How I Built a Dropshipping Store That Made $6,667 in Under 8 Weeks

“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” – Les Brown 

I believe that everybody has the potential to become a successful entrepreneur, and I set out to illustrate this for you.

I wanted to document my entire process of building, launching, and running a dropshipping business, so you can follow every decision that I made, and use my journey to fuel your own success.

In 8 weeks I built and launched my store. During those 8 weeks I made $6,666.73 in revenue.

Let me be clear, I’m no genius. I’m just an ambitious entrepreneur, like you, with a huge drive to succeed.

I was running this business in addition to my 9 to 5 job (which isn’t related to ecommerce at all), so I had to work on my store after work, or on the weekends – just like many of you.

Even with all the obstacles in my way, I did it, and if I can, you can too.

So, follow along with my journey to find out how I chose my products, which marketing tactics worked best for me, how I made my first sale, and learn the challenges that I faced as an entrepreneur.

Let’s get started! 

Finding a Niche

When I start a new business, I always like to think about what I’m going to sell first.

Even though there are amazing online tools which can help me find a profitable business idea, I usually start by brainstorming on a piece of paper.

Why did I use paper? I’m a huge fan of keeping it simple, so I just wrote down everything that came to mind for 10 minutes.

I don’t want to overthink the ideation process. There were good ideas in my head, just like there are in yours, and all I had to do was put them to paper. 

I used the following criteria when I was picking my products:

• No food. (I didn’t know about the quality of food from overseas)
• No electronics (easy to break which can lead to a lot of returns)
• No heavy goods (high shipping costs)
• Low-priced items (if a refund was necessary I wouldn’t lose that much money)

Now, these were just my criteria for a product. There isn’t an exact science behind this, but I’ve found success using these criteria in the past, and successful entrepreneurs double down on what works. 

I came up with nine solid product ideas (as shown above in green) with some further thoughts (circled in yellow).

I already had some rough ideas for what I should sell, but I still wanted to check the bestselling lists from:

• Oberlo Verified
• Amazon
• LightInTheBox
• Etsy

I’ve found success in the past with products that can be found in at least two of these marketplaces.

After checking these marketplaces, I settled on three product ideas.

1. Pineapple Bracelets

Both Amazon and Etsy had the same products in their bestselling listings, which was a good sign that there was demand for this product.

2. Steel Strap Watches

Watches with a steel strap also proved to be popular. Seemed like these products could be a good option.

3. Pineapple Hats

And again; both Amazon and Etsy listed similar products in their bestsellers list. I found it very interesting that both platforms had pineapple hats.

I had three ideas, so it was now time to validate them.

Niche Validation

Validation is one of the most important steps when you’re starting your own online business. 

This process will allow you to understand if there is demand for your idea (product) or not.

If you skip the validation process your business can end up being a waste of both time and money.

Niche Validation #1

As I had three ideas, I had to find the one which had the most potential to become a success. The easiest way to do this was to use Google Trends.

All of these product ideas seemed great. There weren’t any crazy trends, but there were definitely signs of an increasing interest across the board.

With this graph I had the confidence to continue moving forward with these product ideas.

Even though “steel watch strap” had a higher search volume on Google, my intuition told me that I should look more into the pineapple products because:

• The search volume for both pineapple products was on the rise,
• These products fall under a specific niche,
• There is a wide variety of possible products to sell.

I already mentioned that spending too much time on finding products to sell isn’t ideal for me. 

Then it hit me. I thought to myself: “why not build a huge pineapple dropshipping store?”

I wanted to stick with my gut feeling, and move forward with this idea. So, it was decided: I was going to launch a pineapple store.

Finding Products to Sell

Now that I’d decided on the niche for my store, it was time to start researching some products.

I started by checking Amazon to gauge if the pineapple products were available. 

I made a point to take advantage of the drop-down suggestions (as shown in the images below) after I had entered my search term.

This was a very important step. These suggestions are based on the activity from buyers who use these websites, and their algorithms have learnt which products I might be interested in.

Ultimately, these algorithms are meant to coax me into purchasing more from the platforms. And if they work for me, they’ll also work for my audience.

So, I simply searched for the term “pineapple” without pressing enter, and made a note of the results.

Amazon’s suggestions:

I cherrypicked these results for the products which looked most interesting and, combined with the results from my research, I compiled a list of 10 ideas:

• Pineapple corer
• Pineapple decor
• Pineapple backpack
• Pineapple float
• Pineapple popsocket
• Pineapple necklace
• Pineapple earrings
• Pineapple dress
• Pineapple bikini
• Pineapple hats

I was very happy with these results, but I still took the time to dig a little deeper and explore some more products.

After all, the more product research you do, the more likely you are to find products which will be successful for your business.

I spent around one hour reviewing these products, and I came up with a couple more solid ideas for my inventory.

I now had 17 product ideas in total. Bare in mind that each product also has dozens of different variants and color options, so my store’s inventory was looking good so far.

Read the full article here:

https://www.oberlo.com/blog/how-i-built-a-dropshipping-store-that-made-6667-in-under-8-weeks

https://www.godsvirtuouswomenentrepreneurs.com

To Get Wealth and Manifest Miracles In Your Business

Take Inspired Action and Use Your Gifts!

My son’s front door I happily decorated.

Good Tuesday Morning God’s Virtuous Women Entrepreneurs,

I pray you are all doing great and consistently and brilliantly building your empires.

Taking inspired action and using your gifts. Use your power to get wealth to manifest miracles in your business today. You’ll be glad you took this amazing business changing advice!

Today I’d like to share with you a conversation that I had with my oldest son in hope that it may be a form of motivation for you as you aspire to soar to greatness today and every day!

I have four children; a daughter who lives in the United Kingdom; a daughter who resides in the DC area; a son who lives with me; (he is my youngest) and a son who recently bought his own home not far from me; I live in the suburbs of Philadelphia, PA.

My son called me this morning on Facetime to show me something he was going to purchase from GrandinRoad. He always, and I mean always likes to ask for my opinion whenever he makes a purchase. When he bought his house and this is his first home, he consulted me on some things. Unfortunately, he didn’t listen and heed my advice when I tried to tell him about this gray couch he insisted on buying for his living room. I thought it was really drab. I told him that he needed a couch that would compliment his walls and hardwood floors, but he just had to have that ugly gray couch that, in my opinion, did not go with anything in his house. 

Click to see the video! Toddcouchcyndi

When the couch arrived it was too small and the color, as I tried to tell him from the beginning was all wrong! I also tried telling him that he could get a couch for a much better price than the one he was buying from Pottery Barn. Pottery Barn is lovely, indeed, but their prices are through the roof; again, he didn’t listen and decided to stay with making all of his purchases from PB. I didn’t argue because I know that cheap can become expensive if you’re not smart.

The table for dining!

Anyway, he went back and revisited the sofa situation and ended up sending the gray couch back for the oatmeal colored sofa that I had recommended before you bought the gray couch and my oh my, what an enormous difference the oatmeal couch made in how his living room; it popped in radiance.

Click to watch the video! Potterybarncouch

We went shopping at PB over the next few weeks where he ended making all of his purchases for his home. From coffee and end tables to rugs to be placed under his tables as well as mirrors for the wall along with accessories for his countertops situated just under his cabinets. Talk about lovely, I did my thing! SMILE!

When my son called me on Facetime this morning as I wrote earlier in this post, he wanted to share/show me the next purchase he was making for his home. The conversation went from him asking me my opinion about Grandin Road to me telling him about prayer and using the gifts God has given him.

The couches that he insisted on buying. We had to revisit this, but with my help he got it right!

Take inspired action and use your gifts to get wealth became my focus for my son.

The conversation quickly turned into making money. My son has been blessed to be able to build one empire and is now in the process of building another one. I told him that all business deals may not be good ones and that he needs to ask God if anything that he gets involved in is what God wants him to do. I then read a few prayer bullets to him; he immediately said, “Mom, can you send me those!” I was elated to. I told him that by taking inspired action he is opening himself up to receive many miracles from God. After I finished telling him about the prayer bullets our conversation turned to my youngest son, Bj and my oldest son said this to me; He said Bj could be making $20 an hour taking tolls on the Pennsylvania turnpike instead of making $13.00 an hour. I broke it down to him like this;

Bj is working for someone who is extremely disorganized. Bj is an expert at social media. He grew his Basketball Society business from a few hundred followers to 10,000 plus followers on Instagram in a matter of weeks. One guy said that Bj came in and did what he just could not do in reference to building the man’s brand. He is excellent at writing and marketing and he loves it. It is his passion. I told my oldest son that Bj is using his gifts and talents, in addition to his skill set to create his own empire. Bj went to this new job working for someone who had no clue about business and in a week’s time Bj created a new business by using Canva and Instagram and this opens the doors for Bj is get his wealth because he’s consistently and passionately using his gifts for God’s glory even if he doesn’t realize that it’s for God’s glory. So that $20 an hour cannot be compared to $13.00 an hour because Bj is doing what he loves and this will net him a whole lot more than $20 an hour in more ways than won!

I then preached on for about another 15 minutes or so and my son attentively listened and hung on to my every word.

If you’re in business for yourself, make sure that you are taking inspired action. If you have a business and it’s not what you love, then you need to take time out to think about doing exactly whatever it is you love doing. This way you ensure that miracles will be manifested in your life every day. It is important for you to use all the tools and resources God makes available to you. Sure, it may be a lot of work revamping and recollecting your thoughts in an effort to start over, but when you work from your passion you will never work at all and your life will never be the same. I promise.

Take inspired action and use your gifts. Give God the glory as you use your power to get wealth and while you’re at it, you’ll be manifesting miracles along the way!

Be blessed,

Cynthia

www.cynthiagboyer.com