 Hello everybody! Today we have a super interesting interview with Shu, who is a dropshipper, who is super active in Autodesk's dropshipping community. So we decided to do this interview to give you motivation and inspiration about dropshipping business. How are you today Shu? I'm good. How about yourself? I'm great. Thank you for coming and sharing your knowledge and experience with other dropshippers. So I prepared some questions for you, which will be really interesting for people. And I will go over them. You can share everything that you want, everything that you think, and just let's help people. So my first question to you is, when did you start your dropshipping business? I actually started around mid-June of 2020. I basically just was searching on YouTube how to do EV dropshipping because I was seeing a lot of ads about it. It got my interest and then I saw Paul J. Liskey and then his videos. One of his videos rejected me to Autodesk, which I saw you, Lior. And then I was like, okay, I'm going to give it a try. And in the first two weeks, 3,000 sales. How much? 3,000. 3,000 dollars. So you sell it in a sales? Yeah. Nice. And in which marketplace do we sell it right now? Just eBay only. eBaycom? Yeah. eBay, the seller hub? Yeah. Okay, cool. And from which suppliers do you sell the dropshipping? Well, I was in the top three most records on YouTube, which was Amazon, Walmart, and Home Depot. But I haven't had any success with Walmart or Home Depot. All my orders have been through Amazon. So right now, what is your main supply? Amazon. Amazon. Okay, cool. And you just stopped using the other suppliers? Or are you still trying to work with them? I'm still trying to work with them. I'm not going to give up on them. I know eventually the sales will grow through them too. I see. Okay, interesting. And you said that 3,000 dollars in sales in how much time? Two weeks? Two weeks. Amazing. And with which percent of profit, what is your profit margins? Probably close to 27 percent. Wow. Yeah, 27 percent, yeah. It's insane. Yeah. And do you work with the API version or the non-API version of Autodesk? I actually use the non-API Autodesk. And how did you come into the dropshipping? So you just searched on YouTube from ads and that's how it started? Yeah, the first week I actually did myself, which I made around 17 sales the first five days. And then after that I saw Paul's course and I purchased his course. And I learned more from his course. Yeah. Well, yeah, he has a really great course in general and good at the channel. Yeah. So it's cool that you really became successful so fast. I really believe that people should invest in themselves to succeed. Cool. What were your first steps? You just purchased the course and then you first learned the course and then you started immediately to work, how it worked? I think my first step was actually to do how stuff works, watch videos, watch other YouTubers, and then try to find out what is working and what isn't working, see what people's feedback is. So make sure you actually do your research in your beginner before you actually get into it. Can you repeat this? Your internet is a bit slow. Say that again. Can you repeat please because I think that you had some lags in the internet. Oh, okay. Okay, so one of my first steps as a beginner was say do your research because you want to make sure that you know what you're doing in this industry, you know. So I would say do your research by going to like YouTube, Google, maybe even like find some groups to talk to. Yeah. So basically you're also working, you know, with community and prepared to work together, like to learn together? Yeah, because I feel like ever since I joined, I've been saying like how do you start, what do you do? And like how do you get the results so fast, you know? And then I pretty much just tell them what I did. Just go YouTube, you had any questions to ask me or even ask the community themselves. Do people help each other? So yeah. Yeah, community is something which is super important. That's why we also spend so much time and effort in this. And that's how we also came to you. Yeah. How do you find your products to sell from Amazon? How do I find my products? Well, I actually use pause three step where you pay pretty much to go find any product and then you post into eBay. And then you look for the drop shippers, which there are a lot is you copy and pay the Amazon titles. And then you double check their drop shipper and you check the ratings and it was recently and from there up that's how you find your competitors. That's it. So you first find drop shippers from Amazon using the titles from Amazon. Yes. Then you sell them on eBay and starting to follow their best products. Yes. And you do the life manually from eBay directly or do you use any tools for that? I do. I do it manually and also use Zik for the research and the research competitors as well. Yeah. So it helps you to save time? Yes. Nice. And is it your and you work like with the products manually one by one or do you work with bulk uploads? I usually do one by one or actually use the scheduling. So you schedule you sit one time and you schedule your products forward? Yes. Yes. Sometimes I schedule it because I think it was auto DS or Zika says that most people shop around like 3pm Eastern time. So that's like the best time to like schedule it. So I just followed what they said and it does it doesn't work. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, we say this a lot but the document time is basically a 6pm. Yeah. Yeah. So it works well for it. Yeah, it does. Yes. Amazing. And like when you're looking at dropshipping first right now, is it your main income or do you have any other jobs? It's actually income because I still work under five. So I'm trying to make this work so I can leave that, you know. So when you look at the future, you want to make this as your main business? Yes. Being free and being able to work for anywhere, that's my dream right now. I see if we take you to the point where you're already making full time living from dropshipping, what would you like to do? Like to keep working from home or to start traveling? I'd probably be more active and like try to find more other dropshippers and maybe like try to make a community like probably here in like California somewhere. Yeah. Because I know there's a lot of people that are struggling with money. And I mean, we all do when we were for start out. I mean, I still am around too, but I think when you become successful, you just want to help others, you know. That's what I just want to do. Okay, so you want to be like a community of dropshippers in California and work with them together? Yes. Sounds exactly just what I just wanted to do. Yes. It's insane. You know, in the past I thought about a, you know, like a co-working space for dropshippers or e-commerce sellers. Yeah. Nice. And when if you look at the products that you're working with, do you work with niches, specific niches, trends or broad, different products? I would say right now, as a start, when you first start out, it's a lot easier to go broad because if you go with niche, then you have to stick with just one product and one niche. That means that you don't know that niche that well. It's gonna be kind of hard to keep the number because you don't know it that well, you know. So you do the testing goal on different niches or that's the plan just to keep your store in different directions? I would say to start broad, follow your competitors or selling because if they have sales in the last couple of days and you snap their products and then basically from there on out, you're likely to get a sell eventually. So I mean, if it works, it works. It works. It works. Yes. Because basically once you get a sell, people are going to see that. You basically throw you up to the top two and see that you're like getting sales and then people are gonna click on your listing because it's on the top, you know. You're at the first page where people usually search on eBay and you're at the top first page, you're likely to get sales. Okay, great. Why don't you go to or maybe you just didn't try it or didn't get there? But why don't you try to, you know, if something works for you? So to try work with some bulk uploads and list more products that are similar to this one. Did you try something like that? I haven't tried that yet. No, I haven't. No, no. I probably will have to try that prism. Yeah. Okay. You will see like double of sales because of it. Yeah. Yeah. Good. And what did you, right now we have the COVID-19, do you have any like specific products that you listed for that or you still continue working just by what works for others and testing that and that's all. Well, the things that I tried to learn from all, because you don't want to try to compete with the competitors that have like millions, millions of like feedback, you know, because those guys are too high for us and they sell very like expensive products and that makes them a lot of money. So we can't be doing that, especially as a new drop shipper. We have to start slow too, because if it has algorithm or tech people being like new, when you're new, you have to set it just goes pretty slow. Okay. Yeah. And do you manage, you don't have right now any virtual assistant or something like that, right? Say that again, sorry. Do you have any employees and if you're assistant right now? No, it's just it's just me by myself. I'm doing everything manually all by hand and using the software space about it. And what will be your next steps if you want to grow right now? Well, if things go up a lot more than I probably will start hiring virtual assistants for now. I can still do everything all by hand all by myself for now. I agree with that by the way, because if you just started and it feels to do the work the best way by yourself. Yeah. Good. Do you have any problems right now with shipping times or returns or cancellations something like that? Shipping times. I would say just just because you don't know your supplier that you don't know how well they're going to ship you so I would say kind of extend your duration. And for returns, I got no returns, but I did get refunds from buyers. I just bought from like they bought the product and in 30 seconds they sent me a message. Can you please cancel the item? And I gave them the refund. So no, no problems with all that part right now. And then what happened to your feedbacks? A lot of them actually haven't been to leave me any feedback because it's really optional for them to leave feedback. So I think most of them just want a product and then they just want to just be on their way. You're sending the many message to ask for feedbacks after where you've sent the product. Because usually because I have auto DS automate the message for me. So every time when you upload the order numbers to the orders, it sends an automated message, which I have set up. So most of them sometimes do reply. But after I say, you know, you have any problems just make sure you message me back or just let me know, you know. And then but most of them, they just reply back like once or twice and then from after that they just disappear. Because we can't bother them to leave us feedback. Otherwise you make it like dingus for that, you know, so it's optional for them. So it's understandable. It's only like 20 orders and you can't be expecting a lot of feedback from like everybody that buys from you. Because like I said, it's optional. So you just send the three messages of auto DS that it does for you automatically? Yes, it does. Yes. So basically use the orders processor for tracking number updates only but not for automated orders. Yeah, only for the tracking only for the order tracking is about it. But then whenever I send that most people do send me message, like I said, and then if they ask me any questions and I just try respond to my best knowledge. And then from their own out, they just just, I got no complaints. So no complaints, no open cases. So I guess they're happy, right? Yeah, that's insane. Yeah, yeah. That's insane. So what's that thing that you like the most in the optional business? The automation because when I first try to list items on eBay, like manually by hand, there's a lot of work you get to like, you know, search the product. What does and then you don't know anything about the product and then you try to list it and then it's all because it looks kind of like like like an amateur look but using like software. Everything for you very, very quick and using the suppliers description all the time. You just add a little bit and it looks very like professional, you know. Yeah. And how do you do you optimize your titles items specifics images. Well, for the titles. Yes, you have to optimize your titles otherwise. eBay will be like, I don't, we don't know what you're trying to tell your, your buyers to search for, you know, the search keywords that are like very converting. How do you sell for this cable? Well, I use ZIG for my keyword research. Yeah. I see. Okay, that's cool. And what about item specifics? Do you optimize them too? No, I just, just a couple of the products find a winning keyword and I just posted after like a couple of days sell just goes through. I really recommend it to try optimizing that specific it will also give good effect for you. If you don't want to spend too much time on that so we can do that at least for the products that works well for you. So if something already shows you that it says and it works your time. So you can optimize your item specific there a bit. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'll give that chart to you. That sounds great. Yeah, and because then on eBay's filters, more people will find you or so it's good for who gets good for really a lot of things. Yeah. And about images, did you try to optimize that? About images? I have not tried that. No. Okay, cool. So, so that's also something for products that already starting to show some, you know, potential. It's good to optimize it and then you can beat your competitor even more. Yeah. I do that usually for, you know, for bulk uploads for products that already work for me so then I can start optimizing them. Cool. So, would you, wait, what is your favorite feature in Autodesk? I would have to say the price automation. That's the best part about Autodesk because they say you have like thousands of products on eBay and then you had no software to control the pricing. But Autodesk manages all those products for you every time the supply changes at price, whether increases or decreases. Because you have to manually do everything all by hand. It would be a lot of work but Autodesk does all the pricing controlling for you, which I really love Autodesk. Thank you for the feedback. What would you recommend to beginners? People just start right now. What would you recommend them to, you know, to do? I would say as a beginner, get ready to use software because that's like the new revolution right now. It's like in the revolution of like doing like whatever you want to do, whether it's eBay dropshipping, Amazon, Shopify, anything out there. A lot of stuff are starting to become like using software. That's how to say use software. It makes things so much easier, saves you a lot of time and makes the whole thing just so much easier. Cool. And how's your day looks like right now? Like you wake up in the morning going to your other job and how much time do you spend in your dropshipping business after that? Well, I'm usually free around like 2 p.m. most of the time. So during that time, I'm usually on my last most of the time. So I'll probably spend maybe like three to five hours per day on the eBay dropshipping business or not. Okay. And wow, three to five hours a day in two weeks, you already have this result. It's insane. Yeah, because like we're now over now, COVID-19 is in effect, so we can't really go out or anything, you know, so we're kind of just stuck at home right now. So it's a great way to learn and make some income on the side, you know. So yeah, now is the time for moving. Yeah, because we're all stuck at home and you don't want to catch the virus, so you may as well stay home and try to learn some online skill, you know. Yeah, I agree. Okay, cool. So now you will start growing and like what will be your next steps to plan to open more stores or expand to more suppliers? I actually did a study case in the past week already for myself and a friend of mine. So I recently taught a friend of mine for about an hour setting up his Autodia and eBay store for him. And then he already made four sales in the first week. And I also made like a new store for myself and already made two sales in the first week. Yeah, so what I feel like what I'm doing now it works because it's working for him. It worked for both my accounts. And I've been getting a lot of people coming to me asking me like, what are you doing? Like how are you making sales so fast? What's the secret, you know? And I just have to say, you know, you just have to do the work and listen to people already making it. Yeah, that's about it. So wait, so now we have two stores and then get it, sorry. So I did it. I did a study case for this past week for myself. I have a new account and I also have a friend of mine that wanted to learn. So I taught him how to do it. And then he already made four sales this first week. And I already made two sales my first week for my other account. Oh, so that's the case study that you posted in the group? So brand new eBay account, one week study case sales happened for both me and my friend. Amazing. And that's the one that you showed, right? Yes, I showed in the group. Yes. I can post a lot of my study, my results on my Facebook profile as well. So people will always go by my Facebook profile and look at it too. And also posting like auto DS and some other paid groups as well too. Yeah. Nice. Some people should follow you. How do they find you? Show one thing? I think just I'm very active and at my recent YouTube video. People have been like, yeah, I found you through your YouTube videos. It's a cool video. Like what do you like? How do you start, you know? And then I'm like, yeah, I use auto DS and it's a great software, you know? So I recommend auto DS because it's so easy to use. Nice. Thanks for the feedback. Do you have anything that you would like to add more to people to give them some more value, some more motivation, extra knowledge, anything that you would like to say more before we close it? Because the case study was from a motivation, you know? Because I saw a lot of people in the group saying like, they can't get their first sell after a couple months or even like a couple weeks, you know? Like they kind of just, a lot of us haven't really made their first dime online. And the objective with the case study was that it's very possible. Because like I said, my friend that I taught, he never done anything online. Like he's never done nothing at all. Like he just, he didn't understand anything. I'll teach him until he actually did his own research a little bit. I told him to go on the YouTube and just do a little research about EV dropshipping, which he did. And then after like a couple of days, I'll talk to him later. He learned a lot. I was like, wow, you learn a lot in a couple of days. Like yeah, I did my research. I was like watching the YouTube videos. And I got very like, it really like brought me into the business. I'm like, yeah. And then a lot, we were discussing about it. And after he was ready to start, so maybe we did the thing. And I was like, you know what? I want to show people that it's very doable using auto DS software makes everything like so easy. And this is why I would recommend an auto DS, auto DS view because it's, it works. Yeah, it works. Hey, great. Okay, I think that we covered everything. I would like to see in a few weeks what will happen with your store. It would be crazy, I guess. Yeah, we got probably, yeah. Yeah. So I wish you a lot of good luck and thank you for coming for this interview. I'm sure it will give people a lot of value and people can find in our community. And also I will share the link to your YouTube channel below this video. Okay. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. Yeah. Thank you.