Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
- What's up guys, it's George Camel here, and I've got a big question for you. What do all of these creators have in common? - Over the past few years, I've generated millions with dropshipping, and recently I sold my store for a life-changing amount. - The past few years, I've managed to make over seven figures dropshipping. - With how popular dropshipping is becoming, it is now a high level skill that could be making you some serious money online.
Well, they're all claiming to have made boatloads of money super fast through dropshipping. I see you, Aman. Zero to $100,000 in 60 days? Must know 99% of my channel is literally dropshipping. What are you doing on YouTube? Buy yourself an island already, my guy. And this is just a few of these creators out there. And there are so many others that are promoting dropshipping and other e-commerce businesses as lucrative side hustles
that you're missing out on. And for the low, low price of $699, you can purchase their dropshipping PDF tutorial e-course to become just as young and successful as they are. Not actually young, but hey, enough money can buy you your age back. Isn't that right, Paul Rudd? - Who would've thought? Not me.
Yeah.
Or is this just another get-rich-quick scheme that makes them richer and you broker? Well, I'm George Campbell, and today we are digging into which e-commerce side hustles are worth your time right after you like and subscribe to this channel. Don't be shy. You know you want to do it. Just a little tappity-tap, bada-bing, bada-boom. You made me and the algorithm very happy.
Now, dropshipping isn't the only e-commerce side hustle people are tapping into. There's also stuff like online arbitrage, FBA, which stands for Fulfillment by Amazon, eBay flipping, and more. But dropshipping is just the buzziest. That thing has got more buzz than Toy Story 4. You are a sad, strange little man. And while dropshipping in some form has been around for decades, it wasn't until the rise of Amazon and eBay in the early 2000s that it really took off.
much like Britney Spears' career and much unlike my pubescent dating life. A few years later, dropshipping went boom again when platforms like AliExpress and Shopify popped up, making it even more accessible to everyday people like you and me. Now, if you're new to the game, here's what dropshipping is in a nutshell.
You set up an online store, but you personally don't stock any products sold there. So when a customer places an order through your site, you purchase the inventory from a wholesaler at a discount, and the wholesaler sends the product directly to the customer. You get what's left over, otherwise known as profit. So instead of having a garage full of shake weights you've got to get rid of... I told you to clean the garage, I have to put my car in.
You're just the middleman for the wholesaler. Make sense? Also, if you have a garage full of ShakeWeights, what went wrong? Just take us back to the beginning.
So on paper, dropshipping sounds amazing. No inventory to worry about. You don't even have to purchase the product until you've already made the sale and have been paid by the customer. Sweet deal so far. Doesn't take much investment or risk on the front end because you didn't have to buy 12 pallets of ShakeWeights to resell. So you don't need to store the inventory. The wholesaler fulfills the orders you get and you can run the shop from anywhere and you don't have the heavy costs up front. So this sounds like easy money so far, right? Well, actually, no, it's not easy money at all.
But that's what a lot of the viewers coveting the riches of these YouTube dropshippers don't realize. You see, a big appeal of dropshipping is that your supplier does most of the heavy lifting. But, but,
Here's the thing. It's also its downfall. Where other retailers might have a 50 to 60% profit margin, you might be only looking at 10 to 30% profit margin, meaning you've got to do way more volume to see some legit profit. Now, this also means you have to generate a ton of traffic to your store page using things like targeted ads, which can get expensive traffic.
real quick. Plus, generating traffic will be even harder because most dropshipping sites only to have about 3% to 8% repeat customers. That sucks. Think about this. Only three of every 100 people that come to your site will ever come back. I mean, if only 3% of McDonald's customers came back, they would have to shut down those golden arches faster than you can say Shamrock Shake. I have never tried the McDonald's Shamrock Shake ever in my frickin' life.
And this means you'll literally be a hamster on the cruel, cruel wheel of traffic generation as long as your store exists.
And by the way, have you tried to get the attention of someone on the internet lately? It's nearly impossible. I can't even believe I've held your attention this long. But it begs the question, why don't customers typically return? Well, it all comes back to the handy-dandy wholesaler saving you all the work. You see, they control the product quality, their product delivery, and the customer support. Meaning unless you've partnered with a diamond-in-the-rough dropshipper who really cares, your customer's subpar service...
It's not really their problem. I miss the part where that's my problem. Now, that's not to say dropshipping doesn't ever work. I mean, you ever hear of a little company called Wayfair? They're a multi-million e-commerce company that's just dropshipping on steroids. But here's what I want you to think about. Are you Wayfair?
Do you have the time and money to create a successful platform and buy all of these ads on TV? And if this was just a side hustle to start, where are you going to get those things? The people who have success dropshipping, they have it because they put in the time and the work. Now, what is scammy though, is some of these YouTube dropshippers that aren't actually making good money dropshipping at all. They just Photoshop the images and they're making fortune selling you mediocre tutorials to make you think you can do the same.
And that is gross. And if you're young, it's what we call sus. You've been seeming sus lately. If you were asking me which e-commerce side hustles have the most potential, I would say eBay or Facebook Marketplace flipping. Now that is something I can get behind. Because you can make some serious cash online just by flipping items per
purchasing items that you clean up a little bit and you resell for bigger value. There are just better side hustles out there if you take a little time to find them. Heck, a retail job these days will pay you more per hour than you can make trying to get fancy with e-commerce. But don't worry, there are three things you can do that'll help you figure out what side hustle job is best for you. So let's start with time.
Think about how much time you can realistically put into this before, during, and after. And calculate roughly what you're actually making per hour when you consider all of that. Because it may turn out you spent a lot of time to make a little bit of money and realize, I made like four bucks an hour doing that. That sucks. Next up, look at talent. Now,
Now, I promise you don't have to suck at your side hustle. It could be something you're already really good at, something you love doing, like tutoring kids in math, helping fix people's computer problems, or selling dog hair. Unless you're in Delaware for that last one. For some reason, it's illegal there. Gotta be a weird story behind it. But here's an example. When I was getting out of debt years ago, one of my side hustles was building websites for entrepreneurs and small businesses using Squarespace.
I was also a musician, and I would license my songs through different websites for people to buy to use in their films and videos. These are things that I was passionate about, that I was good at, that didn't take me a lot of time. And when you're good at it, it'll feel less like work and more like fun. I like to have fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun.
Lastly, outside of time and talent, think about your target. Now, we're not talking about your local Target store here, though working part-time there could be a good side hustle. And you'd get first dibs on the Hearth and Hands Summer line. Anyone else excited about their seasonal stoneware? So stoked!
Now, as you're looking through options, think about what your main target or goal is in getting this side hustle. Do you simply need help paying off debt or get some breathing room in your budget? Do you want to serve others? Do you want to use your skills for profit? Are you hoping to turn this into a legitimate side business one day, a small business? Whatever your reason, be sure it makes sense for you, your lifestyle, and your goals. That way, you're going to be way more likely to stick to it and make some cash while you're at it.
And when the money starts rolling in, put the extra income in your budget. There's always going to be a new, trendy, get-rich-quick train you're tempted to hop on. And just because Amon is crushing it at 19 with his how-to videos with 100,000 views on $100,000 a month, it doesn't mean it will work for you. You don't have his swag. You don't got the riz, okay? You're not Amon. So swaggy.
What's up, dude? And if you do decide an e-commerce side hustle is a risk you're willing to take, that's great. As long as you do your research and you know exactly what you're getting into. So if you want to learn more about how to make money online, I wrote an article on the best ways to do it, and I've got a link for you below. And if you've tried an e-commerce side hustle, I want to know about it. Let us know in the comments what you did and how it worked out for you. But before you go, don't forget to like and subscribe to get more content like this. It would mean the world to me.
Thank you guys for watching. Until next time, keep it breezy and debt freezy. Okay, we got to workshop that one, guys. Now, keep it breezy and debt freezy. Is it me or is it just a bad line? Keep it breezy. Oh, gosh. I'm not Amon. I need more Riz.