The reality of dropshipping millionaires’ online businesses
Are you a small business trying to grow sales and exposure online? Trying to pump in lots of money into digital marketing but nothing works?
Digital revolution is here, and COVID-19 is just the catalyst of it. You start seeing everyone moving online, and big e-commerce companies are earning loads. You want to join this digital revolution.
And on social media, you started seeing others’ success stories online — on how they earn 5 to 6 figures in a day, while you are still barely making any profit. How did they do it?
Does dropshipping really work?
These self-proclaimed online entrepreneurs are often young people who make use of dropshipping to earn big bucks.
[Dropshipping is when a vendor fulfills orders from a third party and gets the products shipped directly to the customer. In other words, the vendors passes on the sales order to the supplier, who then fulfills the order. The vendor does not store their own inventory or ship items directly.]
Curious about how they have succeeded, you tried to do the same. You purchased some online courses, created a social media page, shortlisted some cheap products from China and listed them on Amazon, eBay, Shopee or Lazada to sell.
But after you painstakingly listed them and did all the upfront work, you realise that advertising using big tech ads like Facebook, Instagram or Google is not as easy as it seems. The rules keep changing and everything you do is at the mercy of big-tech. The competition for attention is intense.
Although over time, you might find that there are some decent sales coming in, this success is often short-lived.
The reality of a sexy $10k a day? Your real profit margin would actually be only 15–25% after paying the product validation, storage, marketing, delivery, refunds and other miscellaneous platform fees.
And it’s worse if you are selling products everyone is selling with no unique factor, because you are just relying on the business model of paid marketing efforts to sell your products. Your product doesn’t sell itself.
If you are selling on platforms like Amazon, eBay, Shopee or Lazada, your customers won’t belong to you — they belong to these platforms. And they can ban your store anytime you flout their rules.
Worse, you realise that other people have started to imitate what you do, and they are willing to sell the same products at lower prices!
It’s like trying to sell your products in a busy town, you’ll barely get any attention and everyone is trying to outcompete you.
You are forced to lower your price until you find it’s no longer profitable, and you have to start the cycle again.
You start to feel the reality — the competition is intense.
And you start to feel guilty. Is it because you are not working hard enough? Not intelligent enough? Why is it that you aren’t earning as much as you thought you would? Or rather, that you were told you would?
Why get-rich-quick schemes are doomed to fail in the long run
After these roller-coasters, you might be wondering, what’s the real secret to building a digital business strategy that would give you long-lasting success?
Here’s the truth, if you see these buzzwords:
- $10k revenue a day,
- Financial freedom in 6 months,
- Work anywhere you want,
Chances are, you are in for a get-rich-quick scheme.
And you probably know this too — if your product is not great, no matter how much money you spend on digital marketing and ads, it will NOT work.
If you are dependent on dropshipping for income, you are not finding your unique selling point, perfecting your offer and building an enduring brand in the long run.
Not saying that nothing works, but you have to ask yourself these realistic questions:
- Do you have a long term game plan?
- Does it have a low barrier of entry? This means you get a windfall for 3 months but when everyone else figures out how to do so, you are back to the drawing board.
- How long can you continue to do this to earn this amount of money?
Our Think Different Movement towards Business and Digital Marketing Strategies
Why are we bringing up all these? We have been running a digital media business at TripCanvas for over 6 years. Thus far, we have generated 70 million visitors to our websites, and referred more than USD $2 million in annual revenue to more than 120 of our clients, including Airbnb, Klook and other brands like Marriott, InterContinental Hotels and more.
What frustrates us is the endless stream of undifferentiated products in the market that offer little value to businesses and consumers — bad for businesses in terms of profit, and bad for consumers because they don’t get innovative products.
And we hope to be part of the movement to change the current business landscape.
Why is this so important in your business and digital marketing strategies?
Consider the curious cases of Spanx and Dollar Shave Club. They started as small businesses, spent close to nothing on digital advertising, yet managed to grow to multimillion to even billion-dollar companies.
How did they do it?
Spanx’s founder Sarah Blakely solved the problems for women who wanted to wear tight pants with open-toed shoes but not reveal their pantylines — she created an innovative footless pantyhose.
Dollar Shave Club solved shaving problems for men — razors were difficult to buy and expensive back in 2011. But they improved access and made it more affordable by building a direct-to-consumer subscription service for razors — made possible by great marketing with good storytelling.
What is their secret sauce?
They found out the hidden needs of their customers and created solutions that transformed their lives, which they then shared with their friends and families.
That’s how word-of-mouth marketing works — the most powerful form of marketing, or commonly known as viral marketing.
How can you do it too?
This may sound daunting but to be honest, when I first dabbled in content marketing 6 years ago as the co-founder of a digital travel media company (TripCanvas), I could barely write any content that could get anyone’s attention.
But throughout the years, through many experiments and mistakes, my team and I finally found the winning methodology that has helped us attract 78 million visitors to our site, and referred more than USD $5.7 million in booking revenue to more than 120 of our clients (including Airbnb, Marriott, Agoda and more), and I would love to share them with you.
We’re now revealing our content marketing strategies in our course ‘Supercharge Your Sales in Content Marketing’.
Find out more here (only $17 for the first 50 sign-ups!).
