By: [JASHAN]
I’ll be honest—I didn’t expect much when I clicked “Buy” on my $39 Shopify subscription. I’d just watched a YouTube video titled “How I Made $100K in 3 Months Dropshipping,” and I thought: “Okay, let’s see if this isn’t total crap.” A month later, I was 30 days older, a little wiser, and much less romantic about passive income. This is what really happened when I tried dropshipping for 30 days.
What Is Dropshipping, and Why Did I Try It?
For the uninitiated: dropshipping is an eCommerce business model where you sell products online without holding inventory. Instead, when someone places an order on your website, you forward it to a supplier—usually in China—who ships it directly to the customer. You never touch the product.
The appeal? Low startup costs, zero inventory headaches, and the dream of making money while you sleep.
I work a full-time job and I wanted to explore some side income without going full entrepreneur. Dropshipping sounded like something I could realistically try over 30 days in the evenings and on weekends. So I committed. Just one rule: I’d put in the time and effort, but no hiring freelancers or spending beyond $500.
Here’s how it went, week by week.
Week 1: Setting Up Shop – Confusion, Chaos, and Canva
The first week was a lot of Googling. Terms like “AliExpress,” “Oberlo,” and “conversion rate” were suddenly part of my daily vocabulary. I signed up for Shopify, downloaded DSers (a popular app to import products from AliExpress), and started building my store.
I went with the “trendy wellness” niche—think posture correctors, acupressure mats, and fancy water bottles. Why wellness? Because it’s booming, and I figured people would spend on self-care, especially if my branding was convincing enough.
Using Canva, I whipped up a logo that looked decent, found a minimalist Shopify theme, and added 10 products with decent reviews and shipping times. Easy, right?
Not quite. Product descriptions from suppliers were garbage, so I rewrote every one of them to sound less like they were machine-translated from Mandarin. I also learned that images on AliExpress can be low quality or watermarked, so I had to spend time finding or editing product photos.
Total hours this week: 18. Total dollars spent: $72.
Week 2: Ads, Analytics, and First-Time Doubts
Now came the scariest part: spending money on ads. I used Facebook and Instagram because that’s where all the gurus said the action is. I created three different ad creatives and ran them to a single product—the posture corrector—because it was visual, cheap, and had clear “before/after” appeal.
Within 48 hours, I had 257 visits to my site. Zero sales.
The analytics were a mess. Bounce rate through the roof. People were landing on the product page and leaving in under 15 seconds. I panicked, tweaked the price, changed the CTA button from “Buy Now” to “Fix Your Posture Today,” and even added a fake countdown timer (don’t judge me).
Finally, on Day 10, I got my first sale. $32.99.
I was ecstatic—until I realized I had paid $17 to acquire that customer in Facebook ad costs, and $11.40 to the supplier. I made a grand total of $4.59 profit.
Not terrible. But not scalable either.
Total hours this week: 22. Total dollars spent: $191. Revenue: $32.99. Profit: $4.59.
Week 3: Scaling Problems and Customer Service Hell
Now that I’d made a sale, I thought: “Let’s double down!” I bumped up my ad budget to $25/day and tested two new products. The traffic tripled. So did the customer inquiries.
“Where’s my order?”
“My tracking number isn’t working.”
“This isn’t what I expected.”
This was the reality check: customer service sucks in dropshipping. My supplier’s tracking info was delayed. Orders took 10–18 days to arrive, and that wasn’t cutting it for some customers used to Amazon’s two-day delivery.
One customer even filed a PayPal dispute. Another left a bad review. I suddenly realized I wasn’t just running a storefront—I was also an unpaid customer service rep for a Chinese logistics chain I had zero control over.
Still, I managed to make seven sales that week, totaling around $230 in revenue. Profit margins were thin—around 15% after all costs—but it felt like progress.
Total hours this week: 25. Total dollars spent: $150. Revenue: $231. Profit: ~$35.
Week 4: Burnout, Lessons, and Real Talk
By the fourth week, I was tired. I had spent nearly every evening managing ads, editing product pages, answering emails, and trying to improve my site. It was starting to feel more like a demanding job than a passive income stream.
I tried TikTok ads for a younger audience, made a video that semi-went viral (12k views in two days), and got a decent spike in traffic. I added live chat support, ran a flash sale, and offered free shipping. The orders came in, but so did the problems.
One customer received the wrong item. Another wanted a refund because their order hadn’t arrived in 12 days. I started dreading every Shopify ping.
And it hit me: dropshipping works, but it’s not easy money. It’s an online business like any other—requiring time, care, and customer support.
By the end of the month, I had made 23 sales, grossed $711, spent $492, and walked away with a profit of $123.
It wasn’t a side hustle jackpot, but it wasn’t a failure either.
What I Learned From 30 Days of Dropshipping
So, was it worth it? Yes and no. Here are the key lessons I took away.
1. Marketing Is Everything
Your store design, your product images, your ad creative—that’s what makes or breaks you. Dropshipping is all about perceived value. If your store looks like a scam, people will bounce in seconds. I probably spent more time tweaking the look of my site than anything else, and it made a difference.
2. Product Research Is a Dealbreaker
The posture corrector worked because it had broad appeal and visual impact. My mistake was trying to sell too many products too fast. Focus on 1-2 winning products, test them properly, and go deep—not wide.
3. Customer Service Will Eat You Alive
If you don’t set proper shipping expectations, people will be angry. Dropshipping from China takes time, and customers aren’t always patient. Be honest in your shipping policy, or you’ll be refunding like crazy.
4. You Need Capital to Scale
Yes, dropshipping is low-cost to start—but scaling requires money. You need to invest in ads, better creatives, possibly even samples for custom photos. That’s how the big dogs win. With my $500 budget, I was barely scratching the surface.
5. The Dream of “Passive Income” Is Oversold
Unless you hire a VA or automate heavily, dropshipping is not passive. It’s a business. Sure, you can make money while you sleep—but only after spending hours building systems that don’t collapse when you log off.
Would I Recommend Dropshipping?
Honestly? I’d say try it, but don’t expect miracles.
It’s a great crash course in online business. You’ll learn everything from web design and digital marketing to customer psychology. And if you stick with it, you can scale. There are legit million-dollar dropshippers out there.
But for most people, especially those doing it solo without much cash, it’s a grind. You’ll make some money. You’ll lose some. You’ll definitely learn a lot.
And who knows? You might just love the hustle.
Final Thoughts: The Real Cost of the Experiment
Let’s break it down.
- Time spent: 90+ hours over 30 days
- Money invested: $492
- Revenue earned: $711
- Total profit: $123
- ROI on time: Roughly $1.36/hour
- Skills learned: Priceless
So no, I didn’t quit my job. I didn’t build a passive income empire. But I walked away smarter, sharper, and a little less naive about online business.
And if you’re sitting there thinking about trying it for yourself—go for it. Just don’t buy into the hype. Bring your curiosity, your hustle, and a whole lot of patience.
Because dropshipping isn’t a gold mine.
It’s a workshop.
Would you like me to format this into a downloadable Google Doc or blog-friendly HTML for publishing?