Today, I will discuss the best success stories of five dropshippers. These are real solopreneurs who, just like us, did not come from financially affluent families. 

These people are: 

1. Nawras Ganim
2. Andreas Koenig and Alexander Pecka
3. Kamil Sattar
4. Tom Sagi
5. AC Hampton

There are many successful entrepreneurs out there, but I based this list on actual sales and the struggles that these entrepreneurs faced. The goal is to learn something from their experiences. 

We will also discuss:

• Challenges in dropshipping and how to solve them
• Tips on how to succeed as a dropshipper

In the end, I am hoping that this article motivates you enough to get started with dropshipping! 

5 Dropshipping Success Stories

1. Nawras Ganim – Over $20,000,000 in dropshipping sales

Nawras Ganim is the founder of Dropship.IO, the best dropshipping spy and analysis tool in the market. He was a dropshipper (and still is) when he founded this company. He made over $20,000,000 in dropshipping, which allowed him to branch out to the software-as-a-business industry.

Nawras has a YouTube channel where he provides invaluable knowledge to dropshippers. You can watch his dropshipping technique in the video below. 

Overall, Nawras recommends that: 

• The product must be evergreen, for all ages, high-quality, portable, unisex, problem-solving, and have low saturation
• You set up your dropshipping team properly; you must start with at least a manager (you) and a reliable supplier 
• In the future, you should consider a customer service rep, a product finder, and an ad creator 
• You use a legit domain name, Canva for your logo, and Shopify for your store (use a free theme like Sense or Dawn)
• You must have a professional page like Privacy Policy, Terms & Conditions, etc. 
• Use Stripe, PayPal, or Shopify Payments to accept payments

Nawras has several phases for dropshipping success. The bullet points above comprise Phases 1 and 2. For Phase 3, he recommends creating a winning product page. 

Your product page must be optimized with the following:

• The use of a product logo 
• A clear headline
• A FOMO alert (fear of missing out)
• A description
• Drops-downs off how your services work (shipping, returns, refunds) 

He does not recommend a lot of images for the product photo, nor does he recommend big blocks of text in the product description. Instead, his method is to write text, then GIF, then text, then GIF again. 

It is also important that you use a product review app like Loox so you can have social proof for your products. 

For Phase 4, you want to do upsell and cross-sell. What you are doing here is maximizing the opportunity to sell. 

Here are some tips:

• Prompt the customer to add the product to the cart
• If the customer selects “No,” the system must offer a similar product for a lower price 
• You want the checkout to be seamless; it has to be extremely fast (use-auto-complete for an address)

He does not approve of free shipping and says it is better to charge for shipping. Finally, you must offer a post-purchase upsell so you can sell more. 

The next phase is to do marketing. At a minimum, you must test three ads at the same time and then determine which one works. Once you get orders, use private suppliers. Finally, you must have impeccable customer support for refunds, product inquiries, etc. 

Nawras, despite his dropshipping success and building a company for dropshippers, does not stop providing helpful content to dropshippers. 

2. Andreas Koenig and Alexander Pecka - $500,000 monthly in dropshipping sales

This team hails from Austria, and they went through what many dropshippers do—they failed before they succeeded. There was a time when they even spent as much as $2,000 for ads only to learn what works and what does not. 

They started dropshipping in 2018 to make $1,000 in sales per day. They did not meet that goal. They failed and made nothing. 

Despite the challenges, they did not quit. Instead, they acted on what they learned from their mistakes. They started a pet dropshipping store and now, they make $10,000,000 a year in revenue. 

Here are the things we can learn from them: 

• It is not a good idea to operate a general store
• Dropshipping from China can cause several problems
• A niche store is easier to manage than a general store
• You will make sales if you build an emotional connection with the consumer

Apart from these, they also advise dropshippers to prepare a team of individuals who will help them out. For example, you need to plan a team where you will have a customer service rep, an ad agency you can work with, etc. 

They say this because once you have sales coming in, it would be impossible for you to handle everything. You need employees who will do some things for you. 

3. Kamil Sattar – over $3,000,000 in sales

Kamil Sattar is dubbed as the King of E-commerce. He started dropshipping when he was a teenager and is now operating several businesses. He is also a mentor who consistently provides advice to entrepreneurs. 

Kamil is the founder of Sole et Al & Fadcloset, both of which are clothing brands. He also has a YouTube channel where he offers free Shopify courses. 

What we can learn from Kamil are the following: 

• You need to diversify your business
• It is important to build content to get customers
• Use TikTok for organic marketing and research
• You must go beyond AliExpress as your main product source
• Avoid legal issues; do not sell any product that carries a brand that is not yours

Kamil is also an advocate of many other ways to earn money online, and below are his recommendations: 

• Affiliate marketing – refer the product of a company and earn commissions with it
• Print-on-Demand – use POD platforms like Printify and Printful to design your products.
• Amazon FBA – send your products to the Amazon warehouse and let them handle the shipping.
• Private Label – once you have the capital, work with a manufacturer so you can create your products and brand

Kamil has a website where he offers mentorship. He also has a service where you can get a dropshipping store for a small fee.

4. Tom Sagi – from soldier to dropshipper

Tom’s first foray into online entrepreneurship was through Amazon FBA. When his Amazon store did not work out, he began looking for other ways to make money. He went to Facebook groups and that is where he found out about dropshipping. 

Tom decided that it was best to sell with Shopify as his platform, and signed up for a dropship service tool. At first, he sourced products from AliExpress, then went to CJDropshipping, and then eventually worked his way into finding US suppliers.

Here are the things we can learn from his success:

• Choose US suppliers if your target is the US
• Pick a niche that you understand and love
• Follow-up with your buyers
• Hire a virtual assistant
• Use multiple payment methods

Tom’s successful dropshipping store is a baby niche store. His top product is the peek-a-boo teddy bear. At the peak of his success, he was making over $7,000 a day in revenue.

Tom also advises that you must learn how to use Facebook ads because it is where you will find your customers. In addition, he believed that you should never underestimate the power of social media if you are an entrepreneur.

5. AC Hampton – net worth of $1,000,000 from dropshipping

AC Hampton is the creator of a popular dropshipping course called Supreme Ecom Blueprint 2.0. He is now an 8-figure earner who also teaches entrepreneurs how to succeed in dropshipping. 

AC’s main program is through his YouTube channel, which currently has 462,000 subscribers and 692 videos.

Here are the things we can learn from AC: 

• Use Shopify for your dropshipping store
• Facebook is a good place to run ads
• You can turn a small capital, like $350, into millions

AC’s success story in dropshipping is commendable because he started as your average guy, someone who has a 9-5 job and quit. In addition, he took a course in dropshipping and like many others, failed in his first ventures. 

It was his perseverance that took him to this height of success, so much so that he is now not only a dropshipper but also a mentor.

On top of all these, AC also went through serious challenges. For one, PayPal put a hold on his account for 90 days. This is common for PayPal to do to dropshippers. He had a fair share of suppliers who did not fulfill their end of the bargain. 

AC did not give up despite all these difficulties. Today, he shares what he has learned over the years as a dropship, which you can learn from his online course.

Challenges of Dropshipping

Dropshipping is not a picnic. Even the best dropshippers failed on their first try. Our takeaway from all their failures is that we can learn from these failures, avoid them, or fix them. Below are some of the most common challenges in dropshipping and what to do.

1. Too Much Competition

Dropshipping is the easiest way to start a retail business. For as little as $30 a month, you can start a dropshipping store and make money. 

The suppliers are accessible, and the concept is easy to understand. Those who have extra money do not even need to know how to build a store. They can just buy one for as low as $49.  

All of these factors result in tough competition. So, what is the solution? The solution is to find winning dropshipping products with low saturation. Here is an example: 

You will only compete against 17 other stores if you sell this product. To find products like this one, you need a tool like the Dropship Portfolio. 

With a tool like this, you can fill your store with low-saturation products only. Since you have too few competitors, you will not have to compete on price. 

2. Difficult to Build a Brand

People buy because they trust a product or company. You can only do this if you take the steps to become a credible seller.

Branding, if you think about it, has little to do with your logo or name. It has more to do with your reputation. You must build your brand by consistently publishing content that can help people. 

The two main things to do to become a popular brand are:

• Sticking to a core niche – sell products that belong to the same category, like shoes, camping gear, sports, gym equipment, etc. 
• Reach people – publish materials that help people. Do this on several social media channels. Publish blog posts, videos, etc. 

If you need more information on how to build a brand, visit our tutorial on how to build a compelling dropshipping brand. 

3. Supplier Issues

One of the biggest challenges in dropshipping is the absence of control. You have no control over logistics and product quality. 

The only solution is to find a reliable supplier. You can do this by trial and error, such as working with many AliExpress suppliers. The other method is to contact our recommended private suppliers. 

Once you have an account with Dropship.IO, you can easily contact these suppliers via Skype. You will also have visibility on their capacity, processes, and other important details about their trustworthiness. 

4. Low Traffic

You can only make sales if there is adequate traffic. I can tell you right now that you need a lot of traffic, and it has to be one of your priorities.  

Let us say that your conversion rate is 3%. For every 100 people who go to your store, three of them will buy. For every 1,000 people, 30 will buy. 

Now, you can ask yourself: is this enough to be profitable? 

You certainly need more, right? Here are the best ways to get traffic:

• Advertise on Google, Facebook, TikTok, and other social media sites
• Publish blog posts regularly
• Post on social media often; interact with people 
• Publish videos on YouTube

The key to getting online traffic is being involved socially. No one will know you have a store unless you reach out to people. 

Summary: Dropshipping is a challenging business. However, there are solutions to these challenges. My recommendation is to prioritize product selection, niche expertise, branding, traffic, and supplier selection.

Tips to Succeed in Dropshipping

Dropshipping is a dynamic business. At a high level, you need to possess e-commerce skills to succeed in it. In this section, I will discuss the four most important things you need to do to make dropshipping worth your while. 

1. Focus on a Niche

Most dropshippers who succeeded built a niche store, not a general store. This is not to say that general stores do not work. They are just harder to manage, and they can be overwhelming. 

Here are the pros of a niche store: 

• Easier to add products
• Customers will not browse casually; they go to your site because you are selling what they want
• Not overwhelming
• More ways to upsell and cross-sell related products

Niche stores allow you to be an expert on something. You can position yourself to be an authority, and you can therefore build credibility faster than if you operated a general dropshipping store. 

For more information, please read our guide on how to find profitable niches with low competition. 

2. Always Think About the Customer

Everything you do must have the customer in mind. Below are a few considerations:

• Website design – your website must be easy to navigate 
• Checkout – make your checkout process as seamless as possible
• Blog content – the customer must find helpful articles
• Customer service – customers must have a way to chat with you 

Overall, my suggestion is to make your customer experience as effortless as possible. The less effort a customer exerts, the more loyalty you can expect. 

In addition, do not undermine the importance of product quality and speed of shipping. In the long run, it is better to sell expensive but high-quality items than cheap ones.  

3. Use an Analytics or Spy Tool

All big and successful businesses have used analytics. They slice and dice data to find out what is wrong and how they can solve problems. 

My recommendation is to sign up for a 7-day free trial account with Dropship.IO. You can do the following things with this tool:

• Find competitors and analyze what they are doing
• Track the sales of a product or a dropshipping store
• View Facebook ads and their performance
• Find winning products and see their competition levels

A tool like Dropship.IO can save you thousands of dollars. Instead of doing research manually, the algorithm will do it for you. All you need to do is type keywords and sort the results. From here, you can make informed financial and business decisions that will contribute to your success.  

4. Never Stop Learning

Finally, you will succeed in dropshipping if you do not stop learning. For example, five years ago, no one was talking about AI and product analytics tools. 

Today, you do not even need a product photographer to do your product images. You can use AI to generate product images with fantastic backgrounds.

There are always new machines you can use to improve your dropshipping performance. In addition, there are also new trends that you can capitalize on. 

Summary: Although dropshipping is a challenging business, you will succeed if you pay attention to the right priorities. The top four priorities should be customer satisfaction, automation, continuous learning, and niche selection.

Summary

The next step I recommend is to do what these successful dropshippers did: perform analytical research. You can do this with Dropship.IO, and all it takes is to take our 7-day free trial offer. 

From here, take the time to use all the tools within the system. Find winning products, see what competitors are doing, and build your winning product list based on the Dropship Portfolio recommendations