The Dropship Unlocked Podcast

Do Not Dropship These Products (Episode 95)

• Lewis Smith & James Eardley • Season 1 • Episode 95

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📞 Ready to Take the Next Step? https://dropshipunlocked.com/training-watch-apply?el=podcast-95-do-not-dropship-these-products

🗣In this episode, hosts Lewis Smith and James Eardley discuss the products you should absolutely avoid when dropshipping if you want to save time, money, and avoid headaches. 

From low-ticket items to obsolete technologies and prohibited products, Lewis and James break down the risks and offer guidance on how to make smart, data-driven product choices.

👉 Prefer to watch this on Youtube? Check it out here  ➡️ https://youtu.be/MURtdod8uW4

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Topics Discussed:

★ Avoiding Low-Ticket Items: Low profit margins requiring high sales volumes. High competition leading to price wars. Increased ad spend needed to drive volume.

★ Steering Clear of Obsolete Products: Lack of demand for outdated technology like CD players. Risks of holding unsellable inventory. Wasted marketing efforts on products no one wants.

★ Dangers of Selling Prohibited Items: Legal risks and potential fines. Account bans on platforms like Shopify. Damage to brand reputation and loss of customer trust.

★ Challenges of Sourcing from Overseas: Long shipping times leading to customer dissatisfaction. Inconsistent product quality and high return rates. Customs delays and additional costs impacting profitability.

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Links and Resources Mentioned:

Pick up a copy of Lewis’ book: https://htabook.com 

Get Shopify for £1 a month for 3 months: https://www.dropshipunlocked.com/shopify 

Get a free trial with a professional phone line: https://www.dropshipunlocked.com/circle 

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Key Takeaways:

★ Avoid Low-Ticket Items: Focus on higher-ticket products that offer better profit margins and reduce the need for high-volume sales.

★ Stay Updated on Market Demand: Avoid obsolete products with low demand, as they tie up resources and result in poor ROI.

★ Comply with Legal Regulations: Selling prohibited items can lead to severe legal and reputational consequences.

★ Prioritise Local Suppliers: To ensure quality control and faster shipping, source products locally rather than relying on overseas suppliers.

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★★★Dropship Unlocked - Lewis Smith★★★

🌏Watch Our Free Training ➽ https://www.dropshipunlocked.com/training?el=podcast-95-do-not-dropship-these-products

There are some products that you want to avoid, dropshipping at all costs, trying to fill up your income bathtub with a dripping tap and just doing it one drip at a time. You that could heed our warning, because we've been through that path. We've gone down it well, if you're thinking it's that easy, imagine how many other people have done exactly the same the same product. And so what I was actually building for myself was a new job where I had to find new trending products all the time and build new stores and start new marketing campaigns all the time. But do you see what I mean? You get to choose the business that you built, so take advantage of that choice, make the most of it. You Wow. Welcome to the dropship unlocked Podcast. I'm Lewis Smith, the founder of dropship unlocked, and with me is our client success coach. James Eardley, now, when we're not recording the podcast episodes, we're running our own e commerce businesses and helping aspiring entrepreneurs launch their own high ticket dropshipping businesses keen to build your own six or even seven bigger business, my book, the home turf advantage is your blueprint for launching a profitable online store. Grab your copy@htabook.com today, and let's get you started. Now, sit back, relax, and let's unlock your potential with the dropship unlocked podcast. Lewis and I have learned from experience that there are some products that you want to avoid dropshipping at all costs if you want to succeed today. That's what this episode is all about. We're talking about the products that you should absolutely avoid dropshipping if you want to save time money, and crucially, avoid lots of headaches. So Lewis, ready to share some insights on what to steer clear of absolutely Yep, let's go. This is going to be some vital information that can make or break your dropshipping business right from the outset. So keen to dive into it today. Awesome. First up, let's talk about low ticket items, which I know is where we first started, when we got introduced to the concept of drop shipping. Why do you think that people should avoid dropshipping products such as water bottles? Yeah, you see so many of these, don't you? You actually see them as ads, as a consumer on your social media feed, and if you got an eye for it, you start to realize, ah, that's a water bottle that's being drop shipped. I can see that same item on AliExpress for five pounds or two pounds, versus the 30 pounds that this seller's trying to market up for so that low ticket drop shipping, the main reason is probably the low profit margins selling low ticket items just means that because of such low profit per sale, you need such a high volume of sales to make a decent overall monthly profit. We talk about target monthly income for your business, like, what's your current salary in your job now? How many low ticket sales would you need per month to replace that salary? It's a lot more when you sell really slim margin products than it would be if you just sold one or two higher priced, higher profit items. So it's kind of like trying to fill up your income bathtub with a dripping tap and just doing it one drip at a time. And just like turning on the tap and then turning it off, turning it on, turning like extremely slow, tedious, inefficient process. So that's probably the main reason, just the numbers, the financials. The other things though, to consider are the high competition. You know, these products, like these water bottles that you see, they're fidget spinners, whatever the new trending Tiktok drop shipping product that everyone's talking about is at the moment, that's usually coming from temu or AliExpress. And you know they say, Oh, you just mark this up and this. Watch the sales flood in. Well, if you're thinking it's that easy, imagine how many other people have done exactly the same the same product. So these products are usually flooded in the marketplace, making it very hard for you to actually stand out, and so you end up just competing on price alone. And that is not a battle that I want to get into, and it's one I've learned from experience. It's just not one that's worth winning, because if you just keep saying, Okay, well, we'll do it cheaper. We'll give away three bottles for the price of one, eventually you erode your profit margin so much, because all you could do is compete on price, because it's such a commoditized product that eventually you just make no money per sale, and those sellers go out of business. The other thing as well is you've got to think about, well, how are we going to acquire these customers in the customers in the first place? The concept of build it and they shall come, unfortunately, doesn't quite work in E commerce. Yes, you need to build it the store, the products get the suppliers, but then to expect customers to just flock to your store and start buying is unrealistic. It's a bit of a pipe dream. The reality is, you will probably need to pay for some traffic through ad spend to get people to your store. Now, of course, there's other ways of doing it. There's shout outs, there's influencer marketing, there's SEO. It's just a bit of a longer game, but if you want sales straight away, if you're looking to replace your income, then you probably want to drive some ad spend to your site. Now, what. Find with lower priced, low ticket items, you'll spend more on ads to drive the necessary volume of sales, which eats into your already thin profit margin. So if your cost per sale on ads is higher than the profit that you make on each sale, there's no point doing it. You're just losing money. You're giving money to Mark Zuckerberg and Google and giving it away. So it's kind of like running a marathon with a backpack full of bricks. You're you're you're running, you're spending on ads, you're trying to run your business, but you're just weighed down by the economics that are just stacked against you, because it's just, yeah, that is not stacked in your favor, whereas, if you're selling higher priced items with more profit. It covers the ad spend. And there's a whole raft of reasons why we have the home turf advantage model with some very specific criteria to address all of these problems, but I'd say that, James, those are the main reasons why you want to be very wary of going into a low ticket niche when it comes to drop shipping. Yeah, and I completely agree. I mean, before I came across dropship unlocked and the masterclass program I was dropshipping low ticket items, and all of those reasons that you just highlighted there, I found out in really vivid detail, because I was going through that pain of understanding that my ad spends were way too high and were much higher than the small profits that I was going to make per order. Also, the competition was a big one, because I think a lot of people, when they think about drop shipping, they think, Well, I'm very new to drop shipping. I'll start with cheap products, because surely starting with cheap products is going to be easier than selling high ticket products. But what you do then is you follow the masses of people that think the same, and so you're in a much more densely populated market, because a lot of people are trying to sell those cheap products that are trendy, and actually the high ticket products become the ones to sell with low competition, because people don't view themselves as able to sell them yet. But it works very much in your favor to start with high ticket rather than the low ticket, even if it's your first time ever running an E commerce business. I found this out the hard way. I failed my low ticket business and then moved into high ticket. I think the main difference between the two Lewis, as you alluded to straight away, is the profit per order. Because the way that it works with low ticket is because you make, say, 10 pounds per order in profit. Then to cover your salary and to start running a business full time, you need to say, make 3000 pounds a month. So you need 300 orders making 10 pound profit per order in order to sustain that that business. And being a type of operator that can operate an E commerce business that makes 300 sales every month is a very advanced e commerce business, you have to have good operations in place to be able to deal with that. So I think actually it's something that you'd look into after doing high ticket drop shipping, you could consider low ticket it's more advanced to do that, whereas the high ticket game, if we're making 300 pounds profit per order, and we've got the same goal of getting to 3k a month with net income, then you just need to make 10 sales every month, and that's a lot easier to operate. So you've got more room to play with in terms of ad spend as well, and that's the reason why we always go with high ticket instead of low ticket when we're building our E commerce businesses. So great points in there. Louis, now another one to avoid is any products that clearly just don't have any demand. So for example, like CD players. Think CD players, the sales will have fallen off a cliff in recent times. But why do you think we should be avoiding these types of products? Well, back in the day, imagine, yeah, being on the wave of CD player popularity as it really took off. You could, yeah, you could have made a killing. Unfortunately, if you'd have decided to build your business around that and hope for a long term, sustainable, stable income into the future, there would have come a point, probably the invention of like would have been MiniDisc or like, but at mp three, eventually, um, kind of making that that technology obsolete. So, yeah, I think that's the the key like, um, the potential for a technology to become obsolete. It's very difficult to imagine that now, because right now with we think that all the technology we use, we assume it's like, this is the forefront in technology, and it will remain so. But in 510, years, this will look, this stuff will look like, you know, extremely old fashioned. It's a bit like, if you in the age of typewriters, decided to set up your dropshipping store, being like, We are the typewriter store. Everyone needs typewriters. And then suddenly laptops emerge, and it's just completely obsolete technology. You might be a few niche customers that still want to buy them, but very, very little demand. So I think that's the thing to consider. Don't try to in your business to a potential wave in technology, you know, in the popularity of a technology that could be here today, gone tomorrow. Do you remember those hoverboards, those kind of, like, electric scooter, skateboard, things that everyone used to be riding on. That's how everyone was like, drop ship those. They're really cheap. You can get them from China, and then they started bursting into flames, and they're all kinds of bad press. And then eventually they kind of just disappeared. And so it's, it's like making sure that you aren't creating, you're not trying to ride a wave that you think is really popular. Now, if it's true. Ending on Tiktok or any other social platform, the chances are it won't be around for too long to just be very aware, I'd want to build a business that is based on stable, consistent demand that I know will be around for the long term, and not on a flash in the pan trend. That's the kind of business that I can be certain will provide security for myself and my family in years to come, and my team as well. So think the other thing is, and this, you know, imagine you had purchased loads of CD players, or mp three players, or whatever, the the latest version of that is now, right, loads of those little mini mp three players, and you purchased loads of them up front. And obviously that's not the Drop Shipping model. But imagine you had done and then suddenly they became obsolete. The amount of stories we hear of people who purchase a container's worth of stock, they put it into a third party fulfillment center or send it into an Amazon storage center, and then they're just sitting on it, paying storage fee after storage fee because they just can't sell it, and they've tied up all their capital and space as well, into a product that has just become obsolete and is no longer popular, and so then they have to liquidate it and sell it, usually cheaper than they even bought it for, to try and just make back a fraction of the money that they lost in there, not to mention all the fees they've paid. So just, I mean, that's if you're bringing items in and paying for it upfront. Obviously, with drop shipping, you're somewhat protected from that, because you don't part with the money until the customer has already paid you. But the thing, even with drop shipping technology, if I said, right, I'm going to dropship laptops today, you spend so much time and money marketing products that perhaps no one even wants. I mean, I would struggle to sign the big suppliers in a brand dominated niche like laptops. I go and knock on the door of Apple or LG or HP or Panasonic or someone and try and get them to sign up with me as a first time retailer. Is unlikely. There are so many other niche industries where the suppliers are a lot smaller and a lot more willing to work with us individually. So I don't want to be tying up money, putting pouring money into ADS, hoping that some customers will buy products on my store that are becoming obsolete, that are maybe out of fashion, and just be there trying to generate sales when there's just not enough demand for those products, exactly. And you can wait a lot of time, as I did, because the conventional wisdom is to go after trending products and try and make quick money. And so my first ever store was called the hype store, and I thought I'd try and sell products. I could see we're selling well right now, but what I didn't do is zoom out and try and look at the bigger picture, at what my overall goal was. My overall goal was to have an online income stream that was sustainable and would last for years, whereas I was building these drop shipping businesses based on products that were going to have a flash in the pan demand and then die right down. And so what I was actually building for myself was a new job where I had to find new trending products all the time and build new stores and start new marketing campaigns all the time, where it's the difference when you choose a product that's got high demand and clearly trending upwards or is steady all year round, then what you're building then is a business that can still pay you four or five years down the line, even after you've first done the work to find the niche and set up the business. So it makes a lot more sense for the long term that I guess zooming out and thinking about what it is you really want to achieve really helps to make that decision. Okay, next up there are some items that absolutely we should avoid because they're actually prohibited. Um, so certain items that either Google ads policy, Shopify payments policy just won't allow you to sell. I mean, why? Obviously, is it? Why is it crucial to this for us to avoid these types of products? Yeah, I think the is obvious why? You know that? Like, we all know why you shouldn't sell prohibited items, right? Because you will just get shut down by the platforms that you build your store on. But I think the way I view it is that I want my business to be legally extremely boring. You know? I want a lawyer to look, take one glance at the business and be like, there's nothing there to like even consider problematic, because then I know that I can sleep soundly at night for years to come. And I'm not suddenly wondering, oh God, are they going to make the thing that I'm selling illegal in the UK, it's always been quite fringe, and it's on the verge of being illegal, but it's not quite. And so I've kind of slipped between the cracks with my business, and I think I can make a lot of money, but you know that level of like, nerves and anxiety, and that I just don't need that drama in my life or my business. So this is personal opinion, but I believe that selling prohibited items like that that eventually lead to legal troubles, potential hefty fines down the line, you're playing with fire, and eventually you do that enough, you will get burned. The other thing is that even if you do scrape through legally, and you're you know, you manage to kind of duck under the radar and keep selling these prohibited items, eventually, the platforms you sell on will catch on. Whether that's Google ads, they'll just ban your account, just shut you down, whether it's Shopify, who you might process your payments through, through Shopify payments, they'll just say, sorry. Can't serve you anymore. You're selling prohibited items. Might even shut down your store, ending your business overnight, all that hard work gone, all because you picked a fringe niche that was like on the verge of legality. And you know, people make these cases, they come to us and say, Yeah, but what I'm selling is not technically illegal that, you know, would a bot, not a human, a bot that is sent out to crawl websites to look for potentially prohibited category websites. Could it potentially misinterpret what you sell as illegal, because that's all that needs to happen for you to get banned. So don't worry about arguing it. You're not It's not like Google are going to call you in and sit you in front of a panel and make you put your case forward. It's going to be a robot that crawls it in the middle of the night, and you will wake up to an email saying your account is gone, and that's stressful. I wouldn't wish that on anyone, so don't, don't take the risk in your control fully. You get to decide, that's the beauty of this. You get to choose. No one's telling you what you have to sell. So if you do sell those habited items, those potentially illegal items, you know it could damage your brand's reputation, is going to erode customer trust, and you're building your business like a house of cards, one wrong move and the whole thing collapses Exactly. And you can check out which products are banned by looking at the Shopify policies and Google ads policy. But it's things like things that promise like medical improvements of health or large claims oftentimes. So obviously, there's the drugs, the firearms. Obviously we're not going to try and sell those, but it's just to be careful if you're going to go into products where there's like, it's like, fringe things, adult content, things that you don't want to be associated with, large health and get rich quick, schemes, those types of things are really frowned on by Google and Shopify. So have a read through, and anything that you consider might be on the fringe, it's probably best to stay where, well clear of there's lots of products well above the board that you can sell instead. Okay? The next thing that we are always avoiding and advising people to avoid is products that are sourced abroad, even though this is conventional wisdom for dropshipping using sites like Aliexpress or temu, and then dropshipping those products into western countries from the other side of the world. So why is it that we actively discourage people from sourcing products from abroad? Well, the home turf advantage, the clues in the name your advantage is coming from the fact that you operate on your home turf, and by that we mean your suppliers or your distributors are on the same turf, the same country, as your customers. So what that means is because customers today, with the age of Amazon Prime, expect fast delivery. So these long shipping times from overseas, if you're dealing directly with suppliers that are overseas, that can lead to customer dissatisfaction. It leads to high product return rates. Even before the items arrived, they counted their order, but it's on a boat somewhere half the way from China over to the UK or the US. You can't then return it because you've already paid the supplier for it, the supplier is not going to take it back. And so there's this difficult scenario where you end up just having to refund the customer out of your own pocket. Now, what I'm not saying is that all of the products you sell have to be manufactured and made in the country in which your customers are. I think that's a bit of a stretch, like often stuff is made outside of where you live. That's just the part of the global economy. But we can protect ourselves and our customers from the delays by working directly with Suppliers and distributors who already have those products on shelves in this the country that you are selling to your customers in. And what that means is, when they order a product very next day or one to two working days, the item can be with, which is makes for huge improvements in customer satisfaction. It means easy returns. If a customer ever orders something and then thinks, actually, I don't need that item, I need to return it. They can't. And usually the supplier will just say, yeah, if it's, you know, unopened and in as new condition, just send it back. And we'll, we'll fully refund you the trade price, and you can refund the customer the retail price. So to me, that's how business should be. You know, I think when we're trying to play this game of like arbitrage across different countries, and we are the end buyer of those products from the supplier, it means that we are the one taking on the risk of what happens in between. When it leaves the supplier on us, it's all on us. You know, there's no quality control. It just goes straight from the supplier in China to the customer, and that potentially leads to quality issues. You know, products from overseas suppliers can have inconsistent quality, and that can lead to complaints from your customers. It leads to refund requests, which can lead to more account problems. You know, rolling reserves, chargebacks, account bounds. And so you're kind of rolling the dice. Every time you make a sale. You're putting your faith in this unknown entity, this faceless like supplier that you never really speak to other than through kind of a broken English translated chat, usually on a site like Aliexpress or temu. And just hope that you know, if you put your entire faith in them, that your business will will pull through, whereas if you work. The supplier in the UK that you could just pick up the phone to or jump in the car and go and see or jump on a train and go and chat to them face to face. It just creates this level of trust. There's accountability that you can rely on them for quality control. And so yeah, those are the reasons why I'd be very aware or very wary of working directly with suppliers based abroad, because there can just be delays. There's additional costs at customs. You know, if we've had it where a customer has ordered an item, then it gets stuck at the border, and then they send through, like the request to pay for the customs import duty, and you have to then either pass that on to the customer or take the hit on that yourself, and then it complicates your logistics, and it's another couple of weeks delay because it's stuck in some warehouse there. All of that impacts the bottom line, the profit that the company takes home. So if you think right back to the beginning, before you chose your niche, before anything, you had a target monthly income, the reason you did this business is because you thought, I want to replace the income from my job. Now at this stage, you might be at that stage right now, and that's a huge advantage if you haven't gone down the path of low ticket drop shipping already, but you're just considering your options right now. Where you are is great, because you get to decide which fork in the road you go down. Do you go down that route end up experiencing all those problems, and then have this like in disastrous inbox of email complaints every time you open up your laptop. Or do you kind of reverse engineer it and think, Well, actually, I'd like to make three, 5000 pounds per month in net profit. Okay, well, I could do that by making 10 sales. You know, of items that are 2000 3000 pounds per item? Maybe I'll just do that and set only 10 customers to keep happy. They get very fast delivery on their items. If ever there's a problem, I can send it back. There's no issues with legality of the product. Like, do you see what I mean? You get to choose the business that you built, so take advantage of that choice, make the most of it, and yeah, be very heed our warning and tread carefully if you're thinking of going down the path sourcing products from China exactly heed our warning, because we've been through that path. We've gone down it, and my experience of working with overseas suppliers was exactly as you say, Lewis, it was, it was the broken English when trying to get orders fulfilled. It was a long delivery time. So we're constantly getting impatient customers, and rightly so, because it was three or four week delivery, and the customers are constantly getting in touch with us to find out when the product was going to be delivered. And then it was also those emails in the inbox from unhappy customers because the product quality was poor. And then it's the realization that you haven't got a very easy process in place to be able to handle those returns. And if you zoom out and remember why you did it in the first place, building a lifestyle business with income that replaces your salary, so you can live from anywhere in the world and have more freedom over your life. You're not going to have that freedom if you're constantly in the inbox with poor quality products, if you're having to get deliveries and returns arranged from around the world with customs, tax, etc, etc. Instead, I found that having the domestic drop shipping, the home serve advantage model Lewis, that you taught me, it just reduces all that complexity so much because the products are already in the same country as your customers, and have that, having that in place removes all of the customs tax it removes a lot of the complexity of dealing with overseas products. So absolutely always the way I'd go moving forward. So that means avoiding Aliexpress products. I tried to sell no tie shoelaces, Bluetooth gaming controllers that your phone sits in. I've tried to sell pet products, anything that was trending, I've given it a go, and it was very similar process and a very similar story if I was dealing with overseas suppliers. So now that we understand the types of products that we really don't want to sell. I know that Lewis, we have this niche validation process that we teach so it enables you able to find the right types of products from the very start. So can you discuss a little bit about our niche validation process, I think, with the niche validation system that we take you through. And by the way, this is all available in my book at the home turf advantage, so you can that. You can access that and go through that yourself, but don't get stuck in analysis paralysis. I think that's one of the biggest hurdles, obstacles that people face, and you've got to try and use the data to make informed decisions. But then, most of all, just take action. You know, if it's slightly wrong, you can always pivot later. We're not going and buying a warehouse here full of products that we have to then sell. That's the beauty of drop shipping. We might make a few calls to suppliers, sign a few up, and then maybe we realize that it's not quite selling as well as I thought, Okay, I'll pivot. I'll adjust, I'll widen my niche slightly. You know, there's so much control you have over the process as a business owner at that point. So if I had to summarize, I think I'd say use data, not emotion, to select products, and just make sure that you're building your business on a solid foundation. So if you want more in depth, kind of step by step on how our niche validation criteria works, you can access that in my book called The. Home at turf advantage, which you can get a copy of at h t a book.com there's things that I wish I had come across before I had ever started drop shipping. It's about choosing products based on the data, rather than just a hunch or an emotion, because you like the products yourself, and that's going to be a lot more successful in the long run. I think there are quite a lot of things that I wish I knew before I started. And I know we've actually done an episode on that subject, where Lewis, you went through, I think, nine different things that you wish you knew before you started dropshipping. So that's one to check out for you, if you're listening to today's episode. That's episode 46 of the dropship unlock podcast. And so I think people understand now, there's definitely products we should avoid at all costs. And then there are hundreds. There are actually 1000s of different niches and different products that do fit the criteria and we do want to sell. So I guess any any final thoughts from you really Lewis, for people choosing the right products to sell? Yeah, stay informed. Make data driven decisions. Use the validation criteria. Don't rely on your gut instinct, and you can always overlay the decision with your gut instinct later, but don't just rely on that from the outset. Always try and prioritize customer satisfaction and just work backwards from your goal, your target, monthly income. What's the path of least resistance to get you to that number? Because that's what that matters. If you can build a nice, easy, stable, sustainable business that keeps customers happy and makes you your three, 510, K per month, whatever it is you need to replace your current income, then do it in the path of least resistance. Don't sell 1000s of low ticket products just because, you know, you thought that was the lowest barrier to entry. It's worth a bit of time upfront overcoming some of those initial obstacles, because that creates kind of a bit of a moat around your business. Not everybody can be bothered to do that. Not many people can be bothered to pick up the phone and call a supplier. But if you're listening to this, you're clearly taking your business seriously, and so that's what will set you apart from the pack. That's what will elevate your brand from the competition. Enjoying the podcast, we'd love to hear from you leave a comment or a review, and we might just feature it on an upcoming episode, also for detailed show notes and resources. Head to dropship, unlock.com forward slash podcasts. If you found value from any episode of this podcast, please take just 10 seconds to leave us a quick five star review on your podcast app of choice. It helps us more than you could imagine. And who knows, you might just hear your comments on the show. Thanks for being part of our community. Your support helps us keep delivering a new episode every week. Now it's that part of the episode where we're going to answer a question that we've had in from a listener. And remember, if you have a question floating around your mind after listening to today's episode, simply comment beneath the YouTube video version of this episode, and we might just answer it on an upcoming episode. So that's exactly what Paul Haynes has done. So Paul Haynes, seven, five, double two on YouTube has asked a question about signing suppliers, which is good topical on today's episode. So Paul said quick question on trade shows, would you try to get in touch prior with potential suppliers to arrange a meeting, or do you make first contact when you're at a trade show and then make a follow up call? Thank you for your question. Paul, yeah, it's a really, really good question, and it's very topical, actually, given our discussion today on choosing the right products to drop ship as well, because this then naturally leads to, well, okay, I've chosen the products. How do I secure suppliers for those? So one of the approaches that we recommend is trade shows. Go and go and see the suppliers, meet them in person, go and shake their hand, and, you know, make eye to eye contact, show them the face behind the brand. Now, there's not necessarily a need to contact suppliers up front, but there's definitely no harm in it. And I know I've certainly have done and do some research on who will be there, which contacts from which suppliers will be there, and just make a list of which stands you're going to visit when you go there. Try and learn a bit about their products as well and their businesses beforehand. If you can go there and start the conversation with, I was really interested in your new range of X products, it tells them that you've been paying attention, you've been listening, and you're not just kind of winging it on the spot. You are interested in working with them. Also some other things. You can have some of their competitors names in mind. If you've already signed some of their competitors, or you're talking to some of their competitors. Use that in conversation. They can tell actually we're talking to so and so later on. So that should be a good we're thinking about working with them. You know that these types of things are going to get a little reaction out of them, because they're to them. Their competitor probably is the enemy. So they're going to think, oh no, we want you to feature our products in your store, not theirs. So there's these little tactics and techniques you can use, but I think just people make a big deal out of this. But just try and enjoy it. Just go there. Enjoy the walking and talking. Walk around, experience it. Soak it up. There's plenty of people to talk to, so take business cards off them. Take your own business cards. Make sure that you can, you know, leave your number and details behind, and then, I think, follow up with suppliers afterwards. You know, I've often, and suppliers can be quite busy at these types of trade shows, so I'll often. Arrange maybe like a sit down coffee with one supplier at 9am and then another supplier I'll meet for lunch at 12, and then another one I might have a drink with in the evening at seven as it's kind of closing down to an end, and make a real day out of it, because ultimately you're batching what could be months of outreach and trying to get through to the decision maker and trying to do all of you know the manual over the phone, outreach or emails back and forth, stuff getting lost into one day, where you can seal that deal with a drink at the end of the day and just say to them, right? We're done. Let's let's do it. Will you get the product sent over to us tomorrow, and we can start marketing your products front and front and center on the site. And that, I think that really helps. And then it's just following up with suppliers, like so many people, don't do what they said they were going to do in business. And you'll notice this, like so many people say, Yeah, we'll definitely do that. We'll start that, and then it kind of never happens. The the way to differentiate yourself as, like the top 1% in business, is just do what you said you were going to do. So if you agree something with a supplier, make sure you actually follow up and do it. And do it, and they'll almost be surprised that like, Oh, you're actually serious, and you did what you said. You sent the follow up email. You've called me three times to actually get the trade account form signed and to get the products images and everything uploaded. So that's the tip, yeah, make the most of it. Do your research. Go there, enjoy it, and I'm sure you'll sign plenty of suppliers. Yeah, great question. Paul and I completely agree. Trade Shows are like gold dust, where you get all your suppliers in one place, so not essential, but they can be incredibly valuable days out. Okay, now it's time to highlight a recent review that we've had for the podcast as well. So you can either leave your review on the podcast platform that you're listening on at the moment, or as a comment beneath the YouTube video version of the episode, and that's exactly what discover with Nasir has done. So I can tell that nasir's comment was left underneath the YouTube video, because it's all about a tutorial that Lewis has created, and it's a series on the dropship unlocked YouTube channel where Lewis built a brand new drop shipping business from scratch. So Nasir commented beneath that video to say, hi, Louis. That is a wonderful tutorial to walk through with. Thank you so much for that. Thank you so much for your review. Nasir really, really glad to hear that you've been enjoying the YouTube videos and the series where, yeah, I built a store from scratch. If you haven't seen that, then check it out. We can link that one in the show notes. 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