Sara Finance is an online entrepreneur who specializes in dropshipping, investing, and making money online. In this article, we are showing you how she made over $800 in revenue in the first week of her dropshipping business. It is possible to earn $1 000 or more in the first week using her strategy.
She did not spend any money to achieve her goal, so this article is for you if you want to start a dropshipping business without spending any money. Let us take you along for the ride as she builds her company from the ground up.
DAY 1
Sara's schedule for the first day includes the following activities:
- Find a good selling product.
- Locate a supplier.
- Look for a complimentary product.
- Begin constructing her Shopify store.
How to Find a Good Product to Sell
According to Sara,
"I find about 99 percent of my viral products on TikTok".
Here is a screenshot of Sara's TikTok account with 724 000 followers and 13.4 million likes.
So, let's talk about her strategy and how you can implement it yourself. Search for "TikTok Made Me Buy It," but write it as a hashtag: "TikTokMadeMeBuyIt."
Click on the little "Apply" icon in the top right corner to alert the TikTok search algorithm to begin preparing a list of popular TikTok products that you can promote with hashtags.
Change the date posted to the current month so it can show you a list of recent relevant winning products, and search thoroughly to find some good products to sell. She chose a cordless hair curler.
Here's an example of how the product looks on a woman's hair.
Cordless Hair Curler
A cordless hair curler allows females to touch up their hair wherever they go, and there are many stores on TikTok selling this product and doing very well. Sara believes she can also sell this product extremely well.
Hashtags You Can Use to Search Winning Products
- Amazon Fines. Hashtag: #AmazonFines
- Drop Shippers Exposed. #DropShippersExposed
- TikTok Viral Products. #TikTokViralProducts
With the three hashtags listed above, you can find viral products to sell and profit from.
Take note that your product will most likely already have successful drop shippers promoting it; thus, you should try to check these promoters out and learn from them. Here's a screenshot of TikTok influencers who had been promoting similar cordless hair curlers.
How to Find Suppliers
There are several platforms where we can find suppliers, but Sara chose Spocket. You must thoroughly search your chosen platform for the best product. Look for a supplier with a good reputation, that is, one who has received positive reviews from previous customers. Compare the supplier's delivery time to that of other suppliers to determine how efficient the service is. Also, remember to look at the number and percentage of returned items. All of these considerations are important when selecting a supplier for your product. Sara found a supplier who met almost all of the above criteria in this case. Here's a screenshot of her selection.
The listing price is $28.30, which is very reasonable, and the processing and shipping time is 7 to 14 business days, which is also very reasonable. Sara plans to move the product to her Shopify store and sell it for $59.99, but the suggested retail price is $111.46. Her strategy is to sell at a lower price so that she can sell more and profit more.
Here is a store that sells a similar product for $109.99.
Selling at a discounted price will allow you to sell a lot of products in a short period because if buyers see your price as a fraction of your competitors, they will rather buy from your store.
Sara's Second Product
To make her store an upsell, she added Hairworth Hairembrace Heat Protection Spray which she also got on Spocket.
Let us look at the product lines strategy:
- Product 1 — Cordless Hair Curler
- Product 2 — Hairworthy Hairembrace Heat Protection Spray guards against heat damage while styling. The Anti-Frizz and lightweight spray form an invisible thermal shield to protect against temperatures of up to 230 degrees Celsius (446 degrees Fahrenheit). As you can see, this product complements product 1 above. Because it is inexpensive, most people who purchase cordless hair curly will most likely purchase this second product as well. It costs $8.27 with a retail price of $18.00. Of course, you could sell it for less than $18.27 but more than the listing price. However, Sara believes the product complements her main product and has decided to sell it for $19.99, which is higher than the recommended retail price.
How to Build Your Shopify Store
According to Sara,
"I start building my Shopify store and I do want my store to look like an actual brand and so it is going to take me a little bit of time to build it now" .
DAY 2
Here is her schedule for the second day:
- Finish designing her store
- Add AfterSell Post Purchase Upsell
- Start advertising her product
Details of Sara's Shopify Store
Sara finished creating her Shopify store on the second day and it was simple and clean, and below is a screenshot of the page customers are redirected to. She added the following to the landing page:
- Cordless Hair Curler.
- Price — $59.99.
- Different colors of the product — Rose Gold, Blue, Grey, etc.
- Payment Option(s) — PayPal.
- Sales timer to create a sense of urgency.
- High-quality pictures.
- Statements to build customers' trust.
- Frequently asked Questions.
- What is included in the package.
- Description of the content of the package and the benefits of buying the cordless hair curler.
- 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee. A lot of customers will not buy your product if you do not add it.
- Instructions on how to use the cordless hair curler, making use of the product straightforward.
- Customer reviews can be found at the bottom of the page. She imported all of the reviews to her store at first, but she usually has real customer reviews for her products. If you replicate what we are teaching you in this article, you will begin to receive genuine feedback on your store.
How to Add AfterSell Post Purchase Upsell
After building her Shopify store, she added a Shopify app called "AfterSell" to increase her revenue.
According to Sara,
"I added AfterSell because it can increase my revenue from 10 to 15 percent which is exactly what I want, and AfterSell is for post purchase upsell".
When you offer a product to a customer after they have purchased something from your store, this is known as a post-purchase upsell. Sara included the Heat Protectant Spray because it works well with the cordless hair curler. Post Purchase Sell works well because if a customer has just purchased something from your store, the customer is likely to buy something else from you. After all, you have already established trust.
Post Purchase Upsell Discount
If you offer a discount on the post-purchase upsell, you will sell more of it. Sara decided to offer a 25% discount, making the new price $14.99, to entice them to buy it even more. Do not offer them discounts on the product before they purchase because it will only confuse them and cause them to avoid your products.
How to Advertise Your Product
It is usually tough for newbies to advertise their dropshipping products because they do not usually have money to do it, but Sara has a solution. Sara wants to leverage on creating viral videos on TikTok, Instagram, or Pinterest, so she plans to make viral videos on these platforms.
According to Sara,
"What I end up doing is actually ordering the product to my house and make my video, or sometimes I hire someone on Upwork to make the videos for me. But in this case, since I don't have much time. What I am going to do is to go on TikTok and try to find videos TikTok influencers are already using to promote the cordless hair curler. I am just going to end up posting those videos on my social media accounts and of course, I am going to give the video owners credit for them."
If you are building a long-term business, you should make your videos, but since you are just starting, it is totally fine to use these videos from the influencers.
- Search on TikTok for very good videos you can use.
- Set up all your social media pages and put your store link in your profile bio.
- Post 1 to 2 videos on every social media platform daily.
Just one out of all the videos you have posted online is what you need to go viral to make over $1 000.
According to Sara,
"Honestly, as long as I can create viral videos with the product, and it has high demand, I can make close to $1 000 in the first week".
One Week Later
Sara created a new TikTok account for this purpose, so you can also do it if you are a complete newbie. Here is the account.
She posted 26 videos and gained 108 followers with 4 787 likes. One particular video performed excellently well with 16 500 views. This video is enough to make her around $1 000 in the first week.
TikTok — How to Grow Your Account Quickly
It is very easy to gain many followers and also get a very high engagement if you post consistently and high-quality content on TikTok. According to Sara,
"Always use a brand new account, and always use relevant hashtags for your videos. Make sure you follow trends and use trending music in your videos. In addition, look at what other small businesses are doing on TikTok and replicate them. All it takes is one viral video on your TikTok to blow up your entire account. Be patient, and be consistent. Even if you are not getting many views at the initial stage, just keep going with it, and I promise it will be worth it".
Instagram
Her Instagram marketing campaign did not do too well, but the first two videos did get a decent number of views. The remaining videos did not do well.
According to Sara,
"To be successful with Instagram, you need to be consistent for at least a month to start seeing results."
Pinterest
She got no engagement on her Pinterest account in the first week.
According to Sara,
"With Pinterest, you usually need to post at least one month consistently if you want to see results".
How Much Does Sara Make in the First Week?
- Online Store — $719.88
- AfterSell Post Purchase Upsell — $119.94
- Total Sales — $839.82
- Duration — March 26, 2022 to April 2, 2022 (7 days)
She made $839.82 in the first week of opening her Shopify store, and this result is extremely good. Usually, you don't expect to make much in the first week since you will be testing out different strategies. As you can see, using AfterSell Post Purchase Upsell is a good strategy to push up your revenue.
- Online Store Session — 1 490
- Visitors on her Shopify Store — 1 392
- Returning customers rate: 42.86 %
- Average Order Value — $41.99
- Total Orders — 20
Summary of Income
- Shopify Plan — $0
- Shopify /Pay Pal Fees — $30
- Product Cost — $407.22 (Cost of purchasing the products, and outsourcing the videos)
- Total Profit — $432.60
- Profit Margin — 50 %
Conclusion
If you choose the right product with an appropriate AfterSell Post Purchase Upsell and promote it with viral videos on social media platforms, you can earn close to $1 000 in your first week of dropshipping business. You will be successful if you use three free social media platforms to promote your dropshipping products: TikTok, Instagram, and Pinterest.
