A-Z Dropshipping Roadmap

eCommerce can be confusing if just starting out, there’s an overload of information

online (a lot of it BS) which can make things difficult to piece together.

If you’re just starting out, this doc will give you some clarity on the roadmap from just
starting out, to making profitable revenue.

After reading, you’ll have a clear outline on steps to take & the order of knowledge
you’ll need to consume.

1. Dropshipping Fundamentals

Most of you will be aware, but dropshipping is just an area of eCommerce which
allows you to sell products online without holding any stock.

You’ve probably heard the term “dropshipping is dead” being used, or that it’s
oversaturated.

What most forget to understand, is that dropshipping is simply just a method of

fulfillment which has been leveraged by businesses for decades.

Dropshipping will never die, this method of fulfillment will always remain and even
today some of the biggest retailers in the world use the dropshipping model, such as
www.wayfair.co.uk.

So why is dropshipping an amazing business model?

It’s low barrier to entry, requires no upfront stock investment & allows you to test
multiple products & niches at a minimal cost.

Instead of buying stock, you leverage suppliers (usually in the US or China) that
already hold stock. As soon as a customer buys from your website, they will ship it
directly to your customer without you having to even touch or see the product.

Here’s how that looksvisually:

 2. How Much Money Do You Need To Get Started?

This is a question that varies. A ballpark figure that I would recommend is

$500-$1000 at minimum if you are following a proven to work strategy & roadmap.

If you decide to freestyle things as I did, then that’ll require more budget- likely
$1500-$2000+

If you’re tight on cash, then an alternative option would be to go down the TikTok
Organic route, where you can get started with less than $100. Just be aware that it’s
far less scalable as you’re reliant on an algorithm to make you go viral to generate
traffic to your website as opposed to paying for targeted traffic.

All of the above can work, but what I always strongly recommend is to have cashflow
(a source of income) outside of your starting budget.

It’ll allow you to feel less emotionally attached to the money which is something you
will need to learn to master if you have the ambition of building a 7 figure
dropshipping empire.
 3. Finding A Product

Product is king - the key variable for success in eCommerce is the product that you
sell.

You can have a high converting site with amazing ads, but if your product doesn't
have product-market-fit then you won’t be profitable.

If you have product-market-fit, but your site & ads are shit - you can still scale like
crazy.

When starting out, never try to reinvent the wheel. The goal is to find something
that’s already started to build traction and use that as a foundation to build off and
improve upon. The majority of products that I’ve scaled to 6/7 figures were being
successfully sold by competitors before I started to test.

Competition isn’t something to be scared of, it should be leveraged & used as an

indicator that a product is working well.

Validating a product is an in-depth subject. But for starters look for the following
criteria:

- Product must have mass market appeal

- Good quality product that has minimal potential for defects
- Can sell for at least 3x the cost price
- Can use an emotional trigger/pain point for a marketing angle
- Validated market demand: is currently selling well

Testing multiple products and failing to make sales is completely normal. If you want
to succeed with dropshipping, you need to accept that you'll lose money at first,
which you'll eventually make back as soon as you find your first winning product.

4. Sourcing Your Product

This doesn’t need to be over-complicated when starting out.

Use https://www.aliexpress.com/ to source your product, as mentioned above you
want to ensure you can sell it for at least 3x the cost price. This will allow you enough
margin to scale your ads whilst also taking into account other miscellaneous costs.

When you start to produce consistent daily sales, you can then start to work with an
agent which will reduce your cost of goods, quicken your shipping times, and usually
improve product quality (if they are good)

You can also use https://www.1688.com/ to try & source cheaper COGS. However,
you’ll need to translate it as it's all in Chinese.

5. Building Your Store

Use https://www.shopify.com/ to build your store.

You want to build a one product hybrid store. This is essentially having your full
website focused around one hero product, whilst having 1-3 additional products
which are used to compliment your main product & will be used as upsells to
maximize your profit-per-customer.

An example of this would be https://spacegoods.com/ - they have their hero product

Rainbow Dust, but use complimentary products to increase their average order
value.

The goal and the desired outcome is to build a store that looks branded, & one that is
unrecognizable as a ‘dropshipping store’.

Now let’s look at two examples, one that you should stay away from, & one that you
should replicate.

Bad example: https://hkprime.co/

Good example: https://bleame.com/

 6. Driving Traffic To Your Website

As mentioned above, this is dependent on your budget.

If less than $500 - use TikTok organic. I scaled a store back in 2020 to $500k+ using
just this method alone. Find some brands on TikTok that are killing the organic game
(filter to last 30 days) & study videos of products that have gone viral. What you want
to identify is the style of video & hook that they used. These can be brands/products
that are outside of your niche. Get 10-20 videos written down & start to create & apply
to your own product.

If there is product-market-fit you will have some videos that will hit & drive significant
traffic levels to your store. This is a good starting method to help build up your pot of
cash to start running paid traffic.

If more than $500 - you can start testing right away with paid ads. If a beginner I’d
recommend testing with TikTok/Snapchat ads. These both require a less complicated
account structure/setup than Meta & are a good starting point.

Once you’re profitable here, you then want to move to Facebook ads ASAP as this is
where the real scale is at.

6. Scaling

At this point, you’ve tested multiple products & have now landed on your winner. This
is where you now fully capitalize & make back any losses on the conducted tests, but
most importantly you make insane profit.

For me, this was back in 2018. I had around £2k in my bank, & I scaled my first winner
to over £100k profit… life changing stuff.

Once you have your winner, it’s important to keep the momentum.

There are many scaling strategies that you can utilize to ramp up your sales, but
what’s even more important is building a back-end & systems which can support
scale & allow you to build a long-term sustainable business.
 7. Building Systems

Now you need to start building your team and a back-bone to your business to
ensure it doesn’t come crashing down.

The first hire you will want to make is a virtual-assistant. They will primarily assist you
in customer service to ensure all enquiries through email or social platforms are
being responded to.

This is key for two reasons:

1. You need to focus only on high leverage tasks

2. Good customer service is crucial & avoids bans from Meta/Payment processors.

VA’s can also assist you in other areas of the business such as managing creators for
content, managing your P&L & dealing with your supplier.

You can hire VA’s from:

- onlinejobs.ph
- upwork.com

In addition to this, you will want to start working with an agent. You can find agents
by being referred to one through your connections within the space, facebook
groups, upwork, or Alibaba/AliExpress.

8. Brand Building

Our goal here should be to fully brand the product & packaging and ensure that
receiving the product is a good customer experience.

By now you will be working with an agent, and you can start to bulk order custom
product/packaging.

Doing the above will start to separate you from the crowd of dropshippers & is the
first step forward in building a real brand.
Having proper branding across your site & within your ads will also significantly
increase your conversion rate as it instantly builds more trust with the customer. It’s a
worthwhile investment if you see long-term potential in a product.

If you go down the brand route, you will also want to start moving away from
shipping from China to offer a better experience to encourage repeat purchasers
from customers as this is where real brand equity is built.

You can use 3PL’s (fulfillment centers) by bulk shipping stock to them from China,
most will charge a low pick & pack fee. Transitioning to this will allow you to offer 1-3
day shipping.

Continue to scale your brand, introduce new SKUs, improve on product quality,
diversify marketing channels, build a community…there are countless levers you can
pull to scale further.

Keep pushing & an exit could be on the horizon.

If you decide against the branding route, you can continue to build dropshipping
stores & create amazing cashflow. I typically have 3-4 stores running at one given
time.

9. Conclusion

eCommerce is an incredible business, and dropshipping is an amazing model that

has changed the lives of so many people, including myself.

You can see me pictured below in 2017, working 12 hours a day in a boiler suit.
Literally in the middle of nowhere, working away from home for 3 months at a time.

Pictured to the right is me back in 2020, picking up a fully specced brand new
Porsche Taycan Turbo S.

This isn’t a flex at all, it's literally just to demonstrate what's possible with this
business model, shit can change fast.

It’s not easy though, it’s a rollercoaster full of obstacles. It's hard & it requires a lot of
sacrifice; most people aren't made for it.
Most people are built to serve.

Be persistent. Be one of the few who break out of the pattern and earn their
freedom.

I’ve got a lot more to come & immense value to share.

If you’ve enjoyed the doc then follow my IG & message saying you’ve come from the
telegram channel & i’ll be sure to respond.

https://www.instagram.com/camm/