2020 has been rough. If you’ve just started dropshipping, you know exactly what I’m talking about. If not, these are my dropshipping problems in 2020. No discouragement, just my trials and tribulations.

What is dropshipping?

A dropshipping business is when a website sells a product that it does not produce or hold inventory for. Instead, when buyers make a purchase on the seller’s website, the seller turns around and makes the order with a dropshipping supplier. The dropshipping supplier then blind ships the product directly to the customer as if it came from the seller’s website. Usually this means that the customer will receive the product without any supplier branding or information. The customer is none the wiser.

I started dropshipping in late 2019.

First, I signed up for Shopify to create my store and modified the aesthetics to my liking. Simultaneously, I was developing business contacts with suppliers in China to sell their products on my store that fit my niche. (You can find suppliers for any niche on Alibaba or Aliexpress.) I also tried hiring a graphics artist on fiverr to create my logo and product artwork, however, this was a waste of time and money.

Learning multiple platforms and combining it together.

DISCLAIMER: I’m by no means an expert. I quickly learned how to use Shopify, Google Ads, Facebook Ads. I got reacquainted with using Photoshop and Illustrator. Also had to learn how to write ad copy that was SEO friendly. Typically, each item is its own specialty or job. If you’re just starting out with little to no budget, you’ll have to do everything yourself. Luckily, there’s tons of guides out there with step by step information on getting started.

In January, I started ramping up my marketing budget. I increased spending on Google Ads and Facebook Ads. This drove a lot of traffic to my site yet I was not converting much. At the time, my focus was on getting my brand out there and adding new products to my site every day. Sales weren’t too important yet because Chinese New Year was fast approaching.

Chinese New Year is probably the most important holiday in China. Most businesses completely shut down for 2 weeks or even up to a month. Anyone who’s worked with a Chinese supplier knows that they need to prepare weeks prior for business continuity or deal with delays in shipping in handling.

The rising number of infected.

Two weeks after Chinese New Year when most businesses were set to return to full function, [due to Covid-19] some Provinces in China decided it was best to extend the holiday and keep businesses closed. During this time, suppliers responded to communications days or weeks later and orders were not immediately shipped out.

As a new dropshipping business, this was a nightmare. Experts in dropshipping suggested pausing stores and halting advertisements. For the entire month of February, my store was at a standstill.

Then came March.

The world is face with a pandemic. Supplier factories were closed or were operating at a fraction of their potential. Communications were slow or non existent all together. Even if you were able to place an order with a operating supplier, the shipping times were terrible.

Dropshipping from China typically comes via ePacket. A Chinese shipping service that allows packages to reach destination around the world at a very low cost or no cost to the dropshipping store. With ePacket, packages from China are shipped in the extra space of passenger airlines and not commercial shipping flights. This is how ePackets is able to keep shipping cost so low.

You get what you pay for.

Low prices meant slow delivery. Even prior to the pandemic, ePacket was slow to reach its destination. Typically, it can take anywhere from 3-10 weeks to reach certain countries.

Slow got even slower. With the current pandemic, many passenger flights have been cancelled as countries lock down international travel. This extended ePacket ship times to a few extra weeks.

Imagine ordering something and receiving it 3+ months later. Yea, me neither.

Present time.

I’m unsure of the future of my dropshipping store. I believe that this pandemic will most likely wipe out beginners and/or small stores who face the same issues. It’s hard to operate an ecommerce when your supplier isn’t responding in a timely manner or shipping within an acceptable time frame.

Unless you are doing huge volumes or have a personal supplier contact, small piece orders will take much longer than usual to get to your customers. You can address this by letting the customer know of the extended delays or you’ll most likely face a charge back.

Hopefully when the world returns to normal, I can then consider the next steps for my store.

I’m not trying to discourage anyone from attempting to start a dropshipping business by any means. This blog entry is just to go over the current issues I’m having as a new dropshipper.

Read about why I started this blog.

Everyone comes up with self improvement / new year’s resolution that they tend to follow for a few weeks and then veer off. For me, it was a little different.

The last quarter of 2019 was rough. My 6 year relationship ended, I lost my job and I had to find a new place to live. All three events occurring within a span of a few days.

For 2020, I decided that I needed to make drastic changes.

• Waking up at 6 am every morning. As a night owl my whole life, this was something I wanted to test. I wanted to see if I was more productive waking up early to try to get more done.
• Morning meditation was something I wanted to try and is now part of my daily routine. This gives me peace of mind to begin my day. It also puts me in the right head space to tackle all of my tasks.
• Finally joining a gym. Since moving out from a place with my ex, I no longer have a home gym. As of writing this on 3/17/20, all gyms in LA County have been forced to shut down for the time being.
• Being positive and pushing out negativity. This is something I have always struggled with. My attitude has always been blunt and truthful. I joke about matters that I shouldn’t and I can’t help myself. Now I tend to catch and stop myself from veering into negativity. I still make crude jokes though.
• I stopped being reliant on others. Before, I used to wait on people to set my plans. This year, I booked two separate vacations on my own, to be by myself.
• Moving away from the 9-5 and working for someone. After losing my job in 2019 and going through rounds of interviews at places I dread to think of working at. I decided that I wanted to work for myself. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do but never fully took the initiative. In 2020, I have launched or plan to launch the following:
  • Drop-shipping brand. Read more here.
  • Print on demand brand
  • This blog as an affiliate marketing. Read more here.
  • Amazon FBA – soon to come
  • Digital downloads on Etsy – soon to come

My outlook.

Hopefully, I can keep up with these changes throughout the year and perhaps it might make me a better person.

As for my business goals, I know it’s very aggressive and may be too ambitious, but I’m up for the challenge. I’ll post more details about my business progress and challenges down the line.

The new year has been off to a very rocky start. The corona virus has halted daily life and operations globally. I had a plan to tackle 2020 a certain way but I’ve had to make alterations. I plan to stay on the correct path for self improvement / new year’s resolution.

Read about why I started this blog.