[0:00]Complete beginners are making thousands from starting their own e-commerce businesses and there is no better time to start than now. But I know how daunting starting your own business can be. There are thousands of tutorials and guides online telling you the best and literally the worst ways to run an e-commerce business.
[0:14]That's why I want to cut through all the noise and condense all that info into this free video course. And using my own experience as an e-commerce business owner who's been able to use it as a vehicle to live life on my own terms, I'm going to teach you step-by-step how to start your own e-commerce business.
[0:28]Let's start off with getting some of the jargon out of the way. E-commerce is any business where you buy and sell stuff online and there are hundreds of businesses that you can start within this space. Some good examples are eBay reselling, Amazon FBA, or digital products.
[0:40]Now this course is going to focus on drop shipping because that's what I'm most comfortable with, but all the info that I'm going to be sharing with you today is totally applicable to other types of e-commerce as well.
[0:50]That brings us to the first step, because every single business relies on this.
[0:56]Now if you don't know how to follow this first step, you could be bankrupting your store before you even start, which is why you should learn how to choose the right product.
[1:04]Hundreds of gurus have taught you the same thing, and that's do your research. And that sounds very simple. All you need to do is scroll through Facebook and TikTok to try and find whatever is trending. But that method is only the beginning. You can go so much deeper with your product research.
[1:18]And the deeper that you go, the more likely that you'll come across a winning product.
[1:21]So there are two ways you can look for products. The first way is called the top-down method, and this is how it works.
[1:27]Start by looking for a specific group of people within a specific set of needs or interests. Now, for example, with my first store, where I decided to go into the phone accessory niche, until I pivoted and went deeper into the Hypebeast iPhone and AirPod case accessories.
[1:41]So now that you have your niche, you should go through all platforms like, for example, Etsy, Amazon, and AliExpress to find a list of unique products that cater to that specific group.
[1:50]So let's just say we decided to pursue, I don't know, crocheting, or the crocheting niche. I would go on to AliExpress and search for something like crocheting kits to get some more product ideas.
[2:00]Now, the best part about this method is that you can figure out if a lot of people want your product. And you can do this by checking forums like Facebook groups or Reddit communities.
[2:07]And let's just say that I wanted to sell this crocheting kit as the example. And that means that I can go on to a subreddit per crocheting and see if anyone's actually talking about it.
[2:16]Now, the top-down method is great for beginners because you don't need to do a ton of research or use any crazy tools to get started.
[2:22]Now, it might take a few hours to find a good product, but once you know for sure that there are people in your market who are using it, you're basically ready to move on to the next step.
[2:30]But sometimes it can get a little restraining if you use this method for too long. So if you want to be given a bit more creativity in your product selection process, you can use the second method, and that's the bottom-up approach.
[2:40]Now, this strategy is really good because it shows you what is already trending, so you get started with a product instantly and slowly do your research from there.
[2:47]So here's how it works. You'll find your product first, and then you'll figure out which market will want it. And you can do this by using tools like the Amazon Opportunity Finder, Amazon Movers and Shakers, and Etsy Trend Analysis.
[2:57]So here's how I would do this using the Amazon Movers and Shakers. So first, I would head into Amazon Movers and Shakers. That'll show you the biggest gainers in sales rank over the past 24 hours, which is updated frequently.
[3:07]And then after that, you have to make sure your product is, in fact, available. Then, I would go ahead and select various categories that consist of a strong community, for example, we can say something like pet supplies, babies, arts and crafts, and then after that, you have to make sure that your product is available on AliExpress.
[3:24]So once we've found our product on AliExpress, we would just take this URL right here, and then we would go back to AutoDS, we would add products, add a single product, and then simply copy and paste the URL just like this, and then we can publish it straight to the store and the SKUs will be linked to that specific AliExpress link.
[3:40]Now, another thing that I could do is, let's just say I found my product on Amazon. I could take the Amazon link, go to AutoDS, copy and paste it here, and it'll notice that the supplier source is from Amazon, and then it will find the corresponding AliExpress SKU, so that when we actually sell each unit, it'll be linked to the AliExpress link where we can purchase the product.
[4:00]So once you have a solid idea for a product, you have to figure out what the weaknesses of your competitors are so that you can offer something that's new, like, for example, making better ads, solving a different problem, or selling to a different market with that same product.
[4:13]For example, with this dog collar right here, you can see that most of the competitors are focusing on the shock features and they're just offering very generic ads and targeting a broad market.
[4:22]So instead of doing that, I could focus on creating educational ads that focus on the collar's adjustable sensitivity and maybe even the humane vibration options.
[4:31]Also, I can target specific dog breeds or maybe different sizes, and market to first-time dog owners who are looking for gentle training solutions.
[4:39]Now, this method is really good for giving you more flexibility and creativity when you're looking for products. Now, you might be wondering, what's the best method to use?
[4:45]Now, personally, I recommend that you switch between these two strategies week by week and then try and generate new ideas.
[4:51]So this was how I was able to find products for my own businesses, and it tends to be one of the most effective strategies for me.
[4:57]And that's because I didn't limit myself to one single strategy. Now most business owners, they'll just stick to one strategy even when it doesn't work for them. They end up wasting precious time and resources trying to make up for their crappy products.
[5:11]So learn to be flexible and you'll get better and better at looking for products. So now that you have a good list of products that you want to sell, you want to check and see if it's actually selling. Now you don't want to release a product that nobody really cares or knows about.
[5:19]So you can use Google Shopping to find stores that are selling similar products. Now, what you want to do is you type in, let's just say something like dog bark collars, and look at the stores that are showing up.
[5:30]Next, you want to use the Facebook Ad Library specifically to see if they are running any active ads and for how long they've been running these ads.
[5:39]Now, if they've been running them recently for a long time, then chances are this is going to be a pretty good product. And then lastly, check the overall trend of the product using Google Trends. Now, this tool, Google Trends, is going to show you if the product is growing, if it's stable or declining over time.
[5:53]Now, ideally, we want to choose a product in, you know, of course, a growing market. Now, for example, if you just type in dog bark collars into the Google Trends and look the past year, you're going to be able to see if more people are searching for it over time. Now, this is going to tell you if the market is growing.
[6:07]Now, you could also use AutoDS to look for products. Now, AutoDS has its own product research tool that allows you to search for trending products across various marketplaces.
[6:15]And the platform allows you to research competitor stores and products so that you know what's selling within your niche. And if we use their new Facebook spy tool, you can look into Meta's entire ad library right here, see what other people are selling.
[6:27]And then, as you can see, they have very advanced features to let you narrow down your search. Now this is for the Facebook spot, as well as the TikTok spot tool. Now, believe it or not, but finding good products is only one single part of running a successful e-commerce business.
[6:39]And in order to start sending out products, you have to get in touch with the people who actually make them. And to do that, you have to start searching out for suppliers.
[6:48]So since I'm more familiar with drop shipping, I'm going to focus on looking for suppliers who will ship out products for me. And if you want, you can totally hold your own inventory. That's totally fine. I don't really recommend that, though.
[7:00]It can be really tricky for beginners to have to worry about holding their own inventory, but if you still want to go ahead with it, I have a few tips for you.
[7:07]But if you're only here for dropshipping advice, please skip ahead to this timestamp. Okay, for anyone who wants to ship products themselves, what I would recommend is to buy in bigger quantities from your manufacturer, get it sent to your own house, and then use a software like ShipStation to ship out each individual item to your customers.
[7:20]And if you want to work with a 3PL, then you can use ShipBob. And they're going to be able to store your products and ship them to your customers.
[7:26]Again, I recommend you try ordering in smaller quantities and ship yourself. That way, you have a solid idea of what you want to sell before you fully commit to a third-party partner.
[7:35]So for all the dropshippers out there, you'll have to look for suppliers. All right, so here's how to find one. We can do this on your phone. We'll start with heading into the AliExpress app, and then uploading an image of your product that you're looking for.
[7:46]And as you can see, this is going to bring up tons of different product listings. Now, you can go ahead and filter by popularity, and then you can also filter by match, the price. And once you find a listing, you should scroll down a little bit to find the suppliers.
[8:00]Then, as you can see right here, you'll be able to message them. And you're going to want to write something like this. And then you can click Send.
[8:05]And it might take them a while to reply to you, so I recommend reaching out to multiple suppliers at the same time. You could just copy-paste the same message.
[8:12]Because you don't want to be left waiting for a supplier that isn't really interested in working with you. So use your time wisely and find as many suppliers as possible.
[8:19]Another way to find suppliers is using AutoDS. Now, this is great for beginners that don't want to go through thousands of listings to find one quality supplier or even buy their own inventory.
[8:28]All right, so if we want to go ahead and find our own supplier onto AutoDS, we're going to go to the marketplace, and then we can select where we want our product to be shipped from. I can say something like the United States. We could select our price range, and then we can select our desired supplier. We can say AliExpress. You can go ahead and auto-click AutoDS, and then it's going to populate all the products that fit that certain criteria.
[8:49]So let's just say, for example, I select this dog collar right here. From here, we can check all the technicalities, so the item cost, where it's going to be shipped from, the US, and how long it's going to take. And then the shipping price to the United States. So this is the total cost with the shipping, which is nice, 4 to 6 day shipping time.
[9:08]And what's great is that AutoDS, they properly vet all the suppliers that are on their platform, so that you know that you're actually working with a qualified supplier.
[9:17]And then from here, if I want to import this listing and this product onto my Shopify store, I simply have to press the import button, and that's it.
[9:24]Now that you have your suppliers, you can go and look for an agent. Now, why do you need an agent? So these are the middlemen between you and your supplier. So you can usually find one on a website like 1688.
[9:33]All right, so as you can see, the whole website is going to be pretty much in Chinese, and 1688.com is basically the AliExpress for suppliers or agents. So this is going to be really useful for us, but we're going to want to translate the whole page into English if possible.
[9:48]Now, let's just say we're looking for dog collars. We're going to go in and try and find a supplier for dog collars, and let's just say I like these glow-in-the-dark collars. Now, one thing to keep in mind, you'll see that it's this weird currency.
[10:00]This is just Chinese Yuan, so just convert the Yuan to US dollars or your local currency. So from here, we can get an idea of the actual price that these agents are getting these products for.
[10:12]So on some of these, there might be an MLQ, so what you'll want to do to get in contact with these suppliers is you're going to do the same thing. You're going to contact the supplier like this.
[10:20]You're going to copy and paste that same message that I sent earlier to all the suppliers. So yeah, as you can see here, this is the contact of this example supplier for the dog collars. You just hit this contact button, or you can email them.
[10:33]You're going to want to contact as many of these suppliers as possible. You're going to want to vet them properly. Look and see how many years that they've been in service. 6 years. Right here. Look at their rating, return, quality, exchange, dispute. So, just ensure that they're actually of quality.
[10:47]And then you can send them a message and see who actually responds and go from there. Now selling products to customers isn't the only e-commerce method out there.
[10:53]You could work with a manufacturer to sell the bulk items to you so you lower your cost per unit and then ship out yourself or send it to a 3PL. And this is called wholesale e-commerce. Now, the way that this works is by buying your items in bulk, which makes them really cheap.
[11:07]And then after, you can, you know, increase your own price and make more of a profit with every sale. And thousands of wholesale sellers are making millions of dollars because when you sell in bulk, you make more money while doing less work.
[11:17]It's a lot easier to ship out 100 items in one single box than to ship out 100 separate boxes. Plus, businesses, they'll usually buy more than individual shoppers, so each sale is worth more. But you have to make sure that the products are of high quality because there's always a chance that the items that you order in bulk were made with cheaper materials.
[11:32]And in my own experience, the best place to buy products in bulk is Alibaba. This is going to be a pretty similar process as to 1688.
[11:39]But let's just say we're looking for dog collars as well. Go on to Alibaba.com, and you'll see that it is in English here, and from here, we can get a list of all the suppliers that are selling our desired product. You'll see that there is an MLQ, minimum order of 20 units, and then that'll be depending on $3.80 to $5.
[11:55]And you'll want to make sure that the suppliers are vetted. So this guy's 6 years in business, 4.7 stars out of 5, he is verified. And you could also click on these filters, for example, Trade Assurance, Alibaba Guaranteed. You can also do a verified supplier, and then the response time.
[12:10]So this is going to be able to filter you down to the best possible suppliers. And then from there, you can chat with them, you can contact them, you can dive deeper into the listing itself. So we'll see 20 to 999 is $5, and then 20,000 pieces above is $3.80.
[12:25]At this point, you got all the logistics sorted out, so it's time to pivot to your website, which is where you'll actually be selling your products.
[12:36]So the most important part of starting your store is picking a good name for it. Now, you might be tempted to give it a name that's related to your niche or your products, but believe it or not that this is a bad idea, especially if you want to go the branded drop shipping route, which I will talk about later.
[12:50]And you can just take a look at some of the biggest retail stores. They usually have names like Shein or Zara. Their owners didn't just pick these names randomly. They chose them because it lets their store sell whatever it wants without necessarily being tied down to one specific niche.
[13:04]So you should follow their lead. That way, if your niche and your products, they don't work on that first go or that first test, you can simply just switch to a new one.
[13:11]And if you want to get inspiration for names, I would recommend using namelix.com, super great for inspiration. And then now that you have your name for your store, you need to build your website.
[13:20]And there are plenty of ways that you can go about doing this. One way is to use the free templates from Shopify. I would recommend Sense, Refresh, Superfire themes that are completely free.
[13:28]And there are tons of fillable themes that can help you create a nice-looking site in just a few hours. And you can also use my AI store builder, which helps you set up the entire backend of your site, so that you don't have to touch any code.
[13:42]And this will literally do this in minutes. Then after that, you can work off what it gives you to really just streamline this whole entire setup process.
[13:49]And it might be tempting to spend weeks and maybe even months on your website. You want everything to be perfect, you want it to be beautiful. After all, this is the first thing that they will see if they want to buy something from you.
[14:00]But I will say I don't recommend that you spend any more than a week on your website, and that's because it's much better to get something out quickly instead of being slowed down by what you consider perfection.
[14:10]This is called the first mover's advantage, and it's a popular school of thought that some of the biggest business owners follow.
[14:16]It states that you need to move quickly and grasp at any opportunity you can when you're just starting out.
[14:21]Don't be scared of mistakes, because no matter what you do, they will always happen. And the best thing that you can do is try new things and learn from them.
[14:28]So once you have a solid working website, you can launch it. Personally, I think that you should launch your store within a week and get suppliers on board, because you can always improve it later once you have real visitors. When your store is up and running, it's time to start driving some customers to it.
[14:40]And in order to do that, you need to do some marketing.
[14:44]Now, every single marketing strategy follows a funnel. This looks like a big upside down triangle, and at the top are people who might be interested in your product, and at the bottom are people ready to buy.
[14:53]Bottom of the funnel customers already know exactly what they want. For example, someone that's searching for a blue dog collar for a mid-aged German Shepherd is more likely to buy than someone that is just searching for a dog collar.
[15:05]These are the people that you want to focus on the most. After all, why would you waste your time and money trying to get sales from people who don't really care about your product?
[15:13]There are two ways you can attract bottom of the funnel customers. One way is using search advertising like Google and social media advertising like Facebook, Insta, and TikTok.
[15:21]Now, all of these methods work differently. You can pick whatever you're most comfortable with, but I recommend the social media route.
[15:26]Especially for beginners because it's cheaper and easier to learn. And when you're starting to work with ads on social media, it can be a bit daunting having to figure out what your content should be.
[15:34]For Facebook and TikTok ads, you need to focus on the results your product can give and the people who will be using them. Now, for example, a younger audience prefers very snappy aesthetic short UGC style videos.
[15:45]While, on the other hand, an older audience may prefer a review style informative YouTube content. But the most valuable and well-converting ads I've ever used are UGC.
[15:53]Now, UGC just stands for user-generated content, and these are ads usually made by content creators, not professional actors or marketers.
[16:00]So the reason why they work so damn good is because they fit into social media feeds so well. They're very relatable, they're very authentic, and also attention-grabbing.
[16:10]So instead of looking like a complete total commercial, they're trying their best to look like a video a friend of yours might have taken. And they perform amazingly on social media platforms.
[16:18]So you can try reaching out to content creators by yourself, or you can even film your own videos, but I do know how scary that can be for beginners, especially if you have zero experience working with content creators or filming your own content.
[16:30]That's why I personally recommend that you use viral e-com ads. They have a program that they just released, it's called viral e-com creators, which gives you access to a massive database of the best content creators, all for affordable rates.
[16:40]Now, no matter what type of ads that you decide to go with, you need to keep track of your performance. That way that you can slowly adjust and improve your strategy depending on what works best.
[16:48]Now, one trick I like to use to keep myself from spending too much money on ads is to post the UGC video on a normal Insta Reels or even TikTok account.
[16:55]So if it's getting a decent amount of views, that generally means that that ad is going to be performing well on the paid side as well. So I'll dedicate that creative to an entire campaign for testing.
[17:05]That way, I'm not spending thousands on testing or running useless ads. And you can avoid these problems even further by spending money or your budget on creatives that are already performing well.
[17:15]And once you have pinpointed your top performers on Facebook, they have made scaling so much easier than it used to be with advanced plus campaigns. Because instead of tweaking the structure and worrying about precise targeting, the exact audience that you need to target, these advanced plus campaigns, they'll do literally all the targeting for you so that you can focus more on the creative side.
[17:35]So as the campaign starts performing well, Facebook, they'll recommend that you increase the budget by 25% every 7 days. Now, I haven't really noticed much of a difference on my end, at least.
[17:44]So I'll just double it. So, for example, if I start with a $100 a day budgeted campaign, and it's working well, I'll just shoot it up to $200 a day, and I'll continue to do that so long as the return on ad spend is holding, the ROAS is holding, and above my break-even ROAS, AKA, I'm profitable.
[18:00]So doing something new out of nowhere can sometimes bring more bad than good. But your marketing is useless if you don't have a compelling offer.
[18:09]An offer is what will get your product to sell, and it goes hand-in-hand with your marketing, and if either one of them is weak, you just won't make any sales.
[18:16]So to make compelling offers, you need to understand what your customers really want. Now, the biggest mistake beginner stores make that I see is that they're outlining all the features that their product has. They're literally giving an essay about why you should buy their products.
[18:28]Your customers don't actually care about your product. It doesn't matter if it's made out of 10,000 materials. If it doesn't give them results, they're not going to buy it.
[18:36]So instead of saying something like, this dog bark collar has some of the latest features, you should say, do you want to reduce your dog's barking by 50% in just one week?
[18:45]So if your offer doesn't make your customers unable to refuse, then it's not good enough. And to do that, you need to give them something in return, something they can't say no to. For example, buy this $50 bark collar. If you don't see significant reduction in your dog's barking within 30 days, we'll give you a full refund.
[19:01]Now, it doesn't have to be a refund, either. You can offer extended warranties, free upgrades, bundling options, or personalization. Just pick whatever works best with your product and that will make it impossible for your audience to say no.
[19:11]And when they can't say no, it'll be much easier to get them to buy from your store over and over again. You can offer discounts on future purchases and even create a loyalty program. There are literally endless possibilities, but it all goes down to building a loyal customer base.
[19:26]So speaking of loyal customer base, that's why you should build your own brand. When people visit your store, they should instantly get a feel for what your brand's identity is, because the stronger your brand is, the faster your audience starts to trust you.
[19:39]Building a strong brand involves a lot of connecting pieces, but to get started, you need a logo, you need a solid brand message that you repeat over and over in your website and brand email. Those are the bare minimum that you need to start building your own brand.
[19:51]We'll go through them one by one, starting with the logo. And making a logo is so easy, you do not need to be a graphic designer.
[19:57]What I like to do is literally go to Canva. I'll create a design right here, and then I'll go down to logo. And then let's just throw the example that I'm selling golf products. I'll literally just type in golf, golfing, golf logo, and I'll try and search for something that looks pretty good. Right here. Let's just say I take this one.
[20:15]You don't need to be a genius to do this, but you can see like, I'll take this one, for example. Let's say I like this. I'll just take this template, straight up change the name. Let's say my brand name is Flow Form, whatever. I'll reduce the size a bit. I'll try and get it centered like that. Flow Form, golfing equipment, whatever established, and that's it.
[20:36]Just like this, I'll share it, download it, and that's my logo. So yeah, I like to use Canva because you have all these various templates, super easy. You don't have to use Canva. You can use whatever you want, but I personally like to use a software.
[20:46]So now with a professional-looking logo, we literally did that in minutes. We can move on to working on our brand message. So this is what will be pacing all over our website, making sure we emphasize it every single time.
[20:56]And a good brand message is always focus on what the audience wants. Again, think back to our compelling offers from earlier. And to get some inspiration for what our brand message is, I like to use Chat GPT.
[21:05]So this is super simple. You can just follow this format. And since you already have an offer for your store, you can write a prompt like this. You can say something like, give me a brand message based on this offer. And then you'll input your offer in.
[21:18]And then it will output some text that you can use as a starting point. Of course, you can edit it to your liking. And last but not least, we need a brand email to reach out to our customers, because you don't want to be sending out emails using your own personal email address.
[21:32]You'll just be flooding your own inbox with emails from your customers. So here's how you can set up a brand new email in literally less than a minute. Just go to gmail.com. We're going to, we can create it for personal, it's totally fine. You can convert it to business later. Just put your name like this. We'll go next.
[21:43]Put whatever for here. You can put your actual birthday. I'm just going to do whatever random birthday. I'll be male. So you're going to put your brand name. If you can get the dotcom that's available, that's ideal. You'll go next. You'll create your password. You'll confirm your password. And that's it.
[22:00]This is the email that you'll be using, and that you'll add onto your Shopify store under the contact button. And this is how you start an e-commerce business in 2024. Now, making your first sale can be the hardest part of running an e-commerce store and the business.
[22:10]That's why I made this guide right here on how to get your first sale within 24 hours. Go watch it. I'll see you guys in the next one. Peace.
