Realistic Expectations for Shopify & Amazon FBA Businesses
Reddit Post Mentioned In Video...
A lot of people ask me, are Youtube Entrepreneurs and eCommerce sellers pitching courses really making the money they claim to make, and is it really possible for someone like me to make that kind of money with a Shopify Store or an Amazon FBA Product?
I've been meaning to make a video addressing this for a few weeks now, and while stumbling through Reddit the other day I saw a post which touched on this topic.
A girl was essentially asking if she could really make enough money to support herself off a Shopify store or Amazon FBA Product. She mentions how she sees all these Youtubers talking about making all this money, but doesn't really know any "real people" who are doing the same. Is it really possible?
I don't want to write everyone off as just being entrepreneurs who pitch courses and don't actually do what they preach. I don't want to say that none of them are "bout that life" so to speak. That said, I personally find many of the claims hard to believe, in relation to the type of business they are running.
For example, if someone comes out with an entire private label line of bedding or kitchen products and actually creates a brand, by all means someone can absolutely make thousands per day.
However someone dropshipping $10 products from Ali Express, I find it hard to believe their business can add up to hundreds of thousands per month.
For one just the sheer number of $10 or $20 products you'd have to sell to total those figures is huge. Add to that dropshipping tends to have worse margins than traditional retail, it also has additional challenges such as long shipping times which makes getting return customers tough, and chargebacks from upset customers who don't want to wait weeks to get their item. That all cuts into profits. Add to that a dropshipper, especially an Ali Express dropshipper has nothing proprietary or unique about their products and there's no barrier to entry so the competition is endless with each new seller undercutting the prices of the previous one.
In this video I take a look at my businesses sales numbers, average ticket price, and margins and stack up my businesses numbers with those of dropshippers and Amazon sellers pitching courses.
My business isn't even close to doing the numbers many mention so many of these claims do seem far fetched to me.
Give the video a watch and we'll dig into the numbers and get to the bottom of whether a real person like you or I can make huge money selling online, and furthermore, is it possible to support yourself even modestly?