Tag: how to use a sales funnel

Dropshipping Hacks to Drive More Traffic and Sales Overnight

by Peter PruSystems & ProcessesLeave a Comment on Dropshipping Hacks to Drive More Traffic and Sales Overnight

Empire builders, today I’m going to be sharing dropshipping hacks about how to turn a profit with your dropshipping business. This is especially useful if your store is currently underperforming or not delivering the returns you were expecting.

If you’re struggling with this issue, you’re definitely not alone. Pulling profits out of your ecommerce business can be a very tricky operation, especially since you need to continually spend on advertising. Many beginning dropshippers will find that, once all the numbers have been added up, they’re only breaking even. Today I’m going to tell you why that’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, you’re ALMOST there. It’s time to break through that stalemate and enjoy some healthy profits with these dropshipping hacks.

Maximizing the Impact of Every Sale

Profitability in dropshipping is all about making the most of your advertising dollars, whether you’re driving that traffic to Shopify, Clickfunnels, a two-step order form, or to a different funnel. You need to make every sale count. Let’s take a look at some of the most effective and reliable ways to get the most out of every conversion.  

Capture Customer Emails

Building your email list is absolutely critical for dropshipping success, especially if you’re struggling with profitability. Every customer email is an asset for your business that goes way beyond that individual sale. You’ll be to reach out to that person again and again, with promotions, new product launches, discounts, etc. 

Every sale generated by email marketing is essentially pure profit that’s just for you, without having to hand over a chunk for each click. No matter what platform you’re using, make sure you drive traffic to a landing page where you can collect those assets for yourself, along with their billing information, address, etc. Growing your email list is one of the most important factors for sustainable growth and consistent profitability. 

Quantity Break Discounts

Peter Pru explaining quantity breaks in sales funnels

If your current funnel has the structure for quantity break discounts, there’s absolutely no reason not to use them. This very effective technique is to give the customer an irresistible discount for buying multiples of the product. Offering quantity break discounts can boost your profitability like almost nothing else; it’s one of the best dropshipping hacks to implement for an overnight boost in sales. 

Why? 

Because people love getting a bigger and bigger deal. My magic numbers for quantity options to offer the customer are 1, 2, 4, 6, and 8. Those numbers may sound like overkill to you, but this method is absolutely tried and true. I had a student a year ago that was selling premium-priced products using a two-step order form. It wasn’t a product you would expect to sell in multiples, and yet he got phenomenal results from the quantity break discounts. This is literally free money and a very effective strategy for making your business more profitable.  

Order Bumps

You always want to give the customer PLENTY of opportunities to spend money with you. An order bump is just something enticing that the customer can add on to their order. Keep it as simple as possible, but make sure it’s complementary in some way. For example, if you have a customer buying a toothbrush, why not offer them some toothpaste? You can also offer something like expedited shipping or front-of-the-line service. A well-executed order bump campaign will be converting at around 20%. This is an absolutely fantastic way to maximize this sale and help you become more profitable. 

Upsells, Upsells, Upsells

Happy dropshipper earning more profits from using dropshipping hacks

As you dive deeper into how to make the most of each sale, you should absolutely have upsells inside your funnels. That means you offer the customer more hand-picked, relevant products that they might be interested in. You have the consumer’s attention, and you probably paid dearly for that click, so make the most of it.

Your funnel can have as many upsells as you want, but I typically recommend offering three or four options. You don’t want to annoy the customer by putting them through upsell oblivion, but that’s not necessarily something to worry about. Just make sure you’re offering complementary products they might actually like, and that will provide value for them. Here are four reliable upsell dropshipping hacks you can use to be more profitable: 

1. More of the Same

This upsell is basically to give them an even better discount on the same product they’ve just bought, assuming that your margins allow it. This upsell works because they obviously like this product, and it’s what motivated them to click on the ad. Give them a reason to take advantage of the discount (“perfect for gifts,” “perfect for friends and family”). Then you can easily expand your profits on this sale. 

2. Complementary Products

These are, again, product offers that are extremely related to whatever they just bought. If the customer purchased some fishing lures, you can offer a fishing tackle box. The idea is to include something they’re going to need anyway. They might as well buy it from you, right?

3. Digital Products

It’s very hard to sell digital products on their own because it’s not something tangible. It’s hard to convince people of the value of a digital product, and they just tend to convert at a lower rate. But digital products work very well for upsells, especially if they relate directly to the niche this customer is interested in. It can be an eBook bundle, a video course, a PDF, or anything else. The best part is, you only pay someone to create the product once, and then you can sell them over and over again.  

4. Monthly Subscriptions

This is the most important upsell option, BY FAR, and one of the most effective dropshipping hacks to make your business more profitable. Every monthly subscription you sell is money that flows into your business every month without you having to do anything. It’s pure profit! If you can sell this service to 10 percent of your customers, and each subscription is $39.99, it would completely transform your business. That money could help you expand your ad budget, or you can even use it to pay yourself. Pound for pound, monthly subscriptions are one of the most effective ways to make your business profitable. 

The Smart Way to Think About Profitability 

Dropshipper working to improve his funnel for overnight sales increases

If you want to get more profitable, I want to challenge you to change your line of thinking. You can’t depend only on “posting the ad and getting the customer to buy that product.” It’s not surprising that some of you will only break even by following that basic strategy. After all, advertising costs aren’t getting any lower! There’s really only so much you can do at the ad level. But if you’re just breaking even and practically giving products away for free, that’s an excellent start. You’re getting those customers into your funnel, and THAT’S what matters. 

In other words, your profits may not come right at the beginning of the funnel. That’s why you focus on maximizing each sale by upselling digital products, complementary products, and monthly subscriptions. You make bank on quantity discounts and order bumps, not ad clicks. It’s really going to be later on down the funnel, where your margins are much more favorable and you can add in dropshipping hacks, that you can generate those big profits.  

Utilizing Your Most Important Asset: Email Lists

Email marketing remains the most powerful and cost-effective way to sell anything you want online. You should be emailing your customers every day, or at least several times a week. Email them discounts and offers. Email them your Shopify product page. Create order pages for your monthly subscriptions and email them promotions for that. If you’re really lazy, you can even email them affiliate marketing offers that relate to your niche. Like I said earlier, your customer’s email addresses are your most important asset. 

But these email addresses won’t do you any good if you’re not using them! Simply put, these email-generated sales are pure profit. If you find you’re only breaking even after paying for all those clicks, make up the difference by reaching out to your list with relevant, attractive offers. 

My team at Ecommerce Empire Builders is actually putting together an email package right now, which will be for a small group of dropshippers. These are businesses that are already earning at least $5,000 a month and have the budget for a back-end email system. The service will essentially be a 93-email sequence that we build and manage for you. If your business qualifies, email me to learn more! 

Consult With the Pros to Put These Dropshipping Hacks Together

There’s so much more to learn about building a profitable dropshipping business, and it’s important to start your business with a strong foundation. Reserve your seat at our free dropshipping webinar to learn all about maximizing sales and making the numbers work for you. Also, visit my YouTube channel for frequent videos about trends, new strategies, and other insights.

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Student Success Story: How to Use Dropshipping Funnels to Make $50k a Month

by Peter PruDropshipping Case StudiesLeave a Comment on Student Success Story: How to Use Dropshipping Funnels to Make $50k a Month

Yet another success story that highlights the value of dropshipping sales funnels and persistence is that of Jacob Jones, one of our students here at Ecommerce Empire Builders. Jacob managed to go from zero to $50,000 per month using a winning strategy. He continues to thrive in his niche, largely by knowing how to use dropshipping funnels through Clickfunnels. Here we’ll go over his story and the specific strategies he’s used over the years, which you can implement for your own dropshipping business.

Starting With a Simple Shopify Store and a Simple Idea

Around three years ago, while working as a server and in real estate, Jacob and his friend decided to give dropshipping a try. Shortly after launching his store and getting some traffic to it, Jacob began making a few sales and began to see the possibilities of ecommerce. Those few sales were enough to inspire him to keep trying. So he decided to launch a Shopify store before getting into Clickfunnels.

Jacob didn’t try to launch his business without some outside help, however. He began watching YouTube videos and other content to educate himself about dropshipping strategies that could fuel his success. After some learning and contemplation, Jacob finally decided to launch his store and focus on a specific niche with the hope that it would work in his favor. A few stores later, Jacob has seen the success that he aspired to from the start.

The first store that Jacob launched was on Shopify and focused on a highly specific niche. Today, that store is still running and succeeding. At the time of launch, Jacob was working full-time. He decided to wait to see how the store would perform before making dropshipping his focus. As he began to make sales and see the opportunities available to him, he started to grow his business. Jacob also built a relationship with a reliable supplier that’s still going strong. Eventually, after seeing a considerable amount of sales with a basic store selling baby bags, Jacob moved to Costa Rica and left his full-time job to focus solely on growing his brand.

Additionally, Jacob has recently begun using Clickfunnels. He learned how to use dropshipping funnels that move customers toward a sale more efficiently. 

Making His Products Feel Like His Own

It’s important to make your products feel like your own and ensure customers associate them with your unique brand. Jacob understood this early on and continues to seek white-labeled products that he can rebrand with his own custom-designed packaging. This way, his customers receive his products and perceive him as their key provider, not merely a reseller. Subsequently, customers are more likely to visit his store again to purchase the same or similar products.

Keep in mind that when selling on an eCommerce store, people will want to purchase whatever assets belong to your business. A basic store selling AliExpress products with no rebranding can still be valuable as you collect emails and other assets. But your individual brand could also be a huge selling point. This is particularly the case if you have long-term customers who’ve come to trust your brand over others.

Setting Goals That Drive His Success

Screen grab of Jacob Jones and Peter Pru talking about how to use dropshipping funnels

Another key to Jacob’s success has been to set clear, realistic, and exciting goals that keep him continually motivated. One of his main current goals is to get into the Two Comma Club by the end of the year. He’s well on the way to achieving this goal. To attain this, he’s developing a store he launched about a month ago through Clickfunnels. So far, the new store has earned him around $95k. Another Shopify store that he started in May 2020 has already earned him around half a million within a year. 

One key goal that Jacob believes will help him achieve his ultimate goal is to continue using sales funnels via Clickfunnels. He intends on implementing this in future stores.

How to Use Dropshipping Funnels by Working With a Solid Team

Jacob also understands the value of a strong team working with him to achieve his dropshipping goals. If you want to go it entirely alone, you’re going to struggle. As your store grows, tasks will become overwhelming and difficult to manage. To keep his stores running efficiently, Jacob works with a virtual assistant. He’s also quick to emphasize the importance of delegating mundane and time-consuming tasks whenever possible. 

Jacob’s team is relatively small, consisting of him, a VA, and his supplier. But he intends to recruit more staff as his business continues to expand. Once you know how to use dropshipping funnels effectively, you can start to scale your business, too.

Sticking to an Effective Daily Routine

To help him stay focused on a regular basis, Jacob has developed a healthy daily routine that he follows. Now that he’s self-employed, he has ample time to dedicate to his business, which is reflected in his routine. Although you may not be at this level quite yet, you can get there eventually with the same persistence.

To start off his day, Jacob wakes up anywhere between 8 and 8:30 AM. He then begins writing down his daily tasks to establish a clear roadmap from dawn to dusk. As the day progresses, he checks off these items to keep him in line. This strategy gives him specific plans for every day, making sure he stays busy and productive.

Managing a Dependable Network of Ads

Screen grab of Jacob Jones and Peter Pru talking about dropshipping

Jacob also relies on several channels for his ads as part of his strategy for how to use dropshipping funnels. In addition to Facebook, which attracts around 90% of his total traffic, he runs ads through Snapchat, Google Ads, and TikTok. While he’s currently struggling with a Facebook ad campaign for his Clickfunnels store due to his specific niche, he’s working to mitigate this and get the most from this platform.

We believe that it’s perfectly fine to target multiple channels for ads as long as your target audience uses those platforms. But this isn’t necessary, either. We’ve found that many successful dropshipping businesses are able to pull in most of their customer base from a single source, such as Facebook or YouTube. If you can find that one specific channel that yields the best results, we definitely recommend sticking with it. The fewer platforms you use for ads, the easier your campaigns will be to manage.

Harnessing the Power of Email Lists

As he works to monetize non-buyers for his business, Jacob is proud of his email lists, which he sees as his main assets. It took him some time to begin building email lists, but he eventually took the time to get them up and running to his benefit. In the process, he’s been able to more easily stay in front of customers’ faces and connect with prospects and existing customers alike. 

We perceive email lists as particularly valuable because of their ability to influence people’s buying decisions more effectively than other marketing efforts. You can:

  • Show your recipients videos of influencers using your products.
  • Send enticing offers.
  • Showcase your brand in other ways to keep your audience aware of you.

Consistency Is a Key Part of How to Use Dropshipping Funnels

Dropshipper learning more about how to run an ecommerce business

When asked what Jacob recommends most to others looking to get into this business, he stated that persistence and consistency were vital. Jacob is able to devote most of his time to his endeavors now that he’s self-employed. But even if you’re still working a full-time job, you can gain the freedom he has by sticking to a strategy that works. Don’t be deterred by slow periods, and keep at it until you begin to grow your business. Over time, you’ll be able to overcome the various challenges you’re likely to face and then experience the kind of success that Jacob continues to enjoy. 

Like most success stories, Jacob’s is one of hard work and resilience that helped him get ahead. What helps him to grow further and move forward is the fact that he still doesn’t see his story as one of success quite yet. He’s always aiming toward a new goal to land him on the next plateau.

You, too, can build a winning dropshipping business by using sales funnels, high-quality and rebranded products, comprehensive ad campaigns, and a generally consistent strategy. If you want to learn more about how to use dropshipping funnels, succeed as a dropshipper, and earn a full-time income online, reserve your seat at our free ecommerce masterclass today. You can also pick up new tips and insights by visiting my YouTube channel.

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Using a New Sales Funnel Strategy to Make $10k in 7 Days

by Peter PruClickFunnels TrainingLeave a Comment on Using a New Sales Funnel Strategy to Make $10k in 7 Days

Today, we’re going to focus on how important it is to utilize the right sales funnel strategy — as well as the perfect formula for advertising on any platform. When it comes to dropshipping, it doesn’t matter what platform you’re using to drive traffic to your ecommerce shop: you want to see results.

With this project, we spent roughly $1,800 and within a week saw a return investment of over $10,000. The key takeaway we want you to have is that once you’ve pulled traffic in, you have to understand what to do with those online eyes reviewing your product. How do you utilize Clickfunnels to do more than pull a shopper in and make that initial sale?

What’s the Big Secret to Our Sales Funnel Strategy?

Many people think that there’s some big secret to dropshipping. While there are learning curves for finding the perfect formula, there’s no big secret to making sales. What you choose to do with the traffic visiting your dropshipping website is what defines your long-term success. For some reason, many people miss that opportunity. 

Rule one with dropshipping: you need to be sending people to a funnel, not just an open-ended space. The average funnel converts roughly 10% of visitors, while the average Shopify store converts around 1.5-2% at most. You’re going to be targeting cold traffic, which will be completely new customers that know nothing about you or your product. You don’t have the benefit of already having a consumer-to-business relationship with cold traffic. So your goal is to use your sales funnel to gain their trust and make them into returning customers. 

How Does The Sales Funnel Strategy Handle Cold Traffic?

Screen grab of Peter Pru discussing how to appeal to cold traffic

Rather than driving customers to a webpage with thousands of products, you want to directly target a single product with your sales funnel strategy. This means you have more chance to gain their trust, you can easily showcase the product, and there aren’t hundreds of distractions. The funnel is pitching a product to them virtually. So you want to ensure that the product advertised is clear, concise, and stands out from the competition. One of the best ways to do this is by advertising your bestseller. Everyone has one, and it’s easy to target cold traffic consumers with this product.

How It Works

For example, we took premium fishing lures, set them up on a specified landing page with an attractive offer. The funnel led consumers to a clean-cut page that showcased the product as a premium set of free fishing lures for a limited time. Not only did this attract cold traffic by offering a product to a targeted niche, but it pulled in consumers based on curiosity.

On the page, you could easily scroll and see the product, some high-quality imagery, testimonials, your standard 30-day money-back guarantee, secure checkout badges, and a short FAQ. The page was designed to have everything a consumer might worry about when choosing to trust an online advertisement from a platform like Google or Facebook. All of their questions about the deal were answered clearly and concisely to help build trust. 

By offering a great deal with comprehensible material, we were able to attract more than a passing glance. This is the perfect setup for cold traffic. It allows you to turn it into warm and eventually hot traffic. You don’t need other buttons to other pages on the platform or anything that could distract potential consumers. You only need your best-selling product advertised with its benefits highlighted.

This strategy allows you to create assets by pulling in their email via the deal. Even if they don’t buy today, you’ve already won by having the ability to potentially get their attention back with your next deal. 

Turning Cold Traffic Into Warm Traffic to Get to Hot Traffic

Peter Pru emphasizing the importance of keeping a sales funnel strategy simple

Now, you may wonder how cold traffic can be beneficial if it’s only for a single sale. The purpose of cold traffic isn’t solely to get somebody to buy a single product from your ecommerce shop. It’s to turn those buyers into warm traffic and eventually get them to that level of becoming hot traffic. While making the initial interaction is great, you want to take that cold traffic and turn it into the chance for something more.

To better understand the differences between the variations of consumer traffic, we’ll explain the benefits of each.

Cold Traffic

These customers aren’t familiar with your business. They’ve never shopped with you, and you’ll need to help them understand why they should purchase from you through the setup of your platform. These consumers aren’t on your email list. They don’t follow you on social media yet, and to put it simply, they don’t know anything about you. 

Cold traffic is:

  • New to your store, which is great and means that you were able to get their attention briefly
  • Can convert into a returning customer so that you make even more from them in the future
  • Might potentially tell their friends about you if your product is something great, which can lead to even more traffic

Warm Traffic 

This customer may not have bought from you yet. But they’ve been teetering on the line and are revisiting your page to potentially buy a product from you. They may have signed up for your email subscription already. But while they express interest in buying, they haven’t quite pulled the trigger yet. 

Warm traffic is:

  • Slightly familiar with you, which means you’re in the home stretch of making them into a customer or a returning customer
  • Has probably been paying attention to your services for a while and is showing interest in what you have to offer
  • One step close to becoming your favorite kind of traffic: hot

Hot Traffic

This is obviously the best kind of traffic. It means that an onlooking consumer has pulled the trigger and decided to trust you. They make the purchase and wait for their order to arrive. 

Make Things Simple With Your Sales Funnel Strategy

Now that you understand the importance of traffic, you can focus on how to make things as simple as can be for that hot traffic. This is where a lot of people mess up. Consumers don’t want an overly complex checkout system. If they’ve made it to this point, then they want you to continue being clear and concise. So make it simple and easy to follow through with a few clicks. Don’t continue to offer more products; just get to the checkout page. Make your deal clean-cut and simplify it. You’ve already won by turning them into hot traffic.

Once they’ve hit that complete order button, then lead them to additional special offers. This is the time for upsell pages that offer things like digital products, ebooks, and small items that encourage them to put more money in your pocket while still offering a deal.

For more great ways to turn your sales funnel strategy into an optimized system, register your free spot at our webinar. We will give you the knowledge to resources to drive traffic to your sales funnel, turn that traffic into hot traffic, and keep them coming back. You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel for frequent sales funnel insights.

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How to Make Money Online in 2021 With This Free Clickfunnels Template

by Peter PruClickFunnels TrainingLeave a Comment on How to Make Money Online in 2021 With This Free Clickfunnels Template

Regardless of what you’re selling online, sales funnels are the key to a successful ecommerce business. However, many entrepreneurs just starting out aren’t sure how to set up their funnels, or they’re wary about trying them. The fact is that, without a proper sales funnel in place, you’re going to struggle. To help you get started, we’ll go over how to stage your business for success with our free Clickfunnels template. You can download this sales funnel today and make it your own.

Start With the Squeeze Page

When you’re running any kind of online store, there are many aspects to think about as you get started. The advantage of a sales funnel is that it redirects your focus to the person you’re selling to instead of the storefront itself. As you first get into sales funnels, you’ll want to begin with the squeeze page. This is a landing page or opt-in page that hooks people into the sales funnel.

What Squeeze Pages Do

In short, the squeeze page is the page that you send your customers to when they’re about to order your products. In our free Clickfunnels template, our squeeze page sells a “Shooting Trainer” that basketball players can use to work on their shooting skills. You might bring people to your squeeze page from Facebook ads, Instagram ads, or other sources. The page will highlight a single product instead of a bunch of them. This helps ensure you connect with a specific audience. As a result, if someone isn’t interested in this particular product, they’ll be likely to click away. But active shoppers stay on the page. 

How to Set Up an Effective Squeeze Page

Screen grab of Peter Pru discussing a squeeze page in a free Clickfunnels template

Ultimately, you’ll want your squeeze page to get people to become leads during the first step. This means entering shipping information such as their name, address, phone number, and email address. After submitting their information, people will be in your database, allowing you to contact them later. 

Once they’ve opted in during Step 1, they’ll enter Step 2, which will allow them to select a specific product and enter billing info to complete their order. For example, in our free Clickfunnels template, people can choose to buy one or two basketball trainers through our offer. You can use Step 2 to list quantity breaks and discounts; highlight appealing offers to further drive sales for greater quantities of products.

Additionally, we have a one-time offer of an ebook download below the billing info. It’s a “Basketball Mastery Guide,” which makes it easy for customers to add this to their order. This is essentially free money for us: the ebook cost us no more than $10 once, and we can repeatedly sell it for $15 to multiple customers through this order bump. 

Remember the Real Purpose of a Sales Funnel

As you develop your squeeze page, keep in mind that the main purpose of a sales funnel is to generate assets for your business. This primarily consists of emails and phone numbers that enable you to promote new products and other offers. Secondly, you’ll want to use your funnels to maximize the average cart value by getting people to spend as much as possible on initial sales. This is huge for helping keep up with the costs of maintaining your business. Finally, your funnel should also maximize the overall lifetime value (LTV) through repeat sales, which generate consistent, predictable revenue.

Take Customers to an Upsell Page

Once customers have completed their order on the squeeze page, it’s time to lead them to your first upsell page. Don’t feel limited to one or two upsells, either. You can lead people to as many upsells as you want, all of which are one-click opportunities that make it easy to add more items to their order instantly. While people can choose not to add these items, many people are likely to be interested in purchasing additional products if they’re relevant to their initial order.

With more upsells comes a bigger increase in the average cart value. This can lead to increased revenue that you can then use to improve your ad campaigns. This will give you even more of a competitive edge. It’s important to remember the adage: “He who can spend the most to acquire customers wins.” With ample upsells and a maximized average cart value, you’ll be able to afford more ads that flush out the competition.

In our free Clickfunnels template, we’ve included two upsell pages: one for a “Limited Edition Shooting Strap” that corrects posture, and one for a pair of “Pro Skill Trainer Gloves” that allow for a better grip. Both of these go toward boosting the value of the average cart when people buy our Shooting Trainer through the squeeze page.

Offer a Form of Continuity to Maximize LTV

Ecommerce business owner creating a sales funnel

As we mentioned, the main goal of a sales funnel is to generate assets in the form of leads. All cold traffic should go through a sales funnel regardless of what you’re selling, with focus areas on specific products that attract equally specific audiences. First, you can maximize the average cart value through initial sales and upsells. Then you can conclude with continuity that maximizes the lifetime value of your customers. Once you’ve made that initial sale, you need to keep customers coming back to you with some type of continuity.

Continuity could include subscription boxes, digital memberships, and other offers that help generate income on a yearly or monthly basis. In our free Clickfunnels template, we create continuity in the form of a one-click upsell. People can pay $14.97 a month for weekly industry secrets that can improve their basketball training. That adds up to impressive compound interest that keeps the money coming in.

Subscription boxes are always a great option here if you’re offering physical products. You can work with a supplier like AliExpress to put together your boxes and ship them to customers. 

Regardless of the subscription you implement, a focus on continuity is vital for generating consistent revenue and enabling your business to grow without the need to spend more on ads.

Complete the Funnel With a Thank You Page

After taking people through your squeeze pages, upsells, and continuity offers, you can complete the interaction with a “thank you” page. But this page can include more than an order confirmation and a message thanking customers. It can also include additional affiliate offers or links to Shopify stores, further boosting sales. 

Get the Results You Want With a Reliable Sales Funnel

Screen grab of Peter Pru giving an overview of the essential components of a sales funnel

We encourage you to try this free Clickfunnels template with your bestselling products and see how well they perform. With a complete sales funnel that includes a squeeze page, multiple upsells, and continuity, you can see a significant increase in:

  • Conversions
  • Initial sales
  • Long-term customer relationships

Subsequently, you’ll have more money to spend on supercharging your marketing. You can stay ahead of competitors in an increasingly saturated market.

If you would like to learn more about how to use sales funnels to build a successful dropshipping business, reserve your seat at the Ecommerce Empire Builders masterclass. We’ll show you how to use sales funnels to your advantage and generate a full-time income online in no time. You can also visit my YouTube channel for in-depth advice and insights.

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Use This High-Ticket Products Sales Funnel Template to Earn $5,000/Month

by Peter PruClickFunnels TrainingLeave a Comment on Use This High-Ticket Products Sales Funnel Template to Earn $5,000/Month

One of the keys to a successful online business is an effective sales funnel, which is especially true for high-ticket products. To help you get the results you want from your online store when selling these products, we’re going to share with you a high-ticket products sales funnel template that’s helped us make millions online. High-ticket products, or those over $1,000 in value, can include a variety of digital, information, and physical products, along with certain services. The funnel we’re going to review here will help you sell these products, whatever they may be.

This high-ticket products sales funnel may seem simple on the surface. But perceived simplicity signifies a highly successful sales funnel. However, the element that will make or break your funnel is the offer — every funnel should start with a solid, enticing offer that effectively brings people into the funnel. To get started with this funnel, you can download it here. But we’ll first review how to set it up to drive sales for your high-ticket product store.

Begin Your High-Ticket Products Sales Funnel With the Opt-In Page

The opt-in page is a landing page that’s used to collect people’s email addresses and add them to a contact list. In short, the opt-in page will be the key to generating leads. One page we use in our funnel is very simple, with this basic but compelling offer: “Learn Our Process by Watching This Free Case Study & Receive a Complimentary Ecommerce Accelerator Call.” 

There are two core components to consider when developing your opt-in page using this funnel:

  1. Have a video offer that includes some kind of video content that people can view. This content can educate people about your products and your brand. This offer should feel like something that people can enjoy on their own time, which will be key to getting more people to opt-in. People don’t want to have to sit through a live webinar or something similar that might eat into their schedule.
  2. In addition to the initial offer, you should also include a bait opt-in that includes a kind of phone call. While you may not want to get on the phone with people, this is integral to getting people to opt in. You can either call leads yourself or have a sales team handle calls, but you will need to make these calls in some way to make this funnel work.

Below your opt-in offer, you can go into some of the benefits of the offer to sweeten the deal and encourage people to submit their contact info.

Bring People to the Video Page

Screen shot of Peter Pru talking about creating high-ticket offers

Once people opt in and enter the high-ticket products sales funnel, you can then direct them to the next page. This will also look simple and feature the video content discussed in the offer. On the page, people will see an embedded video window. Below that video, they’ll be able to click on a button to book their call with you or your sales team. Your video should do a good job introducing your products and explaining how they work along with their value. The better the video, the more likely those people will be to book a call with you.

The dynamic here revolves around marketing vs. sales. While your marketing video can help convince leads that your products are worth the purchase, the sales process will come into play after your marketing efforts have succeeded. If your video attracts marketing-qualified leads to convert them to sales-qualified leads, those leads will be more likely to buy from you after going through that qualification process. This sequence can also help weed out any leads who aren’t as likely to become customers. This saves more time and energy on your end.

At the end of the video and after explaining the benefits of your offer, you can then encourage leads to schedule their call and complete the next form.

Direct Leads to the Application Page

Screen grab of creating a question form for a high-ticket products sales funnel

After clicking on that “Book Your Call” button, people should go to the application page. This will feature a Wufoo form that asks people a series of questions to further qualify them as sales-qualified leads.

Remember that high-ticket products exceeding $1,000 are a huge financial commitment for many people. So you’ll want to be sure that they’re willing to spend that kind of money on your products before selling to them. On your forms, you can qualify leads by asking for certain required information, including:

  • Name
  • Call preference
  • Email address
  • Phone number or WhatsApp number
  • Whether the person watched the entire video or not (crucial for determining whether people understand the offer)
  • Their website
  • Other relevant information

The type of information you collect will ultimately depend on your niche and the specific types of products you’re offering. So feel free to change the form as you see fit. For instance, if you offer a $1,500 survival gear kit, you could ask certain qualifying questions such as “How long have you been into survival?” and “How much do you spend on average on survival gear?” 

The more details you gather about your leads, the more you can decide whether the lead fits into your business and is worth the call.

Move Sales-Qualified Leads to a Call Booking Page

Once people have completed your application form, you can direct them to a call booking page. We use ScheduleOnce. It is a simple and easy-to-use HTML plugin that adds a basic booking page. Using this scheduler, people can simply choose from specific dates and times to book a call. Once they pick a specific time, leads will then be asked to submit basic contact details again, including their name, email address, or a WhatsApp number for international customers.

At the end of the scheduling form, you should also include a short description of the terms of the call. This could remind people to include any other decision-makers, such as their spouse, while helping ensure that they will be respectful and honor their promise to accept your call. These terms will further make sure that only the right people who are ready to make a serious buying decision will take your calls.

Complete the High-Ticket Products Sales Funnel With a Call Confirmation Page

Entrepreneur on the phone with a qualified lead

To prepare your leads and provide even more value after they’ve booked a call, take them to your call confirmation page. This page can feature another video that thanks people for scheduling a call. It should also instruct people to remind themselves of the anticipated call.

Below that video, you can further emphasize the value of your products by including testimonials. These will help reassure prospective customers that they’re making the right decision.

Simplicity Is Key in This High-Ticket Products Sales Funnel

Regarding this and any other sales funnel, simplicity is what will help drive sales. The more complicated you make the buying process and the more steps you include, the fewer conversions you’ll see. Include only enough steps to qualify leads and get them to contact you. This will help increase your chances of success. If any aspect of your sales funnel isn’t performing the way you’d hoped, you can always experiment and see what works for you based on your specific niche and audience.

Do you want to learn more about how to build a successful online store? Whether you sell high-ticket products or more inexpensive offerings, we’ll show you how with our free Ecommerce Empire Builders masterclass. Reserve your seat today, and we’ll give you everything you need to get started generating a full-time income online. For specific insights and tips as you build your store, also subscribe to my YouTube channel.

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Why You Need to Move Away From Walmart and Amazon FBA in 2021

by Peter PruSystems & ProcessesLeave a Comment on Why You Need to Move Away From Walmart and Amazon FBA in 2021

The fact is that as of 2021, Amazon FBA and Walmart are officially dead for ecommerce dropshippers. If you’re currently a seller on Amazon or Walmart or you’re toying with the idea of using either as your sales platform, we recommend you move away from them and build your own sales infrastructure. The reason for this is revealed in a recent report from The Wall Street Journal, in which they detail how it’s actually often cheaper for Amazon and Walmart retailers to issue full refunds of products and let customers hold onto or donate them. This revelation can make both of these businesses detrimental to your dropshipping business in several ways. Read more about the state of business for dropshippers using Walmart and Amazon FBA in 2021.

What The Wall Street Journal Findings Mean for Your Business

The article in question discussed how retailers Amazon and Walmart, potentially followed by others in the future, are no longer requiring customers to return unwanted items. Those items technically belong to the retailers (as opposed to individual sellers). So those companies have the authority to give customers permission to keep unwanted items along with a full refund. Amazon and Walmart reason that it’s simply cheaper for them to let customers hold onto those items. But that can be harmful to business owners by tempting people to game the system. Customers who aren’t honest can hang onto items they’ve purchased while requesting a refund. This essentially allows them to get free products at the seller’s expense.

The article shows once again how ecommerce giants like Walmart and Amazon are really in control of sellers’ products and don’t truly have sellers’ best interests at heart. However, this isn’t really news at all. Many people may be familiar with the fact that, for several years now, Amazon has allowed customers to keep products rather than return them. This a long-held practice of theirs. The WSJ article simply helped raise even more awareness of this issue.

Losing Money From Unreturned Products on Amazon FBA in 2021

Screen grab of Peter Pru discussing the Wall Street Journal article about Amazon FBA in 2021

The problem with enabling customers to keep unwanted products — which in some cases may not actually be unwanted at all — is that this hurts sellers who could otherwise resell those products. And it’s worse than an inability to resell returned products. Sellers are also hit with fees that cause them to lose even more money when customers choose to get a refund without returning their items. These problems further emphasize how harmful those big retailers can be. They can be great for occasionally free traffic and sales, but you should avoid building your business through them.

Walmart and Amazon, along with other big names in the industry, may seem like a haven for sellers. They can use the platforms to push products and generate lots of sales. But it’s important to keep in mind that they’re only looking out for themselves. In short, the products sold through those channels don’t belong to the seller; they belong to those platforms. That means that Amazon and Walmart can do what they want with them. You forfeit control over your own inventory.

Do you want to make a profit and retain control over your products and business in general? Then make sure that your primary source of sales is your website. Setting up a sales funnel and developing a successful website that you actually own will ensure you don’t suffer from another retailer’s attempts to cut corners.

A Recent Surge in Returns for Sales on Walmart and Amazon FBA in 2021

Screen grab of Peter Pru discussing changes in consumer behavior during COVID-19

Another recent article on PYMNTS.com talked more about the rise in product returns experienced with retailers (including Walmart, Amazon, and Target) throughout 2020. The new decision to allow customers to keep unwanted items was officially made as a result of an increase in returns that took place in 2020, with ecommerce packages seeing a 70% increase in returns compared to 2019. 

Due to the pandemic and the subsequent inability to take items to physical stores, returning items became more challenging for consumers. The rise in ecommerce as more people turned to online shopping during lockdowns also led to more returns. Generally, online orders tend to lead to more returns than in-store purchases. Why? This is largely due to the hassle of having to return to the store after buying an item in person. Also, people may be disappointed or receive something different from what they expect when ordering a product online because they can’t see or try the product in person before purchasing.

Unfortunately, while Amazon and Walmart’s decision to let customers keep products they no longer want may be convenient for both consumers and those retailers, it’s a considerable loss for sellers.

Build Your Own Business Without Relying on Walmart or Amazon FBA in 2021

The best way to avoid the potential costs and headaches associated with product refunds and unreturned items is to stay away from companies like Amazon and Walmart. You don’t necessarily need to avoid them entirely. They can be beneficial in generating traffic for you and boosting sales. But they shouldn’t be your primary platforms.

Instead, build your own website and control the traffic to it. Develop a sales funnel that moves people along through the buyer’s journey toward a sale and upsell. Once you’ve built a solid foundation for your business and you’re able to sustain it, then you can consider branching out to outside retail platforms like Amazon FBA in 2021. The more control you have at the start, the more likely you are to succeed and grow. Then you don’t have to worry about what corporations are doing that may hurt smaller businesses. 

Start with your own website and your own platform that attracts short- and long-term customers. Then you can leverage the power of larger companies to supplement your core efforts. The less you rely on a company like Amazon, the less likely they will be to negatively impact your business in a way that matters. You’ll always have that main source of sales to keep you safely afloat.

Consult With the Ecommerce Empire Builder Experts

Dropshipper thinking about how to strengthen their ecommerce business

Do you want to learn how to build a winning online business and succeed without Amazon, Walmart, or other retailers? If so, reserve your seat at our free ecommerce masterclass. We’ll show you how you can sell best-selling products online and create a full-time income using reliable ecommerce funnels to grow your business. For frequent tips and insights, visit my YouTube channel, too.

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Hack Your Sales Funnel and Turn $10 Into $100 With Dropshipping

by Peter PruSystems & ProcessesLeave a Comment on Hack Your Sales Funnel and Turn $10 Into $100 With Dropshipping

Empire builders, not only is it possible to turn $10 to $100 with your ecommerce business, but you can do it again and again. Ecommerce and dropshipping are great opportunities to predictably expand your profits, week by week. Learn how to hack your sales funnel for more streamlined — and repeatable — profits.

How It’s Commonly Done 

When it comes to ecommerce and dropshipping, there’s a pattern that most entrepreneurs use in order to sell their product. This usually involves increasing traffic to their website and to a single product through advertising, social media, influencer promotion, and whatever other means suit their product. This is a service that is paid for and therefore cuts into profit margins. 

Take a company that sells their merchandise for $20. Increasing traffic to their website, and therefore getting a consumer to look at their product, will generally cost around $10. Now, this initially seems like a great deal. They just made $10. 

However, this isn’t looking at the bigger picture. The initial potential for revenue is $20. This is immediately halved due to the cost of advertisements and increasing traffic. Then, you also have to take into account the cost of the product, as this is an example involved with dropshipping a physical product. 

Even if the product and shipping costs only come to $5, the company is left with a net of $5. That’s not exactly a number that inspires, and this is what scares people always from starting their empire. There’s an easier way to make a profit right away and create a successful dropshipping business. 

A Better Way: Hack Your Sales Funnel

Screen grab of Peter Pru explaining how upselling can change net profits

The key is controlling the narrative and how much you’re able to make. Let’s look at this another way, but with the exact same initial setup. You start with a product that has a potential revenue of $20, and the cost of advertising is still $10. This is where I want to mix things up and introduce something new. 

We don’t want to just leave things as they currently stand, with the potential to make $5. We want to grow this potential. 

To do that, I’m going to add a simple one-click upsell — nothing too complicated or technical. If you want to dive into the meat of why this works, I’ve extensively covered the topic before. If you want to learn how I took a brand-new business and turned $0 to $1000 a day in only three days, click here! 

 How to Add an Upsell to Your Sales Funnel

For our purposes now, just view the upsell as an opportunity for your business to make more money without spending more on additional advertising. It basically allows a customer to buy more of your product and to do so easily. This is important for any business, no matter what you’re selling or in what format. 

Your first sale is likely not going to amount to much of a profit. In fact, even the previous example is optimistic. Breaking even is a pretty good goal when you’re first starting out. So, if you offer a $40 upsell, then your revenue just jumped up to $60. After subtracting $10 for advertising and maybe $20 for the cost of goods, your net is now $30. That’s a lot better than $5. 

While not every customer is going to purchase your upsell, you’re allowing yourself the opportunity to make more money per sale, and some consumers will decide to go for it. The best part is, the potential doesn’t stop there. You can customize this funnel and how things sell to fit your company’s needs. 

You don’t have to just have one upsell. The first sale you make, once a consumer decides to use their money on your product, dictates the rest of your profits. Once you learn this, it’s almost like magic. 

Subscription-Based Sales Funnels

Screen grab of Peter Pru discussing the value of subscription offers

That first sale you make — our $20 example — is going to be the hardest. It’s also going to be the most important, as all the pieces start from that sale and are put together to maximize your profits. The amount you’re going to make all stems from what you do behind the scenes. 

In this subscription-based sales funnel method, things start in the same way. You have your traffic coming into your store for your front-end product. However, this time visualize an order form, which is where someone buys something from your store. Your $20 product will be on this order form. Then, you’re going to want to implement the following hacks to increase the amount of product a single customer will buy from you, or your average cart value:

Step One to Hack Your Sales Funnel: Encourage Bigger Buys

My first suggestion is to add quantity discounts. If a consumer buys 4, or 6 of your products, they should get a discount. You might be questioning if anyone would actually buy multiples, but studies show they do. People love a good deal. Take advantage of this and offer a better discount as the quantity goes up. It’s going to make you more money by increasing the likelihood that more of your product will sell to a single customer. 

Step Two to Hack Your Sales Funnel: Create Order Bumps

Next, consider adding something called an order bump right under your front-end product. This is basically a no-brainer you offer a customer to buy alongside your product. Your local grocery store already does this by enticing you with little treats as they’re ringing up your groceries. Think about how often you take advantage of those. 

If you’re a company selling toothbrushes, your order bump would be toothpaste. Why wouldn’t a consumer take advantage? When they do, that’s more money for you. This can help you break even or make a profit from the very start. Then, you can move to other tactics.

To summarize steps one and two: I recommend offering more of what they just bought at a discounted price and then a complementary product. This is any product customers frequently buy alongside your type of primary product, and you can easily figure out what this product might be through Amazon. Make sure you’re giving them a good deal on the product as well. Offering these two upsells should be simple, allowing the customer to either choose yes or no and then move on.

They won’t have to navigate throughout the website or click through multiple pages. They can buy lots of your products with two clicks, as there are no cart pages. That’s the beauty of this funnel. 

Step Three to Hack Your Sales Funnel: Create Subscription Upsell Sequences

Happy customer opening a subscription box package

The third upsell is key. I refer to this upsell as the continuity upsell, and it’s the subscription aspect of your funnel. Offer your customers a monthly incentive, such as a subscription box or digital access. This will give you recurring revenue and a loyal customer base. Here’s more information about subscriptions, because they really are gold for your company. The subscription upsell should be another one-click option, and customers automatically get billed. Aim for a 50% margin here, as this is where you’ll want to pay yourself and invest in other assets for your company. Always, always, always offer a subscription option!

Here’s something else to keep in mind. When you pay for advertisements on Facebook, you’re not paying for customers. You’re paying for data that will help you understand more about what consumers want. A simple upsell sequence will help you get more of that data and make more money. It’s easy, fast, and beneficial for someone’s first business. 

Hack Your Sales Funnel and Grow Your Business Faster

When you put all of these pieces together, you can really start to see a potential for great profit. The original example of $5 in net profit can easily be turned into hundreds if not thousands of dollars when you implement these funnels and sequences. You can also check out my YouTube channel for more tips and insights.

If you enjoyed this information and are looking forward to starting your own dropshipping business and maximize your product, check out my free ecommerce masterclass. You’ll learn how to make a 5-step ecommerce funnel without building a website and turn it into your full-time income. Reserve your seat today, and remember: your empire starts now!

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How to Improve Your Dropshipping Store: Our Animated Lure Analysis

by Peter PruDropshipping Case StudiesLeave a Comment on How to Improve Your Dropshipping Store: Our Animated Lure Analysis

You may have seen the company Animated Lure featured on the “Shark Tank” television show. There, they advertised a robotic fishing lure that features lifelike movement to attract fish. The product itself is impressive, but it’s important to remember that marketing is what will ultimately sell it. Improve your dropshipping store by seeing how Animated Lure runs their marketing efforts.

As Kevin from “Shark Tank” himself has said, many of the products on that show wouldn’t have been successful if it weren’t for the publicity that the show provides. Animated Lure experienced a particularly notable amount of success following their “Shark Tank” appearance, and we wanted to find out whether that success came down to their publicity through “Shark Tank” or their own marketing efforts.

Here, we’ll review what Animated Lure is doing to sell their products and determine what they’re doing right and wrong. In turn, you can apply some of what’s working in these strategies to your dropshipping business.

What Animated Lure Is Doing in Their Ads

Looking at the Facebook Ad Library, we were able to gain some insight into what Animated Lure was doing to sell their products using social media ads. We were able to focus on one ad that launched on November 6. This ad featured brief, concise copy and a demonstration video. It’s worth noting that demo videos are great for warm traffic. People likely came across this product on “Shark Tank,” which led them to find out how the product actually works. 

The video ad features someone fishing with the lure, throwing the lure into a pond and catching a large fish with it. While it doesn’t show the actual act of catching the fish, only the result, it’s effective enough to show that the product works. The ad also shows the lure while used in a pool. This allows you to see its movements, which are as realistic and lifelike as advertised. Overall, it’s a reasonably effective ad that shows the lure in use and highlights the “animated” element that makes this product stand out.

At the time of this review, that ad is the only ad that Animated Lure is running on Facebook. Ultimately, it takes people to their website with a CTA directly below the video.

Navigating the Animated Lure Store

Screen grab of Animated Lure's long purchase process through product clicks

The store that their Facebook ad takes you to is a very basic store. At this point, people can choose from several variations of the Animated Lure product. Now, there’s one problem that we noticed with this strategy so far. Generally, after showing an ad with a demonstration of a specific product, you would simply link to the specific product shown in the ad. Instead, Animated Lure links to their main store page. This forces the customer to choose between different options, potentially leading to indecisiveness and uncertainty that turn people away.

Audiences want to be told what’s best when shopping for products. While options can be great, they may not know which to choose. They might not even be open to experimentation because they lack familiarity with the product. In a product demonstration that shows a product in action and resulting in success, people want to know which specific product is used and buy it. An easy way to always improve your dropshipping store is by clearly directing your customers to the product shown in your ads.

Improve Your Dropshipping Store With the 80/20 Rule

It’s always advisable to go by the 80/20 rule. This rule dictates that 80 percent of your sales will come from 20 percent of your products. Once you’ve pinpointed which of your products are the money-makers, improve your dropshipping store and direct new customers to them. If you give people too many places to click, each click leads to another touchpoint. The customer can drop off.  You want to simplify the process and keep your sales funnels efficient instead. So keep the number of possible clicks to a minimum for visitors from your ads. The shorter the distance you can create between your ads and the checkout page, the higher your conversion rates will be.

We believe the Animated Lure ad’s destination may have given people too many choices for initial sales. But their store, in general, is admirably simple. It’s not overly complicated to navigate, and the products have clear thumbnail images that show what people can expect.

How Animated Lure’s Strategy Could Benefit From an Upsell

Business owner testing out how to improve their dropshipping store

Rather than sending people to a wide selection of product variations the way their ad currently does, we recommend linking to the specific product that appears in the ad. However, with so many variations, we think the sales funnel could try to upsell the other products. 

An upsell would be a great way to advertise variations that may be ideal for certain fishing conditions. For instance, a customer may buy the Gizzard Shad variation. Then, the site might upsell their Bluegill lure, claiming that it’s best when used in certain weather or when the water is murkier.

By pushing that popular item based on the 80/20 rule and upselling others, you can significantly boost sales, improve your dropshipping store performance, and maximize your average cart value. Even better, you can use a subscription to keep people paying while sending them different variations. This will be perfect if your customers like their initial purchase.

Inadequate Product Pages Could Further Hinder Sales

When looking at individual products on the Animated Lure website, we discovered a disappointing lack of listed benefits. There are some brief product descriptions. But if someone comes across the store who hasn’t seen the company’s “Shark Tank” episode, that absence of information could keep them from buying. 

Another issue we noticed was the quality of the images that the website uses. Some of the images are not appealing and don’t do their products justice. They have plain white-gray backgrounds and nothing to make the product stand out. In addition, we also wondered where any testimonials and reviews were that could convince people to make a purchase.

Ultimately, it seems to us that Animated Lure relies mainly on their “Shark Tank” publicity to sell these products. As a result, the company is offering nothing really concrete and persuasive for people who might be entirely unfamiliar with their brand and products.

In your product pages, you should improve your dropshipping store by:

  • Highlighting benefits
  • Using high-quality images
  • Showcasing reviews
  • Providing enough details about features that can collectively convince people that your products are worth buying

Looking at Animated Lure’s Social Proof at Improve Your Dropshipping Store

Online shopper leaving reviews and ratings as social proof

Another big contributor to a business’s success is good social proof. We found plenty of videos on YouTube showing Animated Lure’s products in action. But we were a bit disappointed to find that they had a mere 3,000 or so followers on Instagram. Their YouTube profile was also underwhelming. It has only around 800 subscribers and a handful of videos, the most recent of which was uploaded a year ago. 

In a niche like fishing, it should be easy to get hundreds or even thousands of likes for photos on a platform like Instagram. People are always showing what they caught and sharing their experiences with different fishing gear. So it’s important to harness the power of social media if you’re in this niche. Show people using your products to catch big fish, or show the different features of your products. If you stay active on social media, you can hook (no pun intended) a lot more people through these channels.

Animated Lure is doing certain things right. They have a simple store that’s easy to navigate and ads that show their product at work. However, we believe there is a lot of room for improvement in their sales funnel and social media strategies. Although Animated Lure might be seeing around seven figures on a weekly basis from sales, much of that success is likely due to their “Shark Tank” appearance — not their overall online presence. We hope you can learn from some of the issues we found and use these lessons to build a winning dropshipping sales funnel.

Improve Your Dropshipping Store — Consult With the Pros

If you would like to learn more about how to create the perfect dropshipping store that makes it easy to generate a full-time income online, reserve your free spot at the Ecommerce Empire Builders masterclass today! Also, visit our YouTube channel for more insights into building your ads and stores.

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Increase Dropshipping Sales Without Paying for Ads

by Peter PruSystems & ProcessesLeave a Comment on Increase Dropshipping Sales Without Paying for Ads

If you want to increase dropshipping sales without running a paid advertising campaign, read on. There are ways to easily multiply your sales by using subscriptions. Many people who go into eCommerce fail because of a lack of one major component: predictability. It’s easy to get excited when you start making those first sales through dropshipping. But then you have to handle shipping, product costs, and other expenses until you have barely any money left over. Without that predictability, you’re less likely to appeal to customers and encourage sales.

Using Subscription Services to Increase Dropshipping Sales With Predictability

One of the best ways to bring predictability to your business is to implement subscription services. If people know what to expect with your business on a regular basis with a repeat subscription — and the same customers keep buying from you on a weekly or monthly basis — you’re much more likely to both attract and retain more customers. Consider how many subscription-based businesses have become successful, from Dollar Shave Club to Disney+. The reason a company like Dollar Shave Club was able to sell for billions of dollars was that it had predictable revenue. People don’t want to invest in businesses that only drive one-time sales.

Keep in mind that you need to do more than simply add a subscription to your business. Think about specifically how you intend to sell the subscription. The following guide will help you start using subscriptions to increase dropshipping sales.

Step 1: Get Inspired

Screen grab of how to find product ideas through subscription box reviews

The very first thing you need to do when adding subscriptions to your business is to get inspired. You won’t be able to implement a subscription if you don’t have some ideas to help you get started. Regardless of whether you currently have a dropshipping business, you should take some time to see what people are doing and incorporate some of those ideas into your own business model.

One of the best ways to get some ideas is to visit MySubscriptionAddiction.com, which is a blog that publishes reviews of just about every subscription box out there. While the site consists of reviews, it’s not the reviews themselves you’ll be looking at. Instead, look at what some of these boxes are offering. Get some ideas for products that look like they will help you increase dropshipping sales. Based on the niche you want to target, you can locate a box with relevant products and see if something similar is worth including in yours. 

For example, you may find a cool-looking arts and crafts box that’s intended for people of all ages. This can help you develop your own arts and crafts subscription box if you want to target this particular niche.

Step 2: Choose Products for Your Box

After you’ve gotten some ideas for your own subscription box while browsing MySubscriptionAddiction.com or other sources, you can begin looking for some products to sell.

Let’s take the arts and crafts example. Once you’ve decided that you want to cover this niche after seeing an example, check out Alibaba.com. In the search bar at the top of the page, you could conduct a search for arts and crafts. From there, you may see a list of a wide range of products in this niche, such as decorative wood figures that your customers could put together. It’s easy to get lost in the many products available, especially since so many of the options can help you increase dropshipping sales. So feel free to take some time to browse and find the perfect product for your business.

Step 3: Look at the Supplier

Dropshipper calling a supplier in an independent meeting

Even if the product looks good and you’re ready to add it to your subscription, take a close look at the supplier. You can’t increase dropshipping sales without a supplier who can keep up. Your supplier should be reputable and well-liked, as you’re likely to be working with this supplier for years on end. On Alibaba, you can look at the supplier’s star rating. This metric grades suppliers on a 5-star scale based on service, on-time delivery, and product quality. A star rating of 4.5 or higher is generally great.

You should also check to see if the supplier has regular transactions. You can see the total dollar amount of transactions per a certain number of transactions over a period of time. 

Finally, look at the supplier’s response rate, which is crucial. If it’s hard to get ahold of your supplier, you’re going to have a difficult time working with them to sell their products through your subscription. A good response rate is around 80% or higher. This indicates that the supplier is very quick to respond and won’t leave you in the dark at any point.

Pay Attention to the Business’s Details

Also, find out how long the supplier has been on Alibaba. You may find that while a supplier looks great, with a high star rating, fast response time, and an ideal location like the United States, the supplier has only been on the website for a year. In most cases, you’ll likely want to avoid suppliers that haven’t been on Alibaba for very long. The website has been around for a long time, and good, well-established suppliers are likely well aware of this platform. So there’s generally not a good reason for them to not be established. 

However, you may find a supplier that, while not having been on the site for long, is verified. In these cases, it may be worth trusting a supplier that’s relatively new to the platform.

Look Carefully at Their Alibaba Page

Once you’ve found what looks like a good supplier, visit their company page on Alibaba and learn more about them before reaching out. Keep in mind that when contacting a supplier, don’t rely on Alibaba’s website’s live chat or other on-site communication. Try to get them to contact you via phone, Skype, email, or other third-party channels.

The most important item to look at on their company page before contacting them is Business Type. Here, it should always say Manufacturer. If it only says Trading Company, skip over this supplier. Trading companies essentially act as unnecessary middlemen between you and the manufacturer. Instead, it’s best to work directly with a manufacturer when possible.

You can also see other details such as how long they’ve been in business, the number of employees they have, certifications, and more to help you make your decision.

Step 4: Reach Out to the Supplier

After finding that perfect product and ideal supplier, don’t click that “Start Order” button just yet. You’ll wind up being overcharged. Instead, negotiate with the supplier when you contact them and try to work out the best possible deal.

Also, ask for a product catalog, which the supplier should always be willing to send. You should then receive a massive PDF or another file that could give you an endless number of ideas for products to sell in your subscription.

When contacting a supplier, always stress that you’re looking to establish a long-term relationship with them. This will encourage them to do business with you as a reliable seller. 

Step 5: Choose a Fulfillment Center

Screen grab of discussing fulfillment service providers

With a product and supplier chosen, you’ll want to ship products to a fulfillment center. There are several fulfillment centers that you can choose from, including:

  • Dollar Fulfillment
  • ShipOffers
  • ShipZOOM

In some cases, your supplier could also fulfill orders for you. Regardless of how you go about it, the fulfillment center will package and ship your subscription boxes on your behalf.

Step 6: Select Packaging Options

Some fulfillment centers will provide packaging options in addition to fulfillment. Otherwise, you will need to seek other packaging options. 

If you want to use custom boxes that feature cool and unique designs for your subscriptions, we recommend you go through Lumi. Simply visit their catalog page from the main navigation menu, and take a look. Their Corrugated Mailer Boxes, for example, are great for most subscription boxes.

If you have under 1,000 subscribers at this point, we don’t recommend getting a custom box. Using a plain box design without any writing on it is often best to start with. Wait until it’s worth the cost to upgrade to a custom design. Most customers will care more about what’s inside of the box instead of the exterior. So don’t spring for a custom box if you don’t need it.

The fulfillment center will also take care of all the logistics for packaging. All you need to do is tell them what you want, and they’ll do the rest.

Step 7: Build a Sales Funnel to Increase Dropshipping Sales

When it comes to actually selling your subscription box, you don’t want to rely on Facebook ads. Why? Because you’ll quickly find that those ads don’t perform the best on their own. People are more likely to see your box as just another monthly bill that they have to pay if you don’t sell it effectively.

Rather than relying on generic ad campaigns, the best way to sell your subscription is to develop a sales funnel. Start by leading people in with an inexpensive one-time product, which gives your customers value. From there, you can upsell them with your subscription box. This way, you’ll be paying social media advertising platforms for a sale rather than for a monthly subscription.

Through an effective sales funnel, you’ll be able to increase dropshipping sales of your main product and your subscriptions. This can boost your revenue without the need to pay for costly ad campaigns or other expenses. To learn more about how to build a winning sales funnel and develop an unstoppable eCommerce business, reserve your seat at our free eCommerce masterclass today.

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The Problem With Shopify Dropshipping: What You Need to Know

by Peter PruClickFunnels TrainingLeave a Comment on The Problem With Shopify Dropshipping: What You Need to Know

Welcome back, Empire Builders! If you’re thinking about getting started with Shopify dropshipping or you’re currently a Shopify dropshipper and aren’t getting the results you expected, keep reading. We’ll be going over the problem with Shopify dropshipping and why it’s difficult to be profitable on that platform. Then, we’ll discuss alternatives that can help you start making money right away.

Over the past few months, we’ve been creating a ton of dropshipping businesses and split-testing different approaches. Now that the results are in, we want to share what we’ve learned about starting your dropshipping business more profitably.

The Typical Problem With Shopify Dropshipping “Funnels”

The typical Shopify dropshipping “funnel” is where you’ll find the problem with Shopify dropshipping that stops so many sellers from making money. The word “funnel” is in quotes here because while it’s technically correct, it’s a very poor example of what a funnel should be. Let me show you what I mean. 

This is what your typical Shopify dropshipping “funnel” looks like:

Ad→ Product Page→ Add to Cart→ Cart Page→ Checkout Page #1: Shipping Info→ Checkout Page #2: Billing Info→ Complete Purchase/Thank You Page

Each of those arrows is a step that customers must complete to make the purchase. They’re also opportunities for the customer to drop off and not come back to finish the transaction. That’s the most costly problem with Shopify dropshipping. Consider how many ads people see each day, how seldom they click them, and that, as humans, we have the attention span of goldfish. When we finally do get that click, we need to get to the money as quickly as possible before life gets in the way and customers don’t come back. The “funnel” shown above does not work!

Many will argue that influencers or popular companies make millions that way. You’re right — your competitors who have warm leads and dedicated followings are making money off their popularity, But that’s despite the flaws in their methods. You don’t have that luxury, and you have to compete with them. So that’s even more reason to optimize your funnel!

What Does a Good Sales Funnel Look Like?

We use ClickFunnels to build our sales funnels, but you can use different software if you like. We use ClickFunnels because they have all the tools we need to make our funnels as profitable as possible and have it up and running within the day. 

Let’s compare ClickFunnels to Shopify. We’re going to say that the ad and the customers who click on it are identical. The funnel is the only thing that’s changed. Here’s the new funnel, done the right way:

Ad→ 2-Step Order Form→ Upsell→ Upsell→ Complete Purchase/Thank You Page

As you can see, the structure has a two-step order form right at the beginning. We get their name, email, billing, and shipping information right up front. That allows us to build our email list and follow up — whether they purchased or not. It also shows them our products and quantity break discounts, so they can choose what they want and how many they want. Then the rest of the steps are one-click upsells, usually including a subscription.

Real-Life Example of a Poorly Optimized Funnel

Screen grab highlighting multiple clicks as the problem with Shopify dropshipping

I saw an ad for a pet product and clicked it to see how many clicks it would take to complete a purchase. Here’s what I had to do:

Ad→ Add to Cart→ Checkout→ Continue to Shipping Info→ Continue to Payment→ Complete Purchase

It took six clicks! That’s three times as many as it should be! That gives customers more time to change their minds, get distracted, get frustrated, or any number of other possibilities.   

Real-Life Example of a Well Optimized Funnel

Instead, you want to set it up so that when leads click on an ad, it sends them to a sales page that highlights one offer with features, benefits, and images. Right next to the offer on that same page is where the two-step order form should be. With this design, you get their information right away, and they turn into a lead on your email list. On most sites, menus and options are great. But for an ad landing page, you don’t want to give them a ton of places to click off and get distracted. It should be simple and to the point.

Most people – around 90% – won’t buy the first time they end up on your site. They’ll want more information and to get to know you better first. When you get the contact information quickly, you have what you need to make that happen. Growing your email list and using email marketing is like printing money. You already have the names. All you have to do is reach out to them.

Good Sales Funnels Solve the Problem With Shopify Dropshipping

Screen grab of a Shopify sales funnel diagram

The value of this funnel is in ensuring that more qualified leads make it to your order form. If they put in their billing and shipping information, they’re more likely to buy. That’s why these funnels convert about 10%, while the Shopify ones only convert 1.33%. That’s nearly ten times more by merely changing your funnel.

On the second page of the order form, they can select their product. I always provide multiple quantity break discounts to encourage them to buy for a better deal. Then I have what’s called an order bump. That’s the pre-purchase upsell, much like the candy aisle at grocery store checkouts. You see it, and it’s convenient and tempting, so you just toss it in while you’re already there.

Make sure your order bump is a no-brainer item that pairs with your original offer. This will increase your average order value (AOV). Then the next clicks take you to one-click upsells before completing the order. I like having a subscription upsell in there to let them sign up for monthly orders. With this option, you can get consistent sales every month without additional work.

Final Thoughts About the Problem With Shopify Dropshipping

Dropshipper building a more convenient sales funnel

I see many people mistakenly assuming that if they aren’t making big profits, the product must be bad. Usually, the product itself is fine. It’s the sales strategy that needs work. Another mistake I see is a focus on lowering their cost-per-purchase. Ad spend isn’t going down — it’s just not. Constantly trying to reduce it creates inconsistencies that cost you more money.

Instead, flip the issue. While your competition tries to lower costs, focus on increasing your AOV instead so you can afford better ads to bring in more leads and still make higher profits. If you use optimized funnels with the right upsells and subscriptions paired with list-building and simple automated email marketing, you can succeed. It’s not unusual to see an average cart value of over $30-$40 on a FREE+Shipping offer with the right funnel and upsells.

To learn more about dropshipping and strategic sales, sign up for my masterclass where I’ll teach you how I made a full-time income online with a 5-page funnel and without touching a product or building a site. You’ll also get my $100k funnel template FREE! Get ready to build your empire.

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