How to start an e-commerce store that doesn’t dropship

I considered removing Hubba completely from the post but the truth is that I use it. I work in marketing/growth and realized a year ago that I knew very little about the retail world. I decided to spend my own money to learn the business and bring those learnings back into my job. So in that sense, sure this is an AD, if anything it's an AD for Shopify given how much I love their software.

If you notice, there is no mention or link to my actual store that could drive $$$ into my pocket directly. The point is not to market my store, but to show you how easy it is, with the right tools, to break free from dropshipping.

It's too bad if that's all you take away from this post. The truth is that I use Hubba on a weekly basis to find new products and I haven't been able to find anything else to help me there. There are lots of marketplaces but most are full of crap or only work with dropshippers. At least on Hubba, I know the brands are being vetted by a team of humans for quality and integrity.

If you have a better alternative or another service I would be happy to include it in here.

Appreciate the comment

> You didn’t start a store to start a store. You started it to market Hubba.

False. He has updated the post to clarify this. Per his response, he invested his own money, not Hubba's marketing $$s [1]. (see below).

I found the post the author's answers to all questions from everyone here, very useful. Few people actually give out these kind of #s and in-depth details on the various aspects of starting and running a profitable shopify / eCommerce store.

[1] > I lead our growth team and a year ago, almost to the day, I realized that I knew very little about the retail space. I decided to put in my own money and learn the business that I was trying to sell. The learnings have been invaluable, and I highly recommend this kind of in depth learning wherever you can.

Regardless of the OP’s motives and affiliations, I still find this to be a valuable, informative resource. It answers many questions I’ve had, and it does so in a concise manner, with a nice summary at the top.

I’m not one to throw away a resource like this just because it’s been “tainted” by a little bias. The OP isn’t trying to hide the fact that he works for Hubba; it says it right at the top of the page.

I have no problem with people adding a shout-out to their own services as long as they’re contributing something and are transparent about their affiliations. You’re dismissing the information here based upon the author’s motivation and affiliation; such factors don’t invalidate the information presented, though they do warrant extra scrutiny.

> "it's easy to make a successful online shop, even if you have no experience whatsoever and you will make lots of money".

(I think) you are reading this all wrong. I didn't see any place in the post where the author seems to be suggesting this.

As a matter of the first 2 lines are literally the following.

> I started a e-commerce store in September 2017 that does about $400 a day in revenue. I get asked about the tools, systems and products I use often, in this post I will share what works for me.

> I don’t dropship, I buy, hold, and ship all inventory.

The rest of the post is about tools and services the author used, to achieve the 400$ / day in revenue, and like he says, what worked for him. YMMV.

I found it very useful as I am about to launch a shopify based site, and I wasn't aware of more than half the tools and services mentioned. You'll also notice that the author has answered all questions here in great detail.

It is very difficult to make people part from their money for a product or service. This post is not about what product or service to sell, it's about how to go about getting revenues coming in once you have a product or service that you want to sell.

Final note, 180,000 US$/year in REVENUE (not profits) is quite impressive. Over 80% of startups don't even see that much revenue in their entire life-cycle, stuggle for years to get people to pay for their product or service, and then die.

Can you give some insight into how you choose what products you want to add to your site?

What was your initial investment cost for inventory?

How much inventory (dollar amount) do you keep on hand now?

Why would a customer choose to buy from your site over someone like Amazon?

Who is your target audience?

Do you have any thoughts on Facebook vs Google adds (which you prefer, which drives more traffic, which drives more spends)?

Is there anything such as a Shopify App, website, or service that you wish existed that currently doesn't?

Are there any decent self hosted Shopify alternatives at this point? Last I checked the best option was something old school like Magento.

So what's the link to your site? (if it was in that medium article, it was not obviously found by scanning)

Very interesting read. You work for the place you source the products from, right?

What's your profit like?

How do you compete with people who list on Amazon?

I have a Canadian LLC and an American one too. Navigating the HST (Ontario tax) has been tricky but I should be all squared away soon. Really need to find a good accountant as doing that part myself is quite challenging.

Anyone can join, but if you want to buy you need to get verified with a valid US tax ID. We also review each account within 48 hours and if you are a drop shipper or Amazon reseller, you are removed from the site.

Congrats on getting started, few people actually do. It's a celebration regardless of what happens. Now onto your questions.

1) I used the products myself and had friends asking me lots of questions. Dogfooding at it's best.

2) 3 days after going live I got my first sale.

3) No, except when it came to free shipping.

4) No, all SEO and intentful Facebook Ads

5) No, I used Hubba for pictures and product descriptions. And Unsplash for backgrounds. I am a software engineer that has been on the marketing side for 8+ years, so I know how to write good copy. But it's really not that important. Your products, pictures, and prices do 90% of the selling.

6) If you have a product that people want, and can target them with SEO + ads, you don't need content. I have two blog posts and definitely would love to do more social + content but I limit myself to spending 2 / hour a day on this per night. I am sure that if I invested in content, it would be a good investment. Just need to prioritize based on my self-imposed restrictions at the moment.

7) No hacks. Great products, hassle-free returns, fair prices and fast shipping :)