This is as bad as learning fly fishing!

20 replies
Ok, you gurus... What was your kick start? I won't compete with you. That's stupid. I don't want tons of growth, I already have a business and it's too much to manage so I'm shutting it down. But what advice do you have? I need to flip a coin after months of research.

I've always equated success and failure to fishing. Largely due to the same issue of a million different options, and endless disinformation. Persistence pays, but this is ridiculous.

I have built a good website with WordPress, that's basically ready to roll. But the decision between drop shipping and affiliate programs has me spinning my gears here.

Thank you in advance for your reply.
Brian
#bad #fishing #fly #learning
  • Profile picture of the author savidge4
    Originally Posted by Wizbang View Post

    I have built a good website with WordPress, that's basically ready to roll. But the decision between drop shipping and affiliate programs has me spinning my gears here.
    The 2 options as close as they may seam are 2 totally different animals. The primary variable between the 2 is time. Drop shipping requires far more of it. AND if you don't already have a drop shipper in your back pocket at this point it could potentially lead to FAR more time.

    I personally only deal with warehouse direct type relationships with bigger brands. I know they have inventory... I know I can call them when there is an issue. I know they will get the product where it needs to go, when it needs to be there. To be honest before I had built those relationships, drop shipping flat out sucked, it took A L L of my time.

    The flip side.. Affiliate marketing may require an hour or 2 a week dinking with product, and that's it.

    I look at it this way.. when I am selling product I want to control as much time as I can towards marketing the product I am selling. If I am not Posting, engaging, communicating about the products I am offering... Im not selling anything. and if Im not selling anything well Im not making money.

    The plus sides to drop shipping there is more money to be made... but you have to weigh the 2 variables time and money to determine if it is worth it. Starting out.. I would start as an affiliate and start the migration towards Drop Shipping, and developing the needed relationships to make that work.

    So I have been talking about time time and time.. and you are wondering what the heck? Drop shipping is a pretty easy concept. you sell a product IE you take the customers money. You order the product the bought.. someone else ships it and we hope the customer gets it.

    This puts YOU in the middle of the customer, and your drop shipper. Package hasn't arrived.. the customer calls you. The package is damaged, the customer calls you. The package is missing a cord, the customer calls you. The customer needs a tracking number... a notice the package was sent... and on and on and on

    OR you send someone to amazon to buy something you get credit for - the end

    So how I did this migration. I started with an affiliate site, and being totally transparent I was selling HD tv's Over an amount of time I started getting sales. Over a bit more time I noticed I was selling one brand over the others. I then wrangled my way around and finally contacted someone at that brand and struck a direct deal. I then created a site for that brand specifically ( keeping the affiliate site )

    I now have 3 brand sites, AND the affiliate site. Yes the income from the brands is far greater.. BUT at one point I had 5 brand sites... so some amount of diversification is needed right? its business and this is a pretty steady cash funnel and I would like to keep it that way.

    But that's my opinion and experience..

    Hope that helps!
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  • Profile picture of the author Brent Stangel
    The flip side.. Affiliate marketing may require an hour or 2 a week dinking with product, and that's it.
    This is the kind of misinformation that gives newbies such an unrealistic idea of what's involved.

    "An hour or two a week "dinking" with product" is really priceless.

    FFS!

    Brent
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    • Profile picture of the author savidge4
      Originally Posted by Brent Stangel View Post

      This is the kind of misinformation that gives newbies such an unrealistic idea of what's involved.

      "An hour or two a week "dinking" with product" is really priceless.

      FFS!

      Brent
      Kind of how? Once you list the products, I do so automatically using WP ALL IMPORTS, you have to maintain your product listings on your site here and there.. a few hours a week - at most.

      And yes "dinking" with product IS priceless when it truly is a reality. Less time screwing around with product listing means more time to be out promoting those items.
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  • Affiliate offers are comparable easier as most of the time the promotion tools are ready prepared for you by the owners. On the other hand. you will need more time and budget to setup drop shipping store and handle problems that associated with selling physical products. Anyhow, able to find unique product that can sell is one of the key to success for both.
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    • Profile picture of the author savidge4
      Originally Posted by InternetMarketingMadeEZ View Post

      Anyhow, able to find unique product that can sell is one of the key to success for both.
      I read this type of statement TIME AND AGAIN... and it simply is not true. Give me Dunkin Donuts coffee at a good wholesale price I will buy the shizzles out of it, and sell it on ebay for a profit. I will FBA it on Amazon for a profit. Find me an Affiliate that is Offering DD coffee at a competitive price with what appears to be a large quantity, and I will send buyers til the cows come home. OR find a drop shipper that has DD coffee en Mass at a good wholesale price I will send the traffic that way.

      Its not that its hard to do this stuff.. its the fact that most are making it harder than it needs to be. STRAY AWAY from UNIQUE and find the right price and quantiy of items people ACTUALLY BUY.

      Lets change this up just a bit..I can drop ship crappy Drones and make like $20 each...OR I can send traffic to high end $400+ drones at 4% commission and make about the same.. with less work, and KNOW the traffic I am sending will be more than happy with the product they receive. AND THEN I can hit buyer traffic up with add ons to their recent purchase

      Basically what I am saying.. STOP selling UNIQUE cheap crap.. and focus more on high end QUALITY goods that people are actually BUYING and in the end the people you sell to will be happier and YOU will be happier.
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      • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
        Originally Posted by savidge4 View Post


        Lets change this up just a bit..I can drop ship crappy Drones and make like $20 each...OR I can send traffic to high end $400+ drones at 4% commission and make about the same.. with less work, and KNOW the traffic I am sending will be more than happy with the product they receive. AND THEN I can hit buyer traffic up with add ons to their recent purchase

        Basically what I am saying.. STOP selling UNIQUE cheap crap.. and focus more on high end QUALITY goods that people are actually BUYING and in the end the people you sell to will be happier and YOU will be happier.
        Two thoughts on this ...

        1) Or, you could dropship those same high end, top brand drones and make even more money.

        2) Whether you are dropshipping or are an affiliate, marketing something that people want and buy is definitely better than trying to market a no-name.
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      • Unique does not mean that the product is cheap or of low quality, it is just something that different from what other people are normally selling.
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  • Profile picture of the author Wizbang
    Thank you all for your valued contributions. I've learned a lot in this thread.
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    • Profile picture of the author savidge4
      Originally Posted by Wizbang View Post

      Thank you all for your valued contributions. I've learned a lot in this thread.
      So which way are you leaning and why?
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      • Profile picture of the author Wizbang
        I've decided on being an affiliate. I hate the idea of customer service, I'm' not prepared for that just yet. So yesterday I spent the morning reinventing what I what to do, and how? I wanted a fairly generic but memorable site name last year because I had no clue on what I was doing. Now I have direction. The next question is sell what? What product, or multiple products, and what am I up against?
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        • Profile picture of the author savidge4
          Originally Posted by Wizbang View Post

          I've decided on being an affiliate. I hate the idea of customer service, I'm' not prepared for that just yet. So yesterday I spent the morning reinventing what I what to do, and how? I wanted a fairly generic but memorable site name last year because I had no clue on what I was doing. Now I have direction. The next question is sell what? What product, or multiple products, and what am I up against?
          So let me help you out here a bit... Start with a SINGLE ONE product you KNOW or at the very least have an interest in. If you don't own it.. go out and buy it - use it - REALLY get to know it.. what ever it is.

          OR if you already have what ever it is... you are one step ahead of the game.

          NEXT goto e-bay type in the item in search and because I know the numbers for this we will say "Hero 7" as in the camera. ok in the top it will give you the number of listings. In this case its 420. Next, you want to look in the upper right of the screen and look for the word "advanced" ( its right next to the "search button" ) on this screen right below the "search button" about 1/3 down the screen you will see a check box labeled "Sold Listings" check that then click "search".

          So this page represents the sales that have been made in the past 90 days. we can look at the number of results and see 1570 have sold.

          Now we can figure out to some degree the amount of demand for an item. anytime the number sold in the past 90 days is higher than the number listed to sell.. there is high demand. We can go even a step further and run some math here ( A ) available stock + ( S ) sold stock and then divide that total by sold stock. so S/(A+S) and in this case we are left with 78%

          That 78% represents how many of the (A) available stock will sell in 90 days. But the other way I look at this is just making the percentage a score. The sales score for the hero 7 is a 78 out of 100. Obviously the closer to 100 the better and the closer to 0 the worse..

          This is how I look for product. #1 have an interest in what you are selling, it will reflect in your efforts and your language you use in those efforts and then #2 at least have an understanding of the demand for what it is you are selling.

          So like I said I suggest starting with 1 product and one product only. This will actually correct a lot of the beginner mistakes.. and in turn increase YOUR odds of succeeding with this. The BIGGEST mistake people make is loading up a store and going out and advertising the STORE. and this is a HUGE mistake.

          Saying "Hi I sell stuff" vs "Hi I sell Hero 7 cameras" are 2 totally different things the first is very non targeted the second is way targeted. make sense?

          Selling a single item also allows you to focus on the process of selling that single item.. it allows you to get the process moving in the right direction. It gives you focus on what you are doing. And once that product starts moving, as in selling.. you can take everything you have learned from that process and apply it to each and every product you add to your store from that point forward.

          Hope that Helps!
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          • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
            Originally Posted by savidge4 View Post

            NEXT goto e-bay type in the item in search and because I know the numbers for this we will say "Hero 7" as in the camera. ok in the top it will give you the number of listings. In this case its 420. Next, you want to look in the upper right of the screen and look for the word "advanced" ( its right next to the "search button" ) on this screen right below the "search button" about 1/3 down the screen you will see a check box labeled "Sold Listings" check that then click "search".

            So this page represents the sales that have been made in the past 90 days. we can look at the number of results and see 1570 have sold.

            Now we can figure out to some degree the amount of demand for an item. anytime the number sold in the past 90 days is higher than the number listed to sell.. there is high demand. We can go even a step further and run some math here ( A ) available stock + ( S ) sold stock and then divide that total by sold stock. so (A+S)/S and in this case we are left with 78%
            Pretty interesting process you have there. The math is wrong; though, it should be S/(A+S).
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            • Profile picture of the author savidge4
              Originally Posted by dave_hermansen View Post

              Pretty interesting process you have there. The math is wrong; though, it should be S/(A+S).
              Thanks.. it is backwards isn't it.. ooops!

              So to give you and anyone else interested in exactly what that equation is figuring out ill explain it.

              So adding the sold and available listed items gives you the total listing for a 90 day period. Then dividing the number of available by sold gives you the percentage of available items that will sell in the next 90 days.

              This number does a few things for us.. it gives us an idea of how fast the item may sell OR not sell, On ebay it gives an idea if a "sponsored" listing may be of value, and It tells us the demand of the item. Most importantly it tells us roughly how much of the Available stock will sell in the next 90 days. THAT percentage we figured is that number.

              Going back to the GoPro example 78% of the 420 listings will sell in the next 90 days. rounding things out 75% of 400 or 300 of those listings will sell. Looking at Mens watches the percentage is 27% but available listings are 813,104. Yes a kick ton of watches sell in a day, but you can expect to take longer to sell each one. The type of watches I am currently selling are actually at 18% so they actually move even slower.

              I personally sell quite a bit doing retail arbitrage... so for ME this number is pretty important. I can honestly say I DO sell items that have a low score, I just understand they may take longer to sell.

              A current example is I am selling some watches that have a score of 18%. I have over 100 of them and sell about 1 a day.. so I will be sitting on this inventory for some amount of time. BUT the profit side makes it worth it. They just aren't fast cash like iPhones or Nike shoes ( score a 40% at the evergreen level ) or video games etc.
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              • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
                Originally Posted by savidge4 View Post

                I personally sell quite a bit doing retail arbitrage... so for ME this number is pretty important. I can honestly say I DO sell items that have a low score, I just understand they may take longer to sell.
                I know very few people doing REAL arbitrage anymore (far too many people think buying from Walmart and having them ship to a customer is "arbitrage" or "dropshipping"). Good for you!

                Honestly, it's one of the very best ways to make easy money online. That is, if you have the money for the initial inventory and a keen eye to find the great deals and scoop them up.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ankush Mittal
    Originally Posted by Wizbang View Post

    Ok, you gurus... What was your kick start? I won't compete with you. That's stupid. I don't want tons of growth, I already have a business and it's too much to manage so I'm shutting it down. But what advice do you have? I need to flip a coin after months of research.

    I've always equated success and failure to fishing. Largely due to the same issue of a million different options, and endless disinformation. Persistence pays, but this is ridiculous.

    I have built a good website with WordPress, that's basically ready to roll. But the decision between drop shipping and affiliate programs has me spinning my gears here.

    Thank you in advance for your reply.
    Brian
    So you are stuck into 2 Business models one is dropshipping and another one is affiliate marketing.

    So first of all in the Drop shipping you need to take care of a lot of things like selecting a product, creating and managing your Store, contacting the suppliers, providing a good customer service and there are lots of other things in the Drop shipping.

    But on the other hand if you are doing affiliate marketing you are simply selling other people's products in return for a Commission you just only need to take care about traffic and there after funnel you do not have to worry about managing a store, creating a product, providing customer service you just only need to take the traffic and convert it into sales that is the only thing you need to do.

    On the other thing is if you are going to go with the dropshipping you need really big budget because whole of your business totally depends on the paid traffic.

    And on the other hand if you are in the affiliate marketing you can even start with like Facebook groups, YouTube channel, forum posting, Quora and many other stuff in case of affiliate marketing you will be able to drive traffic and get sales.

    So as per me you should speak one business model on the basis of your knowledge and on the basis of your budget.

    Good luck for successful journey.
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    • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
      Originally Posted by Ankush Mittal View Post

      On the other thing is if you are going to go with the dropshipping you need really big budget because whole of your business totally depends on the paid traffic.

      And on the other hand if you are in the affiliate marketing you can even start with like Facebook groups, YouTube channel, forum posting, Quora and many other stuff in case of affiliate marketing you will be able to drive traffic and get sales.

      So as per me you should speak one business model on the basis of your knowledge and on the basis of your budget.

      Good luck for successful journey.
      I'm not sure why you think marketing as an affiliate is any different than as a web store owner - whether you are dropshipping or not. Ecommerce store owners SHOULD be using Facebook Groups, forum posting, Quora and all of the same free things affiliate marketers do to market their website. Because commissions are generally considerably higher, the eCommerce store owner has an additional and usually far more effective way of generating traffic - advertising. There's no reason not to take advantage of the free traffic sources as well, though.

      As far as your comment about needing a "big budget" goes, I'm not sure I agree with that either. With most paid advertising sources, you do not pay for the ads immediately as you place them. For Google and Bing advertising, you usually don't pay for the ads until they have been running for a month. If you have run effective ads, you have already made profits from those ads that you will use at the end of the month to pay for them - with money left over to put in your own packet. I think people have gotten so tied up in the Shopify/AliExpress/Facebook ads hysteria (which can run you dry of advertising money pretty quickly), they forget there are many other ways to advertise your products to people who actually ARE looking for them.
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  • Profile picture of the author ryanbiddulph
    Do what you genuinely love doing, Brian, and you become:

    - generous
    - patient
    - persistent

    and will surely succeed, in good time.
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  • tbh I tried masqueradin' as a no-hoper made good -- only my parents suffocated my ass with noose-loads of BLING an' consigned me to life's monstrously shiny perimeter as a lopsided lamp looks kinda decadent till'n you switch the f*cker on.


    Meantime, you want my observations on FLY FISHIN', gotta tellya my rates ain't too bad.


    Like any Scrabble board says, the diffrence between ZIPPER an' RIPPER is jus' one weeny ole letter ...
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    Lightin' fuses is for blowin' stuff togethah.

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    • Profile picture of the author savidge4
      Originally Posted by Princess Balestra View Post

      Like any Scrabble board says, the diffrence between ZIPPER an' RIPPER is jus' one weeny ole letter ...
      And the fact that the Z is worth 10 and the R worth 1 point.

      *** FULL DISCLUSURE: I looked those points up. I in no way knew the scores.. I only knew one was more than the other ***
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      • Originally Posted by savidge4 View Post

        *** FULL DISCLUSURE: I looked those points up. I in no way knew the scores.. I only knew one was more than the other ***

        FULL MISCSEIZURE: I speakin' metaphorically here; I in no way inferred it was merely an EXAHMPLE. tbh anywan figures I can add up straight gotta be beyond noomerically conspazzulated -- speshly if'n said anywan is frickin' Moi.
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