The promise of quick riches and working from the comfort of your home has made dropshipping an incredibly alluring online business model. Especially during times like the recent lockdowns, the idea of generating a passive income stream by simply setting up an online store and letting the profits roll in has captivated many. You’ve likely seen the ads, the success stories, and the lifestyle pitches promising financial freedom through dropshipping. But is making money dropshipping truly as easy as it seems? I decided to dive into the world of dropshipping myself to find out, and what I discovered might surprise you.
The Allure of Dropshipping: Easy Money from Your Couch?
Dropshipping, at its core, seems brilliantly simple. Imagine selling products online without ever having to handle inventory, pack boxes, or ship anything yourself. That’s the essence of dropshipping. You create an online store, often using platforms like Shopify, and source products – typically from large e-commerce marketplaces like AliExpress. When a customer buys something from your store, you don’t actually have the product in stock. Instead, you forward the order to your third-party supplier (usually on AliExpress), who then ships the item directly to your customer. Your profit comes from the difference between the price you charge customers and the price you pay the supplier.
This model is heavily promoted across social media, particularly on platforms like TikTok and YouTube. Self-proclaimed “e-commerce gurus” showcase lavish lifestyles, fancy cars, and boast about making “millions” in a short amount of time through dropshipping. Headlines like “How I Make $10,000+/Month on Shopify at Home” or “How I Made $6,100 Drop Shipping In 1 Day” are designed to grab your attention and paint a picture of effortless wealth. Why bother with the traditional hurdles of starting a business – securing loans, renting physical spaces – when you can supposedly launch an online empire and start making serious money dropshipping from your sofa within weeks?
Dropshipping influencers often cultivate an aspirational image online, similar to beauty or forex trading personalities. They present a lifestyle that appears easily attainable, fueled by the supposed ease and profitability of dropshipping.
Dropshipping success portrayed on Instagram with luxury cars, suggesting an easy way to make money online.
The allure is strong: create a website, find a product, advertise, and watch the money roll in. It all sounds incredibly straightforward.
Diving into Dropshipping: My First Attempt
Intrigued and wanting to explore alternative income streams, I decided to test the dropshipping waters myself. Like many beginners, I wanted to start with minimal investment, mirroring the situation of someone genuinely looking to Make Money Dropshipping with limited resources. In August 2020, I signed up for a Shopify account and embarked on my journey to become a dropshipping success story.
First things first: branding. A dropshipping store needs a name and an identity, especially since it exists solely online. Given the ongoing trend of remote work and the “work from home” culture, I decided to target the “wannabe wealth magnate” working from their couch. My target audience would be those drawn to motivational phrases and seeking to build their empire from home.
Brainstorming names, I tried options like “Lounge Living,” “Be Your Own Boss,” and “Lounge Boss,” but all were taken. The challenge of creating a business without a solid business plan quickly became apparent. It’s easy to underestimate the competition in the e-commerce space, where countless others have tried to establish online stores since giants like Amazon emerged. Finding a unique and available business name proved harder than anticipated.
After considerable deliberation, I settled on “Doze…”. The name resonated with the common complaint of sleep issues during lockdown, and it had a catchy, brandable quality, similar to names like McDonalds or Apple – at least in my mind.
Next, I needed a product. Dropshipping gurus often recommend spending weeks researching AliExpress to find the “perfect” item, typically something novel or gadget-like. Popular examples include quirky phone holders, pet accessories, or cleaning slime. While this niche product approach is viable, I aimed for a broader market, driven by the desire for quicker and larger profits.
My brand, “Doze…”, naturally led me to focus on sleep-related products. I decided to sell eye masks – specifically, “premium hot sh*t eye masks” – to help customers achieve a luxurious sleep experience. Sleep is a universally relevant topic, and with increasing awareness of sleep’s importance, the market seemed promising. From books to sleep sprays, sleep-related products were booming.
Eye masks seemed ideal for dropshipping: simple, lightweight, and, most importantly, cheap to source. I found what appeared to be a “premium silk sleep mask” on AliExpress for a mere $0.95 (around £0.74). Using the Oberlo app (which integrates AliExpress with Shopify), I imported this product into my store. My plan was to sell it for £10, a significant markup. While it felt a bit steep, I embraced the “think like a winner to be a winner” mentality often preached in entrepreneurial circles.
Popular dropshipping product ‘Pet Costume Lion Mane Wig’ as seen on Wish
Example of a typical dropshipping product, a pet costume lion mane wig, often found on platforms like Wish or AliExpress.
Launching a Dropshipping Store
Setting up the online store on Shopify was surprisingly easy, thanks to their user-friendly themes and intuitive interface. However, the time-consuming part was crafting product descriptions, writing compelling taglines, and optimizing all the website elements. YouTube tutorials often gloss over this aspect, making store creation seem incredibly fast. In reality, building a professional-looking and functional e-commerce website takes considerable effort.
I had to create a homepage, individual product pages, navigation menus, and all the other components you’d expect on a legitimate online store. I also purchased a domain name (£13) and spent time tweaking the website code to ensure everything looked polished and functioned correctly. Balancing this with my full-time job, it took me about two weeks to get dozelseepmasks.com ready to launch on September 6th. The launch was met with quiet satisfaction on my end, but zero fanfare from the outside world. Now, it was time to get the word out and advertise my “premium” sleep masks.
A dropshipping product page
Example product page in a dropshipping store, highlighting product presentation and branding efforts.
Advertising My Dropshipping Store
Many dropshipping guides recommend influencer marketing on Instagram as the most effective way to reach potential customers. The idea is to partner with influencers who have large followings and have them promote your product through affiliate links. While this strategy can be successful, especially if you had access to mega-influencers, it wasn’t a realistic option for me.
Instead, I opted for a more traditional approach: paid Facebook advertising. This is where the real challenges began. Navigating Facebook’s Business Manager portal proved to be incredibly complex and frustrating. Setting up targeted ads for a brand with no existing online presence felt like shouting into a void. The process was far from the simple “push-button” operation often depicted in dropshipping tutorials.
The deeper I delved into dropshipping, the more I realized it wasn’t just about finding cheap products and setting up a website. It demanded a specific skillset, particularly in digital marketing, e-commerce management, and understanding the intricacies of advertising platforms. Each step revealed my lack of expertise and highlighted the learning curve involved in building a successful online business, even with the dropshipping model.
Despite the mounting frustration, I persevered and launched my first Facebook ad campaign on September 7th. The ad ran for a week, costing £17 per day, and generated a grand total of zero sales. Then, to add insult to injury, my Facebook ad account was permanently banned on the eighth day. Facebook’s algorithm flagged my ad as “controversial” and in violation of their advertising policies, likely mistaking “eye masks” for “face masks” and incorrectly assuming I was trying to profit from the pandemic by selling medical face masks – a practice prohibited on the platform.
After a week of appealing through an automated review process, my account was eventually reinstated, with Facebook apologizing for the “inconvenience.” My ad was finally live again. It garnered a single “like” and a friend tag, but still, no sales. Dropshipping was proving to be significantly harder and less lucrative than the YouTube success stories suggested. Instead of “Big Wins,” there were only long hours staring at a laptop screen and mounting expenses.
Advertising dropship product
Facebook Ads Manager interface, representing the platform used for dropshipping advertising and the complexities involved.
Seeking Expert Advice and a New Product
Determined to understand where I was going wrong, I reached out to Kamil Sattar, a UK-based entrepreneur and self-proclaimed “Ecom King” with a popular YouTube channel dedicated to dropshipping advice. I shared my store with him and asked for his honest feedback.
His response was blunt: “Dude, without me being too harsh or rude, this isn’t going to do too well, mate.” He praised the landing page’s design but pointed out the product, eye masks, lacked uniqueness. He advised that successful dropshipping requires a product that stands out, something innovative that captures attention.
Taking his advice, I decided to pivot and try a new product: the Galaxy Light projector. This gadget, which projects stars onto bedroom walls, was gaining traction on social media and seemed to fit the “unique” and “attention-grabbing” criteria. It was also a product frequently associated with viral marketing and dropshipping promotions.
I revamped my store to feature the Galaxy Light projector, writing new product descriptions and creating fresh ads. This time, I opted for a cheaper advertising strategy, spending £5 per day on Facebook ads for four days. Despite reaching nearly 4,000 people and generating 56 link clicks, this campaign also resulted in zero sales. On the fourth day, my Facebook ad account was again disabled, this time for “suspicious activity.”
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Example of a dropshipping product often promoted online, the Galaxy Light projector, known for its visual appeal.
The Reality of Dropshipping: Not a Get-Rich-Quick Scheme
My dropshipping experiment, in short, was a costly and frustrating journey. The enticing promises of easy money quickly dissolved into a complex web of micro-tasks and challenges. From marketing strategies to customer conversion, product returns, and countless other operational details, the learning curve was steep and unforgiving. I invested close to £200 in website setup and advertising, with absolutely no financial return.
While my personal experience was negative, it’s important to acknowledge that some people do find success with dropshipping. Online communities, articles, and forums like the 86,000-strong r/dropship subreddit attest to this. However, digging deeper reveals a less glamorous reality. Many “successful” dropshippers primarily profit from selling online courses and mentorship programs, rather than from dropshipping itself. The number of unsuccessful dropshippers likely far outweighs those who achieve significant financial gains.
Even Jared West, a YouTuber with a substantial following who focuses on online income strategies, documented his own dropshipping failures. Despite multiple attempts, including a “decent” storefront and paid advertising, he made no sales. His conclusion? Dropshipping is not the get-rich-quick scheme it’s often portrayed as. It requires strong marketing skills, sales expertise, and a significant investment of time and effort.
The idea of making effortless money dropshipping is reminiscent of those “work from home, make fast cash” flyers – tempting but often misleading. While some may achieve dropshipping success, the market is now highly saturated. Competition is fierce, and factors like increased shipping times from China due to global events further complicate the process.
My dropshipping venture, fueled by the hype of online videos, ended in a confusing maze of marketing complexities and unanswered questions. While successful dropshippers undoubtedly exist, for the average person without prior e-commerce experience, making money dropshipping is far from guaranteed. Before investing your time and money, consider exploring other online income options, like selling on platforms like Depop or pursuing freelance side hustles. Don’t be fooled by the dropshipping myth – it’s not the easy path to riches it’s often made out to be.
