. Usually they don't reach out to Facebook support. They usually just simply reach out, reach out to the seller. So like you said, they reach out to you. They can see who you are. They're more polite. So you're saying that handling customer service is just simply much easier on the Facebook marketplace. Yeah. I think people are more friendly. They are more understandable. Excuse me. When something goes down, when there's a problem, they usually react better compared to like eBay, for example. They're more understanding. Yeah. So it's, I like that. I like that aspect about Facebook that people are more easy going over there. Good. And that's a good thing to have. I mean, you know, if we can handle our customer service better, it just makes our jobs that much easier because nobody likes customers who are annoyed, who are mad, because then they're going to make you mad and annoyed. And it's not easy when most of your customers are always mad all the time. I think you just need to put yourself in their shoes, you know, like try to think like, what are they thinking? You know, maybe they were expecting this item because it's a gift for someone's birthday or something. So like, you know, if you order an item because you're going to the birthday party and you want to bring this item and you don't have it on time, you're going to be mad too. So just try to think of them, try to help them out, you know, be helpful. Don't get angry and you'll be fine. Right. Because at the end of the day, your customer, they paid you. They may not know that you're a drop shipper, but you need to handle this like the real business that it is because drop shipping at the end of the day, it's a business. Right. That's a little bit about customer service, which is something very, very, it's something that you really need to nail on your drop shipping business. It doesn't matter which selling platform you're selling on, but Facebook marketplace, you have to take care of customer service. And also you should know that after your customers receive their products, Facebook usually sends or not usually, they always send a survey to the customer and ask, you know, the buyer, how was your experience buying from Patrick? How fast was the shipping time? Is there anything you'd like to ask? And this is the long-term survivability of your Facebook marketplace drop shipping account. So customer service needs to be at the top of the list number one. After that product research and the rest of the things, if you ask me, because if you're here for the long term, customer service should always be number one. And I'm glad to hear that it's much easier, much, the customers are much more understanding on Facebook marketplace. Let's talk a little bit about softwares. What softwares, when we talked about customer service, you talked about not customer service product research, you said that you used some tools to help you with that. And what other softwares do you use when you are drop shipping on all of your selling channels? Yeah, I really just used two softwares. One is you guys out to the US. That's really helpful for eBay. It helps a lot with keeping your items, if their items are stuck and repricing and all of that. That's great. I love your program for that. Thank you. For Facebook. I'm also a customer of AutoDS, just so you know. I started working in AutoDS, but first I was a customer and even today I'm a customer. If I need help with something, I chat with their support like a regular customer. Nobody knows that I'm the content manager at AutoDS or any of that. And I like it this way because that way I can really check that the system is always working well and nobody's telling me anything because they know who I am or whatever. And that way I can really improve things. I've watched how this company grow in the last year and it's amazing. I really like what happened to you guys. And I'm glad that you're growing into more platform, you're expanding. So that's really great. So you used AutoDS a little bit for eBay and are you using it right now for Facebook? Yeah, I started using it for Facebook as well. So for the people who are watching, I actually spoke to AutoDS CEO, Leo, right? After talking to him, he kind of convinced me to start using it for Facebook because I wasn't using any software for Facebook before. When he showed me how it works, when she showed me what I can do with it, I started using it. And I like the fact that you get the emails with the repricing. It's kind of like a spreadsheet too because you can put all your items in your program and then you cannot track them. You can see what you have if they're out of stock. So I love that. But the thing that I love the most about Facebook is that it allows you to connect it. You can give it to your VA, the virtual assistant, and it can start listing items for you. It's not fully automated, but it's not fully automated. It's semi-automated. But it's safe. Yeah, it's semi-automated and it's safe because I don't want to share my Facebook account with someone that I don't know from a different country. Facebook definitely tracks that and definitely can bring you troubles with that. I would like to add to that the semi-automation that you see today. Well, I don't know if you know it because we haven't really updated anyone, but as soon as we found out about Facebook marketplace dropshipping, we got our developers on it right away to start figuring out a way to try to automate this as much as possible today. So the semi-automation today, I agree it's not the most practical way to have it and that's I'm going to get to the next point in about half a minute because of the price in stock monitoring where you're receiving email notifications, which is fine. It's better than nothing. So if one of the price changes or one of the stock changes, you're getting an email and you open that email and then you have the link to your source to see what product they're talking about, but you're getting that by adding a note on the product itself on the active listing. So you need to add a note with the URL, with the sources URL, enable price stock notifications and your email address, and then you're getting everything to your email. So if there's a price or stock change, you need to open the email, go to the, click on the link, see what product they're talking about, open that product on Facebook marketplace and change the price or stock accordingly. So all of that saves you, obviously it saves you time and also you can add the product by simply pasting it and the title moves to, the title gets imported to Facebook with all of the images, so you don't have to download that one by one. All of that is nice, but soon we're going to release the actual non-API version. Okay, so you already heard about it. So price and stock monitoring is going to be automated. The prices are going to change on your Facebook store. It's a non-API connection. So you can feel safe about that if you don't want the API connections. And it very much resembles the old non-API connection of eBay, where you need to have the extension it needs to be on, but it's always synchronizing with your stores and it's making the price and stock changes. So that's already another step up that we're going to release sometime soon. I heard about it and that's what really convinced me to you. That's what really sold me that feature. So that's coming and we're always working, like we're always working on, like, you know, we're never stopping, we never get to a point when we say, okay, we got everything we need. Now let's just sit back and relax. The developers are always working on the next thing. Facebook marketplace, if you ask me, it's going to continue getting bigger and bigger. We're only in the first six months of people actually trying it out and it's actually working quite well. So we're definitely going to keep our eyes more on that. But I'm glad to see that you're already into the system and that you are enjoying it. That's what I said. I've started with eBay and I've seen what you guys spend a year, just a year ago. And I've seen the grow. I've seen the changes. I've seen the improvements and I've seen that you guys actually listen to what people are telling you. So that's what sold me. That's why I like you guys. You know, there's a lot of software like this out there. Some want to be more advanced, some are less advanced, but what really sells me that like you guys listen, you guys grow and always improve and always gets better. I like all the things that you said because I'm not lying. I like all the things you said because all of the things that you said on all of your experience that you had on AutoDS is exactly the experience that I had, the things that I saw and the things that I told Lior about his system when I started talking with him. So it's nice to see that it's actually my experience is other people's experience. Yeah, I didn't get paid to say all of these guys. Honestly, you're coming from my heart. Thank you for clearing the air on that. Something else that I wanted to add. Oh, is there something that you wanted to add, by the way, before I move on to the next question? Software. So we talked about AutoDS. Yeah, I use one more software. I use, I don't know, ZIC Analytics for product research. So that's another one that I use. And those are the only two I use, with AutoDS and ZIC Analytics. Yeah, ZIC Analytics is also great by Nar Geva, also a great guy. He knows what he's doing. He did a really great job on that project and it's still running really, really well. It also helped me when I was more in the beginning of my journey, but I definitely remember using ZIC Analytics. It helped me get a good start on what products are actually selling for dropshippers and what categories you should be looking at and not just shoot for random products that some don't even relate to dropshipping at all. So it's definitely something that dropshippers need to use, especially those in the beginning that are not really familiar with the product line and all the right categories for dropshipping, which is not every category, but there is more than enough. And to learn them, starting with tools like ZIC definitely helps. So that's a little bit about the software. How high are you planning on scaling this business model? How high do you think you can make it? Keeping it as a side hustle, we're not talking about full-income source anymore. How high do you think you can go? I don't know what's the end goal here, but I don't really have an end goal, but I would like to scale it up for sure. My problem is, as I mentioned earlier, is trying to figure out hiring process with VA. I'm slowly getting there. I'm slowly trying to hiring people. I've had a few, they didn't really work out, but I found someone new. I want to see how it goes. If I see that this person can do it, maybe I'll grow even more and more. That's one of the great things about having a business. You're hiring workers. You're firing the first few until you both learn how to make it work. I definitely want to grow it. I definitely want to get bigger and as big as it can, maybe turn it into a full-time income. The VA is the way to go. The VA is definitely the way to go. Let me tell you, when I started dropshipping and I knew that I can scale my business even more with, let's say, I was already connected to AutoDS with price and stock monitoring, but I wasn't in order automation right away. That's one of the things that people were always telling me, listen, you have to do it. Once you do it, you won't be able to go back to the old method of doing it yourself, fulfilling each order by yourself. I was like, yeah, but what if there's mistakes and what if there are bugs and what if I can't find my money? I don't know. I kept finding every reason why not to. Once I actually did it, because I also felt like I had no choice because it was a bad era when Amazon was closing down accounts with gift card usage and all of that. I felt like I was getting lost and the only way to fulfill my Amazon orders is by using order automation, not using my own accounts. Once I started doing that, I thought that I was profiting well with gift cards because I was buying $100 gift cards and paying $75 for them. I thought that my profits were high then, but after I added in the order automation, I was just simply able to scale and get much more orders per day, and I was not touching them at all. I was really, really able to scale that way. That's just for order automation. I'm not talking about VA's who are adding the products for you, optimizing the titles and all of that. I was still doing all of that, but just the order automation did so much. I can only imagine when you get a VA that's actually doing the work well for you, how much you're actually going to benefit from that. I mean, you are definitely going to benefit from it and you won't be able to go back to doing it yourself after that. This is why I love talking to people like you because you guys motivate me. It's good to stay in touch with other dropshippers, especially the ones that are really successful because it makes you motivated. If you have a question, you can ask a question. I appreciate that advice. This is definitely something that I'm currently looking into it. Work slow and hard at it. It's like product research. You need to work slow and hard, and a VA, it's a real person at the end of the day. We're going to do a good job, make sure to give a little bonus and things like that. They'll want to give you more. Yeah. By the way, I don't know what you're looking for for VAs. There's many places to look for VAs like Fiverr and more places like that. We also have a post on our community page. We have hundreds of VAs who posted there, people who are VAs and people who are also looking for VAs. I'll send you the link after this interview. Post there that you're looking for VA and you'll get a lot of submissions. Thank you. Before we wrap this up, is there any tip that you would like to give to beginners? I'm talking really about people who are in the beginning of their journey and they're asking all of the questions that you asked in the beginning before you got started. Any real nice hard tips that you can give beginner dropshippers like we talked about customer service? I think about all the questions that you had in the beginning. We talked about customer service. We talked about taxes, which is two things that people usually ask a lot in the beginning. But if there's anything else that you can think of, anything that we didn't talk about, any tip that you would like to give beginners? I think just started. When I started out, I remember I had a lot of doubts. For example, I was wondering what's going to happen if I sell item on eBay and I use Walmart as a supplier and they get the box and it says Walmart. What are they going to think? Are they going to be mad? Yeah, so many questions about that from beginners. Yeah. Right. And then taxes, how I'm going to pay them or how I'm going to, how do I fulfill orders? How do I handle an angry customer? Those are doubts. You're going to have them and I still have them. You see I have doubts with the VA, for example. You're always going to have them, but just start, try it out. They're in the process. You're going to learn on their way and I think that's the biggest tip. Just start doing it. Just try it. You might lose money at the beginning. Hey, whatever. You lost a few bucks, but you learn how to do it. You learn what are the steps. So that would be the biggest tip I can give you. Another big tip I think I already mentioned is start keeping track of everything from the beginning. You can get a spreadsheet on Google or something or an Excel with the profits and items. You can use AutoDS to post items and track the list of your items and the links to your suppliers, as you said, in the notes. So that's another big tip. And in the new update, sorry for stopping you real quick, but in the new update that I just talked about, so we're already going to have the price and stock monitoring. And you won't have to go to the notes to get to your suppliers page. You can also, you know, one click from AutoDS to get to your suppliers. So we already fixed that. Order automation is something that has started working on, but that's going to, I don't know how much time that's going to take. Yeah, that's just something that I wanted to add regarding that. And regarding your first tip, I definitely agree that you need to dive in in order to see, you know, you have to get your hands dirty. You can just, you know, think about all the reasons why you shouldn't or all the questions that are blocking you from doing it. And, you know, you can't just watch more and more and more YouTube videos because at the end of the day, the information is just going to be scattered all over your head. You need to dive in and get to it, but you do need to have knowledge. I mean, don't get to a point where you're uploading a product itself and now you don't know what to do. So you need to learn about the basic steps, but then do go ahead and jump right in for sure. That's the best way to start. Okay, great tips. And I want to leave off just by saying that just for doing it, you know, for five, six months, you're already profiting around $2,500 to $3,000 a month. That's a dream for a lot of people who are in the beginning of their journey. A lot of people who are starting today, they don't mind to even make $1,000 profit within six months from now. So just, you know, where you get to the point where you're making $2.53 a month in clean profit, you know, after your expenses is great, it also shows the potential of the Facebook marketplace and what happens when you're going to add in more suppliers, what's going to happen once you add a good VA who knows how to take care of your tasks, pay him whatever he deserves, but you are still definitely going to enjoy, you know, the amount that you can make and how much you can scale further and further and further each month. So great tips. I enjoyed having this interview with this interview with you, Patrick. I hope it was beneficial for you too. I'm going to leave a link to your YouTube channel. So if you guys want more dropshipping tips, more dropshipping strategies, it's going to be right below this video for us. Don't forget to subscribe, you know, to share this video so that your friends and family can also learn about the amazing and wonderful world of dropshipping. And yeah, Patrick, anything else you'd like to end off with? Just start doing it and keep listing, you know, keep listing. For sure. Don't be afraid to begin, guys. People do it every day and, you know, those who jump in are usually those that succeed at the end of the day. And we're always here. We're always going to give out, you know, more interviews, more videos, product findings, suppliers, marketplaces. We're always working more and more. And we're always listening to you guys. If you guys have any feedback, any features that you want to see on AutoDS, let us know. We will listen just as we've been doing for the last few years. And that's it. I really hope that you guys are going to start with this wonderful, wonderful platform. Patrick, thank you very much for being here with us today. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. It was really nice. It was really nice to meet you. Thank you, you too. Bye-bye. Take care.