I used to think getting more traffic was the answer. It wasn’t. Once I fixed my store, improved the customer journey, and focused on the right marketing strategy, the quality of my results changed. These two orders came within a short period, and they reminded me that small improvements can make a big difference. If you’re stuck getting visitors but not sales, tell me what’s happening with your store. Happy to share what helped me.

been looking at side hustles and dropshipping is the thing that gets shoved in your face the most, so instead of watching one video and getting hyped i pulled the transcripts of the first 20 that come up for "dropshipping in 2026" and read them side by side.

im not gonna pretend i've run a store, i havent. i just wanted to know what these guys actually agree on when you line them all up, vs what's only there to sell a course at the end.

what they ALL agree on (even the ones who clearly hate each other):

• the store is like 20% of the work, getting traffic is the other 80%. ai + shopify spins up a store in an afternoon now, which means everyone's store looks identical and the only thing left to compete on is the ad and whether people trust you
• a "winning product" solves a real problem, cant be grabbed cheap at walmart/amazon, and sells for at least 2.5-3x what it costs you. search for PAIN POINTS, not products
• validate before you spend a dollar on ads (if lots of people are already running ads for it, its making someone money) some even run ads before selling anything

where they flat out contradict each other:

• "dropshipping is dead" vs "more alive than ever" (usually depends on whether theyre selling a course that week)
• $50 is enough to start vs you need $1000+ to test properly
• let ai run everything vs ai-run stores are exactly why most people fail now

the parts they quietly bury:

• revenue isnt profit. one guy's "$80k month" was about $27k before tax, then tax roughly halves it
• almost every video is an ad 17/20. the $1 shopify link, the supplier trial, the "free" course funnel
• the actual 2026 edge is retention, not front end profit. if a customer is worth $150 to you, you can outspend everyone to get them. most people struglle because of ads and low margins

i dumped the full notes from all 20 in a comment so this isnt a novel.

genuinely curious: for anyone here who's ACTUALLY run a store, whats real in these and whats course-selling fluff? which of these claims would you laugh at?

Hi everyone! Could someone teach me how to start dropshipping on TikTok Shop? I’d really appreciate it

I've been using Zendrop for ever since I've started my store, I've heard about the private agent program they have, but I don't know how you get access to it. Is it something you apply for or does Zendrop reach out to you once your store reaches a certain size?
If anyones on it how do you get into it and what's the difference between this version and the regular one?

So I build my website and made a businessplan based on dropshipping, (Reselling without having stock) and I dont understand why it is so hated. So I am Selling calisthenics equipment. But because I want to start small without loosing monney. I am dropshipping them. What is wrong about it. Isn´t it just the same as Having my own stock, just that my stock. Please clear me up why people say there is no chance of making money with dropshipping in 2026. And no Im not tryna make it myself easy. I just dont want to start with a own stock.

Etsy sellers already know the drill: before you list something new, you want to know how competitive that niche is. The existing tools (EverBee, eRank, etc.) are useful but mostly guess at sales numbers with algorithms that get called out a lot for being inaccurate, and lock most of it behind $20-30/month subscriptions.

So I built ShopScope: it analyzes any Etsy search results page and shows real, honest, on-page data —

• Competition score (0-100) based on ad density, incumbent shop size, and bestseller concentration — transparent formula, not a black box
• Median price, price range, suggested pricing zones
• Sortable table of every listing on the page, with CSV export
• Zero special permissions, no account, no subscription — completely free

Built it to fix my own research process. Curious what sellers here think, or if there's an obvious gap.

Store link: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/shopscope-%E2%80%94-honest-etsy-m/imlnbhipnpmkdaodfgfcjnfeemhkfgid

if people could review or give me ideas for improvements, it would be appreciated

Hey everyone,

I've been spending a lot of time creating Meta ads and studying what works for DTC brands. I also ran ads for my own Shopify pet product store targeting the US and Australia, so I've had the chance to see both sides of the business.

The store didn't work out in the end. I'm from the Philippines, so I started with around a $150 budget, which limited how much I could test and scale. Even so, I was able to generate my first two sales, and the experience got me hooked on learning Meta Ads and direct-response marketing.

Since then, I've spent a lot of time studying winning ads, researching competitors through the Meta Ad Library, and creating ad creatives and copy. Now I'm looking to work with a few Shopify and DTC brands to keep building my experience while helping businesses improve their campaigns.

I can help with:

• Meta ad creatives
• Direct-response ad copy
• Campaign setup
• Audience research
• Creative testing ideas

If you're looking for someone who's genuinely invested in performance marketing and willing to put in the work, feel free to send me a DM. Even if we don't end up working together, I'm happy to take a look at your ads and share a few ideas.

Hello, i'm doing COD dropshipping in GCC, and i got something that making me have headache lately and it's the campaigns not keep delivering the conversions after 24h of good results, the other day is almost no sales and high cpm, and i got that many times and everytime i creat campaign after 24h it's going down, does anyone have experience that before ? i need help about that. What shall i do ?

What am I doing wrong? I use set a budget of 300 per day now I have changed it to 1000 but still I'm getting I'm not getting any sales

what do i need to do to get tiktok shop in the US. I have saved up to invest in tiktok shop because running ads clearly is no longer working. customers only seem to trust tiktok shop and amazon. i have found 4 womens supplements that are doing good numbers in china and i know they will also do well in the US. who has experience and would like to guide ne on how to get your application as a non resident . ill reimburse you

i've been answering customer messages during my lunch break the last couple of days, and i noticed the same thing keeps happening. someone asks where their package is, or says it arrived damaged, and i end up waiting forever for the supplier to get back to me.

the product quality has honestly been fine. shipping hasn't been terrible either. it's just when something goes wrong that everything slows down. i don't even mind telling customers i'm checking on it, but after two days i start feeling like i'm making excuses.

i know this is a beginner question and i've read the guide here. it helped with picking products, but i don't remember much about checking how good a supplier's support actually is before you commit. do you have any way of testing that upfront, or is this just something you only find out after you've already started getting orders?

hey guys,

so I made a tiktok back in 2022 and grew it to about 250k followers, i deleted all videos and now the account is just kind of sitting there.

the audience was the meme niche etc.

was wondering if there would be a way to start the account back up and try sell some products.

was just wondering what you guys think would be the best thing to sell if you were in my position with your experience.

thanks

I've been using Zendrop for ever since I've started my store, I've heard about the private agent program they have, but I don't know how you get access to it. Is it something you apply for or does Zendrop reach out to you once your store reaches a certain size? If anyones on it how do you get into it and what's the difference between this version and the regular one?

Hello,

I'm a French entrepreneur looking to launch my Shopify store in Canada.

I always thought English was the dominant language, but I've noticed that many Canadian e-commerce websites are entirely in French. Which would you recommend starting with: English, French, or both?

Also, is Shopify Payments enough for selling in Canada, or would you recommend offering additional payment methods?

Thanks in advance for your advice!

It’s 2026, been hearing about drop shipping since high school, but what made you start and have you seen the success you wanted with it?

I'm curious how store owners actually decide on apps, because the Shopify app store has 8,000+ of them and most look the same.

When you're browsing, what makes you pull the trigger vs. close the tab?

Reviews? (How many is "enough"? Do you read the 1-stars first?)

Free trial vs. free plan vs. paid only?

Whether the ROI is obvious ("this pays for itself") vs. nice-to-have?

Ease of setup — do you bail if it takes more than 10 minutes?

Fear it'll slow down your theme or break something?

Number of installs / how long the app's been around?

And the flip side: what's an instant dealbreaker? For me it'd be apps that inject code you can't remove after uninstalling.

Genuinely curious what the real decision process looks like, especially for newer apps with few reviews. How does a new app ever earn your trust?

If you're serious about TikTok Shop, dropshipping, or eCommerce, FastMoss is one of the best tools available for discovering winning products before they become saturated. It gives you access to product trends, sales estimates, creator analytics, shop insights, competitor research, and advertising data to help you make smarter decisions and grow your business faster.

Whether you're a beginner or already running a successful TikTok Shop, FastMoss can save you hours of manual research and help you find products with real sales potential.

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Hi all,

I run a supplement store doing ~$35k/month USD, selling to UK customers. Email brings in almost nothing right now. Basic flows only, no campaigns. I want to hand it to someone who can fix that.

If you've hired an agency or freelancer for email and they delivered:

• Who are they?
• What share of revenue does email drive for you now?
• What did they charge?
• What would you do differently?

Cheers

Full timeline, no sugarcoating: Weeks 1-5: Ran ATC-optimized campaigns across multiple creative angles, ~$650 spent. Decent engagement throughout (CTR 10-17%, cost-per-click $0.50-1). Got 26 Add-to-Carts. But the site had an actual cart bug during this period (double add-to-carts, broken checkout flow in some sessions), so I don't fully trust that data. Then I fixed the bug, rebuilt the landing page from scratch, and tried Purchase-optimization for 3 days. Day 1 looked great (CTR 3.3%, $0.69 CPC). Days 2-3 CPC spiked to $5-10, so I killed it — reasoning that with zero purchase history ever, I'd never hit Meta's ~50 weekly events to exit learning anyway. Went back to ATC with my two historical best creatives on July 19th. Here's the honest breakdown of that window: - July 19-20 (2 days): still running against the OLD cart logic (a cross-sell item was quietly inflating perceived price ~25%, and the checkout wasn't showing "free shipping" clearly until after address entry) - July 21 (Monday): fixed both issues — removed the confusing cross-sell, made shipping cost/timing explicit upfront - July 21-23 (since the fix, so really only 2-3 clean days): this is the actual test of the "fixed" funnel Cumulative since July 19th: $154 spent, 26 Add-to-Carts, 11 Initiate-Checkouts (33-42% cart-to-checkout, better than I expected), still zero purchases. But only about half of that window is genuinely "post-fix" — so my real clean sample is smaller than the headline numbers suggest. What I've ruled out: checkout technically works (real test purchase completed, Purchase event fires correctly), all major payment methods present, shipping is genuinely free and now clearly shown upfront with delivery time (7-12 business days). What I'm weighing right now, two real paths: Path A: Stay on ATC, let the truly clean-funnel data accumulate a few more days before judging anything (told the real statistical threshold before "structural problem" is 35-40 clean Add-to-Carts — I'm not there yet, especially counting only post-fix days). Path B: Switch to Purchase-optimization now, on the genuinely clean funnel — something I haven't actually tested yet, since my 3-day Purchase attempt happened BEFORE the cart fix. Run it a full 7 days without touching it, accept lower volume for higher intent. Site is tryflowra.com if it helps to see the actual funnel instead of just numbers. If you've run into this exact fork — clean funnel, decent ATC signal, zero purchases — which path would you take and why?

Hey there complete beginner here so please forgive the ignorance. I am aware that using other people's videos without credit is bad however I've been seeing dropshippers and dropshipping sites where they have used and integrated videos from multiple creators. I've also seen people online say that they search tiktok for content which they can use. Is this even allowed? Or am I misunderstanding something?

I've been testing mostly image ads, but I can't seem to get a CTR above 1.5%. I'd really appreciate some advice on what I'm doing wrong.

My process is usually this: I create 4 different creatives based on 4 different angles and test them against each other.

Most of the time, 3 of the creatives perform terribly (below 1% CTR, sometimes even below 0.5%), while one performs slightly better at around 1.2%. The problem is that 1.2% still isn't good enough to get cheap traffic or generate sales.

So here's where I get stuck:

In the past, whenever none of the creatives became a clear winner, I would just start over and test 4 completely new creatives with 4 new angles. Usually, one of those angles is actually the same angle that previously got the 1.2% CTR—just with a completely new image, hook, and overall creative.

The weird thing is that sometimes the exact same angle that previously got a 1.2% CTR suddenly drops to 0.6% or even worse. Then I repeat the whole process again, but I keep getting the same results.

How do you break out of this cycle and finally reach a 2–3% CTR with a creative that actually starts generating sales?

Should I stop creating completely new creatives and instead iterate on the best-performing one? For example, if a creative gets a 1.2% CTR, should I only change the hook while keeping everything else the same? Or only change the image? Basically, should I test one variable at a time instead of rebuilding the entire creative from scratch?

Or is a 1.2% CTR simply too low to justify iterating on that creative at all?

I'd genuinely appreciate any advice from people who have been through this.