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From 0 To $1358.41 In 52 Days: This Is How Yan Does Dropshipping Business In France

By Yaroslav Nevsky

dropshipping france

In terms of dropshipping, France is the perfect place to launch a webstore and start your own e-commerce business. This is what you can learn from this inspiring success story of Yan who managed to earn moderate yet promising profit in the very first month of his store operation. Let’s learn from his experience!

Disclaimer: all the success stories published in AliDropship blog are the results of interviews conducted in the written form. Even though the editors may make some minor changes to the grammar, spelling, and/or punctuation, the respondents’ writing styles, views, opinions, stores screenshots and personal photos are left unchanged.

Hi, please introduce yourself 🙂

dropshipping france

Hello, my name is Yan, and I’m a medical student in France 🙂

This is me and my first suture 😉

I first got into the “make money online” business as a way to pay for my medical studies.

I started a medical/study blog sharing my ideas on how to study medicine around 2013. But blogging, writing articles, SEO, keyword research, etc. are tough concepts to master and I didn’t have enough time to develop the blog.

I also created an anatomy course to go with the blog but I was making less than $100 per month. It took me more than 6 months to develop the course. Also I was spending most of my free time helping my students.

So I stopped everything after a few months to focus on my studies.

But the itch was still there.

I retried a few times to launch the site but the enthusiasm wasn’t there. It took me a lot of time to see some results from google.

I was pretty discouraged and stopped everything in 2016.

Why and how did you choose the dropshipping business model, after all? How did you learn about AliDropship solutions?

My dropshipping journey began when I first stumbled on Yaros’ journey on a forum on the 16th of November 2017 (forgot which forum). I was amazed at his results and stayed up all night reading the thread.

I understood the concept and thought that I could give it a try. I had nothing to lose.

I immediately bought the plugin the next day and made my first post on the AliDropship forum.

I was excited and my first goal was just to make my “first sale”.

It took me some time to get used to the business and some time to learn how to set up the plugin and my site properly, but the AliDropship Codex was a great help. Plus, I had a lot of help from Ekaterina and Victoria.

I owe a lot to Jamal Jubran and Alessandro Po for their precious help, and to other members of the AliDropship Forum.

I bought the plugin only because I already had a hosting with hostgator and I wanted to test the plugin myself.

Since then, I have bought the recent sales pop-up, the customer gallery add-on and the new abandoned cart extension. They all gave a boost to my sale numbers.

How many stores do you have now? What is their performance?

I have only 1 store.

It took me 2 weeks to set everything up on the store. I had to wait for Black Friday to shift my hosting to siteground and I was still working on the site till the end of November. I started promotion on the 2nd of December.

I set a goal of making my first sale at the start of this journey by the end of 2017.

2 months ago I only had a vague understanding of dropshipping.

Last month at the start of December I had $0 in sales.

At the end of Dec, I made $442.55 in revenue from 29 sales. I had 3403 visitors the site during the month of Decemberdropshipping france

I spent $92.20 on IG shoutouts ($88) and Facebook Ads ($4,20) during the month of December.

After paying for the orders and Stripe/PayPal fees, I made a profit of $68.68.

I’m not counting hosting, domain fees and price of AliDropship plugin in it.

Not groundbreaking by any means, but I’m lucky to have profited from my first month online in dropshipping.

My goal for January is to make $1000 in revenue.

I have already made $1358.41 from the 1st Dec 2017 to 21st Jan 2018.

dropshipping france

I bought another license for the Alidropship Plugin but my time is very limited.

I will try to develop another store in March.

How did you choose the niche?

I just picked a niche based on Yaros’ initial experience. I picked a niche in which I was passionate.

I wanted to get the store up and running as soon as possible.

This is a “mistake” on my part and if I was to start again, I would spend more time on market analysis.

My niche is very, very competitive with some competitors spending around $100 in shoutouts.

I made a list of all competitors in my niche and to date, there are 47 stores in this niche, all competing for the same limited influencers.

How did you choose products and suppliers for your store? Do you have any strategy of adding new products from time to time? How do you set the prices?

Initially, I just picked the bestsellers from my niche on AliExpress. I added 100 products before starting promotion.

Now I’ve gotten better at product selection.

The trick is to sell a product that has very high value in the eyes of a customer at a “low” price.

The first promotion I tried was placed on my Facebook page. I was trying to sell a $0.99 keychain from AliExpress for 9.99. I made 0 sales from that first promotion.

I decided to take my time and search for a high value product. When I got one, I did a free shipping offer for that product and bingo, I made $80 in total for my first Instagram shoutout.

Also, you have to check the prices of your competitors and set your prices lower than they had.

I have modified the standard prices formula so that the prices of products on my site are always lower than the ones of competitors.

I have noticed that my competitors always focus on product quantity but I have deliberately decided to focus on product quality at a low price.

So I have only around 100 products on the site but I’m constantly updating the products, removing useless ones and setting the best prices for my customers.

Do you remember the first sale made from your store? How soon did it happen? What have you done to achieve it?

I made my first sale on my first Instagram promotion!

I actually made 8 sales on my first promo.

I could not believe my eyes that this strategy actually worked.

It took me 2 weeks to get this sale.

How do you promote your stores? How did you understand who’s your target audience? Which channels are the most efficient for you? Did you have to give up some channels? On average, how much does it cost you to promote your stores? (per month)

I used only instagram shoutouts for the month of December. This is a very good strategy but the number of good influencers is very limited. And there are too many competitors doing shoutouts everyday.

dropshipping france

There are many days where I had no shoutouts, thus “0 sale”. And I was testing every Instagram influencer I could get my hands on, and most of them had fake followers. I wasted a bit of money on them.

I spent $92.20 on IG shoutouts ($88) and FB ads ($4,20) during the month of December.

In January, I spent money on FB and IG ads for the first week. I had no knowledge and made only 1 sale.

dropshipping france

I got smarter on IG shoutouts though and hit my first $100 in sales for my first shoutout.

dropshipping france

again > $100 for my second shoutout.

dropshipping france

and even $200 for my third shoutout.

dropshipping france

4 orders came from repeat clients for this shoutout.

Now I hit $100 per day for most of my shoutouts. I pay on average $10 for each shoutout and I work exclusively with a few selected influencers.

I started FB ads on the 20th of January after having spent the last 2 weeks learning everything I could about it. I made around $60 from a $5/day ad.

I’m also working hard developing relationships with my previous clients and staying on top of my client relationship game.

How much time does it take you every day to manage your stores? Which task(s) demand more time than others? What are the most difficult challenges? How do you deal with them?

It takes me around 30 mins to 1 hour to manage the store. Someday I don’t touch it. Someday I spend 2 hours on it. On average, I spend around 10-20 hours per week on the store.

I also spend a lot of time off the store, learning everything I can about dropshipping from YouTube videos, online forums and Facebook groups.

The most time consuming tasks for me are product research and customer service.

The most difficult challenges were learning everything about the AliDropship plugin and driving targeted traffic to my site.

Yaros made the most awesome plugin! After having spent countless hours on it, I now know it like the back of my hand. The plugin does everything and is a huge time saver.

But there are some very useful tricks which are not described in the Codex, for example:

  • How to use product description from one AliExpress supplier and the products from another AliExpress supplier on the same product page.
  • How to use reviews from one supplier for the same product from another supplier which is cheaper but has no reviews.

etc.. etc..

I made many mistakes along the way, but thanks to them,I learnt a lot, too:

  • Diving head first into a passion of mine instead of analyzing the niche and competition.
  • Importing 100 of products without verifying supplier details.
  • Not using SSL on my domain.
  • Using a shared hosting on Hostgator.
  • No Logo on site
  • Watermarks on all my product pictures.
  • Aliexpress account getting frozen
  • Plugin not working at some point (due to adblock on Chrome)
  • Wasting too much money on shoutouts
  • Doing the same thing as my competitors
  • Playing around on FB ads and losing money
  • Using bad ads for shoutouts
  • Having my FB fan page banned twice by FB for spamming
  • Not starting promo for my IG page till the last week of December

etc.. etc..

But my Biggest Mistake of ALL: Using Test key on stripe!

Luckily, I managed to correct most of the mistakes, and I am still working on some.

How do you deal with difficult customers (if you have any)? Do you have any funny/sad stories?

I have refunded only 1 product (because the buyer mistakenly bought the same product twice).

I got scammed by an IG influencer and almost lost $10. Luckily, I only pay for goods and services via PayPal, so I was refunded.

One client created a dispute on PayPal after a purchase because he thought I was a scammer. But I managed to provide PayPal the order number and tracking number. I always provide a tracking number for each product even if I pay more to get the tracking order. He got the product alright after 2 weeks.

I got another client who put only his first name on the purchase details. I forgot to check his details and the product were sent to his address with only his first name. I managed to track him down on IG and told him to track the product as soon as it arrived in his country.

I did not register my business in France. But I’m registered as an “auto-entrepreneur” or “solo business”. You need a business identification number to use Stripe.

I use both PayPal business account and Stripe for my site.

How has your life changed? What do your friends and family think about your business?

dropshipping france

My life has completely changed. I made more in my first 45 days dropshipping than in 2 years of blogging.

I only told a few friends and my gf at first. They were pretty sceptical. Now they don’t laugh at me so much when I show them the numbers. ^^

Plus, I managed to make some online friends. It’s also good to develop other skills like marketing online besides my medical skills.

Plus, it is a healthy escape for me after a hard day of work at the hospital. Now, instead of wasting my time playing videos or partying, I just work on my store. 🙂

I love to wake up or get back from work to see how many sales were made while I was sleeping or working.

What are your plans for the future?

I’m only a part-time dropshipper. I’ll continue working on my one store and develop another one in February-March.

If I start to make more than I can handle, I’ll look to hire a VA or just sell the site.

Until then, I’ll continue on my Ali dropshipping journey!

What can you advise our readers – those who already run their stores and those who didn’t start the business yet?

3 months ago I only had a vague understanding of dropshipping.

I’m not the most well placed to advise you about dropshipping. I’m still learning myself.

I made many mistakes along the way but 1 and a half month later, I managed to cross the $1000 in revenue.

If I can do it, then so can you.

I learnt everything from YouTube, the success stories of other dropshippers, from the AliDropship forum, online forums and FB groups.

Listen to advice from other successful dropshippers like Jamal, Yaros, Katie etc. You can contact me on the AliDropship forum. I reply to every message I get.

Be careful of scammers selling you courses. You can get everything for free online.

Work smart. Take the time to know your market. Vet the influencer well before booking her/him for a shoutout.

Learn FB marketing well before your first FB/IG ads.

The next important thing is the product! Choose it well!

And most important of all, Never Ever EVER Give Up. Your next success is just around the corner! 👊

avatar
By Yaroslav Nevsky
Yaroslav is a founder of AliDropship Community helping people worldwide to start and run a successful dropshipping business.
39 Comments
philip cu 6 years ago

I would like to start airdropshipping. Is there anyone whom I can talk to about this? Thanks.

Yaroslav Nevsky 6 years ago

free to contact me on Skype: yarosnevsky

Peter odeny 4 years ago

I am called Peter from Kenya,can i do dropshipping bussiness sell things to the countries like USA and Europe countries.

Salma 4 years ago

Hello Yarosalv, thank you for sharing your success story. I live in France Lyon and I plan to start an instagram business account. I need some directions, how do I reach out to you. Merci

Mersin 6 years ago

Hey Yaroslav,
may I also contact you on Skype please?

Yaroslav Nevsky 6 years ago

Yes, sure thing!

Alexander 6 years ago

Great story, but where is the website he managed? Can you share the link? šŸ™‚

Yaroslav Nevsky 6 years ago

if you share your success story, will you be willing to demonstrate your niche and your site?:)

Yan 6 years ago

Sorry bro not sharing my website at the moment. šŸ™‚

Yussif 5 years ago

Then how will customers know about your store?

Sunny 6 years ago

So basically you made 15% from 29 orders.
Revenue about $440
Profit about $68

Now you are planning to get a revenue of $1000 which means your profit would be $150, I assume you would need about 75 orders in order to reach that.

I do not want to sound negative, but that is a lot of work for making $150 a month.

Yaroslav Nevsky 6 years ago

Please check Yan’s screenshots, he was going to reach $1000 in January, but was able to reach $1358.41 to the 21st of Jan.

Yan 6 years ago

I spent a lot in the first month because I was testing out influencers and trying out facebook ads.

In my second month, I had already everything in place. If you look at the other screenshots, I did $400 with only 3 shoutsouts which cost me $27 in all. And the cost for products was around $150 (not sure need to check this out).

I increased my profit margin in January compared to December (from 15% to roughly 50% in January.

Arvin L. Gamay 6 years ago

Hi sir Yaro im from the Philippines I realy want to start dropshipping business can I schedule a skype call with you? To ask for some advise thank you very much and God bless

Yaroslav Nevsky 6 years ago

Feel free to contact me yaroslav@alidropship.com

Abner 6 years ago

Which Siteground hosting package are you using and recommend?

Yan 6 years ago

Sorry for the late reply. I use the GO GEEK package.

Def 6 years ago

“My goal for January is to make $1000 in revenue. I have already made $1358.41 from the 1st Dec 2017 to 21st Jan 2018.”

Well done Yan and even though you say sales came from a very, very competitive niche, your story shows what can happen when you concentrate on your goal and ignoring the competition.

Did you pass a $2k figure (after deductions) in your second focused month? Your story stops at 21 Jan 2018

Even if you didnt and prior to eventually selling your site, I’m sure that $2k profit will be happening very, very soon!

Yan 6 years ago

Thanks a lot bro. No I stopped in Feb because of the Spring Holiday. I’m restarting the business now. šŸ™‚

Nick 6 years ago

Which platform did he used ? Shopify, Woocommerce ? And why the currency is in dollars ? He is in France,supposed to use Euros.

Yan 6 years ago

I use wordpress and the alidropship theme. I do all my business in dollars. Easier this way for dropshipping.

When I receive the money in my bank, it is in Euros though. I use paypal and stripe as payment gates.

Angel 6 years ago

i am also interested in pursing a drop shipping business online but i need someone to guide me since i have no experience in online marketing business at all. this article has inspired me a lot in pushing through with my plan. i hope you can help me with the start up.

Yan 6 years ago

You can learn by watching dropshipping videos on youtube. šŸ™‚

Ricky 6 years ago

Hi Yan, Your success story is inspiring. If you don’t mind may i know how much you’ve spent for ads? Insta and facebook together?

George 6 years ago

“But my Biggest Mistake of ALL: Using Test key on stripe!”

That’s what prevented my first sale too! Haha

Muhd 5 years ago

Hi Yan, Congratulations on your success.

If you were to start all over again, would you purchase the turnkey dropshipping store or Alidropship plugins? Why? Why not?

Thank you.

Gubal Guyo 5 years ago

Want some money to start a business.
Kindly assist.

Regards

Jean Free 5 years ago

Hello,
Great story.
Can you tell why using shared hostgator was a mistake ,?

Tarig 5 years ago

I am interesting and reading to know more idea about it, I hope to join you next month.

Mustapha MAKKI 4 years ago

Hello,

I am a student in France with student bank account, do I have the permission to use my student bank account for dropshipping? Will i need to justify for the bank using a legal paper from “alidropship” ? Do I need to open a business bank account?

May someone help me with these details and tips.

Olga L. 4 years ago

Hi, thank you for your question!

Please, read this article to understand how dropshipping payments work: https://alidropship.com/get-money-drop-shipping/
If you don’t want your student bank account to get involved in this business, you can simply get a credit card and provide its details to the payment systems you’ll be working with.

Isaac 4 years ago

Hello Yaro. I bought your plugin and hosting in June. Can u please give me your personal email address so that I contact you privately. Thanks.

James Dogani 4 years ago

Can a dropshiper sell anywhere in the world?

Olga L. 4 years ago

Hi, thank you for your question!
Yes, absolutely. This article might be helpful to you: https://alidropship.com/dropshipping-to-europe/

elijah raji 4 years ago

How do i do drop shipping in Africa Nigeria

Olga L. 4 years ago

Hi, thank you for your question!
Please, check your email: we’ve sent you a letter recently. Maybe, it went to the Spam folder?

Hakeem 4 years ago

Hi, I’m Hakeem from Ghana i have been reading on Alidropshipping for sometime now and i want to buy the plugin and start mine too but can i get Yaros personal email and ask more about it?

Olga L. 4 years ago

Hi, thank you for your interest!

Our dedicated team member will get in touch with you soon.

MUBARAK ABUBAKAR 3 years ago

I am buying custom store,if I do will I start to make PROFITS from day one,if I spent 100 dollars 4 promotion ?urgent response please

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