If you’re active on the Internet and follow content related to making money online, then I’m 100% sure that some how and some time you’ve stumbled on videos related to dropshipping.
If you don’t know what dropshipping is, let me explain it in short for you. It’s a business model, where you buy products at a cheaper price and resell them for a higher price. That’s what dropshipping is!
In this post, I’m going to share the story of my friend Jaxon, who tried to copy a dropshipping business that was already successful. The dropshipping store he copied was making over $100,000 every single month.
His thought was, “I’ve failed countless times trying new things in the past, but what if I copy a business that’s already working.” And that’s when, the idea of starting this challenge came to his mind.
Before starting this challenge, he had one goal in his mind and that was to make $1,000 in profit from this store.
He started a brand new dropshipping store by copying the store that was already making good money and ran it for 7 days. So, let’s see what’s happened in those 7 days and how much money did he actually make?
Let me give you a spoiler, you’ll be actually shocked to find out what actually happened during the challenge. So, make sure to stick with us till the end.
The $100K/Month Dropshipping Store He Decided to Copy!
Jaxon found a store that was selling a simple powdered supplement called ashwagandha. It was nothing fancy, but the store was making some good money.
According to traffic analysis from Similar Web, that store was getting around 500,000 visitors every month, which was an insane number in itself.
He knew that he couldn’t copy the entire store word-for-word, but he could definitely take inspiration for it and create a similar looking store selling the exact same product. And that’s what he did!
What Happened on Day 1?
1. Store Creation
On day 1, Jaxon did all the research necessary and built his store. He did most of the things himself by taking inspiration from the successful store, but to write the product descriptions, he used ChatGPT.
2. Searching for Product
The store was ready, but he didn’t have any product to sell. So, he went to ZenDrop and few other dropshipping sites to find the product he wanted to sell. Most of those sites didn’t have powdered ashwagandha, but he did found the gummy versions of ashwagandha. And that’s what he decided to sell!
Even though he could have kept searching to find powdered ashwagandha, but the only thing he didn’t had was time and that’s the reason, he decided to go with gummy versions of ashwagandha.
Step 3: Picking a Niche Audience
Ashwagandha is super saturated product, so he couldn’t target a large group of people. That’s when, he decided to target busy millennial professionals.
He thought that it would be a lot easier to sell products to rich and stressed folks who are mostly looking for convenience. So, he made some changes in his store to serve it especially to his target audience.
Step 4: Creating Killer Ads
Now, comes the most important part, which was driving traffic to his dropshipping store.
He decided to run paid ads on social media platforms, especially Facebook & Instagram to promote his store. To start running ads, he needed to create them first.
To create the advertisement, he used ElevenLabs for voiceover and used a strong hook in the videos. That’s it, nothing fancy or top-tier editing. He created 3 short, simple videos that clearly conveyed the information about his product.
After that, he started his ad campaigns on Facebook & Instagram.
Now, let’s see, what results did he got.
What Happened on Day 2?
The ads got approved and started spending and immediately he got his first sale. It’s the starting of day 2 and he already got a sale. That single sale made this challenge look a lot more promising.
Even though he got a sale, but he wasn’t profitable. He has spent more money on ads than what he made from the sale.
Right before launch of his store, he switched his product supplier. He told that the first supplier gave him a bad vibe, so he went with a white-label supplement company that printed his brand labels (logo he made) on the packet of gummies.
Here’s How You Can Make $5,000/Month Selling PDF’s using ChatGPT & Gumroad! (Step-by-Step Guide)
Day 3-5: Sales Took Off
Even though the second day went quite slow than expected, but the next few days didn’t.
On day 3, his ads stopped working because he had used a banned word in the advertisement. He immediately fixed those and sent the ads for review again. And on day 4, the ads started running back again.
On day 4, he made a total of $300 in sales, which was a huge amount for a brand new store.
On day 5, it went much crazier. He made $600 in sales. At this point, Jaxon’s happiness was beyond the skies. But, something unexpected happened on day 6.
Day 6: The Worst Possible Thing Happened
On day 6, Jaxon woke up to see that his Shopify store was shut down.
Shopify terminated his store for saying “policy violation”, but they never told him what policy did he violate.
Due to this, his payouts got locked for 180 days and the site was also gone.
According to him, what’s wild was, he did everything the right way. He didn’t steal someone’s store from A-Z, he used his own branding, he also used a reputable supplier, but still his store got shut down.
How Much Did he Actually Made?
The challenge ended on day 6 itself, even though it was supposed to run for 7 days because you know what happened.
Here’s the complete breakdown of how much he spent and did he make any profits or not.
- Total Revenue: $969.63
- Ad Spend: $413
- Product Cost: $443
- Profit: $113
He created his Shopify store on the free trial, so he didn’t have to pay anything for that.
Even though everything went wrong in the challenge, he still made $113 in profit.
What Can You Learn from This?
Copying a dropshipping store that is doing really well gives you a head start, but it won’t always guarantee you success. Here are few things that can increase your chances of succeeding in the business:
- Great branding
- High-converting ads
- Reliable suppliers
- And a platform that won’t ban you randomly.
Even though he didn’t hit the $1K profit mark, he did get close and tried his best.
This story was from Jaxon Poulton. You can connect with him to follow his future journeys.
