Find a cheap product on Ali Express, find some awesome looking images, stick the product up for sale on Amazon for 15X the price and you’ve got an awesome business running, or have you?
In this episode, Vova Tess and Estie Rand thrash out the business of drop shipping, the meaning of building a brand and the purpose of loyalty and providing high value to your clients. Is drop shipping a legit and moral way to make money in 2019 or is it not much more than a sophisticated scam? Tune in to find out!
Vova is a young 17-year old multi 6 figure e-commerce entrepreneur, social media influencer, and speaker.
Vova has created multiple online businesses that ranged from making multi 5 to 6 figures in sales. He gives speeches at his very own high school showing his fellow peers “Look I can do it, so can you!” He has also been featured by many articles including the “New York Journal” and “Buzzfeed”
[1:39] – Vova: At 10 years old, I was selling everything in my house on eBay.
[10:00] – Estie: So we’ve got a great business model here. We create a Shopify store, we get a VA in Pakistan, we pay 10 bucks a day, we link the two stores, we pick products on AliExpress. And people look at it like, “Oh, genius”. Except, as you just said, you kept pouring money into Facebook Ads and nothing was happening.
[14:20] – Estie: Can I be super blunt? This goes against everything I believe in business, which is serving the customer and building loyalty. I always believe in building a brand, even if it’s not from a branding perspective, but from a trust perspective. And this feels to me, I’m not trying to be mean, but it just feels so dishonest and sleazy.
[26:15]- Vova: We’ve got to be always on the next trend.
Estie: Gotcha. So it sounds like drop shipping mostly capitalizes on a trend. It’s a quick money checkout thing.
Vova: Sort of.
Estie: Okay, fair enough. So you’re going to test what’s trending and build a store around that. But then how do you know it won’t die in three months?
Vova: I don’t.
Estie: So how does that become a lasting brand?
Vova: They might not. And then I’ll create more and more and more and more.
[30:17]- Vova: Facebook is always updating their algorithm, so you always got to be on the quick. Maybe this worked six months ago, but it doesn’t work now. That is a real thing. People that could have built something six months ago, and they haven’t touched Facebook ads since, they would suck at it now. They can literally call themselves an expert a year ago, but they might completely not even understand the platform anymore and what works. You have to keep up with the strategies.
[36:52]- Vova: Like, during Black Friday, we have, a “Black Friday sale”. If we’re selling something for $40 and let’s say it was 80% off. But instead of lowering the price from $40, we just upped the Compare-Our-Price. During that week, we made $112,000 in sales, in one week.
Estie: I believe you. And what I was doing on Black Friday was giving a class to high schoolers on marketing manipulations, explaining to them that on Black Friday, all that happens is that people jack up the prices, and they tell you it’s a discount. So don’t be fooled and wait until February to shop.