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Dropshipping Niches I tried And failed Terribly As A Newbie

Dropshipping business is not easy, and in this post, you are about to read the dropshipping niches I tried and failed terribly as a newbie who was testing things and had no idea how to find a hot selling dropshipping product or niche.

As a beginner, every niche or product is a hot-selling; you want to try any shining product without digging into the nitty-gritty of how you will market, your market audience, your marketing strategy, and the required amount needed to have a conversion.

I was naive, excited to make quick bucks with this new ecommerce model that had almost everyone in the dropshipping group I was, post screenshots of earnings, and boy did I wish to be left out? Nah.

After a short research, I dug deep into my pockets and used the few coins had saved for the Christmas holiday to sign up for my first ever Shopify store. I was motivated by the screenshots, the Lamborghinis, and the rented Airbnb apartments.

I saw myself in their shoes, giving Lambos virtual rides and living in those big mansions. I didn’t care how they got there, but one thing I was sure of, that the dropshipping business made played a major part in their success.

Since we all know you can do more with Shopify 14 days free trial, I jumped in, created the Shopify store, I went further to install the oberlo chrome extension to help import hot products from Aliexpress to the Shopify store.

I gave myself ten days, and my target was to do everything within the first ten days before the Shopify free trials ended.

Within the ten days, I had to vision a high-converting store, a premium theme, web content created, and important pages.

The funny thing, when you are making mistakes, the so-called dropshipping gurus don’t offer a helping hand if you can’t cough the $1999 dropshipping mentorship course they offer.

You are left to make mistakes, learn from your errors, and have your head above the water despite the expenses a newbie incur as they start with no signs of making it work.

Enough of my storytelling. Here is a list of dropshipping niches I tried and failed terribly.

Weed Niche (420)

I joined the dropshipping business when the call to legalize 420 was on the rise, and I also read encouraging stories of successful 420 affiliate blogs and offline shops that were booming.

I gathered courage even though I have never used 420 neither have ideas about the audience behavior: What they love, the shopping habits, etc.

Since almost everyone in that niche was selling a physical product or a drop shipped one. I decided to go the print-on-demand way, and I knew at the back of my end that Print on Demand Business is a Low-Risk Model To Sell Custom T-Shirts, and that is the route I took.

Instead of selling 420 products, I designed high-quality designs for shirts.

My idea was to sell custom print on demand weed-related T-shirts; I was avoiding a crowded sub-niche, I wanted to be a lone ranger.

Print on demand was a new business model, launched after the dropshipping business came through. I had hopes that 420 T-shirt designs would sell like a hot cake.

The design I came up with was to play around with the word Weed.

I wasn’t aware of the mistake or something for a niche like that; running paid ads is restricted since Facebook ads wouldn’t approve 420 adverts taming it as drug-related and against their Policy.

I tried targeting 21 years, and above still, my ads never approved. I have spent time and money building the store, hiring T-shirt designers to work on the designs, buying a domain name, and about to start paying Shopify monthly fee.

But here I am, a fully done store with high-quality designs ( I guess) but lacks the channel to run ads. I had a low budget as I was about to launch.

I decided to go with Instagram influencer marketing, and I took two days to research and found a relevant influencer who would match my brand and have targetted audience.

In a nutshell, I ended up spending $300 among ten influencers in general, with only two sales amounting to $69. I closed the store after running losses of paying Shopify $29.

If you want to try the weed niche, at least don’t be like me, research and have your marketing options open. There are successful Weed-related Shopify stores and amazon affiliate blogs, which means it’s a good niche but needs thorough research.

Wooden Bowtie

I followed a trend; anything wooden was a hot selling product I perceived. I saw promoted Facebook posts selling wooden toothbrushes, wooden sunglasses, and everything wooden.

The selling point was based on the food it does to our environment, the positive impact, and the percentage they claimed they donate to relevant every sale they make.

I said to myself, Mhhh, if they are already selling wooden sunglasses, wooden toothbrushes, what else is left to be sold?

I took time researching on ALiepxress and bOom. I came across a wooden bow tie, and people love bow ties, right? What of a classy wooden bow tie? They would love it more, and I convinced myself.

A domain was bought (woodenbowtied.com) just like the weed store was created; I did my due diligence and did justice to this new store. I knew this was it. Unlike the weed niche that was miss, I was 100% convinced this is a hit.

The wooden bowtie conversion was very low; based on the hype I saw online, I would compete with the big dawgs who spent above $1000 per day on one ad compared to my $5 per day for four days of testing PPE ads.

I wasn’t feeling the niche, it took time to break even, and I ended up making about ten sales. With the current global changes happening and the need to keep sane our environment, wooden products are great for niches.

You can try and ensure that if you’ve promised to donate a percentage of the sales to an organization, don’t bluff about it, do it.

Fashion

Women shop online more than men; hence selling a woman’s product stands for a high conversion than the other niches. Most online dropshippers stores tend to bend towards women related niches.

I saw fashion nova and thought to myself. These niches must be the hottest; if not, how can one explain how fashion nova kept opening new sub-niches, e.g., Fashionova-curve, etc.

With the above notion, I went full into dropshipping women related fashion products. I had a general store (fashion).

Fashion wasn’t that bad, but the disputes and chargeback killed my passion for it.

With fashion, Asian sizes are not accurate to customers in other countries like the US or UK; sometimes the material used doesn’t match the one in the product description; hence increase in disputes in returns triggers PayPal limitation and bans.

Before I found my current niche, the above were the dropshipping niches I tried, and not happy about the experience they gave me.

Conclusion on dropshipping niches I tried

Even though the above outlines dropshipping niches I tried and didn’t do well, I encourage you to give it a try despite my experience. Maybe it was rookie mistakes that made me failed.

It doesn’t mean if it didn’t work for me, the same can be your story.

You can learn the techniques I use for finding hot dropshipping niches and avoid wasting your time and money on bad products.

Did you know you can get a 14 days Shopify Free trials? Well, Shopify gives you 14 days to work on your store, and when ready to launch, you can simply go live by entering your billing information.

Go sign up on Shopify today and enjoy the dropshipping business.

Try put Shopify basic plan for 14 days

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I was looking for ways of making a living working online from the comfort of my home,few years in am able not only to work from home but also help others achieve their dreams too. I am a full-time eCommerce expert dropshipping business ,Niche research and Facebook ads Expert.

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