Making mistakes is common when you’re new and learning the ropes. While one can be patient and remedy mistakes gradually when following other business models such as affiliate marketing… but with ecommerce, you need a faster reaction time.
Since you’ll be spending money on advertising and may even be paying monthly for Shopify and other apps, it’s imperative that you remedy mistakes quickly so that you’re in the green instead of languishing in the red.

The best way to remedy mistakes is to avoid making them. Below you’ll find a list of 10 mistakes that most newbies make when they start a dropshipping business. By avoiding them, you’ll be in good stead and your business will see success sooner.
1. Expecting quick profits
The concept of dropshipping is easy in theory, but difficult in practice. You’ll need to go through a process of trial and error before you discover winning products and campaigns.
Let’s not forget the nerves of steel you must have to keep losing money on ads until you find a winner and scale it up to massive profits.
All of this takes time and if you’re expecting quick profits, you’ll be disappointed… and may not have the patience to stay on track until you succeed.
2. Selling trademarked products
Selling trademarked products such as plush toys with Disney or Pokemon images, etc. is a big no-no, especially when the manufacturers are not licensed to use these images.
Not only will your store be taken down immediately (by Shopify), but you may face litigation and so on. So be very careful when selling products with popular brand images and so on.
3. Not opening a niche store
All beginners to dropshipping should start off with a niche. Trying to run a general store is not only expensive, but also lowers conversions. For example, if you have an art store selling mini-sculptures and so on, someone who buys one piece may buy a few more.
But if your store has too much variety and your sculpture is being sold next to a posture corrector and a pet pooper-scooper, the customer will just buy the one art item and leave – and you’d have lost the opportunity to make more sales.
4. Slow loading site
Research has shown that 1 in 4 people will close a web page if it takes longer than 4 seconds to load. You definitely want a site that’s blazing fast.
5. A small budget
You’ll need 2k to 5k in funds to be comfortable when trying to get your dropshipping business off the ground. A lack of funds will hamper your ability to tweak and test until you find a winning product and ad.
6. Insufficient research
Exercise due diligence when choosing a supplier, products, ad platforms and so on. There are several moving parts to this business. All need to work seamlessly for your ecommerce store to operate as an efficient and reputable sales machine.
The only way to ensure that you’re getting it right will be to do your research well and choose the best options.
7. Selling low quality products
Selling low quality products will not only result in returns and complaints, but will also affect your reputation with your payment processor. You must ensure that what you’re selling is of high quality.
Order the product first or ask the supplier to send you a sample. This will allow you to know if the product is of good quality and worth selling.
8. Not checking shipping times
Long shipping times are a no-no. Sometimes, a product may have fast shipping times to the U.S. but may take a month for the same product to reach Australia.
You must be aware of the shipping times to the different countries. Making your customers wait ages for their product will result in refunds, chargebacks and other problems in your business.
9. Not having a system to handle returns
The problem with dropshipping is that the customer usually doesn’t know that you’re the middleman and not the manufacturer. So when they wish to return a product, you need to know where they’ll send it.
To your place? To the supplier? How will you handle the returns?
You’ll need a system for handling returns.
10. Quitting too soon
Last but not least, a dropshipping business is a marathon and not a sprint. Quitting too soon will mean your business dies a premature death. So give your business the time and attention it needs till it succeeds beyond your wildest dreams.
Avoid these 10 mistakes at all cost and your dropshipping journey will be faster and less painful.
