7 Tips to Learn Dropshipping Faster

Although the dropshipping business model sounds fairly straightforward, there are quite a few things you must grasp to make it work.

As a result, teaching dropshipping has become an industry of its own.

Luckily, however, you don’t need to break the bank to learn dropshipping.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to learn dropshipping faster without spending money on a course.

1. Just start: Practice makes perfect

We’ve all been told the same thing from childhood—practice makes perfect.

As we grow, we acknowledge and appreciate the truth of that statement.

That statement holds when you’re learning dropshipping.

Most people are introduced to dropshipping through YouTube videos. This isn’t a bad thing.

However, if you truly want to be a successful dropshipper, you must stop watching dopamine-inducing videos and start taking action. Learn on the move.

Here’s why.

After watching two or three videos, the narrative usually starts recurring.

You start to realize that all the  you learn from regurgitate the same information but package it differently. 

The silver lining, however, is that if you’re keen enough, you’ll notice all the fundamental steps of dropshipping from the videos, i.e., 

  • Conduct market research.
  • Pick a niche.
  • Identify a problem in that niche.
  • Find a product that solves the problem.
  • Build a website.
  • Run ads.
  • Fulfill orders and provide customer support.
  • Rinse, repeat.

Instead of watching more YouTube videos or reading more blog posts, get into the first step and start digging deeper. 

For instance, by conducting market research you’ll learn interesting things like audience segments, their cultures, how that affects their decision-making, and their purchasing power.

Alternatively, if you do product research, you’ll learn about the numerous platforms and product research tools you can use to expedite product research with high accuracy.

You’ll never learn any of these things from watching a hyped, superficial “How to make $10,000 a month dropshipping” video from a guru who’s never dropshipped anything. 

It’s possible to make a decent income dropshipping, but not like that.

2. Learn from free online resources

One of the beauties of the internet is that whatever problem you’re experiencing right now, someone else experienced, solved, and documented it online.

The trick to learning from their experience is specificity.

And this is where the ability to articulate your problem in detail helps you reach an existing solution. 

But what does that look like in reality? Here’s an example.

Searching “How to make $10,000 a month dropshipping” doesn’t do you much good.

Why?

It isn’t specific and, therefore, doesn’t give you actionable steps. It simply brushes over important information.

Comparatively, searching “best free product research tools for dropshipping” is a much better search query.

It goes over the tools you can use to find dropshipping products with the potential to sell—this is a properly articulated question.

You can find free resources on dedicated blogs like Do Dropshipping, online communities like Reddit, and YouTube.

The only caveat of this strategy is that it only works if you take action. By taking action, you run into specific problems that lead you to specific resources.

Does that make sense?

3. Allow yourself to make mistakes and learn from them

Reaching for perfection wastes your time and slows your growth.

If you expect everything to flow seamlessly from the onset, I’ve got news for you—it won’t.

It doesn’t matter how good you think you are; you’ll make tons of mistakes when you start learning dropshipping.

But guess what?

That’s fine. It’s a new venture.

So, embrace your mistakes and learn from them.

You weren’t born a web developer, so your first website will probably be embarrassing.

But it’s only by building a bad website that you’ll learn how to build a good one.

Mistakes help you understand what works and what doesn’t. Failing is a part of the dropshipping process. 

Whenever you fail, assess the situation, figure out what you did wrong, pick up the pieces, and move on.

Don’t sulk or beat yourself up. It will be difficult initially, but you’ll toughen up with every failure.

4. Develop a learning routine

Learning is a lifelong process.

It’s a major requirement of continuous improvement, which is what you want.

If you spare time to acquire new information proactively, you will consistently grow your dropshipping business.

A few benefits of developing a learning routine include:

  • Improved time management. By creating time to learn, you’ll be able to separate your learning time from other daily commitments.
  • Effective resource utilization. More information helps you spend less testing or developing products. For instance, learning how to write good ad copy will help you increase your conversion rate, consequently getting more value per dollar.
  • Avoiding procrastination. Without structure, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and put things off. However, a solid learning curriculum is a great learning incentive because you know exactly what you need to be doing and when.
  • Habit formation. When you follow a learning routine long enough, it becomes a habit. This helps you counter the feeling of despair when things don’t work. It’ll also help you build consistency, a key ingredient of mastering dropshipping.

As you learn, remember to take notes. Not only does note-taking help enhance retention, but the notes also become a resource you can refer to later.

5. Find a mentor

Mentors can expedite the process to dropshipping success, but only if they’re experienced and willing to invest their time in you.

They can help you avoid common pitfalls, saving you money and time.

But, you must be careful as you look for a mentor.

If you’re an avid reader of this blog, you’ve probably noticed our disdain for self-proclaimed dropshipping “gurus” with nothing to show for their success.

These gurus make a living by preying on beginners and selling them weak courses.

They position themselves as selfless mentors that move mountains to help you succeed.

In reality, they don’t care about you—only your money. Plus, most of them don’t have hands-on dropshipping experience.

The best way to find a mentor is through referral.

Do you know an active dropshipper? Ask them to refer you to a mentor they know.

Or, if they’re up to it, ask them to mentor you.

This way, you’ll find an honest person with the necessary skill set to mentor you.

Remember, It’s okay if you can’t find a mentor; keep taking action and focus on the task ahead. It’s the best way to learn.

If you find a mentor, good for you! 

However, always research your problems before asking questions. Your mentor is probably busy.

By asking them questions you can Google, you risk coming off as lazy and unmotivated, and the mentor might feel like you’re wasting their time.

Being informed shows initiative, which may strengthen the bond with your mentor. 

Alternatively, only reach out to your mentor when you’re stuck on a problem or need advice to make a major decision.

6. Join a community

  • It helps you tap into members’ expertise. Every online community has members who are far more experienced than you. By asking them the right questions, you can get valuable tips to grow your business.
  • It helps you gain new perspectives. When you open your mind to learning in a group setting, you can see things from other people’s perspectives. This can help you tackle your marketing in different ways.
  • It helps you team up with growth-mates. When you stay in a group long enough, you start to make friends with people in your growth phase. Growthmates can hold you accountable and keep you on the right path by honestly critiquing your work.
  • It helps you keep your mental health in check. As you delve into dropshipping and lose money in the early stages, frustration, anxiety, and even panic can overrun you. Seeing other people failing and trying again keeps your mental health in check.
  • It keeps you up to date with trends. Trends are short-lived, and obsessing over them can be detrimental because you can’t build a long-term business on trends. However, knowing what makes products popular can inform your product research efforts.

That being said, only join a handful of communities so you can keep up.

Find a community where discourse is respectful, healthy, and valuable. Also, ensure it caters to the people in your current growth stage.

To get you started, we recommend finding communities on platforms like Reddit, Facebook groups, and Discord.

7. Avoid the get-rich-quick mindset

All the principles of starting and running a normal business apply here.

You must be tenacious, passionate, focused, customer-centric, financially literate, and strategic to succeed.

A get-rich-quick mindset will cause you to deplete your budget quickly, become anxious, drain all your energy, fail, abandon the dropshipping business, and worse, probably become a dropshipping fearmonger… haha.

I hope it doesn’t come to that.

To get around this mindset, take time to plan.

Some of the things you can do to prepare yourself include:

  • Raising a sufficient amount to start the business and keeping it in a separate account from your savings. 
  • Registering a business with your local government.
  • Research your target audience.
  • Creating an emotional management system. For instance, when you get overwhelmed, take a break and take an aerial view of your business. Notice what you’re doing well and where you’re going wrong, and then get back into it.
  • Setting goals and realistic time frames to achieve them. You can review them to help you reset your focus whenever you feel down.

Approaching dropshipping as a long-term investment is fundamental to your success.

Conversely, a get-rich-quick mindset guarantees failure.