I've had an idea.

There are so many out there that haven't got the first idea about dropshipping but many that would like to start dropshipping to add to or replace their existing income.

This got me thinking.

While there is a wealth of information on this website, and the rest of the internet with regards to dropshipping, sales and business in general, a lot of people seem to find it hard to know where to start.

My idea is this

To start an ecommerce venture using dropshipper's products. Ok so that happens every day, nothing special. But what I am going to do is report back, step by step to this forum with everything I am doing, why I am doing it and how etc. Now, I'm not saying I know a lot about this, but perhaps that puts me in a better position to do this, so I'm on a similar level to those who are starting out.

I have a head start in that I have a list of dropshippers as long as my arm from this site and from previous research that I will be using for this venture.

I'll give a breakdown of all costs associated, all the work I do, problems I face and updates of how things are going along the way.

I will give myself a target to reach and a deadline date, somewhere around 6+ months from now so we have a measure of my success (or failure ).

Where I have an advantage is my technical knowledge

I will be running an ecommerce website for this experiment, I will not be using eBay. There are a few reasons for this:
1. I already have excellent hosting.
2. I can create the site myself as well as graphics, seo etc that are needed.
3. It will be quicker for me personally and will not involve giving eBay large chunks of my profit!

There is also another motive behind this - I am getting married this year and am looking for some extra cash to help fund it!

One thing I must point out

As you may or may not know, I provide a gadget dropship service myself, VeryGeek Dropshipping. VeryGeek Dropshipping will ALWAYS take priority, when things get hectic then this experiment will take a back seat, however I do have other people that help me run VeryGeek. This experiment is my own doing for myself personally, as all income from VeryGeek is going back into the business for the foreseeable future.

Current Status:

I'll be writing further posts with more detail regarding the below and as such, I am linking the headings below to the relevant posts.

Chosen domain/business name.
Purchased domain name.
Sorted hosting.
Installed eCommerce package (Magento in this case).
Enabled Google Analytics.
Submitted site to Google with Google Webmaster Tools.

Total Costs:

Domain Name: £5.98
Hosting: £9.99 per month

You may think I'm mad, but whether you do or not, please, wish me luck! :eek:!

p.s. All of what I write is my humble opinion only, do not take this as a word for word tutorial. This is just an account of everything I am doing in my own way to (hopefully) create a successful dropshipping venture.

---

Last edited by LouisW; 26-02-2010 at 08:50 AM. Reason: Add links

sounds really interesting cant wait to read your updates with this one good luck with it all

Interesting idea. I was going to do something similar myself and publish the results. An experiment to see if it really is possible to start a from scratch and make money using a number of fairly simple methods (dropshipping being one of them)

Put my money where my mouth is so to speak.

I wish you the very best of luck.

Very Intriguing to see if this will work, i await your updates
Good Luck!

Good luck mate.

Looking forward to reading your updates on this. Best of luck.

Good luck mate, I will be watching your progress, are you going to use all your dropshippers? Will you use your own? And are you targeting a certain market? Like electricals? Or will it be everything

Good idea!

could help people in several ways, whether success or failure (though I do of course wish you the very best of luck), and as above, I too would be interested in hearing your target market.

Right, first update.

1. Domain Name and hosting

Domain name was purchased yesterday and nameservers pointed to my hosting servers. For those that don't know, when you purchase a domain name, it will usually be 'parked' on the site you bought it from. You will need to purchase hosting (either from the same company or someone else, you don't have to use the same people so shop around!) and then go into your domain's configuration on the site you bought it from and change the nameservers to the ones your hosting provider gives you. If you are unsure ask either your hosting provider or your domain provider.

Purchasing domain names

Where you purchase your domain name does not matter anywhere near as much as where you get your hosting. Obviously, you only want to be dealing with a reputable company, but you are looking for value for money. I purchased mine from www.123-reg.co.uk (this is not an affiliate link) as I have used them before, they are reliable, quick and offer good value for money. I ordered a .co.uk domain name for £5.98 for 2 years. So, my first cost!

As far as choosing a domain name, this would usually be the name of your business. I won't go into to too much detail, but it's best that your domain name has the following qualities:

1. As short as possible (too long and it will be hard to remember and a pain to type into the address bar).
2. Memorable.
3. Spelled correctly using proper English (or your audience's language), try not to replace letters for numbers, or use hyphens in your domain name. This makes it hard for people to remember and potentially mistype sending them elsewhere on the web!
4. Related to your product niche. This will help tell your potential customer what you do and also help with search engine optimisation.

This isn't gospel, you need to be happy with the name too, just try and take the above into account when choosing there are probably other things people may want to add to these points too - if so feel free!

Hosting

I already have my own servers as I have a few sites that I run, as well as sites for friends and family and previous clients.

This is where you should be a bit more picky. I have been stung in the past with slow, under performing hosting with long downtime and poor support. Make sure you use a recommended hosting provider, looks for reviews etc. Ideally, your server will be located in the country you are offering your services to, therefore mine is in the UK.

eCommerce packages can take up a fair old chunk of webspace so make sure you go for hosting with some space to grow into, a fair amount of bandwidth and multiple email addresses (it's best to have separate email addresses for info, sales, customer service etc).

There are some eCommerce packages that use more of your hosting server's (basically a remote computer connected to the internet where your website's files are stored) resources than others. I will be using Magento which infamously is a resource hogging beast. Luckily for me, my hosting server is fast and not overcrowded so it can more than cope with Magento.

You will need to check that the eCommerce package you would like to use can be installed on your hosting server. I won't go into the pro's and con's of each eCommerce package as I have only used Virtuemart and Magento, this you will have to research yourself i'm afraid.

Hosting will cost you anywhere from a couple of pound per month to £100's for dedicated servers etc. The hosting I had before was £9.99 a month so for this example we will say that's what I'm spending on hosting.

You can find providers on the web, or equally, you can find various advertisers offering hosting services on this forum - do some research and find hosting to suit your needs.

2. eCommerce Installation

Just a quickie - I have installed Magento and found a very nice free to use, open source theme for my store. Do some research, find an ecommerce application that will suit you and your needs and your technical level. You may need to pay someone else to get you up and running.

I am not going to pay anyone to do anything on my site. As I said, I have found a nice template, but I am going to have to create my own banners/graphics to use on that site and my own logo. You may be able to do this yourself or you may need to request the services of a professional. Again, there are people here offering web design, graphic design, logos, proofreading etc

To sum up

Domain registered and pointed to my hosting server. Hosting arranged and ecommerce package has been installed along with a decent free template.

Total spend so far £15.97, without having to pay for anyone to get the site up and running.

Further to the above, I have added Google Analytics to my site and submitted my site to Google using the Google Webmaster Tools.


Google Analytics

In brief, Google Analytics (GA) will give you an idea of how many people are viewing your site, how they are getting to your site, what they do on your site and where they leave your site.

In full, it is an amazing tool which goes as far as to tell you geographically where your visitors are coming from, what keywords they are using in search engines, what browser they are using, what operating system browser etc. This is all anonymous, but gives you invaluable feedback as to how your site is performing. You can set up reports, goals, goal funnels (track each stage leading up to a goal) and track conversions.

It is something that can be used at a basic level, but can also be wrung of it's data by any aspiring web analyst out there. You can manage multiple websites with one GA account too!

Best of all it's FREE - you can sign up here - http://www.google.com/analytics/

Webmaster Tools

Google Webmaster Tools is another free tool from Google - http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

It enables you to submit your site to Google, to tell it to be indexed (added to Google's vast library of websites) and to be crawled (Google sends virtual 'spiders' to look at your website and it's content). You can submit multiple sites and manage them all with one account.

Things every site owner should do with webmaster tools:

1. Verify your site.

2. Set it's geographic location (click on the site you want to manage then go to Site configuration > Settings). I'm pretty sure this only applies to generic TLD's (Top Level Domains) such as .com, .org, .info etc as Google automatically 'Geotarget's' country specific domains (.co.uk, .com.au etc). You want to do this for example if you are using a .com but targetting the UK.

3. Submit a sitemap. Certain eCommerce software will probably have this function built in (I know Magento does). You need to give Google an up to date sitemap as often as possible so it can see that you site is changing. If it sees your site is changing often, then it will crawl your site more often and this will help to rank you higher in the search results.

Not sure whether it's best (from an SEO point of view) to submit your site to Google asap, or whether to wait until the site is complete with all of it's content and products etc. But for my experiment, I need everything to happen as quickly as possible so I've submitted mine before I've added anything to it.