Dropshipping is not an easy skill to master, and making mistakes and learning from them is a big part of the learning process.
We’re hoping our tips below will help you to:
- Avoid wasting money
- Avoid limiting your earning potential
- Minimize time spent on tedious tasks
- And most importantly, maximize your profits
In this article we will cover the 8 biggest dropshipping mistakes we usually see!
#1 Trying Dropshipping as the Last Resort to Financial Problems
This is probably the most common dropshipping mistakes that we see on a daily basis.
We’ve all seen group posts written by new members in desperation:
”Help me please! I lost my job today and only have 1k in the bank. Please tell me a strategy that will work 100% so I can feed my family.”
Member that joined the group 3 days ago
Counting on making dropshipping ”work” by a certain date and within a certain low budget, will create a lot of stress. This will drive any person to make bad campaign decisions, leading to ultimate failure.
💡 Recommended – Find a way to make a stable income first, invest a part of that into learning dropshipping, and don’t quit your job until profits from your campaigns can replace your income.
#2 Always Looking for a ”Secret” and Not Taking Enough Action
Some newbies, after losing a bit of money in the beginning, will start to think that dropshipping requires some secret sauce to make it work.
Others head straight to Facebook and start writing about how dropshipping is dead in 2021…
But how can we blame them? That’s the main selling point that most gurus are constantly selling. ”Secret methods” that will make anyone rich.
Based on personal experience and from talking to many dropshippers, it is this – 2 words:
Hard work!
Successful dropshippers test more stuff and try different strategies. They are not 1-trick ponies – they keep learning and innovating and adapting to changes.
💡 Recommended – Work on your fundamentals first. once you have a solid foundation, think of ways to do the same thing better, faster, and on larger scale.
#3 Either Testing Too Extensively or Not Extensively Enough
Some newbies don’t test enough – so they throw a campaign together with a random product they found without any research + a brand new Shopify store with the Debut theme, pray, and give up when they don’t see profits right away.
Then there are newbies that test TOO much at once – many countries, many verticals, many traffic sources – without sticking with one thing long enough to make it work.
Needless to say, neither approach is good.
💡 Recommended – Pick a single traffic sources or at most two. Start with a hot selling product to learn the ropes so you’ll be guaranteed to get conversions, and don’t test more than a few countries at a time in the beginning, to avoid paying for the same mistake across multiple campaigns.
#4 Targeting the US and Only the US
Targeting the United States can be attractive: high traffic volumes, high spending capabilities, and the language is English, so no need to get translations.
Only 320 million of the world population lives in the United States, there is a lot of untapped potential business outside.
The United States in general have greater competition, which means more expensive traffic and more volatile performance. When you’re new, you don’t want to go against the established players. You’d get chewed up and spat out.
Many countries in other geographics can convert better than the US, and some of them don’t lack traffic volume (e.g. you can potentially make 5-figures/day just from Brazil alone).
💡 Recommended – Instead of later focusing on the United States, try other geographics in Europe, Asia and Latin America.
#5 Not Cutting Based on Statistical Methods
When we’re testing new products, creatives, placements, product descriptions etc. – we’re always faced with this dilemma:
When should I cut a losing product?
Cut too early, and you may cut something that could have turned out profitable.
Cut too early, and you may cut something that could have turned out profitable.
This is where statistics comes in – it will help you to cut stuff at the perfect time, with a high degree of certainty but without overspending.
💡 Recommended – Use statistical tools, especially when researching a winning product or other elements that can make-or-break your campaign.
#6 Not Following the 80/20 Rule
Whether you are trying to scale your dropshipping business, or just starting out, 20% of your efforts make up 80% of your results.
The most common behavior among new dropshippers is spending way too much time on unimportant tasks while neglecting stuff that has the potential to 10x their profits.
Some example of such tasks are:
- Spending a ton of time to design the perfect store before launching a campaign, when they’re not sure they will even end up finding a good product to make all that work pay off.
- Fulfilling orders manually without software.
- Split-testing minimal changes like button colors or title texts.
- Researching winning products without tools to make the process more effective.
No matter what your situation, it’s important to remember that there are only so many minutes in an hour, hours in a day, and days in a week.
The 80/20 rule can help you to see this is a good thing; otherwise, you’d be a slave to a never-ending list of things to do.
💡 Recommended – Ask yourself ”Which task could be done right now to maximize my profits” then do that first. Also, always be on the look out for tools that can help automate your business.
#7 Making Careless Dropshipping Mistakes
Being overwhelmed is a common feeling among dropshippers, newbies, and experienced ones alike.
There is usually just so much to do, especially for a solo entrepreneur. Product research, marketing, customer support, design, copywriting, you name it.
Working on a lot of things at the same time can inevitably lead to careless mistakes (that we all have made).
We’ve all made simple mistakes such as:
- Not verifying that all links are working.
- Adding an extra zero to the ad budget by accident.
- Forgetting to remove watermarks from supplier images.
- Not proof-reading the ad copy, product descriptions, titles, etc.
I know very well that selling a new winning product is really exciting, but haste makes waste and being careful while setting up your campaign can save you a lot of money down the road.
💡 Recommended – Slow down! Seriously. Create a checklist of things to go through before launching each campaign, and make sure to follow it.
#8 Focusing Too Much on Conversions
Converting visitors to buyers is ultimately the number one goal to focus on for a dropshipper.
But that doesn’t mean you should neglect other important tasks that are most likely worth doing.
There are important parts of your website that should not be neglected, no matter what stage you are in.
- Make sure that you have a well-written return policy.
- Make sure that your terms of services & privacy policy pages are functional.
- Create a safe shopping experience with a money-back guarantee.
- Write an ”About Us” section of your company.
- Set clear expectations regarding your shipping times.
These tasks might not generate an instant boost in revenue for you. But will surely increase customer trust which with time can increase your sales.
💡 Recommended – Trust is earned, not given. Ask yourself: ”Would I purchase from my own store?” – and if not, implement the missing parts.
Conclusion
Your success with dropshipping depends entirely on your ability as an entrepreneur. In this article, we covered some of the most common dropshipping mistakes that might hinder you from scaling your dropshipping business.
We hope that you enjoyed reading through this article and make sure to follow our recommended advice when you start a dropshipping business.
