Starting a dropshipping business is one of the simplest ways to make money online in 2022. Anyone can start an online business for as little as $20, thanks to online marketplaces and platforms like Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Shopify, etc.
Dropshipping has grown in popularity over the previous decade due to the low barrier to entry, resulting in many niches being extremely competitive. As with any other business, learning how to start a dropshipping store is not simple. Nevertheless, it’s a great way to get started in the business world.
You can sell to clients even if you don’t have any goods. You do not have to pay for things in advance. And, if you’re serious about your new enterprise, you can create a long-term source of revenue. If you’re considering starting a dropshipping company, examine the following business and financial stages in our dropshipping tutorial below.
Dropshipping is pretty much your standard dropshipping course.
If you’ve followed my blog for long, you know that I don’t like dropshipping as a business model for a few different reasons.
That being said, it IS possible to make money with it, so I want to give you an honest review of this particular program.
But first, let me clear the air on one important thing:
Dropshipping has never been – and will never be – a passive, recurring business. No matter what the guru might tell you, it requires constant work.
I’m telling you this from my own personal experience running several dropshipping stores on both Shopify AND Clickfunnels.
If you’re looking for a business that you’ll need to be super active in, dropshipping might be for you.
If you want to make money while you sleep and travel the world, dropshipping just isn’t it.
The main reason?
To have real success with dropshipping, you need a bulletproof system for finding the hottest new products before anyone else.
In the best-case scenario, you have a relationship with your supplier, where they give you a heads up on products that are about to pop. These relationships don’t typically come around until you’ve done 6-figures in business with the supplier.
In the worst-case scenario, you’re testing a bunch of products with ads, losing money until you find that one winner.
I’m not saying dropshipping is a bad idea based on that alone… most businesses require you to lose money before you actually make money, so it’s somewhat normal.
But let’s assume you DO in fact have the next fidget-spinner craze product, months before anyone else knows about it…
That’s great! But now you’re gonna need to get people to buy it.
Translation?
- Tens of thousands of dollars in ads
- Tons of time spent split testing to find the best landing page variations, best product descriptions, best ad copy, best ad videos, etc.
Again, some people thrive on that and love it. So, it might be a good fit if you’re looking for that level of constant testing and gambling.
It’s also worth calling out that Facebook has a track record of banning you FOR LIFE from advertising on their platform for dropshipping.
Think about it: it ruins a user’s experience with Facebook when a product shows up 45 days after they’ve ordered it and is nothing like the product they thought they were buying.
So Facebook would rather ban you from their platform than risk a bad user experience.
Suffice to say; it’s a lot of stress for not a lot of payback.
As someone that actually ran a dropshipping business, I can tell you from personal experience that your time can be better spent with other business models.
If you’d prefer a business model that generates recurring, semi-passive income, you may be interested in becoming a Digital Landlord.
This means:
- No sketchy suppliers
- No razor-thin margins
- No banned ad accounts
- No super angry customers
- No spending $10K testing an ad campaign
It’s something that you could make anywhere from $2,000 – $10,000 with consistently, month after month.
A stream of income that you can build as high (or low) as you feel like building it.
If that sounds interesting, you might want to think about becoming a Digital Landlord.
For the Dropshipping review, let’s keep reading.
What Is Dropshipping?
Because dropshipping differs greatly from traditional retail and eCommerce business operations, understanding the ins and outs of the business strategy is essential.
Dropshipping is a supply chain management strategy in which a retailer does not store items but instead transmits client orders and shipment data to a manufacturer, another online retailer, or a wholesaler, who then delivers the goods directly to the customer.
How To Begin A Dropshipping Business In 2022:
Step 1: Select A Dropshipping Niche
How can you get started with dropshipping and open your own online store? To start a dropshipping business, you must first decide on a niche. A niche is a market segment in which you specialize.
Bluetooth speakers, for example, are popular in the home audio market. However, waterproof Bluetooth speakers for the outdoors are a sub-niche of the Bluetooth speaker market. The more specific your specialty, the better.
Step 2: Locate A Dropship Supplier
For many aspiring eCommerce entrepreneurs, finding a reliable supplier is the most difficult aspect of starting a dropshipping business. Dropshipping suppliers are responsible for keeping your product in stock, maintaining product quality, and delivering orders to your consumers on time. As a drop shipper, your dropshipping supplier is your most important business partner. Shipping fees are also important.
Step 3: Obtain A Sales Tax ID
Imagine you’re starting a US or Canadian company. You’ll need a sales tax ID (a retail or reseller’s license, tax ID, resale number, resale certificate, or vendor’s license). Sales tax is 6-9 percent of the purchase price of all physical goods sold to customers. However, some states, including Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, and Oregon, don’t require a tax ID.
Step 4: Select A Selling Platform
So you’ve settled on a product and found a source; now you need a venue to sell, make money, and separate your personal and business finances. Choosing the finest selling platform or online marketplace for your Dropshipping Business Store is critical to its success—but which platform is ideal for you?
You must select whether to sell products on an established platform or to launch your own independent eCommerce store or own brand. Let’s look at the benefits & drawbacks of various selling platforms and online marketplaces.
Step 5: Put A Customer Acquisition Strategy In Place
Now that you have a selling platform for your dropshipping business, you must attract customers to your store. This is when having a client acquisition strategy comes in handy. Getting customers is a skill that requires the ability to persuade. Consider it to be a form of marketing and advertising. Isn’t that a lot of money? However, this does not have to be the case. You can gain new customers in two ways: fast (for a fee) or slowly (for free).
Step 6: Scaling Your Dropshipping Business
You should start seeing sales after setting up your dropshipping eCommerce businesses and following some of the procedures in Step 5. Next, consider some future-proof ways you may use as your company expands to make your job as an owner easier and prepare for more orders to fill and more customers to serve.
Are There Alternatives To Dropshipping?
Yes, there are plenty of Dropshipping programs and resources to choose from if you want to pursue a dropshipping business model. Here are just a few:
Is Dropshipping A Scam?
So, time for the question you’ve been waiting for: is Dropshipping a scam?
No, not technically speaking. They aren’t going to take your money and ride off into the sunset without delivering you access to their course.
It’s 100% possible to make money with this program, but it’s not nearly as simple as they want you to think it is.
There is A LOT of upfront work to do, and no guarantee of success.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m all for doing hard work now so that I can collect checks in the future.
But if I’m going to spend 3 months of my life working super hard & spending thousands of dollars, just to break even… it’s just not worth it (in my opinion).
Think about it: what if you worked that same 3 months with just an hour or two per day, and in return you could collect a $500-$2,000 check that continues to come in every month?
Even better, what if you could actually get that first check in as little as a week?
And what if you could double or triple it over the next month or two?
That’s what you get when you rent digital properties as a Digital Landlord.
All you really need is a laptop and some internet.
Some of my friends are Digital Landlords that run their 6-figure businesses from:
- Camping trips at national parks
- Beachfront in Hawaii
- On the road in a camper van (with a pet pig!)
They focus on living an enjoyable life first, and focus on income second. All thanks to this program.
They can take weeks or months off, and money keeps rolling in.
Living happily is the top priority.
If the thought of living perpetually at your dream vacation spot interests you, being a Digital Landlord might be for you!
What Is My Top Recommendation In Making Money Online In 2022?
I’ve personally tried all of the major online business models:
- I’ve dropshipped a toilet bowl putting green on Shopify
- I’ve dropshipped jade rollers via Clickfunnels
- I’ve sold fidget spinners through Amazon FBA
- I’ve sold women’s health supplements via Clickbank affiliate marketing
And I made money with all of them, so trust me when I say: there is no “perfect” business model.
That being said, my #1 recommendation for making real money online is, hands-down: being a Digital Landlord.
Whether you’re a complete newbie or have been around the block before but have never had that “big win” to propel you forward, becoming a Digital Landlord is for you.
Why?
1)Time: If you’ve got a spare hour or two each day, you can do this. If you want to drop everything and go all-in, you can do this. More time obviously means faster results, but even putting in a few hours per day is enough to see real success.
And because of that flexibility, you don’t need to trade your time for money. Once the income starts, it’s recurring.
That means you can take a month off, travel the country, pursue a passion project, chill on the beach, or charter a boat across the world.
But you can only do that once you’ve created an income stream that doesn’t require YOU to be there all day, every day.
2) Ownership & Control: With dropshipping, you don’t actually own anything. You can’t control your product quality, or even what the package looks like when it shows up.
Technically you own your Shopify site… but ad platforms could shut you down on a moment’s notice… so you don’t really have much control there.
Why pour your soul into a business that could be taken away from you at the drop of a dime?
When you’re a Digital Landlord, you literally own all of the assets, which means you have ultimate control.
3) Fulfillment: Alright, so you don’t have any inventory… but that worry has been replaced with the pains of overseas fulfillment.
That means your customer is going to have to wait 3-4 weeks to receive their order.
Then add in the current global supply chain woes… and you’re looking at 5-6-7 weeks!
Then the customer slaps you with a refund, and all of that time spent testing and spending money on ads was for nothing.
You don’t have to worry about any of that when you’re renting out digital properties.
4) It’s Effectively Copy-Paste: Here’s my favorite part: once you have your first Digital Rental Property up, you can literally copy-paste another version of it and find another willing “renter” in a few days. DOUBLING your income doesn’t get much easier than that…
If you wanted to double your income with dropshipping, you would need to sell twice as much inventory, or double your profit margins. And I can guarantee you (from my Shopify dropshipping days) that’s a lot harder than a few clicks & a phone call.
5) Big Margins: With dropshipping, you’re often going to have really slim margins. That means you need to hit a serious scale to make serious money. This usually entails spending A LOT of money on ads and other methods for growing traffic to your product.
Being a Digital Landlord, your profit margin is nearly 100%. Watch here to learn how.
Just a reminder: these Digital Rental Properties are worth (at a minimum) $500/mo in semi-passive income. And each time you create another one, your income increases, and the effort put into creating the next property decreases.
Best-case scenario, you have properties bringing in over $3,000+/mo on auto-pilot.
6) You’re Helping REAL People: My biggest gripe with dropshipping is that you’re usually finding some product that’s complete garbage, and are tricking people into buying it. It provides no real value to them or the world in general.
It’s cool in the short term to make a quick buck, but in the long term, it gets really old fast.
But when you’re a Digital Landlord, you’re helping solve REAL problems that people are ASKING for help with.
Small local businesses around the world need one thing: customers. Without them, their business would fall apart. If you can provide those customers, they’re going to be really happy – and they’re going to pay you for it.
You’re helping a struggling mother or father put food on the table for their families, put their kids through college, or simply live life a little bit more comfortably.
Having this type of impact on the world is what will help you sleep soundly at night.
So, the rest is up to you. You could keep looking at other dropshipping programs like [Program Name], which might make you money 12 months from now.
You could keep researching and researching for the next few months (or few years), never making a concrete decision.
OR, you can look deep inside, think about those dreams, hopes, & desires, and make the decision to ACTUALLY make it happen, just like it has for thousands of other students before you.
Making a fortune while actually helping real people that need it.
If this sounds like you, click here to see how it all works.
