How To Build A Niche Online Store - 2023 Dropshipping
In this course, I'll offer you a high-level introduction to e-commerce as
well as a high-level overview of what it's like to launch your own specialty
online store. What will you then learn? Therefore, I'm going to start by
explaining to you the various online e-commerce business models and how they
operate. Then I'll show you how to choose successful products to sell online
and where to find wholesalers to supply your products. Then, without having any
prior technical knowledge, I'll show you how to build a stunning website.
Dropshipping Niche Store Building
Finally, I'll cover everything you need to start up an online store in a
certain specialty, including how to accept credit cards, how to design your
website, and everything else. You'll also learn how to increase traffic and
make your first purchases. Who is this course for, then? You should now take
this course. if you're a parent who needs to care for your children while
working from home. If you wish to stop working and replace your income, this
course is for you. If you desire a flexible schedule so you can do whatever you
want and spend more time with your loved ones, this course is for you. Here's
what you need to remember. Even if you have no things to sell at all, it
doesn't matter. Or if you're unsure of what you want to sell, I'll show you how
to start an effective online business from scratch without any prior experience
necessary. Now, before I get started, I just want to mention a small number of
the students from my class who went on to launch really successful online
shops. Abby, a student of mine, launched a website first. She markets
high-heeled shoe insoles and generates over $100,000 in monthly revenue from
sales on her own website alone. By the way, all the stores I'm going to show
you are open right now, so you can type them into your browser and visit them
right away. Through Instagram marketing alone, Angela launched a six-figure
jewelry business at zerojewelry.com where she sells jewelry without paying for
advertising.
Make Dropshipping Online Store
Now, before I get started, I just want to mention a small number of the
students from my class who went on to launch really successful online shops.
Abby, a student of mine, launched Vivian Liu.com first. She markets high-heeled
shoe insoles and generates over $100,000 in monthly revenue from sales on her
own website alone. And once more, Vivian Liu.com is the address of her website.
By the way, all the stores I'm going to show you are open right now, so you can
type them into your browser and visit them right away. Through Instagram
marketing alone, Angela launched a six-figure jewelry business at
zerojewelry.com where she sells jewelry without paying for advertising. Amanda
Windborne, meantime, earns seven figures by selling her own cards and
print-on-demand invites at Amanda creation.com. Finally, a student named Joe
Jericho offers his own hand-thrown pottery on Charco Patreon.com. He also
generates a mid-six-figure online income. I'm Steve Chu, and I operate the
well-known site my wife quit her job.com. You guys probably register for this
six-day mini-course on my website now. So, the website is probably already
familiar to you. But I also host the well-liked podcast How to Quit Your Job.
And you can actually check that out on iTunes.
I speak with bootstrap business founders and essentially go extensively into
their startup and growth strategies. And finally, I am the organizer of the
seller Summit, an annual e-commerce conference. Additionally, I basically
gather a large group of online sellers, and we all share our success secrets. I
want to take a step back and discuss the early years of my own online store
before we dive into the meat of this mini-course. I originally started my
business back in 2007. And while my wife and I were in a rut together, I
actually recall you quite clearly. We both now have full-time jobs. We both
received six-figure salaries, too. We would essentially wake up, go to work,
come home, eat dinner, watch TV, and then go to bed. The next morning, we would
do the same thing: wake up, go to work, come home, eat dinner, watch TV, and
then go to bed. And this cycle kept repeating itself over and over. In essence,
we were in a rut. With our life, we had nowhere to go. And every night, an
identical pattern was followed. Now, if my wife didn't dread her job so much,
this lifestyle wouldn't be so horrible. She would therefore pull me aside every
morning as she was leaving the house. And she would add while sporting a
pathetic expression. I'm off to the hellhole I refer to as my job right away,
honey. If you can imagine, I had to observe her leaving for work every morning
while staring at her long face. In fact, it was pretty dismal. And I knew in my
heart that she needed to resign from her position. I was aware that we ought to
launch our own venture. However, we never muster the guts to begin. Not only
that, but we also never have enough time to start. Then, though, something
happened. The moment my wife learned she was expecting our first child,
everything changed. I can still clearly recall that day since I was both
incredibly excited and afraid at the same time. On the one hand, I understood
that this was the ideal pretext for my wife to resign from her position.
However, the fact that we reside in an expensive region is the issue. Because
it takes two working parents to buy a good property in a good school district
so that your kids can actually get a good education, almost everyone around us
works full time, as both couples do. In order for my wife to be able to stay at
home, we eventually started thinking about alternative enterprises we could
launch.
That is how we came across e-commerce. thus, in 2007 Although the narrative
is lengthy, I'll sum it up briefly below. We recently opened an online shop
where we offer handkerchiefs. It may be found at bumblebee linens.com. Please
feel free to have a look. It's been in our management for more than a decade.
We also made the decision to sell handkerchiefs. Because my wife anticipated
crying throughout the ceremony when we originally got married. And for the
photos, we paid a lot of money. Furthermore, she didn't want to appear on
camera wiping away her tears with a worn-out tissue. We searched everywhere we
could think of to find handkerchiefs but were unsuccessful. We eventually
discovered this dealer in China. However, they were only prepared to sell us a
few hundred. they were a factory, thus. As a result, we ended up purchasing
maybe six or more of these handkerchiefs. The remainder was sold on eBay. And
they ultimately became a runaway success. We actually got in touch with that
merchant again when she became pregnant, and we launched bumblebee linens.com.
And in that first year, we were able to replace my wife's six-figure salary
with over $100,000 in profit. As I already said, we have been operating this
store for the past ten years. And ever since 2007, it has actually experienced
double- and triple-digit growth. It has grown to a seven-figure firm now. More
important, though, is how much pleased my wife is right now. And this is a
photo of my lovely family. My wife and I are both free to be with them all the
time. I never miss a soccer match, I attend all of their extracurricular
activities, and our way of life is just so much better. Anyway, that's just a
brief account of how my wife and I got our start in the online business. Now,
before we start with the tutorials, allow me to briefly discuss my guiding
principles for this course. So let me start by saying that what I'm about to
teach you today is not a get-rich-quick plan. Additionally, it is not about
launching the next Amazon.com Or the next Facebook, or the next institution of
higher learning, we are here to help you create a business that fits your
lifestyle, one that allows you to spend time doing the things you love or
spending time with the people you love while also giving you the freedom to
choose your own hours. Now, what makes this lesson different from others is
that I'm going to show you how to launch a long-lasting, branded company.
Dropshipping Building Process
There are numerous business concepts available online that may show you how
to generate quick money. But I'm going to demonstrate to you how to build a
company that endures and lets you spend time with your family as well. We've
been operating Bumblebee linens for more than ten years, as I have indicated.
And we plan to continue operating this company for another ten years. Now,
given that some of my blog readers have brick-and-mortar businesses but wish to
expand online, what are some benefits of selling products online? The benefit
of selling online is that you may truly earn money without being physically
present. While you sleep, your computer places orders on your behalf. And
actually, maintaining a website has relatively minimal overhead. You already have
much of the software written for you. Basically, all you need to do is tailor
it to your own company and brand. Hey, Steve, why should I bother opening my
own online business when I can just sell on eBay, Etsy, or Amazon? is the most
frequent question I receive. Let's focus on Amazon for a moment. Amazon's lack
of consideration for your interests is its problem. Their main priority is the
increase in the value of their own shares. They have the right to change their
algorithms at any time, raise pricing, and make it more difficult to find your
products. In fact, Amazon frequently modifies the laws. And in the past year
alone, they have drastically increased their prices and modified several of the
regulations, which has made selling much more challenging. Additionally, you
aren't given any design freedom when you sell on websites like eBay, Etsy, or
Amazon.
A fairly similar design template is used for every single product listing.
It's also incredibly challenging to stand out from the crowd. and when it's
impossible to stand out from the crowd. That implies that building your own
brand is really challenging. These marketplaces also charge a hefty proportion
of your sales. eBay, for instance, may take between 11 and 15 percent of your
earnings. If you sell on Amazon and the company uses FBA to fill your
customers' purchases, Amazon will retain between 15 and 35% of your sales. In
fact, these markets are a terrific place to start and test the market for what
you want to sell. However, in the long run, you'll want to build a website that
is uniquely yours. You don't want your company to depend on anyone else, after
all. If you want to distinguish yourself from your rivals, you need
comprehensive design flexibility. Additionally, you desire to be in charge of your
own fate. Most importantly, you don't want someone else making decisions that
will affect your livelihood and business. You want to build your own brand and
future-proof your company at the same time. I now decided to take a short break
to debunk a few widespread misconceptions about running a small business.
Because I am aware of how afraid my wife and I were when we first began. All
these online numbers made us nervous. Now, the statistic that nine out of ten
small enterprises fail is one that I genuinely detest. And the reason I detest
this phase is because I think the nine people who are failing did so because
they entered their businesses without any preparation or prior expertise. In
essence, they are fumbling their way through it. Naturally, if you approach it
that way, you will fail the majority of the time. I want to debunk the notion
that establishing a business is too dangerous as a result.
First off, my wife and I launched our company on the side when we both had
full-time jobs, and we actually took a very little risk in doing so because we
run our store on an open-source platform that is completely free. There are no
actual development costs, and there were no programming costs. When we went
home from work, we basically did everything on the side. In essence, we made
things work by working late into the night and on weekends. Therefore, you are
not required to leave your employment. And I'd add that you ought to be
prepared to commit at least five hours a week to your business. Another widespread
misconception is that starting a business is expensive. With about $630, my
wife and I actually launched bumblebee lynda.com back in 2007. Our biggest
expenses were a computer, a digital camera, and $300 in goods that we ordered
from China. Let's imagine you don't even have $630, to begin with. The overhead
for operating an online business is so minimal that even if our business were
to come to a grinding halt today, it would only cost us around $80 a month to
maintain our store, making it one of the lowest-cost business models available.
Another misconception is that you must actually carry inventory. You can
dropship, but you don't want to. Dropshipping is a method of selling items
online in which you accept orders from customers on your own website and then
negotiate a shipping schedule with the seller. They, therefore, control all of
the inventory, and are in charge of fulfillment, while you are in charge of
obtaining payment from the sale and paying your supplier. Additionally, there
are a ton of third-party fulfillment businesses available that operate as
warehouses; you essentially send them your goods if you don't have space to
store inventory at home. Additionally, you inform them as soon as you receive
an order, and they ship it to the final recipient. Amazon will accept your
inventory and ship everything to the ultimate customer as well, which brings us
to our final option.
Now, one of the most frequent concerns I hear from readers of my blog is
that they believe it will be too difficult to launch a business or a website.
And allow me to say that beginning an online business today is considerably
simpler than it was in 2007 when my wife and I first started.
Step-by-Step Dropshipping Store Building Process
To start, you don't need any technical expertise because all the software
has been created with you in mind. There are numerous open-source, cost-free
shopping carts available. And all the code was created with you in mind. You
simply need to install them on your web hosts. Additionally, they are fully
hosted platforms like Shopify and Big Commerce that essentially do all the work
for you. And listing your products was all that was required. Now, many fully
hosted platforms—which I'll introduce to you in the upcoming lessons—offer
drag-and-drop user interfaces. As a result, you can modify your business
without having any programming or HTML knowledge. Depending on your level of
technical comfort, the subsequent courses in this short course will provide you
with a variety of possibilities. For instance, if you have some tech knowledge,
I'll probably direct you to open-source shopping carts, where you actually own
the platform. But if you're completely uninterested in technology, I'll
probably direct you to sites like Shopify or big commerce to keep things
straightforward.
The important thing to remember is that I did all the shopping cart research
for you in this case. Now, a lot of people complain to me that they don't
actually have enough time to launch a business, and we've actually used this
defense before. When I first started my business, I was running a blog, a
store, two young children, a training class, a podcast, and a conference in
addition to working a full-time job as an electrical engineer. I'm no longer
Superman. I actually think of myself as being quite lazy. The secret to
productivity is to divide your activity into manageable portions that may be
completed in 20, or 30 minutes. What you should do is incorporate your
businesses into your daily routine, work on them sporadically each day, and
consider the big picture. Let me now just quickly give you an example. My
E-commerce course actually began with me having almost no content. But I made a
promise to myself that I would publish one to two pieces of content each week.
I began taking this course in 2011. Today, after all that time has passed, I
really have more than 300 articles totaling more than 100 hours of content.
Therefore, if I just work on it a little bit each week at a steady rate, I
eventually grow to something much, much greater. That is the approach you need
to follow with your online store. Since you can't really wait for a long period
of time, especially if you have children, You essentially have to fit
everything into your schedule because there are no large blocks of time. However,
I do want to point out that once your firm is up and running, it is quite
thrilling. My wife and I were overjoyed when we made our first transaction, as
I can still clearly recall. We were overjoyed since, as opposed to working a
full-time job, there is something to be said about creating your own sales and
money. It is an extremely satisfying experience. And if you just take the
chance, I promise you'll enjoy the experience.
So now I want to shift gears and explore the inner workings of electronic commerce.
And I'm going to start by discussing the various e-commerce business models
that can be used. Dropshipping is a business model that I'd like to discuss. As
I've already mentioned, dropshipping entails having a storefront where you can
accept orders, followed by a contract with a supplier under which the supplier
is responsible for sending the ordered goods to the customer. You are not
required to keep any inventory. Additionally, your income is essentially a
distinct suit. You can open an online store and sell other people's brands and
inventory by setting your prices and wholesale costs accordingly. There are
numerous instances like this. Target, for instance, largely sells other
people's products and carries very few of its own brands. The greatest
long-term solution is to sell your own line of merchandise, which is the last
option. Basically, this is where you go to have your goods manufactured. You
then brand your own products with your own name. Finally, you can sell through
an affiliate program. And the way affiliate marketing operates is that you
recommend a sale to another company, and that company then pays you a
commission for the introduction. I'll therefore evaluate these models based on
three criteria to help you choose which eCommerce business model to use. How To
Build A Niche Online Store - 2023 Dropshipping
How difficult is it to start? That is the first parameter. Sustainability is
the second consideration. What potential does this business model have in the
long run? Finally, I'll discuss the profitability of each of these business
models, or how much money you can expect to make. Also, keep in mind that each
of these variables will be ranked from one to ten, with ten being the best.
Let's begin by discussing dropshipping. Because you don't need to source any
products with dropshipping, you don't need to maintain your own inventory. It's
actually one of the simpler business plans for an online retailer. I,
therefore, rate it a seven out of 10. regarding the effort. However, I rate it
a four to ten on the sustainability scale. The margins for dropshipping are
actually fairly low; they are frequently in the range of 10% to 25%. This is
because you are selling other people's products when you drop ship. And since
you're selling other people's goods, you'll be making a lot less money as a
result. Additionally, you'll be competing with others who are carrying
inventory. They will also have higher profit margins than you do because you
have limited price flexibility. It will also be very challenging to compete on
price because of sites like Amazon, where manufacturers are bypassing drop
shippers and selling directly to customers. Because of this, I think that
dropshipping is not a very long-term viable business model for online stores.
As I previously indicated, dropshipping generates margins of 10 to 25%. You can
see that you need to make a lot more sales in order to make the same amount of
money if you compare that to the 50 to 90% margins for some of the other
business models.
Next, let's discuss a traditional online store, where you carry inventory in
addition to selling other people's products. I rate it a five out of ten now
because you have to go out and contact vendors and store your own stuff. in
terms of the work required to begin. I rate its sustainability at seven out of
ten. because you're opening a store under your own name with inventory and
fulfillment. Additionally, your margins will be in the range of 50% in terms of
profitability. As a result, you will be much more successful than a
dropshipping shop. The following business model is to market your own branded
products. I now rate it a three out of 10, which indicates that it requires
more effort to complete. And the reason for this is that you need to contact
manufacturers in order to create your own products and brand them. Selling your
own branded goods, however, has the advantage of being the most sustainable
business model available. mostly because you genuinely own both your brand and
your products. Your profit margins can reach 90% or higher, which essentially
implies that you keep the majority of the money you earn online. Selling your
own products is therefore likely the most sustainable and lucrative business
model available. Affiliate sales make up the final business model. And once
more, that basically occurs when you recommend someone else to a company and
you end up receiving a portion of the sale. Affiliate marketing requires the
least amount of effort because you don't need to do anything to get started.
And there are essentially no upfront costs. All you need to do is direct your
consumer to another website, where they will take over and handle the sale.
Affiliate marketing receives a three for sustainability due to lack of control.
Many businesses focus solely on luring affiliates when they are just starting
out and in need of clients. However, as these businesses grow, they no longer
require their affiliates. Additionally, more well-known brands frequently end
their affiliate programs outright over time. Because you're not putting in any
effort, the referral payment is typically not very profitable. As a result, a
high-level assessment of all the existing business models for online stores
reveals that you actually need to recommend a lot of sales in order to make a good
living. And I sincerely hope you enjoyed this introduction. Remember that new
lessons will be delivered to your inbox every single day and will have the
sequential number 12345678. Send me an email at Steve at my wife quit her
job.com if you miss a lesson or for some reason a listen isn't delivered to
your inbox. I'll also teach you the lesson you're skipping. You're welcome.
Hope you liked seeing this. There is actually a lot more where that came from
if you enjoyed what you saw. If you're interested in learning how to sell
physical goods online and you subscribe to my blog down below, click here to
enroll in my free six-day mini-course, in which I'll walk you through all you
need to know to start working in e-commerce.
Thank you for viewing.
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