 This is the number one video that you need to watch before you get started drop shipping. I'm kind of curious. While drop shipping is a very easy business to start, to some it can prove challenging. That's why in this video, I'm gonna be covering eight different tips that can help you get started on a strong foot. So that way you can be set up for success right from the beginning. So without wasting any time, let's just go ahead and jump straight into it. Let's go, let's go, let's go! So the first tip that I'm gonna give you is one that's very broad and it's one that's given to pretty much anybody in any niche in any business or pretty much in any part of life. And that is do not be discouraged, keep going. Now I know that's cheesy, I know that you hear it all the time, but think about it this way. Drop shipping has a very low barrier to entry. That means pretty much anybody can get in. So because it's so easy to get started in the business, that means there are gonna be a lot of people competing against each other. But don't let that discourage you. One of the most important things that you need to learn when it comes to drop shipping is to keep going. I don't stop. And the way that you keep going is simply by just trying new things. So let's say one product that you're selling isn't selling at all and your marketing just isn't doing its job. It's not bringing any customers and it's not getting you any sales. So what do you do? Well, you tackle it from a different angle. Either tackle your marketing from a different angle, try to market your product differently, target a different demographic, maybe even try selling it on a different platform. Let's say you decide to start drop shipping on Etsy for example. If you're selling on Etsy and you're selling things like headphones, that's not gonna work. You're not gonna be able to get many sales on Etsy for electronics, specifically because people don't go to Etsy looking for electronics. For the most part, in that particular category, electronics, people are gonna be looking for those on eBay, maybe on a dedicated website such as your own Shopify website, let's say, or even on Amazon. But if you're selling electronics on Etsy, then chances are you're not gonna be getting as many sales as you can. You're gonna be missing out on tons of sales. Now of course, that's just one example. Each case is unique. So just make sure that whenever you're analyzing your marketing or you're analyzing your products, just look at it one way and then try to look at it from a customer's point of view. Don't try to look at it from a seller's point of view because that's not gonna work. You're not selling to sellers, you're selling to your typical customers. So even though it's really cheesy and you hear it all the time, keep going. Keep trying new things, don't give up because if you give up, then you're just gonna completely lose and you're never gonna know whether or not you could have been successful. Think about it this way. One year from now, you could be looking back and thinking, wow, I'm super glad that I started doing this or that I made this particular change in my business or you could be looking back and thinking, I should have tried. Next tip, make sure that you do your product research correctly. I know this has been drilled in your brain multiple times in pretty much every single video, but remember, product research is key. If you're trying to sell a product that's not trending or that doesn't provide any value in anybody's life or that just doesn't even have a wow factor, nobody's gonna buy it. You're gonna waste money on your marketing. You're gonna waste money on the product itself potentially if you order it to check out the quality and to make videos with it, let's say. And on top of wasting money, you're also wasting time. What a waste of money. I'm not gonna go too deep into this because like I said before, this is drilled into you in every single drop shipping video and I'm pretty sure that if you're watching this video, you've watched other videos before and you're gonna keep watching more videos. But remember, don't try to sell just anything and don't try to sell what you like. Make sure you look for products that other people like. Make sure you look for products that customers like, products that are trending, products that have a wow factor, products that provide value to somebody's life. Don't get too personal with these products because a lot of the times, you're gonna be selling products that you would never in your life use yourself. Tip number three, make sure you have quick shipping. Always remember the importance of shipping. Do you purchase a lot from AliExpress or CJ Drop Shipping or do you purchase from Amazon? Be realistic. More than likely, you're purchasing more than often from Amazon just because you're gonna get your product a lot quicker. Now, our customers, a lot of the times, they do the same thing. But if you follow the previous tip and you sell products that are trending and provide a wow factor, then chances are your customers aren't gonna mind waiting a week or two. But that's about it. Don't go more than a week or two. If you're selling products that ship in a month, your customers are not gonna like that and they're not gonna come back and they're not gonna make any more purchases. On top of that, halfway through, maybe two or three weeks into the shipping, they might even contact you and tell you, hey, I don't want my product anymore. It's taking way too long. Or where's my product? I want a refund. Or where's my product? Give me some sort of credit for the weight and for the inconvenience. Every single person is spoiled by Amazon even if those people are not necessarily our target audience. Remember that we target impulse buyers. The people that we're targeting are people that like to make purchases spontaneously. They see something, they want it, they purchase it. We're not targeting the people that think like you and me thinking I could get this cheaper or faster from Amazon. So when you're sourcing your products, make sure that your suppliers offer quick shipping. Try to keep it at a max of two weeks. Before we continue with these tips, please, if you're finding this video helpful, if you're finding it informational, if you're finding it useful, if you're enjoying it, please make sure you hit that subscribe button down below and also while you're there, make sure you hit that like button. Also, make sure you hit that little bell notification so you don't miss out on any future videos. Remember on this channel, we cover anything and everything dropshipping related along with some of the best tips and tricks to help you get started in the game and succeed. And every once in a while, we also throw in a couple of videos out there to help you make some extra money in a few different ways. So if that's something that interests you, just make sure you hit that subscribe button. All right, let's go ahead and get back to it. All right, so tip number four, make sure you keep track of your finances. This is absolutely crucial, especially if you want to scale. Now, when I say keep track of your finances, I don't just mean make sure you know how much you have in your bank account. Also, keep track of anything that has to do with money, your expenses, your profits, how much you have to pay in taxes. These are all extremely crucial things. So when it comes to actually keeping track of your money, one thing that I highly do suggest is to get a separate bank account. Now, when it comes to getting a separate bank account, I can understand that some people can't get a business account and that's totally understandable. Personally, I actually have two personal accounts. Every single time for some reason that I apply for a business account, even though I use my own EIN or employer identification number and I have all the paperwork set up the way it's supposed to be, for some reason I keep getting denied and they keep telling me I have to go into the branch itself to complete the process. Now, ain't nobody got time for that. Ain't nobody got time for that. So I just made a second personal bank account and I'm just using that one. So always make sure that you have your money for your business separate, then your personal money because if you start dipping into your business account accidentally, then that's something that could become a habit. You might not notice when you're using it and at the end of the day, you get an order for a couple of items and you can't cover that purchase. So then you have to scramble to figure out how you're gonna pay for these items to have them shipped out to your customer or even worse, the transaction might actually go through and you could potentially get an overdraft fee and then end up owing a lot more money to your bank. Now, as far as the taxes, this is also something that's extremely important and this is really gonna depend on where you're drop shipping. So if you're drop shipping in the US or if you're drop shipping in the UK, it's gonna be two completely different laws. So just make sure you check out the local laws for the country that you're drop shipping in. So that way you can have your taxes squared away and not have any issues because trust me, when it comes to taxes, the government will come after you to not mess with the government and their taxes and they want their money and they will take it from you whichever way they can. Now, if you're having troubles with actually opening up a bank account for whatever reason it is or you don't have access to be able to put your money in a separate account, one other thing that you can do is you can use a platform such as AutoDS where you can actually load up a balance that you can use for your purchases. Now, in order to do this, of course, you are gonna need an account with AutoDS and if you wanna get started right now, you can get started for just $1 for the trial period. Okay, so right now I'm signed on and I'm over at the marketplace. So what I wanna show you over here is the balance. So here what happens is whenever you receive an order in your drop shipping store, whether that be on eBay, Amazon or Shopify, the order is gonna go through AutoDS and the entire thing is gonna be automated. So the order fulfillment process will be automated. So somebody purchases a pair of shoes from your drop shipping store. That order is gonna get rerouted directly to AutoDS and then AutoDS is gonna sign on to your supplier's website. Typically it's gonna end up using your credentials or it's gonna use its own AutoDS credentials. This is really gonna depend whether you're using fulfilled by AutoDS or automatic orders. Now, automatic orders will use your bank account and it'll use your credit card details. So for this, we're actually gonna focus on fulfilled by AutoDS. Now with fulfilled by AutoDS, what ends up happening is instead of AutoDS taking the money from your credit card or your bank account to purchase a product that's shipped to your customer, it's just gonna end up using the balance that you top up. Now, topping up your balance is super easy. All you have to do is log into your account and then up here where it says balance, just hover over it and then click on load. Then you just go ahead and choose how much you wanna load up and that's it. Next time you get an order, AutoDS will take the payment from the balance that you loaded. Then after it does that and it places the order, it's gonna wait for your supplier to actually fulfill the order and submit a tracking number. Once your supplier submits a tracking number, then AutoDS will go ahead and take that number and update your customer along with the marketplace that you're selling on. All right, the next tip is choose a niche. Now, I know a lot of people say that you can go with a general store and you can make a lot of money because you can sell a little bit of everything. Now, that can be the case, but a lot more people typically have better success when they niche down. When you niche down, you can target a specific demographic of people and you can test different targeting methods, different marketing methods with that same group of people. So that way you can see what works. Also, when you niche down, your store gives the presence of professionalism. So, since you're specializing on a particular product, people are gonna get onto your website, they're gonna look around and they're gonna think, well, these people really know what they're doing. They specialize in this particular product. It must be quality items. Whereas whenever you go to a general store, you look around the website, you see that they have a little bit of everything and you're not gonna really know whether or not the items are of quality or not. Of course, this isn't always the case, but generally speaking, as a first impression, that is what goes through most people's minds. All right, tip number six. This is one for pretty much the older people because I know a lot of people are very resistant to change and they don't like learning certain things, but you need to get on social media, whether it be TikTok and Instagram. Get on TikTok and Instagram. Facebook is great, but primarily it's for the older generation and a lot of the times, you're just gonna be running a few ads on there. If you wanna target a wider demographic of people, get on Instagram Reels and get on TikTok. But what if you don't know what you're doing? What if you don't know how to post a video on TikTok or if you don't know how to post a video on Instagram? Well, figure it out. The same way that you're watching this video to learn how to dropship, you can watch a video to teach you how to use TikTok or you can watch a video to teach you how to market on Instagram. We're all part of YouTube University, so we need to use it to its max potential. We need to get as much information from the YouTube platform as we can. So if you have any questions, just look them up on YouTube. Chances are you're gonna find a video that already covered it. But personally, my recommendation is just go ahead and order an item. Let's say you decide to sell a particular dog item or something for your puppy. Go ahead and order that item. Make a fun little video with it. If you don't know how to make a video or if you don't have ideas on how to make a video, just get on TikTok and start scrolling through it. If you don't find anything, just go to the search and search up hashtag dogs or dog toys or hashtag TikTok, maybe buy it dogs. So if you're a boomer that's dropshipping, then get off of Facebook and start learning Instagram and TikTok. If you're a millennial such as myself, then you're probably on all three of them. But if you're not, chances are you're gonna be specifically on either only Facebook or Instagram. So that's the case, get off of that and start on TikTok as well. If you're a Gen Z, get on Facebook because I'm pretty sure you're already using Instagram and TikTok. And if you're Gen Alpha, that probably means that you're turning about 13 or 14 right now. So if you're watching this video and you're Gen Alpha, you're off to a really good start. Keep learning and secure that bag, buddy. You got this. And tip number seven and eight is actually gonna be pretty much a two and one. It's one tip that's separated into two and that's how not to get banned. So the first one is how not to get banned with Facebook. Well, now where can you get banned with Facebook? Well, with your ads. Your ads can potentially get banned. Here's a few different tips that you can use to help you avoid that altogether. Now for one, don't use copyright content and don't use content that's not yours. Even if it's content or pictures or videos that you get from your supplier's website. So when it comes to the images that are on your supplier's website, chances are somebody else has already used those. Now unfortunately in the last few years, the dropshipping business has had more or less of a pretty bad rep specifically because of scams. A lot of times people advertise a product, they receive payment and they never ship it out. It's unfortunate, but it happens. Now because of that, some of these images that are widely used could potentially be blacklisted. So if Facebook picks up that you're using one of these pictures, they could potentially blacklist your account or your ad or your ad account. So in order to avoid this, a few different things that you can do is, for one, order the product to yourself and make your own content. Take your own pictures, make your own videos. Now I know if you're dropshipping a ton of different products that can get very expensive and very time-consuming. So option number two is reach out to your supplier. See if they have any different videos, any different pictures, maybe some that they haven't uploaded yet and you could be the first. Also if you're dropshipping and using let's say CJ dropshipping as your supplier, then chances are you can reach out to them and actually pay them to take different pictures and different videos for you. Now this can also get pretty expensive depending on how much you're dropshipping, how many products you wanna sell, but it's definitely worth a shot and what do you have to lose? Contact the manufacturer, see how much they charge because this pricing can vary depending on the supplier or manufacturer. So send them an email, get in contact with them and see more or less how much it's gonna cost you. Another thing is don't use low quality content. When you're uploading your pictures or when you're uploading your videos, make sure they're not blurry, make sure they're not pixelated, make sure that if it's a video, it's at least 720p. Make sure it's high definition. Facebook likes to prioritize and it likes to push out high quality content. Also make sure that you comply with all of Facebook's policies. If you start to break the rules, they can ban you without notice and at that point you're gonna be left without an ad platform. And the last thing that I'm gonna give you to not get banned on Facebook is don't sell prohibited items. Now this is probably a given. This is something that's pretty obvious, but a lot of people could try doing this. So before you try to list a knife or some pills on Facebook Marketplace, stop. Don't do that. Make sure you avoid controversial items. Make sure you avoid dangerous items. Don't sell medications. Don't sell harmful products such as knives or guns. Even if it's an airsoft gun, don't sell it. Don't sell copyright items. Don't sell adult items. While there are a lot of different things that you can sell, there's also quite a handful that you are not supposed to or that you're not allowed to. So it's best to just avoid these different products altogether. So that way you can avoid any problems down the line. And the last step that I'm gonna give you is how not to get banned from Amazon. So if you're using Amazon as your dropshipping supplier, then chances are you're probably using your account and that could potentially put your account at risk to get banned or to get flagged. Now in order to avoid this, one of the easiest things that you can do is go back to what I mentioned earlier about using the balance on Autodesk and use fulfilled by Autodesk. Remember how I mentioned that if you're using fulfilled by Autodesk, it's gonna use a balance that you top up and it's gonna use the Autodesk credentials to log into the supplier? Well, that's exactly what's gonna happen. Instead of Autodesk logging in to your Amazon account and you making the purchase or you logging in yourself and you making the purchase, Autodesk is gonna log in using its own Amazon credentials. So that way you can completely forget about getting banned or getting flagged. Using a service like fulfilled by Autodesk through Autodesk can be extremely helpful in terms of bans and flags. And those are my eight tips to help you get started dropshipping. These are things that you really need to keep in mind before you get started dropshipping. So that way you can get started on a strong foot and you can set yourself up for success from the beginning. Huge thank you to everyone for watching, especially if you made it all the way to the end of this video. That as always tells me that you're finding some sort of value in my videos and I really appreciate that and I'm really glad that I can help you in any way in your dropshipping business. So if you did find this video helpful, please make sure you hit that subscribe button. Make sure you ring that little bell notification so you don't miss out on any future videos. And while you're there, make sure you smash that like button. Huge thank you once again to everyone for watching all the way to the end of the video. Once again, my name is Mario with Autodesk. Catch you guys next time.