There is only one solid way to build substantial wealth in the United States, and that is from generating passive income streams.

And in my opinion, there are only 3 ways to realistic options to substantially build passive income:

#1. Stocks & Investing

#2. Real Estate

#3. Entrepreneurship

While, I'm already investing into stocks, I am no where near the position I want to be with my investments, and while Real Estate is definitely a field that I will be accessing in the future, I can't reach it as of right now.

That leaves room for Entrepreneurship - and luckily, I have a few strategies in mind to help grow and build my own business.

My main goals are:

#1. App development.

#2. Drop-shipping.

And as of right now, I am doing both.

I have a ton of other ideas on how I want to grow a business organically, but these, for now, are my main pointers, and the paths that I want to take.

Anyways, drop shipping is always something that I have wanted to do. But I never really had the ability to execute the idea completely, because I wasn't so sure on what I had wanted to sell.

Then it hit me: streetwear and clothing.

I have always had a passion for fashion, so I figured, why not attempt to sell clothes that I would wear and genuinely enjoy.

That's why I started up the brand: "Ray's Archive" .

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Introduction to Ray's Archive

Ray's Archive is a modern streetwear brand delivering bold, urban-inspired apparel with quality, comfort, and style.

It's dedicated to delivering fashionable, affordable, and comfortable clothing to people all across the globe.

It's main clothing aesthetic is based off of Japanese streetwear, Y2K, and Autumn apparel.

This is a passion project that I founded to get a foothold into the world of entrepreneurship.

Developing the website.

When creating the business, I had different ideas on how I wanted to execute the website.

I originally wanted to code everything myself- the website, the payment implementation, the frontend and backend, etc, and publish a site that way using Netlify - but then I realized that that would take too much time to execute, and that it would be too advanced for me to do, given my current coding capabilities.

So, I decided to utilize different pragmatic web recourses that were less time consuming, and easier to learn.

The options that I had originally considered when creating the site were:

1. Woocommerce
2. Shopify

To give a brief description on each:

WooCommerce is a free, open-source e-commerce plugin for WordPress that turns any WordPress site into a powerful online store for selling physical products, digital goods, services, subscriptions, and more, complete with shopping cart, payments, inventory, shipping, and checkout features.

It's developed by Automattic, and it offers unlimited customization, full code access, thousands of extensions, excellent SEO through WordPress, and zero platform transaction fees, but requires self-hosting and some technical setup, which makes it perfect for users who want total control and flexibility without monthly subscriptions or platform lock-in.

Shopify is a complete, fully hosted e-commerce platform (SaaS) that lets anyone—entrepreneurs, retailers, or global brands—quickly build, customize, and manage an online store to sell products or services online and in person, handling everything from storefront design, inventory, payments (via Shopify Payments or others), shipping, marketing tools, POS for physical sales, and analytics in one easy-to-use dashboard with no coding required, though it comes with monthly subscription fees starting around $29 and potential transaction fees on some plans— which makes the platform ideal for fast setup, hands-off operation, and scalable growth without managing hosting or security.

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Initially, I was planning to use WooCommerce - because I typically favor open-source services over paid platforms, as I believe in self-sufficiency and autonomy | core things that open source platforms often provide.

But since I was still new to this, I concluded that Shopify was the better alternative, because it had a much easier learning curve compared to WooCommerce.

But I do believe that I'll eventually migrate over to WooCommerce once I've mastered Shopify.

Developing the website, and Learning Shopify.

When the developing the website on Shopify, I had to teach myself the fundamentals of navigating Shopify's features.

Fortunately, there were many recourses available that helped me, namely YouTube videos and Reddit content.

This video especially guided me on the process of navigation, implementation, sourcing, and design using Shopify's systems:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtbaxJFb9zE

For the initial design that I had envisioned the site to have was going to something akin to the Supreme shop website.

https://us.supreme.com/pages/shop

I envisioned something minimalist and refined—elegant without mimicking Supreme's bold vibe. The core idea: pristine white backdrop and text, softly veiled by a hazy, dreamy loop (around 60 seconds) of Fujifilm-inspired coastal wandering at golden hour, the sun melting into the horizon in a misty, nostalgic haze.

Anyways though, I figured that that would've been too complicated to implement - and not ideal for a first time project. After reviewing further, I concluded that it was best to create a basic store front and reuse the design from the tutorial - but I still kept my version minimal, as a simple throwback to the original plan.

I ended up making my shop look very generic - but that's okay. I'm still getting into it.

In my opinion, the most difficult aspect of the site-building was implementing the collections navigation for the site. It was kind of confusing and tedious to really control, but luckily, I got the hang of it once I figured how the functionality of the site worked.

Secondly, another issue I experienced was with implementing featured images. Shopify really doesn't have any native way to showcase images dedicated to a single product, in a way that I felt would look good. So I had to get creative with the implementations.

The site became a showcase of different products, outlining different items in each collection / category.

I started off the layout like this:
---
Large Item Showcase

Tops

Bottoms

Accessories

Misc

---


And in-between each I added cool showcase / featured item.

This is what I ended up:

I should've documented more images of my journey in the beginning but with this image, you at least get the general idea of where the site was going.

But with the outline of the site completed, my next step was dedicated to branding.

The original name that I had conceived for the shop was "Kush Repo" .

Yes, I know that sounds a bit ridiculous, but I will explain further in the next chapter:

Branding brainstorming, Original names, Kush Repo + Ray's Haven.

As mentioned previously, the original name I conceived for the brand was, "Kush Repo" . I used "Kush" because Kush sounded pretty cool, and "Repo" because it was a shorter placeholder for "Repository."

I know I know- that sounds a bit ridiculous, cringe, and ghetto. But like, that was kind of the point - in a way.

To explain; I wanted to signify that my brand was "urban" , if that's the correct term to use, to emphasize that the brand was a streetwear brand, and not some yuppie brand like Tommy Hilfiger.

Anyway, I wanted to make the brand use two words, and not a single word, similar to brands like, "Nike" or "Zumiez" because I just never really liked that branding style.

The inspiration for "Kush Repo" as a placeholder name originated from a thrift store brand called " Platos Closet " and another smaller indie streetwear store that I go to, which is located in Northtown Mall in Blaine called " Geo's Bodega " .

I found the sound of that style of branding, where it describes a character's ownership of something, to be pretty cool. And to be honest, it kind of separates it's branding from other types of brands in which it only has a singular name. In my opinion, it gives it a bit of uniqueness.

I knew for sure that I wanted to use 2 nouns, with the first noun being a name, and the second noun being a place, like "Locker" , "Cabinet", "Wardrobe" , "Repository" etc etc

ex: Adrian's Locker, Rex's Cabinet, Xerxes's Wardrobe, etc etc - that was the vibe I was aiming for.

"Kush Repo" however, sounding more like the name of a marijuana dispensary, rather than a dedicated streetwear brand. I seriously don't know what the hell I was thinking when I thought of "Kush Repo" - I guess during that period I thought that it sounded pretty cool.

Anyway, I knew that I would need to eventually change the original brand name into something different, something less cringe, and more "modern." But I really wanted to work the logo of the brand before anything - so I figured that "Kush Repo" would have to remain as a placeholder.

\

Logo Conceptualization

I had envisioned the logo of the brand to be written as tagged graffiti letters, containing the word's of the brand with a slight arch.

Once I realized that, I got straight to work with the first design on Adobe Illustrator:

I was super proud of this. I know that it looks simple, but this type of design was exactly what I had envisioned.

For brainstorming the eventual name-change, I figured that I wanted to use the name, "Ray" as the beginning noun.

I just always kind of liked the sound of the name, "Ray" and I figured that it would be a better alternative to using my own name, "Devv" as the beginning noun. I also wanted to keep the business separate from my real identity for operational security purposes, because keeping myself anonymous has always been important, and I didn't want to signify that I, Devv, was directly associated with this project.

Anyway, I chose "Ray" because it sounded cool, but also because of a character from the video game, "Grand Theft Auto IV" named "Ray Boccino" who was this mobster that the protagonist, Niko Bellic, worked for - and later killed. I don't really know, he had a great voice in the game, and that's why I decided to use, "Ray" I guess? Maybe. But what's true is that I thought the name, "Ray" had a great ring to it.

As for the secondary noun, my original pick was "Haven."

I picked this because of the infamous site, HentaiHaven, and I thought that it would've been funny to use, "Haven" as a nod to that, and because it's "kind of (?)" unique, in the sense that it's a more uncommon noun compared to other relevant nouns like, "Closet", "Place" , "Store" etc.

So I went and made a logo for it too, using the same style I had envisioned.

I liked the "Ray's Haven" brand name so much that I made my first mistake: I foolishly went to go and change everything in my website to reflect the Ray's Haven Brand name. I set the official name of the Shopify business to "Ray's Haven", and imported the logos, and I decorated everything accordingly to reflect "Ray's Haven."

However, that was foolish, as when I went to purchase a domain for the website under the moniker of "RaysHaven.com" I realized that another brand had already taken up the name.

Which was total fuckin kick in the balls, because I went through all that effort to verify that the brand name was unique, and then I find out that someone else had already trademarked it.

I realized then, that I would need to get back to the drawing board, and produce a new name. But this time, I did my research to verify if there were any other businesses that already used a potential branding that I had in mind.

Then it hit me: Ray's Archive

I liked the name, "Ray's Archive" and it had a good ring to it. Archive especially was the chosen noun because it represents a dedicated specialize collection, which reflected the original purpose of the store much more efficiently. Since, y'know, the store was a reflection of my personal taste in streetwear.

Plan + Ray Watanabe

Every successful business needs a good origin story. Something inspirational, and awe-inspiring.

And I wanted my business to have that. But a dude trying to make some money off of drop-shipping Streetwear clothes sourced from China doesn't really sound that inspirational.

That's when it hit me: I should create a cool origin story for the brand, so that people would be inspired by it.

So, I began to draft some stories that would be kind of inspirational, but nothing to extreme. I still wanted it to reflect the values that I had, but just a bit more glazed.

My initial plan was something like this:

• The site: "Ray's archive" will have a story page about the "origin" of the idea.

  But it's gonna be this BS story about this Japanese 25 year old from Fukoka, living in the United states as a business and finances major student at the University of Chicago, exploring fashion and apparel as a hobby.

  I think it would work great because it will trick fools into supporting the business, if I glaze up the cover like that.

• Or I could just do my actual legit story from my personal lens, but i dont want to give out my info that way

• It's based on this hypothetical character i've made to advertise the business named "Raymond Watanabe."

I know you might be thinking, "but isn't this what you wanted to do as well originally?" and while that is true, yes, I figure that it would be much more "cooler" to have a character who is Japanese represent the brand rather than some 21-year-old Hmong dude.

Anyway, "Ray Watanabe" wasn't even the original character I drafted, it was originally gonna be about a dude named, "Raymond Chen" another 25 year old, but this time, from Hong Kong. But I realized that most people don't really like Chinese people, and prefer Japanese people, and would want to support small business from a Japanese person rather than a Chinese person.

So I changed the name from Raymond Chen to Ray Watanabe, and set the "origin" story as that. haha.

The logic is that streetwear often thrives on vibe, cultural cachet, storytelling, and perceived authenticity. Japanese aesthetics (minimalism, quality perception, street fashion influence like Harajuku or Tokyo brands) carry a lot of appeal in that space, and I'm betting it draws more support than a straightforward "I'm hustling to make money" narrative, or a Hmong dude trying to start up his own brand.

Identifying Products, Sourcing from Depop, AliExpress, and Dssers

The bread and butter of the store of course, is the products. I needed some way to source streetwear clothes, that people would buy.

I learned from this YouTube video on how to implement a order fulfilment automation service into my Shopify store called, "Dssers" which automatically imports products from AliExpress for me to sell.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa2rdmkycCE

Here's a picture of Dssers in action:

While I did some prior research regarding using AliExpress as a supplier on Reddit, and found that the general consensus was negative, I really didn't care, because at this point I was still a beginner, and this was the easiest option available.

But the problem was identifying products that people would be interested in. Originally, I picked clothes, and other accessories that I thought that I would be interested in.

I didn't really focus on the pricing of each product from AliExpress, and focused more on the availability and design of the products that I wanted to dropship. But that still didn't answer my question, what the hell would people even buy?

Then suddenly, I came across this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWy4dyM76eQ

I knew that this video was obviously clickbait, and sponsored by Depop in order to get people to use their business. But essentially, the theme of the video was about drop shipping directly on Depop.

People would take clothing's off of AliExpress, and resell it at a higher value on Depop and make a profit that way, and that's the entire synopsis of the video.

This is important, because this is exactly what I had intended to do prior to setting up my own store. I tried to originally dropship on Depop, but I decided against it because I ran into some fulfillment issues.

This video was just another trap to trick stupid morons into falling into the same Depop selling pitfall.

But this video gave me an idea; on Depop, you can see what products are selling and which items that people like. I realized that I can use this feature to my advantage.

Example:

I realized that this can give me the idea on what to import from AliExpress. Because the majority of the items sold on Depop are from drop shippers also sourcing from AliExpress, and with this method, I would be able to identify which products are selling, and which are not.

So I curated a list of products found on Depop which were popular, and found their sources from AliExpress. Then, I imported those same products to my site using Dssers.

It seemed like a genius strategy because it allowed me to identify which clothing products people would buy.

I started it off by categorizing everything:

First starting off with:

• Men's Hoodies
• Women's Hoodies
• Unisex Hoodies

Then with:

• Men's Tops
• Women's Tops

Next With:

• Men's Bottom's
• Women's Bottoms

And finally with

• Accessories

I knew that I wanted to at least fulfill 5 products in each category, because I didn't want people coming to my site and being disappointed with the lack of options.

It was a bit difficult to identify what products to implement, but luckily, I managed to curate a finalized list of what I wanted for the beginning of the site.

You can see the products I chose on the site itself; https://raysarchive.com

There are too many to list, but to begin; But I initially started with 5 products for each category.

Product Implementation

After I had Imported the products, I needed to curate the collections independently on Shopify.

For Shopify, you need to manually implement each product into a dedicated collection i.e Men's Tops, Women's Tops.

But that makes the website design process much easier, because on Shopify, when you create an item showcase for a collection, it also showcases each individual product within that collection so that the viewer can see every item. Which is a neat feature.

Each collection you make also creates a dedicated page for that collection; I used this to add to the site's navigation bar:

Take a look at this example, with the legwear collection:

In the Index page of the site, I redid this independently collection showcase style with every collection that I had like this with no in-betweens:

Mens Tops

Men's Bottoms

Women's Tops

Women's Bottoms

Unisex

Headwear & Accessories

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This was the placeholder for now, because I needed inspiration on how to decorate the site and add additional features to make the site more engaging.

So, in an effort to identify how to fix this issue, I researched similar streetwear sites that I saw on TikTok & Instagram to get a better understanding of how to make my site more expressive, instead of just a giant index page of collections.

Initial Website Design

When further designing the layout of the website, I wanted to ensure that there was a lot of visual activity for the user to experience, rather than a set of collections. I wanted the experience in the site to not be dull, but not to vivid either.

I began scouting out similar, but established streetwear brands to mine to get a better grasp on how I should stylize.

I scouted a bit, but I focused mainly on this site: https://hypedept.com

I came across HypeDept, a well-established and hugely popular streetwear brand with a massive following. Like many others, their site ran on Shopify. After digging deeper, I discovered something eye-opening: HypeDept was itself a dropshipping operation, selling some of the exact same AliExpress-sourced products I was carrying.

That moment hit me hard—in a good way. If a brand like HypeDept could blow up and build such a strong community around essentially the same model, then there was real hope for my own brand. I became genuinely confident that with the right execution, I could reach similar (or even greater) levels of success.

What really stood out was how vivid and dynamic their homepage felt. Instead of a plain grid of collections, they broke the index page into engaging sections, alternating between:

• Collection listings High-impact showcase content (styled photos, videos lifestyle shots, and strategic links)

The layout followed a rhythmic pattern something like this:

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Collections listing

Product Image + Showcase

Collections Listing

Product Image + Showcase

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This approach added serious depth and visual energy to the page—it didn't just feel like a store; it felt like an experience.

Inspired, I decided to model my own site the same way. The result gave my homepage much more personality, flow, and professionalism. I was honestly proud of how it turned out.

Afterwards, I had purchased the "RaysArchive.com" domain for about $14, and my site was officially up!

This was a huge milestone, and I was really proud. However, I needed to verify if the sites core functions were working.

Product Shipping and Experimentation

While my site was operational, I needed to verify if the billing, shipping, tracking, and communications systems were working.

Identifying this was an important step. I wanted to ensure that the fulfillment system was working before I received any actual orders.

So I decided that the next course of action was to test it myself. I decided to purchase a pair of Gray Sweats from my own store,

This is a product that I really liked, and wanted to order.

I set the initial price at $55, and shipped the order -

Here is where I discovered my first few mistakes.

This product that I sourced from AliExpress was pretty expensive, similarly around $45 - and importantly, after fulfilling the order, I also had to pay for international shipping, brining the total up to $50.

I realized that even though, I spent $55, that I would not have been making any profit if I set orders this way, using this particular product from this vendor at the set price of $45, and that I would only be breaking even.

I'm glad that I experienced this ahead of time, and this early, because it taught me that with drop shipping, it can be difficult to generate a sustainable profit after breaking even and paying the fulfillment.

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Anyways, check out the product when I received it:

Research, Reddit, YouTube Education.

Next was understanding how to generate a profit, and learning how to gather sales with drop-shipping.

I utilized recourses like Reddit, and YouTube to identify strategies to learn.

This post in particular was an inspirational post that pointed me in the right direction on where to look:

https://www.reddit.com/r/dropshipping/comments/1pgh5to/noob_to_23k_month/

To be real, the dropshipping-related subreddits (r/dropship, r/dropshipping, etc.) are flooded with two main categories of content:

• Frustrated beginners venting about zero sales despite running ads, testing products, or burning through budgets — often asking "Why isn't anything working?" or sharing failed store screenshots. Straight-up scammy posts or comments pushing garbage courses, "winning" products lists, fake success stories, or shady "mentorship" schemes that prey on newcomers desperate for quick wins.

It's noisy, discouraging, and full of survivorship bias — the people who actually make consistent money rarely post humblebrags or detailed breakdowns because they're too busy scaling.

That said, stumbling across a genuine, transparent post like the one that inspired you stands out because it cuts through the noise with real pointers: actionable steps, honest pitfalls, and proof of progress rather than hype.

The important thing about dropshipping is to generate ads, ads are the bread and the butter of the business. Without ads, you cannot generate a profit - but you need to identify the best ads to use for your business that will generate the most traction.

Things I learned:

One key thing I’ve realized from learning drop shipping strategies is that product descriptions are everything when it comes to attracting customers and building trust. A strong, original description shows the product has been properly researched and cared for, it immediately makes the store feel more legitimate and professional.

For every product (especially those sourced from AliExpress), never use the default supplier descriptions. Copy-pasting them is one of the fastest ways to look like a generic dropshipper. Customers can spot those lazy, poorly translated, keyword-stuffed blurbs a mile away, and it kills credibility. If they see the exact same wording on ten other stores, they’ll shop around for a better price or a “real” brand. My rule: always create your own unique descriptions to keep the product feeling like it belongs to my brand, not just some random AliExpress listing.

I found the most efficient way to do this is using Grok to generate concise, SEO-optimized, benefit-focused descriptions. I feed it the key details (materials, origin, features, best use cases) and ask for punchy, customer-oriented copy. It saves hours compared to writing from scratch and produces way better results than trying to rewrite the supplier’s version manually.

Example:

Another powerful tactic is strategic pricing to drive faster purchases. People respond strongly to perceived deals—use psychological pricing like price matching and fabricating original prices, and lowering them down on a "sale" to make them feel cheaper, and create urgency with limited-time sales, flash discounts, countdown timers, or "only X left in stock" alerts.

This taps into fear of missing out (FOMO), encouraging impulse buys because shoppers think they'll lose the opportunity if they wait.

Example:

Website design matters for trust. I stick to a clean, bright white (or very light) background on product pages and the whole site. It looks professional, modern, makes photos pop, reduces clutter, and gives off that “this is a real, trustworthy company” vibe. Pair it with high-res images (usually white-background shots), trust badges, secure checkout icons, and clear navigation, and conversions go up noticeably.

Importantly, you also want to sell validated products, things that people want or things that are in demand. I know that my method to find validated products was by identifying the selling products on Depop. But there are other methods to identify what sells.

Namely: recourses like TikTok Shop, AliExpress Statistics, and even Google Analytics to identify the statistics behind the best selling products for certain niches.

Identifying good suppliers is important. You want to work with trustworthy suppliers, who provide adequate shipping, and quality products. Typically, the only good suppliers are private ones, and while these are much better than public suppliers like AliExpress, it's important to recognize that Private suppliers require users to submit a fee / subscription to use their services, so it's not recommended to use private suppliers until your foothold in the dropshipping business is strong.

These YouTube videos, Websites, and Reddit posts are useful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PCF2dLDXss

https://www.salehoo.com

Services and Networking with other creators

Shopify has a plethora of apps available within it's platform that users can use to help assist them with their business. I had experimented with a few different apps, particularly in the analytics, coordination, and communication sectors, but nothing really stuck.

The problem with the majority of these apps is that they provide these services on a subscription based commission, meaning that you would need to pay monthly to use their services, and their pricing can range high, with the better apps scaling to $50 per month even. Yikes. It's not for me.

Luckily, the dropshipping scene is full of people, especially people who are experience, and already have some legitimate traction, and are kind enough to share some insider secrets.

I met this figure on X.com, who, documents their dropshipping journey, and sales and they had a pretty successful run.

Inspired, I connected with them and asked for tips on how I should proceed with my own business.

They kindly agreed, and explained some strategies for me, and here's our conversation:

What I learned:

ADS ARE EVERYTHING - Experiment with different product ads, and identify the winning one.

Still it gives me hope that there are people out there willing to help out newbies like me.

Social Media Development and Showcase

Every brand needs good social media to advertise and build a following.

So, I established social medias for my site; I focused mainly on TikTok, and Instagram.

Check them out:

https://www.tiktok.com/@raysarchivebrand

https://www.instagram.com/raysarchive.brand/

- - - - - - - - -

It's important to create a social media presence, because it's builds a community and fosters brand legitimacy.

I realized, however, that I would need to create a dedicated email for the social media, and the brand itself, as I was originally using one of my personal emails for everything.

So, I created a dedicated Email for the social medias, and businesses on ProtonMail.

RaysArchive@proton.me

I think it's useful to do things this way, because it makes things smooth, clear, and less complicated. A single source of truth mitigates spam, and confusion.

I also went on Premiere Pro, and created a mini ad for the pants I purchased from my store, I used the telephone song made by Tyler, The Creator as the background.

It took a day, and I had a lot of fun with it. It was like being a mini-cinematographer.

Check it out:

https://www.tiktok.com/@raysarchivebrand/video/7593150222981729550

Meta & Tiktok Advertising, Ad spend

, & Budgeting

Now we can get to the fun parts: Setting up ads.

The key to drop shipping is identifying the right formula for advertising. Revenue is built on a business's ability to advertise their product effectively to a market and to also satisfy their demands.

I had two platforms that I was planning to experiment with for advertising; TikTok & Meta Ads.

After prior research the general consensus was that Meta ads was more reliable for generating sales, compared to TikTok ads, but I wanted to experiment myself so that I could come up with my own, authentic conclsuions.

I used these videos to teach myself the fundamentals of Meta & TikTok advertising.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SyAtuFqb0c | TikTok

https://youtu.be/jGyo2BJYg3A?si=h0RB5fWf0Kaq4E_z | Meta

After further investigating, and successfully setting up ads, I came to this conclusion:

Meta

Meta Ads (Facebook & Instagram) Setup & Early Challenges

Meta's Ads Manager presents a steep initial learning curve for beginners, particularly in mastering the hierarchical structure: Campaigns → Ad Sets → Ads.

Setup Sequence:

1. Created a Meta Business Manager account and linked it to the Shopify store via the native integration (Shopify → Sales Channels → Facebook/Instagram). This enabled product catalog sync, pixel installation (Meta Pixel), and conversion event tracking (e.g., ViewContent, AddToCart, Purchase).
2. Defined campaign objectives (typically Sales or Conversions for dropshipping to optimize for purchases).
3. Built Ad Campaigns — structured two separate ones: one targeting women's clothing collections, another for men's — to segment audiences and creatives by gender.
4. Within each campaign, created multiple Ad Sets (3 per campaign). Each Ad Set contained targeting parameters (broad initially, with potential interests layered later), placements (automatic or manual: Facebook Feed, Instagram Feed/Stories, etc.), and optimization goal (e.g., Conversions → Purchases).
5. Ad creative: Started simple with static single-image ads + background music overlay (no advanced video/UGC yet). Used Shopify product images directly.

Budgeting Error — A classic beginner mistake:

• Set a daily budget of $50 per Ad Set instead of at the Campaign level.
• With multiple Ad Sets active, Meta deducted the full amount daily and distributed it across Ad Sets (effectively burning budget faster than intended without sufficient learning data).
• Best practice in 2025–2026: Use Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO) for automatic distribution across Ad Sets, or start with Ad Set Budget Optimization (ABO) at $20–$30/day per Ad Set during testing to control spend and gather clean data before scaling.

Review & Learning Phase:

• Submitted campaigns for review — experienced a ~2-week approval delay (common for new ad accounts in dropshipping niches due to manual flags, policy checks, or limited account history; 2026 updates like Andromeda have tightened scrutiny on new accounts).
• Post-approval: Initial performance showed zero traction (low impressions/clicks) as Meta's algorithm entered the learning phase (typically 50+ conversion events needed for exit). Once learning completed, impressions scaled gradually — site traffic rose to hundreds of sessions daily — but zero purchases initially, indicating weak creative resonance, high CPC, or poor landing page conversion rate.

TikTok

TikTok Ads Manager offers a streamlined, creative-first setup that's particularly beginner-friendly for visual/lifestyle products like casual streetwear.

Key Mechanics:

• Ad creation relies heavily on image-based or simple video uploads — select product photos, and TikTok's auto-generation tools apply trending music, captions, effects, and in-feed styling optimized for algorithmic discovery and SEO (hashtags, sounds, text overlays).
• No lengthy manual creative editing required initially; the platform pushes native-feeling content aggressively.
• Billing model: New/self-serve accounts often require a prepaid account balance (advance deposit via credit/debit card, PayPal, etc., under Tools → Payments). Minimums apply: ~$50 at campaign level, $20 at ad group level for daily budgets. Spend deducts from this balance in real-time (threshold-based charging once hits e.g., $20–$50 increments).
• Launch is near-instant — minimal review delays compared to Meta, enabling rapid testing.

Observed Results:

• Delivered explosive top-of-funnel traffic: thousands of impressions/views within hours/days, thanks to TikTok's aggressive distribution to broad audiences during the initial push phase.
• Budget consumption was extremely rapid — common issue in 2025–2026 dropshipping tests, where broad targeting + high-engagement potential leads to fast CPM/CPC burn (often $6–$10 CPM but accelerating if creative hooks weakly or competition spikes).
• End outcome: High volume but zero conversions/sales — typical for TikTok in lifestyle niches without strong purchase-intent creatives (e.g., UGC videos showing real wear/use vs. static product shots). Traffic skewed toward awareness/curiosity rather than bottom-funnel buyers.

Core Challenges:

• Budget siphoning feels tedious/confusing because spend isn't capped as tightly without manual daily limits or bid adjustments; aggressive scaling without data often crashes ROAS.
• Superficial engagement: High views but low add-to-cart/purchase rates, as TikTok excels at virality/impulse for trendy <$30 items but struggles with trust-building for higher-AOV casual wear.

I ended up abandoning TikTok Ads, and focused solely on Meta. Meta ads are just more reliable and consistent.

Issues Experienced

One of the main issues I had experienced with Meta ads is this:

Budget Mistake:

• Set $50 daily per Ad Set (with 6 Ad Sets across 2 campaigns) → Meta deducted ~$50/day total initially but distributed/spent aggressively during learning phase.
• After ~1 week: ~$200 total spend → classic overspend pattern for beginners without Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO) or tight ABO controls.
• In 2026, best practice is CBO for auto-allocation or low ABO ($20–$30/day per Ad Set) during testing to avoid bleed while gathering 50+ events for exit from learning phase.

Performance Outcome:

• Slower ramp-up (initial low reach as algorithm identifies audiences), but eventual steady traffic growth (hundreds of sessions/day).
• Generated actual sales — validating Meta's strength in conversion optimization, retargeting (via pixel data), and higher-intent traffic (older/skewing 25+ audience better for trust-based purchases).

For now, I set the daily budget from $50, to $5 - to identify the best products so far, and save money.

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One of the harshest realities of dropshipping hit me hard when I started scaling: suppliers just don't have unlimited stock, especially on hot, in-demand products.

I'd push a winning ad creative, traffic would start rolling in, orders would come through... and then bam—half of them would fail to fulfill because the AliExpress supplier suddenly showed "out of stock" or "insufficient inventory" right after I placed the order. It wasn't even consistent; one day it'd be fine, the next it'd be a mess. Multiple resellers (including me) were all pulling from the same shared pool, so first-come-first-served meant my orders got rejected or delayed while someone else's went through.

This created real headaches:

• Overselling on my Shopify store (product listed as available, but supplier says no → manual cancellations or angry customers).
• Order conflicts leading to partial shipments, substitutions I didn't want, or straight-up rejections.
• Customer trust erosion from 3–4 week delays turning into "where's my order?" emails and refund requests.

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Advertising Issues: Optimizing Ad Spend for Profitability

A primary challenge in paid advertising for dropshipping is that not every ad or ad set will perform successfully. Most campaigns generate limited or no sales during the testing phase, leading to inefficient spend if not managed properly.

Core Principle The key to profitability lies in rapid identification and allocation: scale budget toward high-performing ad sets (or creatives) while immediately pausing or eliminating underperformers. This approach minimizes wasted spend, preserves capital, and compounds returns on winning elements.

Identification of Winners

• Monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) in real time via platform dashboards:

  • Meta Ads Manager: Focus on ROAS (Return on Ad Spend), CPA (Cost Per Acquisition/Purchase), CTR (Click-Through Rate), Add-to-Cart rate, and Purchase volume.
  • TikTok Ads Manager: Prioritize similar metrics (ROAS, CPA, CPM, conversion rate) alongside engagement signals (views, shares, completion rate).

• Define "winning" thresholds based on unit economics: e.g., minimum 2.5–3.0× ROAS to cover costs + profit, or CPA below target acquisition cost (derived from average order value and margin).

• Allow sufficient data accumulation (typically 50+ conversions per ad set or 3–7 days of runtime) before final judgment to avoid premature decisions during learning phases.

Scaling & Cut Strategy

• Increase spend on winners: Duplicate high-performing ad sets into new campaigns or incrementally raise budgets (recommended: 20–30% every 2–3 days) to avoid disrupting optimization. Use Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO) on Meta for automatic distribution toward top performers.
• Cut losers quickly: Pause or archive ad sets with poor metrics after the initial test window (e.g., <1.5× ROAS or high CPA with no conversions). This reallocates budget to proven assets and prevents prolonged bleed.
• Product-level focus: Identify the specific product (or creative angle) driving the majority of traction/sales. Prioritize budget and testing around these winners to accelerate overall profitability.

Outcome This disciplined testing-scaling-cut cycle reduces average cost per sale, improves ROAS over time, and enables sustainable growth without exponential budget waste. It shifts advertising from a cost center to a scalable profit driver.

Early implementation of this framework is essential, as unchecked testing on failing sets can erode margins rapidly in competitive dropshipping environments.

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Shopify, and Dssers has a $50 monthly subscription, for each, so that's $100 every month just to use each service. Some days, I'm not making any money to break even, which is a bit disappointing. Which is why I'm planning on migrating to WooCommerce.

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AliExpress, is not really a good supplier. It's not reliable, and the shipping itself is tedious and too long. I will eventually have to identify a different supplier, and particular choose one that operates in the United States, as opposed of China.

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A critical early error occurred during initial order fulfillment: revenue from customer sales was insufficient to generate net profit after covering supplier costs.

Issue Description Upon receiving an order (e.g., retail price $45–$55), fulfillment required purchasing the item from AliExpress at a base cost of approximately $38–$45 plus international shipping ($8–$15), resulting in a total landed cost of $50–$60 per unit. After deducting additional expenses—Shopify platform fees, payment processing fees (typically 2.9% + $0.30), and any associated transaction costs—the net result per order was break-even at best or a small loss.

This meant customer payments primarily offset direct variable costs with minimal or negative contribution margin, preventing sustainable profitability.

Resolution and Adjustments Identification during the initial low-volume phase enabled prompt corrective actions:

1. Price Reoptimization — Increased retail prices by 30–60% on high-performing products. Adjustments were supported by enhanced product presentation (improved photography, lifestyle imagery, and copywriting) to maintain perceived value and minimize price sensitivity.
2. Supplier Re-sourcing — Replaced high landed-cost suppliers with alternatives offering lower base prices, reduced shipping fees, or faster fulfillment options (e.g., CJdropshipping, regional agents, or vetted wholesalers).

Current Profitability Framework All new products now undergo pre-listing cost analysis:

• Calculate total landed cost (product + shipping + estimated fees).
• Target minimum gross margin of 35–50% post-fulfillment.
• Determine required retail price using the formula: Retail Price ≥ Landed Cost ÷ (1 - Target Margin) + buffer for fees/refunds.

Example: For a $45 landed cost and 40% target margin, minimum retail price ≈ $75–$80 to achieve viable unit economics.

For this example, my first ever successful sale from an external client through Meta ads, i only managed to barely break even and made only $4 in profit:

conclusion of future plans for this business, identifying private labels to utilize instead of AliExpress, shipping consistency and US based suppliers.

This is the invoice i got from AliExpress after fulfilling the order:

Analytics

My current analytics, as of early January:

Hopes of the future, and Future plans | Private label, shipping

My hope for the future is that I hope this brand does well eventually. I learned all of this, and I want for it to stick.

This has always been a big passion of mind, to own a clothing business. And my hope is that I at least make $5,000 from this business.

I plan on also migrating my products to be sourced from a private supplier, and not AliExpress. This is because I want a reliable supplier to can handle quick shipping, effective communication, and produce quality material.

My strategy for now is to increase ad spend for products that are selling and also increase those product prices, limit spending on products not doing so well, and focus on brand building.

Conclusion

1. Dropshipping is a fulfilment method, and not a business model. Major retailers use it to fulfil some of their orders. But this is not what entrepreneurs are writing off. It's difficult to even break even when running a dropshipping store.

2. People often go down the dumb ‘spin up a store, sell shit from AliExpress’ route that 99.9% of people in the dropshipping community try because they’ve been swooned by the gurus. I know because I've been a victim to this, and it was also my first mistake in this journey.

3. Successful businesses take real effort, smarts, creativity, resilience, and time. And they need capital—not necessarily gazillions of dollars but a few thousand is probably the minimum. To be sure, the sort of money most people in developed countries could save or accumulate over a reasonable period of time. This is imporant, and because I experienced this first hand. I used $600 of my own money solely on ads.

4. Successful businesses start with identifying a gap in the market, devising a compelling, defensible, and competitive value proposition, and executing well. There’s so much work that these businesses do pre-launch—especially around research, strategy, socialisation, validation—that most don’t realise.

5. Successful business owners educate themselves in the fundamentals, are curious and inquisitive, and get shit done.

Updates and Sales

On January 3rd, 2025, I received my first order:

This was a huge milestone in my journey, because I knew at least, that the site was working.

However, that didn't even matter. Celebration or not, it did not break even, as I spent so far, around $600 on ads. That's fine though, I'm chilling. It takes patience to build a brand.

The product that sells the most is the "PERSIAN FLORAL RUG HOODIE" . Which I'm really grateful for because not only is the hoodie sick as hell, but I'm making decent profit off of it. This is exactly what I had envisioned, and I'm glad to have identified my winning product.

I generated a few more sales too, and made some decent money as time went on. And as of now; here is my current wallet from profit:

Anyways, thanks for following me on my current Dropshipping Journey.

- Devv