Shopify Expectations vs Reality

Let's be real... starting an online business will be hard and it will take a lot of time. I see a lot of these three common expectations and misconceptions about starting a Shopify store and I want to set the record straight and share the reality of starting a Shopify store.

In this video I want to be totally 100% honest with you and cover some very common expectations vs realities when it comes to starting a Shopify store. Because I want you to succeed and be prepared.

Ok great let’s get started!

View the Full Video Transcript Below

Let’s start first with the biggest expectation slash misconception that I see ALL THE TIME and honestly it drives me crazy.

We have all seen those videos online of people claiming they made $1 million dollars in 24 hours or $100,000 on the first day of opening their store. Or maybe they are just conveniently posing with their new Lambo….

This my friend isn’t real.

The #1 expectation I see from people starting their Shopify stores is that they are going to get rich instantly overnight. That they will launch their store and BOOM they are making thousands instantly.

The reality is though that YES you can totally make great money with an eCommerce store HOWEVER it takes time and a well thought out strategy.

You can’t just expect your new eCommerce store to be an ATM that you can instantly pull money from. You will have business expenses like product testing, inventory costs, store setup fees and paid advertising costs that will all need to be covered before you can take any money personally from the business.

So when you see videos claiming crazy results for X amount of money in 24 hours of launching my store just know that they either had an audience already or spent a lot of money in paid advertising to get that kind of traffic to their store so quickly.

I have been listed as a Shopify Expert for 8 years now and it takes TIME to grow a successful eCommerce store and brand.

All that being said though if you want that Lambo you can totally get it. Just come up with a strategy to grow your brand and scale your business and I’m a firm believer that you can achieve any goal you set your mind to.

It sounds cheesy but it’s true anything is possible if you set your mind to something and take the right action steps to help you reach your goal.

Ok so now that I’ve given you a dose of motivation for the day back to expectation #2.

Expectation #2 kinda relates to #1 but it’s more about traffic. People just expect that once they launch their online store they will instantly have a flood of traffic to their site.

The reality is though that people don’t know you exist online till you tell them. As of January 2020 there was over 1.74 billion websites on the internet. Who knows how many websites were launched as you are watching this video…

So all that to say there is a lot of online competition for your ideal customer’s attention.

You can totally still stand out though by building a great brand online and a community of raving fans who love your products and are excited to buy from you.

I’m going to say it again though… you need a strategy for how to send QUALIFIED traffic to your site. And the word qualified is important because if you are sending people to your site that aren’t your ideal customer and will never purchase from you, then what is the point?

You need to know exactly who your ideal customer is and have a plan on how to reach them to tell them about your store.

So this could be through organic traffic like social media, blogging, press or paid traffic like online advertising or partnering with influencers.

Ideally you want a mix of different traffic sources but when you are first getting started and money is tight just focus on building a brand through organic traffic.

The final expectation I want to go over in this video is about startup costs. There are lots of videos on YouTube about launching a store with no money.

Hell I’ve even made a video before about the Cost of Starting a Dropshipping Business and I breakdown the startup costs to around $114 including the Shopify plan, domain and product samples.

So yes you can absolutely get started for cheap however the reality is that it takes money to grow and scale a business.

You need to invest in paid advertising to send more traffic to your store, maybe hire some team members to help with customer support or order fulfillment, or maybe invest more in inventory of your winning products to improve your margins.

Think about it like a traditional business like a brick-and-mortor boutique. To start a physical location business you most likely have to get a loan because you have a building rental, inventory to buy, decor costs, have to hire sales associates… and the list goes on.

The beauty of an online business is that you don’t have to do that HOWEVER you do need to plan on investing in your business to have the funds to scale it online.

I’m not saying go out and get a loan today for $50,000 but plan on spending some money in the beginning on some paid traffic to your store so that you can test your products and really hone in on your ideal customer.

Then once you have some winning products on your store that you know people are excited and willing to buy then you can either take profits from those sales and reinvest in your business or add some additional funding to your store to keep it growing.

Hopefully you found this video helpful and I didn’t crush any dreams but instead just gave a nice dose of reality.

So if you liked this video make sure to give it a big “like” and subscribe to this channel.

Once you have launched your store and are trying paid advertising I’ve got a bunch of tips for that as well including how to tell if you have a bad store design or bad ads that are hurting your sales.

You can actually watch that video next so what are you waiting for? Click here to watch that video.

I will see you in the next video and make sure to comment below if you think I left any common expectations vs reality out.