My dropshipping journey actually started by an accident: I was sourcing fabrics for luxury garments I was producing, and at some point, supply ran out. So I tried something I would normally never do - I found ready-made pieces made from the same fabric at a Chinese factory, and decided to send one piece directly to my customer to fulfill the order she placed. Was I terrified to send something to a client that I hadn’t seen or touched? Hell yes. It felt like the fastest way to ruin trust. Spoiler: that was more of MY unresolved subconscious trust issues that were affecting my business (and these subconscious matters are real, believe it or not- I even learned hypnosis to deal with them!). So once I detected this trust issue and just decided ”to show trust and give it a try” - this is when the magic happened. The luxury dropshipping magic that literally changed my entire business, and my entire life. And after all, what would have happened in worst case if my client didn’t like the garment? I’d just issue a refund. That’s it. So I took the risk. And… it worked! Funny how something that feels like a mistake at first ends up being the right move that changes everything… Did you ever have such “happy accidents” that looked like a bad idea at the start, but turned into something good?

At the beginning of my dropshipping journey (which was a pure coincidence btw and I’ll write the separate post about it for sure)… so, then I was pretty sure that the best way to get fast sales = confirmation of your ideas, is to launch your store at some marketplace where people already gather. As I am into fashion, I chose Etsy at that time. Year 1 - I saw some sales like 1-2/ month without any promotion, which proved the idea is valid. While I was figuring out the internal Etsy promotion tools at year 2- I reached break even aka I was able to pay my bills and groceries, which was already pretty cool. But year 3 - that was pure magic with my store hitting 6 figures ( I caught the Etsy algo wave!) and crashed the next year - the store was permanently banned🤬 So, I had no other choice than to start from the option 2 (the one that I’d rather not advice back when I started)👇 I opened my dedicated store on Shopify, with full control BUT zero traffic. I got some previous Etsy buyers email list which was a blessing and kept me afloat for initial months. And now, a year later, I can say that with the help of AI marketing & SEO ( which I never did myself before), I see traffic growth & organic sales coming in. Was it frightening - to find myself in the online ocean with items that proved to be of high demand, but nobody actually SEES them? Yes, it was. But I had no choice and figured out the solution to main problem of droppshipping newbies- getting organic traffic, getting eyes on your products. I now start experimenting with FB ads (spoiler: works WAY better than Google ads that sucked 1200€ of my budget with zero results), and it’s also a topic for another post, hopefully not so long lol. But now, tell me: what do you think is the best way to start - being at marketplace with people AND risks, or put efforts into your own store WITHOUT initial traffic but with full control?