Ecommerce Empire Builders

Why Your Shopify Dropshipping Store Isn’t Making Sales

by Peter PruSeptember 6, 2021September 4, 2021Product ResearchLeave a Comment

If you find that you’re not making the kinds of sales you want to with a new or existing Shopify dropshipping store, one of the most common reasons why your Shopify dropshipping store isn’t making sales is because you chose the wrong product to sell. To boost your sales and get better results from your store, there are certain criteria to consider as you optimize it.

Struggling With Selecting the Right Product for Your Store

Many dropshippers make the mistake of either selling the wrong product or failing to effectively market their products, which means their dropshipping store isn’t making sales. If you’re not generating the number of sales you want to experience based on your goals, there are some steps you can take and examples to follow that will help you get through your current slump. It can be discouraging to enter dropshipping, only to find that your products aren’t moving. Still, there are ways to identify the issue and make the necessary changes to your strategy.

The three main criteria to consider when your dropshipping store isn’t making sales with your current products are:

How does your product save time?
How does your product save money?
Does your product have a “just gotta have it” appeal?

You need to meet at least two of these criteria for your product to have a chance to succeed. People want products that provide clear benefits. Alternatively, they want to be impressed with a certain “wow” factor that differentiates your product from the rest. Subsequently, if you can save your customers time or money or leave them in awe, you’ll be able to move your product. Of course, you’ll fare even better if you can meet all three criteria. So start researching products that check all those boxes.

To give you a better idea of which products are worth selling through your dropshipping store, including platforms like Shopify, we’ll go over some live examples of winning products.

Example #1: Glow-in-the-Dark Self-Adhesive Tape

Screen grab of Peter Pru discussing how glow-in-the-dark tape can be a great product

One product we found that appeared to be doing well and met at least one of the criteria we’re looking for is a brand of glow-in-the-dark tape. Homeowners can use this to decorate their homes. They can also make certain rooms stand out, or they can create pathways and improve safety in other ways.

When thinking about the type of audience this product would appeal to, one niche that came to mind was gamers. Many gamers want to decorate rooms with different LED lights and other decor that would mesh well with this glow-in-the-dark tape.

This product may not appear on the surface to save customers time or money. However, it absolutely features that “just gotta have it” element that’s likely to drive people to buy it, largely on impulse. Additionally, there are ways to position this product in such a way as to convince customers that it will save them time or money.

For instance, this tape’s low cost could make it a far more cost-effective replacement for more expensive LED lighting fixtures. Those often cost up to thousands of dollars just to test and install. It’s also incredibly easy to install compared to conventional LED lighting systems, which saves them time. Combined with the third criterion of the “wow” factor discussed, these benefits are likely to drive far more sales with this product.

Example #2: Plastic Clothes Folder

This unique product caught our eye due to its effectiveness at showing precisely how it saves customers time. This is a plastic clothes folder that makes it easier for children and adults alike to instantly fold their clothes. The AliExpress page for this product even shows the basic steps for using this product to fold a T-shirt in no time.

The most obvious advantage of using this product is that it saves time. Customers don’t need to spend any time carefully folding their shirts. They simply place them in the open clothes folder and follow the basic folding pattern. The product also features that “just gotta have it” component that’s likely to attract a lot of potential buyers.

It may not be easy to show how this product saves money. But the two aforementioned criteria make this one a likely success for dropshippers.

Example #3: Golf Glove Holder

Screen grab of Peter Pru assessing the viability of a product

Many golfers experience the issue of their gloves getting increasingly wrinkled and crusty over time. This golf glove holder advertises that it solves this issue.

Ultimately, the main criterion this product meets is the ability to save more money. These holders can preserve golf gloves for longer and ensure that golfers get more use out of them. In addition, this product has that “just gotta have it” appeal for golfers. This is particularly strong for those who play very frequently and might otherwise more quickly wear out their gloves.

What makes this product especially appealing is the fact that it’s not commonly found. The perceived rarity of this product can lend to that “wow” factor that differentiates it from other more common golf products. Golfers who invest in this product are therefore more likely to feel like they’re part of an exclusive group. After all, it may not be as easy to find at their pro shop or other stores.

By saving money and impressing audiences, this is another product that meets two of the three criteria that contribute to a successful product.

Choose and Market a Product That Meets These Crucial Criteria

Online entrepreneur finding products to sell online

If your dropshipping store isn’t making sales, don’t just give up. Based on these example products, you can do some of your own research to find products that are similarly successful. Just be sure you’re meeting two out of the three critical requirements. If your product can save time and money or save one or the other while giving off that desired “wow” factor, that’s great. You can be on your way to increasing sales with your dropshipping store. With hard work, you can turn it around when your dropshipping store isn’t making sales.

Are you interested in learning more industry tips and tricks to succeed with dropshipping? There are many ways to build a winning online business with the help of sales funnels and other strategies. To learn more about how to succeed in your specific niche or even find a niche if you’re not currently in one, reserve your seat at our free eCommerce masterclass. You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel for more insights and tips.

How My Ecommerce Empire Builders Student Earned $100,000 and Sold His Business

by Peter PruSeptember 21, 2020September 13, 2020Dropshipping Case StudiesLeave a Comment

Do you want to see just how successful you can be as a dropshipper with well-utilized sales funnels? Here is another success story from an Ecommerce Empire Builders student to help showcase the effectiveness of these strategies. Meet Mike Filev, who began with a simple Shopify store and a viral ad video. He learned how to use sales funnels to his advantage, leading him to make $100,000 on a single product before successfully selling his dropshipping business.

Beginning With a Single Product and a Simple Store

Mike didn’t have a long, storied background in ecommerce. In fact, he planned on going into electrical engineering after college. However, his plans would soon change as he sought to earn more money and find his true passion. He didn’t care much for engineering, and the cost of living in downtown Toronto with his family was placing even more pressure on him to earn a better living.

Looking for a new outlet to channel his creativity, Mike eventually turned to ecommerce and quickly found some success selling one product early on: a seat belt for dogs. At the time, Mike merely had a Shopify store to help him sell his products, but he was able to bring a lot of attention to this one via an effective video ad. That ad was effective because it showed (using fake dogs, of course) what would happen if a pet owner neglected to use the seat belt in the event of an accident, and it helped increase sales. It also made Mike realize the potential that he could achieve with a more profitable strategy.

The Problem With Relying on Shopify Alone

screen grab of conversation about Shopify between Peter Pru and Mike Filev

Despite the popularity of his dog seat belt product and his ad, Mike found that he simply wasn’t able to make any one-click upsells on his product. It didn’t help that Shopify was compatible with a solitary app that took forever to install and setup. Upon discovering the power of sales funnels through a brief course in Shopify, Mike began to research their effectiveness. This led him to me, Peter Pru, and becoming an Ecommerce Empire Builders student.

Learning About the Value of Upsells and Sales Funnels as an Ecommerce Empire Builders Student

As he began to learn more about providing value to customers and inspiring more upsells, he decided to offer a harness that offered more neck support for dogs using his seat belts. Focusing on these harnesses, he started seeing an increase in sales and went from around zero percent net profit to around 20-30 percent consistently. Around that time, Mike saw his first thousand-dollar day of net profits.

Mike saw the possibilities of using sales funnels and upsells to help boost sales significantly. But he was still somewhat disappointed with the overall performance of that single store. By the time he had made around $20,000 with the store, the cost of living was catching up to him, and he needed to find a more lucrative opportunity. Luckily, his first store had become a considerable success, and he had a valuable Instagram page for it that performed impressively — both of which could serve as assets for others.

From Selling Products to Selling Dropshipping Businesses

Mike wasn’t happy enough with how his first store was performing to keep it going. But he found that others were interested in acquiring these types of businesses. Understanding that the Shopify store he had been running had potential for someone else, he was able to sell it for $10,000, which got the ball rolling for him. From there, he sold his dog seat belt business as he looked for his next dropshipping opportunity.

What the Process Entailed

In the event someone came along who was interested in purchasing Mike’s dog seat belt store and sales funnels, Mike had recognized several assets going for him that would appeal to the investor.

First, Mike had set up an efficient landing page modeled after our own. It consisted of a header, image, and button that offered a free seat belt. This landing page had managed to achieve an opt-in rate of around 50-70 percent, depending on the traffic source. This translated to a total of around 47,000 email leads. All of the leads fell into the target market for that product. Also, some of the top brands out there like Petco are willing to buy a single lead for $1.60 or more. So Mike realized he was sitting on an ecommerce goldmine.

To help sell his business, Mike approached the effort in much the same way he would with selling products. He offered a bundle in an appealing package that would entice the buyer. He listed all the assets that his business had accumulated, including:

$100,000 in sales within a period of five or six months
20 percent net profits plus expenses
A massive email list worth approximately $70,000 on its own

With this offer, Mike put the store up for sale on Flippa for $50,000. The sales price was based on a calculation of twice the net profits his business earned annually. Based on what he learned, he could have actually sold this business for much more. But that’s just part of the learning process when it comes to ecommerce experience.

Focusing on a Different Niche for Better Opportunities

business owner replicating her store to scale profits

While Mike experienced some success with the dog seat belt store, he recognized that this opportunity was too limited. He was selling to a highly specific niche of people, and the product would attract mostly impulse buys. After selling this business, he turned to a much more promising opportunity of selling weight loss products.

The demographic he was selling to at this point included women who were interested in losing weight. This was a much wider demographic than his previous niche. Another advantage of selling to this audience was the number of offers that you can utilize when selling weight loss products, especially through affiliate marketing.

To attract more leads, Mike also created a landing page in his sales funnels that asked for opt-ins via Facebook Messenger. He found that people were much more likely to choose this method over email because they didn’t worry about spam.

(As a side note here, we definitely recommend that you try multiple lead generation outlets; test with channels like Facebook Messenger, and request an email in your offer. Then see which campaign performs better while doubling your assets in the process. Also, an email list is uniquely yours. Channels like Facebook Messenger still fall under the property of other companies, which can complicate the process of selling.)

Mike hasn’t decided to sell this store quite yet. But he is keeping the idea in mind as the business continues to grow. At the same time, Mike is experiencing more success and happiness as a result of his efforts. He’s living it up in Miami as he keeps his eye out for the next big opportunity.

Become an Ecommerce Empire Builders Student to Streamline Your Own Success

We love success stories like Mike’s that remind us precisely of why we’re doing what we’re doing. Do you want to experience the kind of success that Mike has? Then sign up for the free Ecommerce Empire Builders Master Class. You can become an Ecommerce Empire Builders student and learn all about how to begin your dropshipping business. You can also pick up key tips and insights on my YouTube channel.

Tagged : Ecommerce empire academy students / ecommerce success / sales / Sales Funnel / upselling tips

What One Billion-Dollar Business Did to Maximize LTV

by Peter PruSeptember 16, 2020September 12, 2020Dropshipping Case StudiesLeave a Comment

If you’re looking for a winning strategy to implement in your dropshipping business, there are certain lessons to be learned from some of the giants in the ecommerce industry. Here we’re going to look at what a billion-dollar business did to excel and how you can some of these strategies to maximize LTV. Specifically, the business we’ll be examining is GoDaddy.

Some might question how a prominent brand in an unrelated business can help their dropshipping store excel. But the fact is that the principles behind these businesses are essentially the same as any company that sells online, whether a small single-product Shopify store or a corporate giant.

What GoDaddy Does Right

One of the reasons GoDaddy is a favorite example of an online business is the fact that they hit on every single note perfectly. Their process is exceptional when covering everything that they need to maximize LTV, including:

Reoccurring purchases
Order bumps
Upsells

There isn’t a clearly identifiable weakness in GoDaddy’s strategy, and automatically upselling customers is how they stay profitable.

The biggest takeaway that we want for you to gain from GoDaddy is that they are willing to lose money to sell domains. The fact is that GoDaddy actually loses money with every domain sale they make. However, they make all of that money back in many ways, which we’ll cover here.

GoDaddy’s Winning Approach to Product Pages

Let’s use an example to illustrate what all GoDaddy does well. Searching for a domain like “empirestartsnow.com,” which is available, leads us to a product page telling us that this domain will cost us $11.99 for the first year.

From here, we can see their understanding of the sales process at work.

The Inclusion of a Smart Order Bump

Below the price on the page, GoDaddy includes an order bump. It offers a discount on the domain “empirestartsnow.us” for one dollar. GoDaddy knows that not a lot of people will be likely to follow through on that order bump. But they still have a chance of making a profit on at least one in every ten orders. The order bump further clarifies that the customer gets the domain for $1 for the first year if they sign on for a two-year subscription, and for the second year, they’ll pay $20.

This illustrates how GoDaddy has probably learned that the average customer stays with them for at least two years after buying a domain. If they can encourage the customer to stay with them, GoDaddy will profit in the long run and maximize the lifetime value (LTV) of that customer.

Pushing Additional Offers

In addition to the subtle order bump, GoDaddy’s page features another offer just below it. This second point encourages customers to purchase three additional domains (e.g., .NET, .ORG) for $19.99, saving them 69%.

Again, this may look like they’re basically throwing money away, and a majority of customers may not make these purchases. But GoDaddy is more likely to profit over a longer stretch than they would without these offers.

Giving Customers Even More Choices to Look Through

Below those offers, GoDaddy further encourages more purchases, and this is a great strategy for increasing the value of every sale. They do so by listing a bunch of other domains for sale. Some are as cheap as a few dollars, and others are as expensive as $21,000. These may not attract many additional sales, but all of these offers maximize LTV.

A Shopping Cart That Adds More Offers

Once we hit that “add to cart” button for “empirestartsnow.com,” we’re taken to a cart page that’s another example of top-notch design.

Utilizing Post-Purchase Upsells

Screen grab of GoDaddy automatic upsell analysis with pre-checked options

The page is rich with post-purchase upsells that perfectly complement those pre-purchase upsells on the product page. Those post-purchase upsells reward customers after they make a purchase, which further inspires them to buy the product.

These post-purchase upsells include privacy protection for $9.99 and a package that includes both privacy and security for $14.99. The first offer is automatically checked to highlight it. Below these offers, they have “Start your website for FREE” automatically checked, too. It offers the chance for customers to host their website for free right from GoDaddy. This latter offer can help keep customers loyal to GoDaddy and subsequently increase their chances of making repeat purchases.

Customers can also choose to create a support email that’s connected to the domain.

A Highly Profitable Checkout Page

After selecting the various offers on that shopping cart page, customers are then taken to the shopping cart page to finalize their purchase.

Here, customers may be thrown off by the final price at the top. Instead of the $11.99 price advertised for “empirestartsnow.com,” the price now says $21.99. But the page is quick to clarify that this is the price for two years. Customers must choose “1 year” from the dropdown below if they want that initial price.

They also offer a quantity break with a small discount if customers choose to buy the domain for three years or longer. This illustrates how important it is to offer quantity break discounts at the point of sale (POS) to maximize LTV and profits. This is a practice we always encourage if you want to boost sales significantly.

At the same time, the rest of the page is very simple and neat. It encourages the customer to follow through on their purchase without simply abandoning the cart.

We’d like to take note of how GoDaddy makes use of that auto-select of the two-year option. This is something we practice at Ecommerce Empire Builders. We also encourage the use of best-seller highlights and quantity break discounts on our order forms. Implementing this strategy here alone can make a customer worth more than a day’s worth of ad spend.

Below these quantity break discounts, GoDaddy also includes an order bump to easily add domain privacy for $5.99 per year with one click.

Use GoDaddy’s Strategies to Your Advantage to Maximize LTV

happy customer purchasing add-ons and upsells

As you can see, GoDaddy certainly seems to know what it’s doing to attract customers and maximize profits. While GoDaddy might lose money with domain sales, all of these pre- and post-purchase upsells, along with other order bumps and quantity break discounts, go a long way in helping GoDaddy remain on top of its game. Applying these strategies to your dropshipping business can be invaluable in helping you grow and maximize LTV.

To find out more about how to build a leading dropshipping business, check out our free Ecommerce Empire Builders Master Class. This webinar will show you how to create a dropshipping business with ease and maximize profits like GoDaddy and other billion-dollar companies.

Tagged : case studies / offer strategies / sales / sales pages / upselling tips

How to Handle Dropshipping Refunds and Chargebacks

by Peter PruSeptember 14, 2020September 12, 2020Systems & ProcessesLeave a Comment

It can be a pain to deal with dropshipping refunds, chargebacks, and exchanges. But it doesn’t have to be as painful if you have a process in place. Build out standard operating procedures so your team knows how to handle dropshipping refunds and chargebacks. Follow these steps, and you’ll be able to simplify the process:

Assess the situation.
Address the situation.
Document the situation.

Here we’ll go over each of these steps and show you how you can incorporate them into a consistent, reliable process for dealing with product refunds, exchanges, and chargebacks, which can give you more time to spend on building your dropshipping business. We’ll also provide you with some free template examples for your business that can help you get started.

Assess and Address the Situation

Both assessing and addressing the situation can be lumped together in the same step, as you kind of need to do both at once. While there are multiple issues that can arise, the most common problem you’re likely to come across in ecommerce is how to handle dropshipping refunds.

Does the Customer Want a Refund?

If a customer is looking for a refund for a product, make sure you have a return policy that details how refunds work. You should have both a customer-facing policy and an internal policy for how to handle dropshipping refunds step by step. You have some freedom when it comes to how your refund policy works.

When to Give a Full Refund

You could simply give the customer a full refund without question and let them keep the product, which is often the best solution if you want to avoid the potential headache of dealing with angry customers who aren’t worth the effort. Sometimes you may encounter customers who are simply impossible to please, in which case giving them a full refund can help you redirect your time and energy to more important matters.

Give a Refund with a Product Return

While giving a full refund might be easier to do with less expensive products, you could suffer more losses if you give a full refund for a premium-priced product. The best way to keep the customer happy with the refund without hurting your business in the process is to offer a refund in exchange for returning the product to a P.O. box or warehouse.

Incentivize Customers to Avoid the Refund

Giving a full refund might be ideal if a customer is angry and you’re unlikely to change their mind. But there are some instances when you may find that a customer can be persuaded to take back their refund and keep the product. The fact is that oftentimes it isn’t the product that customers are unhappy with when seeking a refund — they’re unhappy with a lack of effective communication.

Here is where it’s best to empathize with the customer and understand their situation. If you can make the customer feel understood and provide an offer such as a free information product or discount, then the customer will be more forgiving and be more willing to hang on to their purchase.

Offer a Partial Refund With Incentives

You also have the option of offering a partial refund, along with incentives such as free information products for which you would normally charge, which can help you save more money while working to keep the customer happy with the outcome. For instance, you might offer something like a 35% refund for the inconvenience along with a free resource that would you wouldn’t typically give away. This is likely to leave the customer even more satisfied, considering they get a partial refund, they can keep the product, and they get bonuses on top of that original purchase.

Is the Customer Submitting a Chargeback?

Screen Grab of How to Deal with Chargebacks

Customers may inadvertently charge their credit cards as they forget what they’ve purchased and subscribed to over time. It can be easy to lose track of what you’re buying online. So keep in mind that the occasional customer may submit chargebacks if they forget that they made a purchase and no longer want it.

Unfortunately, many people also take advantage of chargebacks in an attempt to get products for free. So you’ll need to be aware of this potential issue as you develop and implement chargeback processes.

If a chargeback is submitted, you’ll want to assess and address the situation accordingly. Follow these steps:

Check to see if the product shipped.
Make sure you have the tracking information for the order.
Gather all evidence, including tracking, billing, shipping, and email communication that a platform like Stripe or PayPal may request.

If you can submit all the necessary information to support you in the event of a chargeback dispute, the simple truth is that you will win. If you can prove that the product shipped and you can submit all the tracking details, billing information, and email correspondence in an organized PDF or another document that supports your argument, you will likely win a majority of these disputes. You can then recycle that template and use it for future chargebacks.

Document the Situation

You should always maintain proper recordkeeping in any situation, whether it’s for a refund, chargeback, or exchange. Even if you have a good understanding of how to handle dropshipping refunds and chargebacks, people who work with you may not; different customer service teams do things differently. You need to maintain cohesion across your entire company with processes and systems, which good documentation can help achieve.

Use Email Templates

One way to keep customer service consistent, regardless of the situation, is to create email communication templates that employees can use. Send these to your teams, and you’ll be able to provide the same response to customers in similar situations. This will prevent the customer from encountering inconsistencies when communicating with your business.

Create Chargeback Templates

Knowing how to handle dropshipping refunds isn’t enough. You also need to have a plan for chargebacks. To efficiently handle chargeback disputes and make evidence-gathering easier for your team, create chargeback templates as PDFs or other formats that make it easy to organize and present proof of shipping, tracking and billing information, and email communications when attempting to win a dispute.

Record Loom Videos

Business owning creating standard process documentation for refunds and chargebacks

Another way to show your customer support teams precisely what to do in any given situation is to create Loom video recordings. Loom makes it easy to record your screen and voice. You can use them to create helpful in-depth training videos that illustrate various procedures. Your employees can then watch these videos whenever they need to and learn about your processes. Then, you won’t need to walk each new employee through the process.

Template Examples You Can Use

If you want to get some ideas for what to include in the templates to share with customer service teams, then you can implement some of the following.

Here’s an example template that you can use as an initial reply to a customer inquiry:

Hey! So because our [X] ship directly from our overseas factory, shipping can sometimes take a little bit longer! You should have your [X] within the week. Please let me know if you have any other issues!
Thanks!

For a second reply after the customer responds, you can send the following:

Hey, we do apologize greatly for the delay. We had such a large influx of orders that it backed up our factory. If you do not have your [X] in the next 4-5 business days, please let me know. We will issue you a full refund along with getting you your [X] for free.
Thanks!

If the customer is still not satisfied, then you may need to reach out once more. You can send them this third reply:

We just refunded you your full purchase price. Again, we are really sorry about all this confusion. You will still be receiving your [X] — it just may take a few more days. Again, we are hugely sorry about this.
Thanks!

These three simple templates can help you figure out how to handle dropshipping refunds. Even better, the templates help your team consistently communicate with customers to ensure satisfaction.

Want to learn more about processes and systems about how to handle dropshipping refunds and chargebacks? What about every other aspect of your dropshipping business? If so, then check out our free Ecommerce master class, where you’ll learn everything you need to know to become a successful dropshipper and provide exceptional customer service.

Tagged : customer service / dropshipping / dropshipping tools / finances / sales