Hi guys it's mark so a couple of months ago i started my own shopify drop shipping store from scratch, and i've had lots of messages from you guys asking for an update. Therefore, i thought it was about time. I told you. The truth.

Drop shipping is often said to be one of the best ways to make passive income. You can theoretically be anywhere in the world with an internet connection and be making money from your laptop. If you haven't seen my last video here's, a quick recap. Basically, i made a website called cozycomfort.com and when someone purchased an item, i would then order these oversized blanket hoodies from aliexpress and get them delivered straight to my customer's door.

Without even touching the item myself, although they're so fluffy, we actually sold 12 items, which meant we paid for the building of the website and all the adverts after uploading that video, i was looking forward to pushing it forward even more making some more sweet profit. It looked like i was onto a winner because i was even getting offers to buy my website. However, it wouldn't be right of me to pretend everything has been going smoothly. I'm honest about everything on this channel, so we need to discuss.

What's really been going on so that you can avoid these issues in the future? Honestly, i can see why drop shipping is so popular. My aim isn't to bash it. I just want to share some of the problems i faced and also, in my opinion, a much better way of doing it by the way, if you like these kinds of videos, then make sure to subscribe to the channel for new uploads every monday and wednesday. The thing that makes dropshipping so appealing in the first place is you don't have to handle the product yourself.

However, this also means you might unknowingly be sacrificing the quality of your products that you're selling. This makes sense, as in order for the supplier to stand out, then they need to be able to offer really low prices. This is because drop shippers need to be able to charge more for the item, so they can make a profit themselves. As there are so many suppliers competing, they often choose to take shortcuts in the manufacturing process or lower the quality of the material.

So they can drive down the price. Quality control was definitely an issue for me, as i did get a few complaints about the hoodies. Some said they were made from a much thinner material than expected, and others found. It was missing.

The cozy lining on the flip side, you'll never get a customer complaining. Your quality is too good. Of course, my customers were angry at me, as all they knew was that they had ordered a product from my website and it didn't meet their expectations. They were completely unaware.

The issue was to do with the manufacturer and not me at the end of the day, i know from running multiple businesses that it's my responsibility to provide my customers with the best quality experience. So i just refunded anyone who wasn't 100 satisfied with the product - and i took the here - another thing to consider is the shipping times as most suppliers are based in china. This can mean up to a 90-day weight for your customers. Now i admit this is a little on the high side and you can get products delivered closer to 15 days, but, as you can probably imagine, with a world that is used at amazon prime next day delivery.

This just isn't good enough. I got emails every week from people asking me where their hoodies were, and all i could do was email them back with their tracking number and reassure them that they were on their way. It's a bit like waiting for christmas presents as a kid. It feels like christmas day takes forever to arrive and when it finally does, the presents are never really that great thanks mum and dad.

I know i was joking there, but the reality is the longer. You have to wait for something the more anticipation you have for when the item arrives, the higher the standards it has to live up to and a lot of the time. This is bound to lead to disappointment. The slow shipping times were probably a lot to do with the size of the hoodies, as small items are often shipped much faster.

I really understood the complaints i received because when i was waiting for the sample hoodie, i was emailing the split almost every day to address this issue. I did adapt my website to include the exact shipping estimates so that it wasn't just left as a bit of a mystery. Now, it's important to note your biggest advantage over normal businesses is also your biggest problem, your suppliers. I say this as one of the issues.

I had was when the item completely ran out of stock. This led me to have to refund orders and all the money i'd spent on advertising effectively going down the drain. Most people buy items from drop shipping stores on the spur of the moment. It's an impulse buy if you're unable to take that order.

Then it's a lost, sell as they're, probably not going to be coming running back anytime soon. The moment will have passed and they will be on their way to the next new shiny thing. On top of this, these items are only relevant for a brief period of time, as they're driven by hype, which means that every day you're unable to take orders it's a precious day wasted my precious mind. It can be really frustrating when you have your website and your adverts working really well and then you're forced to stop trading until you can find another supplier with a suitable item in stock.

I personally ended up spending much longer than i should have trying to find a new supplier. I eventually found one, but it was more expensive per unit, so i could either choose to pass that cost on to my customer or take the loss myself. I decided on a latter, as i didn't want to negatively impact my sales, as you can imagine, because of these first three issues. Chargebacks can be a huge problem.

The customer could demand their money back if they don't think. The item is of a high enough quality. Is taking too long to arrive or they could be just trying to scam you as they might know that you're just a small business and you probably don't have a plan to fight back against fraud. The real issue here isn't necessarily the customer wanting their money back.

That can certainly be frustrating, but most of the time their concerns are legitimate. It's more that, every time a chargeback occurs, the payment provider charges you an additional fee as if they aren't making enough anyway. This means you don't just lose the sale, but you also have to pay more money on top which can really start to impact your profits. If this happens more than one percent of the time, you can be fined even more.

Luckily, i only experienced one charge back for my hoodies as whenever possible, i would always choose to give the customer a full refund, as it was much cheaper for me to do that than deal with any other extra fees. The final problem i often hear people talk about is that drop shipping is too saturated, but i don't agree with this drop. Shipping is just another method of selling a product. Saying it's saturated is a lot like saying.

Everyone has purchased everything they're ever going to want at the end of the day. The whole aim of dropshipping store is to look the same as any other online retailer and for the method of sending the products directly from the manufacturer to the customer to be kept. A secret the problem is that a lot of people use the same photos and videos, which means you have to be constantly adapting. If you want your adverts to be successful, it's a bit like when i always tell you about the free stocks available from free trade and public, so i won't mention them in this video i'll.

Just leave the links in the description below after posting my youtube video. I noticed a lot more people trying to sell the same hoodies as me with a very similar brand name. This made it much harder for me to secure sales, as my ideal target market was seeing the same product absolutely everywhere. A big part of drop shipping is to shock your customers with a product.

They never knew existed, but they always wanted. This surprise just isn't possible. With a saturated product. I ended up creating a completely new advert with my own photos and videos in order to get around this issue, but it never really had the same effect as when i first launched the store.

I thought about moving on to a new product for the purpose of this video, but then i realized there was a much better way to use drop shipping to sell products and avoid all these issues. Although drop shipping has lots of issues and ethical concerns, even after this experience, i do think it can still be a great tool, especially if you're just looking for a side hustle finding a marketing a winning product can teach you so many great lessons. Firstly, you learn which products people want to buy without spending any money up front, and, secondly, you learn some extremely valuable marketing skills that are transferable to any business in the future. I think a lot of people get stuck drop shipping and that's really where they go wrong.

If you found a great product, the demand is strong and you know exactly how to sell to your customers. Then, what's stopping you from putting in a bold order and dealing with the shipping yourself for my main business, i have to order great big containers. The one we've just had is a 40 foot high q container and it's full of stock, and we do that. So we've got plenty of stock for all our customers.

This stock takes around about 21 to 30 days to arrive, so i take the hit on the delivery, but the great thing is it gets it to my customers, nice and quick. It takes quite a while, for my guys, to get all this off the floor and onto the shelves it's a lot of stock. You can also get an agent out in china to check the quality of the products in your container before it's sent, which comes in really handy. Believe me, i'm not saying you have to purchase huge containers.

I just started out with small bulk buys. As i grew my business i was able to afford more. This gives you far more control over quality delivery times and stock levels, which just makes everything run a lot smoother. The other added benefit of buying in bulk is that you're able to create a brand around your products and get even lower prices, there's actually a guy called davey foggerty, who launched a similar hoodie drop shipping business with just five hundred dollars and by using this strategy He has grown his company to an epic 250 million dollars by building his brand udi.

This is the perfect way to beat saturation as people started, to want an ud and not just a generic cozy hoodie, because at the end of the day he was the only one that could supply them with that brand because he created it. This is the same reason why many people go for branded products over the cheap, supermarket ones, they're, not necessarily better. They are just more appealing to us because they promise a consistent level of quality. I'm sure davey was quaking in his boots.

After i entered the hoodie industry, but as of today, i'm officially announcing my retirement from my cozy comfort business. So i'm going to leave the next video right up there, but don't click on it just yet make sure to subscribe to the channel. If you want to grow your wealth and don't forget to pick up your free stocks and bitcoin with the links below okay i'll see you over there.