How To Start A Successful Shopify Side Hustle

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Have you ever thought about starting your own online shop, but the thought of shipping all of those products seems way too daunting? Then this post about starting a Shopify side hustle is just for you.

Today Beck from MomBeach.com is sharing her secrets from selling over six-figures on Shopify.

Dropshipping on Shopify is a great way to make money from home and requires little investment to get started. I’ll turn it over to Beck so she can share all her epic Shopify tips with us!

If you want to start your own Shopify store you can try it free for 14 days here.

Why Start A Shopify Side Hustle?

A year ago, I found out about Shopify from an ad featuring a “Shopify guru” on YouTube while watching makeup tutorial videos. I had my own personal YouTube channel where I did makeup tutorials myself but wasn’t getting many viewers.

It was my dream of quitting my job and being able to stay home with my three-year-old son, Bryan. It was killing me having to work 8-5 every day and leave Bryan in daycare. There had to be another way!

While watching the ad, I thought that maybe this could be the way I was looking for. This guru, named Kevin David, really piqued my interest in dropshipping with Shopify, as I never heard of the concept before.

I had sold on Amazon FBA in the past and still had items up for sale. With Amazon FBA, you have to spend lots of money to buy items to ship them to Amazon for fulfillment. However, with dropshipping, there is no upfront cost!

Kevin David was selling a course in the ad, but I watched his videos on YouTube so I could see if he could help me. The more I watched the videos, I just became sold on the concept of dropshipping and using Shopify. I then purchased his course for $997, a lot of money for me at the time, so I could learn even more about how dropshipping with Shopify works.

He walked me through setting up my own store and how to do Facebook ads to promote my store. Then, I joined his Facebook group and met lots of friends who dropshipped as well and learned even more about the business.

How much can you make selling on Shopify?

It varies from month to month, depending on the item I run Facebook ads on. I have to do market research using tools such as Jungle Scout and Nichescraper in order to find winning products.

A winning product is your feature item that gets people to your store by running ads featuring it on Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest. Some months, I make $3k and others I can make up to $9k. For the month of November, mostly because of Black Friday, I had made almost $6.5k.

The Shopify store is a side hustle, so I do still have a full-time job where I make almost six-figures. My family is trying to pay off debt like our mortgage, so the Shopify store comes in handy. Nearly every cent I make on Shopify goes towards paying down the home mortgage! 🙂

How can I start my Shopify side hustle?

It is so surprisingly easy! I wrote an article here on my blog about the basics but I plan to write another article that is a full Shopify tutorial. It takes under an hour to get your basic Shopify store set up and you can use a free app called Oberlo to place products automatically.

All you need to do is search for what products you want and import them to your store. Oberlo tells you when something is out of stock and helps you fulfill orders as well. There are other apps that I use to help in conversion such as a countdown timer on each product page.

How can I find customers for my Shopify store?

What I do is run Facebook ads mostly that show a great product picture and a descriptive caption. If running ads on Pinterest, I will create a Pinterest pin that will have the product picture, name, and price.

With Instagram, I will either run ads or reach out to Instagram micro-influencers with a following of 5k or more. These people usually only charge me under $100 to promote my products to their followers. You can also find customers by running a blog on your Shopify store since you can get 60% more customers.

Make sure each item is using the correct SEO practices with rich keywords sprinkled throughout the product page. This allows you to get organic traffic after a while so you don’t have to spend so much running ads.

Another way to find customers is through your own personal social media accounts. Those people know you and trust you so are more likely to purchase!

What is dropshipping?

With dropshipping, you don’t have to buy any items up front as they are kept in someone else’s warehouse. This is very different from Amazon FBA where you need $200-$500 to get started.

When a customer buys from you, you place an order at a dropship supplier who sends the item directly to the customer. A dropship supplier will have warehouse prices and will sell you one of each item, not in bulk. Of course, if you buy in bulk from a non-dropship supplier than it will be cheaper for the products. You don’t have to dropship at all and just buy products in bulk to ship yourself at your home.

You never have to touch the item that you are selling. A good rule of thumb is to buy one of each of the products you plan on selling and send it to yourself. This way, you can take better photos than what is supplied on the dropshipper’s website.

You can also see the quality of the item and the shipping time. It is important to be honest to your customers about the shipping times. I use dropshippers in China quite often, which can take a month to send items.

A new strategy I am starting with my new store is only shipping to the USA by using a US dropshipper called Wonify. I won’t make as much profit but my customers will get their items faster and be happier with my store.

How do I decide what to sell on Shopify?

I use Nichescraper and Jungle Scout to find winning products mostly. With these tools, you can see the best selling items at other stores. You can then put the items on your own store and have faith that they will sell well after you implement ads.

This is better than blindly putting up products and hoping people will buy them. You already know that these items are selling!

Another trick that I do is go to a competitor’s store (I can find competitors on Nichescraper) and look at their Facebook page. At the sidebar, you can see the ads they are running so I will check them out. It tells you the length of time their ad had been running so you can see if the item has been profitable.

The more time they are running the ad, the more money they are making! They wouldn’t run an ad so long if they made no money. Who would? I will then search for the item on Ali Express or Wonify and then use Oberlo to import it to my own store.

What tips do you have for someone that wants to start a Shopify store?

Above all, be patient! With your shop, you “set it and forget it” until a customer needs an order fulfilled at a dropshipping site so it is good business for a mom.

If you get too many orders, then use Upwork to find VAs (Virtual Assistants) to help you. They can charge from $5-$15 an hour so it isn’t too bad to use their services. You can then give these people an account in your Shopify store so they can start using Oberlo to get orders fulfilled fast for you.

For customer service inquiries, the VAs could be given access to your shop’s support email to answer questions. This leaves you more time for your family and doing the things that you love. I plan to finally quit my job if I can make $10k a month for 6 months straight. I certainly believe that is possible by learning and growing my store to a brand.

I then plan to sell my own designs such as jewelry like Kendra Scott does for her business. With Shopify, the possibilities are endless!

You don’t need any coding experience because they provide beautiful free templates or paid ones. I find it very similar to having a WordPress blog since it is so easy. I believe anyone can do it!

Author Bio:

Becky is a mompreneur that loves her side-hustles and helping moms make more money so they can pay off debt. You can check out Becky at her site Mom Beach or learn more about successfully selling on shopify here.