 Hey what's going on guys welcome to a new video so every now and again I like to do a video on this topic to give people kind of like a realistic insight into dropshipping what it's like to start a business what it's like to run a business and ultimately just talk about expectations. I talk to a lot of people pretty much on a daily basis when it comes to dropshipping because I offer a callback service for people to look into joining the academy and I speak to a lot of people wanting to get into dropshipping and people still naturally have their hesitations about whether it actually works or not things like is it too competitive shipping times the legality of it product quality supplies and all that sort of stuff so I want to address all of those things realistically and give you those realistic answers to the questions which you may be sat there and wondering about now. Before we get into the video then it's worth mentioning that when it comes to the whole kind of make money online space then regardless whether it's dropshipping or not regardless whether it's Amazon FBA crypto whatever it is because of the nature of dropshipping because it is so accessible for little cost because it is super scalable once you've found something that works it really does only take one product to make hundreds of thousands of pounds once you've found what works actually finding that product itself is another story which is why I think it falls foul of people kind of looking at it in a negative way because it attracts those sorts of people who are looking to take advantage of those people unfortunately who are looking to make money quickly at the end of the day people naturally it's built into humans to always want to do the easiest thing and so therefore that sort of content is always going to get the most views it's always going to be the most popular pieces of content and therefore it's easy to kind of associate dropshipping with this false way of making money that's super easy when in reality that's not the case so in this video then we're going to be addressing the most popular topics I get asked about and just giving you kind of like realistic answers from somebody who actually dropped ships and has been doing now for the past I think it was June 26 2016 was my very first sale so we're coming up to five years now things have changed quite a lot over that period so I'm going to discuss some of those things now and give you a realistic insight then into actually what dropshipping is in 2021 to help you decide whether it's for you or not so the first topic I want to discuss is competition and saturation is dropshipping to saturate is it too competitive when it comes to selling online especially in the world we live in today we can sell globally then I don't ever believe there'll ever be a case in which there's not a room to make money online regardless of what you're selling so now don't get me wrong some niches will always be harder than others so for example if somebody was to come to me and say I want to start a brand selling running shoes then I would be telling them they're probably crazy unless they have hundreds of thousands of pounds to invest into product development and brand in and bringing influencers and things like that on so some space is out a lot more competitive and harder than others but there's always going to be the next big brand which comes into a space and establishes their market share for the majority of us obviously that's quite unrealistic so if somebody was to come to me and say what niche should I be going into what sort of product should I think about selling then running shoes would not be one of those particular products so if you're sat there wondering then whether the online space whether that's e-commerce or marketing whatever it is is too competitive to make money in then the answer is no there's always room and what competition competition can actually be a good thing many people forget this but what you can actually use competition for is inspiration and ideas for your own business so if there's a particular product that you really want to sell if there's other people selling it well then number one it gives you that validation so it proves to you the product is selling which means there's always going to be more customers out there who will want to buy that exact same product so you can use those for inspiration in terms of the design of your store how do they word their product descriptions what sort of facebook ads are working for them a lot of people don't know about the facebook ad library if you google it you can see pretty much any ad that any facebook page is currently running so if you can validate that product is currently selling well today then in theory there's no reason why you can't sell that very same exact product and start seeing sales right away obviously as long as it's not like a branded product like a pair of Nike trainers or or something along those lines the biggest factor though that competition has to play is it forces people to upload a game this is why I believe it to be a good thing because when I first started my store looks very basic I'll see if I can pick out some old screenshots in fact I think it's still live so I'll put it on screen now so you can see it was very basic but it did the job it was how I made my first 100k but that was five years ago now today in 2021 and there's twice the amount of advertisers on facebook but there's not twice the amount of users so it is more competitive you are paying more to essentially reach the same amount of people but the way you've got to look at it is as long as you're doing things better than the next person then you're always going to achieve better than them and that old competition at the end of the day boils down to so number two is shipping times again a really popular question I get asked nowadays can you build a business shipping items that take three to four weeks delivery yes and no so yes you can find some initial success you're going to get a lot of customer complaints naturally I can be able to build a business sorry that goes on to last for the next five ten years probably not there'll come a point where your feedback rating on your facebook page just gets really low and if you get loads and loads of negative feedback it's only going to lead to penalties from facebook and even shutting you down so at the end of the day drop shipping is brilliant because it's really accessible it allows you to test products super cheaply and super quickly but in my personal opinion once you've tested products for a month probably not even that two three weeks if you can drop ship it profitably I would always be looking to then take further steps to be sourcing that product in bulk whether it's using CJ and using a local warehouse or using a UK based fulfillment warehouse or a country local based fulfillment warehouse just to bring those shipping times down it allows you to control things like the quality much more better and of course when it comes to branding and private labeling your products then obviously it offers many more advantages in terms of building your brand customer attention and things like that point number three is products quality it's something to be honest I haven't really suffered from much myself over the last four years because I tend to do naturally and progress into shipping in bulk it allows you to control it a lot more so to kind of cut a long story short I had an issue with a supplier who sent me a product which was made from the same material but it wasn't as thick each unit weighed something like five or six grams less than what the original sample did so basically they sent me a lower quality material and I was able to resolve that issue because it was a bulk quantity I paid through PayPal and we were able to kind of resolve it whereas when you're drop shipping you're not seeing the product they might send the first few out of these really high quality but then if they're drop shipping that quality can change and essentially you won't know until your customers start complaining as long as you go with kind of like a trial and tested supplier one that has good reviews has been in business for many many years then you should in theory encounter no problems so it should be relatively issued to solve either way number four is the legality of drop shipping so registering as a business where do people stand do they need to do it when do they need to do it so here in the UK I believe as I record this video in April 21 it's a thousand pounds profit so once you reach and break that threshold then you have to start telling HMRC about what you're doing whether you do that as a limited business or a sole trader is completely up to you the best answer I can give you to this is to get to that point and then speak to a professional accountant who will ask you many questions about your current income your current assets your goals for the future the profitability of your business and depending on the answers of those questions to you individually will depend on kind of like the advice that they give you point number five is expectations then this one comes hand in hand with social media because social media at the end of the day somebody coming on to YouTube saying I made a loss of 500 pounds in my first week it's not going to get as much attention as I made 10 grand in my first week so naturally they're going to be the videos that's going to be the content which gets the most attention and therefore I can lead to the majority of people having false expectations which is not good because when you get into drop shipping and you're the person who loses 500 pounds in your first week you're then going to turn around and think drop shipping is a scam it doesn't work and all those videos and success stories out there are false now whilst that may be true some may be false some are definitely real it is 100 possible there's people in the academy all the time that make really good results in the first couple of weeks but it's not the reality for everybody it's not the majority of people who are going to have that same level of success especially if you're not following the advice of one person who has experience and following those strategies which are proven if you're just watching the things on YouTube then to reach that level of success that quickly is going to be very unrealistic what you have to think is yes YouTube is good for getting information for learning about something but at the end of the day that advice might not work for you in comparison to the next person might work for you but not the next person or so on and so forth it's really difficult to give out advice on YouTube that's going to apply to everybody which is why I like to do these videos just to kind of give people realistic expectations of what to expect when they first start a drop shipping business what you always always always have to keep in the back of your mind is if it was really that easy then everybody would be doing it and everybody would be making lots and lots of money but if I had to put a percentage of it then I would say maybe five ten percent of people who start actually do make some money in those first couple of months everybody after that is always going to make a loss and again this comes down to competition and the quality of the business the quality of the product you're putting out as long as you do this better than that 80 and 90 percent of people then you're always going to succeed because you're doing it better final note then to finish the video I could talk I could probably write a book about this topic um is quality over quantity so many people are in a massive rush to get their business live selling products and see some money coming in through the door leads them to skip corners leads them to not edit that Chinese logo out of their image or not take those extra few minutes on product descriptions and what that leads to ultimately is them losing money what you have to keep in mind is if your store isn't up to scratch and ready if you're if you haven't picked the right products doesn't matter how quickly is that running facebook has or how much money you spend you're always going to lose money so take your time find decent quality products with decent quality supplies with decent shipping times get your store reviewed from as many people as you possibly can if it's going to be family and friends do not tell them it's your Shopify site if possible and get some realistic and critical feedback if you have the budget to do so invest in a paid theme to set you apart from the traditional Shopify store whatever you can do to set yourself apart from the competition and make your store look better than the next person's then it's only going to play to your advantages and increase your chances of success so take your time make sure everything looks really good invest in graphics in a designer buy the products yourself buy one of those cubes with a light in for thought you could and take your own images whatever it is you have to do to make your site look really good make sure you take the time and invest in doing so and trust me it will pay dividends in the long run and with that being said then i'm going to wrap the video up there i'm not quite sure how long this video is i apologize if it's quite long hopefully there's some interesting points there they've learned something new something to take away and consider actually implement into your business um obviously any comments or questions on this or whatever it is just post them down below i read every single one so we'll get back to you one final thought then before you go um i did mention at the beginning of the video i do a callback service for the e-commerce academy which is the Shopify e-commerce training program that i run um it has nine plus modules with 120 plus lessons it comes with my full support and guidance as a mastermind group lots of different things i'll put some information on the screen now but if you want to jump on the phone with me talk one to one about what it involves and how it can help you then i'll be more than happy to do that um there'll be a link in the video description below thanks again for watching and i'll see you in the next one