Matthew Lepre is a 27-year old Australian eCom mogul who has a wonderful story to tell about how fate brought him to eCommerce, living a broke and unhappy life, and how dropshipping made him very rich at a very young age. We interviewed him for our readers and he shared 5 major mistakes that cost people an otherwise guaranteed success in dropshipping.
So, Matt, before we get into the detail of the 5 secrets that you are going to share with us today the five mistakes that are behind every eCom business’s failure, let us talk a little bit about you and your unbelievable success in eCommerce.
Matthew: Sure. I was just another young Australian man, been through formal education, did what I was asked for, but very soon, I felt that I was sold a bad bill of goods.
Education failed to offer me a good career. I studied dentistry, but I make money via eCommerce just like a student of mine who might never go back to dentistry - only because eCommerce achieved for us what our formal career (dentistry) wouldn’t do in decades.
So, one day, thinking about the utility bills and the kind of hand-to-mouth life I was living, I thought about this ‘make money online’ thing. After a month’s rigorous search over the internet, I was clear that it was eCommerce.
Fast forward to two multiple 6-figure eCom stores and many uber-successful students under my wing, I cannot thank my stars enough for that choice I made on that day.
Alright, Matthew, now is the time we talk about those 5 eCommerce mistakes that are lethal for any online store - especially those launched by novice eCommerce ninjas.
Matthew: Well, before ever I talk about the first mistake - and it’s not motivational woo-woo but real and practical lousy judgment calls.
Let us talk about some basic
mistake that everyone makes.
eCommerce is not a magic wand. Like any other business, in the case of ecom, you have to make a mindset and learn the ropes. Most people don’t even know how dropshipping works - which is the eCommerce branch that I specialize at.
So, first of all you need to know what this model is and how it works. I have students - now crushing it - but when they started, they asked me questions like,
“Would I have to arrange the shipping of the merchandise?”
Once you know how this model works, one of the biggest pitfalls is product research. What many people do is that they have a shiny object syndrome. They picked a product that is very trendy and that many stores are already selling.
They see a particular product’s ads and think that they should sell the same. While I do not suggest you sell products without any potential, you have to be very strategic about picking a product. You hit the sweet spot when you choose a product that is a new trend in the market, but many sellers aren’t aware of it.
Matthew: Well, the second biggest mistake happens when you take the second logical step. You have picked a product; now it is the time to set up a store. You don’t know how many mines are there in that field alone. You have to make many professional decisions and one step taken without proper guidance is like stepping on a mine. For example, setting up a Shopify store is a very technical thing; you do it wrong, you won’t know what hit you.
And then there’s Facebook, Google Analytics, PayPal, and lots of technical details that I cannot discuss in a short period.
Matthew: Well, that is all about Facebook. We run video ads on Facebook, and that is a tricky platform. For starters, Facebook has some of the strictest compliance rules (thanks to Cambridge Analytica and all the following fiasco). You can go from getting your ads paused to getting your business manager disabled without knowing what you did wrong.
And that’s the tip of the iceberg. You don’t know how to optimize those ads; you don’t know the kind of ads you can have and the kind of audiences you can target. That’s a big rabbit hole and the reason why businesses often get the black eye.