If you've found this article, you might be on the edge of starting a new dropshipping business. There's only one thing left in your mind; how long does it take to start making money with dropshipping?
Be aware when reading information around this question. Some dropshipping "gurus" will try to sell you a dream and promise you that you will start earning money within a few weeks if you buy their course. Don't fall for this trap.
You may start earning money within a few weeks with dropshipping. However, this is an exception rather than a rule. Most dropshippers actually take longer before they start being profitable with dropshipping. So, the time it takes before you start making money with dropshipping depends on your previous experience, product, marketing skills, and much more!
Let's discuss some factors that can influence the time it takes you before you will start earning some money with dropshipping.
How long does it take to start earning money?
As I have said, there is no clear-cut answer to this question.
However, a couple of factors might influence the time needed for you to make money with dropshipping. Just like with any business, some people succeed within a few months, while others continue grinding for years and years before finding success.
The most important thing is never to give up.
Here are some things that might cause you to need more (or less) time before you start making money with dropshipping:
Talent
I'm convinced that everyone has a talent. However, not everyone has the same talent. While, in my opinion, everyone can succeed with dropshipping as long as they don't quit and keep trying, some people have more talent for it than others.
So, some people will simply succeed and earn money with dropshipping faster than others. They have a good instinct for which product to pick, which audience to target, how to write product descriptions, which website design looks good, etc.
The same principle can be applied to schools. Some people go to university without much effort, while others need to work hard day in and day out to graduate.
Budget
Having access to a bigger budget generally speeds up the process of earning your first dollars off your dropshipping business.
Most people would think that the bulk of your budget would go to purchasing stock. But remember, it's dropshipping, and you don't have a stock. So, the advantages of a large budget lie somewhere else.
The most significant advantage of having a larger budget is the ability to market your store with paid traffic instead of free traffic.
The most common form of paid traffic for dropshipping is Facebook Ads, Google Ads, and influencer marketing. As the name implies, paid traffic allows you to pay for advertisements, which boost the amount of traffic to your dropshipping store.
With a small budget, you are forced to sell your product(s) to free traffic. But don't think that free traffic doesn't work. It is definitely a viable method of marketing, as we explain here. But generally, it's slow at the beginning and takes longer to build up.
Product choice
Choosing the right product is one of the most essential aspects of dropshipping.
While I'm confident that all products can be sold, some are simply way easier to sell than others.
Luckily, there are many tools available now that can help you find your winning product, like Sell The Trend.
Also, we got lots of articles and guides about picking the right dropshipping product. If you want to learn more, just check out all the articles here!
Language level
Most people start their dropshipping stores in English. You should know that dropshipping is a real business, so you should treat it like one and make it look professional.
Spelling errors and grammar mistakes on your store, product descriptions, or video ads are massive red flags for customers. It shows that you're not taking the business seriously, which will definitely hurt your customers' trust in you.
This will cause your conversion rate to drop, causing your sales to fall, and in the end, your profits. You get it.
So, if your English isn't that good, and you're building an English dropshipping store. You should always check for these mistakes.
One amazing tool to prevent spelling and grammar mistakes in your dropshipping store is Grammarly. It scans your text while you write it and highlights parts of the text that contain an error. You can learn more about the reasons to use this tool here!
You can also double-check your grammar and spelling by letting someone else check it. I recommend hiring someone on Fiverr to do this for you cheaply.
Another alternative is to make a dropshipping store in your native language. If you're interested in this, check out our list of the 15 Best and Worst Countries To Target as a Dropshipper!
Learning source
Running a dropshipping business requires a lot of knowledge of all kinds of fields. Marketing, web design, copywriting, video editing, customer service, just to name a few.
All these fields contain subfields as well. For example, marketing can be divided into email marketing, social media marketing, SMS marketing, and many others.
This is why we created Do Dropshipping. To help as many people as possible by putting all the information you need to start your own dropshipping business in one place. All for free, so you don't have to buy any courses from the dropshipping gurus.
Since it's subjective, I won't mention the worst and best places to learn dropshipping. But, I do have the opinion that some information sources contain higher-quality information than others.
And don't forget that there are also many ways to learn new information about dropshipping. There are blogs, but you can watch free courses, buy (e)books, or learn dropshipping from a mentor as well!
How long does it take to learn dropshipping?
This brings me to the next point; how long does it actually take to learn dropshipping?
This is a challenging question to answer because when have you fully "learned" dropshipping?
We have a complete dropshipping guide that will teach you how to create your first dropshipping store, and it will take 30 mins to read.
However, not all information we have about creating stores is put in the article as it includes links to all kinds of different articles that can help you further with a specific topic. So, to read all those other articles, it will take you a couple of more hours!
Even after reading all those articles, you will have a good understanding of creating a dropshipping store, but what about marketing it, making video or photo ads, choosing products, and the possible social media side of it?
As you can see, there is a lot to learn. And in my opinion, the fastest way to learn dropshipping is just to do it.
Of course, you can always look up some information online on some topics. But by applying it yourself, you will learn the most from it.
So, if you are ready to start your own dropshipping store, you can click here to claim a free 3-day trial + pay $1/month for the first 3 months (cancel anytime) from Shopify!
I think we can conclude that you will never fully learn dropshipping, as the market and industry are changing every day, and there is always something new to learn!
Does experience matter?
The last point that I'm going to cover is your earlier experience with dropshipping or ecommerce.
Will you start making money faster with dropshipping if you already have experience with it?
There's a high chance that you will.
Having more experience with selling products online simply makes it more likely that you will earn money faster because you won't make the same mistakes you've made when you were still a beginner.
So, if you are a beginner and interested in starting a dropshipping business, definitely check out our article, which goes over the 10 Most Common Dropshipping Mistakes.
Making a mistake while dropshipping can cost you a lot of time and money, so reading the article will definitely be worth it for you!
In case you've already built your dropshipping store and are ready to start advertising. I recommend you to check out this article, which covers 13 Facebook Ad Beginner Mistakes.
Conclusion
While arriving at the end of the article, I think we can conclude that the time it takes for a person to start making money with dropshipping varies for everyone!
Some are knowledgeable, talented, or experienced and will succeed in making money with dropshipping within weeks. Others, however, work hard day in day out for months and months before their dropshipping business becomes profitable.
This leads me to the message of the day:
You should always treat your dropshipping store like a real business. If you are a beginner, don't expect to be making money within six months. And remember that it can take even longer. But as long as you take it seriously and don't quit working it, you will succeed in making money with dropshipping.
That's it for this article. Thank you for reading it all the way through. Remember that if you have any questions, you can always contact us, and we will try to help you!
Good luck with everything, and have a great rest of your day!
