He Sold $1.3 Million Drop-Shipping on eBay in 18 Months

Paul Lipsky, who has a course called Drop-Shipping Titans, was able to scale his drop-shipping business on eBay to $1.3 million within a year and a half. What were the most important things that allowed him to get there? What were the pillars of his operation? What made up the foundation that allowed him to scale his business? What was the difference between him and the average Joe who just gives up?

Leverage Software
The first thing is that leveraging software is crucial. So much of this drop-shipping business can become automated, and that’s not just a luxury. It’s really necessary in order to scale up. As soon as you automate a process that’s repetitive, you can focus on the more important things that are going to grow your business.

When you’re stuck working in the business versus on the business, you’re not really making more money. By using software as your workflow systems, you free yourself up to work on the big picture.

Paul uses software called DSM Tool, which stands for Drop Ship Management. It does so much, but one of the most helpful things it does is automatically lists items for you. It monitors your stock for you, so if an item goes up or down in price, it’s going to change it on eBay for you. It also marks items as out of stock as necessary.

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Build a Team
Another big one that helped Paul in his business was building a team. The right software will be all you need at first, but at some point, you need humans behind the software to operate it. And that’s where the virtual assistants come in. They fill in those gaps for you.

Paul utilizes them for everything. They can run up to 95 percent of his store for him. They do product research, get items listed on eBay, fulfill orders, and do customer service. They do everything you can’t automate. Sometimes you’ve got to have that human interaction.

Document Your System
The next crucial part of building Paul’s business is workflows and documenting systems. As you build your business and find your team, you need to take care of things like customer service, product research, fulfillment, and returns. And it will feel as if there are a million steps for each one of those roles. And you are going to want to document each one. How do you do that? Why is that important?

Well, Paul will tell you that you just have to do it. The first time you go through everything, write down every step that you took. The next time you do it, go back to see if you did anything differently or if some other process worked better this time. After a few times, you’re going to find a system that works and then just keep doing that. You don’t want to have to think about these routine things as you do them. And then at that point you can send that system to a virtual assistant to do it for you.

Look at the Big Picture
The next pillar that allowed Paul to scale to over seven figures was the mindset of looking at the big picture as he was drop-shipping on eBay. He realized that it wasn’t the single item that mattered; it was the high volume that was the key.

When you get started, it’s easy to get hung up on every single order: “Oh, this item—I didn’t make that much money on it,” or, “This item—I made so much money. But these other items I’m not making as much money on.” You’ve got to look at the big picture here. With eBay drop-shipping, the key is volume; it’s selling a lot of products. You’re not going to get the high margins, but the key to making money is selling more of those items with the lower margins. That’s what you’ve got to focus on.

Even if you are only making a dollar off of the sale of one item, you have to remember that you are actually not doing anything. Your virtual assistants are doing it. If they can make you a dollar, then it’s worth it for you. Once you’ve done your product research, listed that item, and it’s selling, it becomes almost like passive income because it’s selling maybe 10 to 20 times a day.

Hard Work
The next secret from Paul is one that nobody expects: hard work.

It would be easy to look at Paul’s story and only look at the fact that he may work at drop shipping for only 20 minutes a day. But that would be short-sighted. You’ve got to look back at where Paul was a year ago. He was hustling hard, working a nine-to-five job, coming home, and then working five or six more hours.

Part of Paul’s success was because a busy schedule forced him to outsource and find systems that he could then teach others. But all this does require hard work. You’ve got to put in the hard work in the beginning to make it a success. It’s not a get-rich-quick scheme whatsoever.

Consistency, Improvement, Evaluation, and Adaptation
Another one of Paul’s pillars was consistency and improvement over time. You need to be evaluating your business from time to time.

For example, eBay makes it easy to go in and see your metrics and see which items are getting a lot of views and sales. You want to be going in constantly and deleting items from your store that aren’t selling well. Just go in and make sure that the systems you have in place are still relevant for this time period. You don’t want to get left behind, so make sure you are staying on top of things.

You need to be willing to adapt, and to do that you have to be monitoring your business. You might be crushing it one year, but if you are not willing to make changes and keep with the times, you may find yourself struggling the next year.

Last but not least, it has been Paul’s willingness to experiment with different strategies and various software that has led to his massive success. He’s experimented with product research and pricing as well. It’s something that many people refuse to do.

Put in the Hard Work
You really need to go in and find the products that you know are going to sell well, and that will be a huge breakthrough for you. Just remember, you’ve got to put in the work. You’ve got to work hard. It’s worth it.