How To Start Dropshipping While Working Full-Time (Episode 156)

👉 Ready to start your own online store? Start here: https://dropshipunlocked.com/online-event?el=podcast-156-how-to-start-dropshipping-while-working-full-time

🗣 In this episode, Lewis Smith and James Eardley share a practical, step-by-step approach for building a high-ticket e-commerce brand alongside a full-time job—without the overwhelm. You’ll hear how they (and many members) launched in evenings/weekends, built momentum, and knew when it was time to hand in the notice.

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

Topics Discussed:
 ★ Why starting while employed is smart: lower financial pressure = better decisions and stronger foundations.
 ★ The “evenings & weekends” game plan: simple daily routines, time audits, and swapping Netflix for needle-moving tasks.
 ★ Momentum > marathons: stacking micro-wins, keeping pace with half-hour blocks, and avoiding weekend overwhelm.
 ★ Common pitfalls to avoid: rushing supplier sign-ups, over-spending on ads too early, and operating from desperation.
 ★ When to outsource: using VAs for product uploads, call answering, and order fulfilment to multiply your time.
 ★ Signs you’re ready to quit the 9–5: consistent profit, a cash buffer/runway, and basic systems that run without you.
 ★ Lifestyle & risk: building a “runway,” trimming costs, and choosing the right moment based on your risk tolerance.
 ★ Listener Q&A: “Do you need a company for each store—or can multiple stores sit under one limited company?”

Links and Resources Mentioned:
 Pick up a copy of Lewis’ book: https://dropshipunlocked.com/book
Get Shopify for £1 a month for 3 months: https://dropshipunlocked.com/shopify
Get a free trial with a professional phone line: https://dropshipunlocked.com/circle

Key Takeaways:
 ★ Consistency beats intensity: 30–60 focused minutes a day compounds faster than sporadic weekend sprints.
 ★ Build from ambition, not desperation: a steady salary lets you make smarter long-term choices and avoid rushing.
 ★ Systemise early: simple fulfilment and support processes (or a VA) free your time to grow the business.
 ★ Quit with confidence: look for multiple months of consistent profit, a healthy buffer, and basic automation in place.

FOLLOW:
 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dropshipunlocked/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DropshipUnlockd
LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/company/dropship-unlocked
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/dropshipunlockedlewissmith
Website: https://www.dropshipunlocked.com/

Thank you for listening to the Dropship Unlocked Podcast! Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review on your favourite podcast platform.

★★★ Dropship Unlocked - Lewis Smith ★★★
 🌏 Want to create location, time, and financial freedom? Watch Our Free Training ➽ https://dropshipunlocked.com/free?el=podcast-156-how-to-start-dropshipping-while-working-full-time

Transcript

0:00

So many people come to us to start drop shipping when they have a full time job already. But I always tell them if you're. Going to start drop shipping today and you have a full time job, you really need to know as long as. You do that, you can replace your 9 to 5 much quicker than you think. And that makes all the difference, especially when you're starting alongside a job. Some of our most successful members were working full time when they first started and what made them stand out was happening. 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 podcast episodes or running our own e commerce businesses, you'll find us helping aspiring entrepreneurs launch their own high ticket dropshipping stores. So if you're ready to build your own six or even seven figure online business, then head over to dropship unlocked.com forward/start. Now sit back, relax, and let's unlock your potential with the Dropship Unlocked podcast. If you're currently working a full time job, but you're dreaming of building something for yourself, something that gives you more freedom, more flexibility and more control, then this episode is for you. Today Lewis and I are going to be going back and forth to discuss how we built a business initially alongside a 9 to 5 job. And we know how overwhelming that can feel. But the truth is, it's very possible. And in fact, most of our most successful members actually started when they had a 9 to 5 job and then pushed on to build an incredibly successful business which we'll dive into today. I will explain how it's possible to. So Lewis, let's kick things off. Why do you think starting dropshipping while working a full time job is actually a really smart move? Yeah, I do think it's one of the best ways to start and there's a few reasons why. I guess. I guess the first is that you can build without the financial pressure. You know, it's difficult enough to launch a business, but when your job covers your bills, you can start to grow at a steady pace without that desperation or fear that like it has to work immediately, your back's against the wall. Now, some people operate well under those circumstances and actually I think you can engineer that kind of urgency and you can engineer that type of pressure if you thrive under it. But it's nice to have a safety net of a income, even if it's a job that you hate and you can't wait to get out of it's. Nice to just at least have that there to make sure that you can make better decisions, because I think that's what it comes down to. You do make better decisions when the pressure is not entirely on this new business to succeed straight away and be profitable out the gate. From day one, when you're not panicked about making sales, you can start to think a bit more long term and you can follow the proven process that we go through properly without rushing. You want to build solid foundations and sometimes they take a few weeks or a few months to really get right. I know many of our top members inside Dropship Unlocked did exactly this. They built their businesses alongside their day jobs. They used their evenings, their mornings, their weekends to build step by step, brick by brick in the business. And they just then eventually scaled their way out of employment. Yeah, and I can attest to that. I'm one of those case studies that joined the Dropship Unlock Masterclass alongside a 9 to 5 job initially, and it was exactly that lowest because I had the income coming in regularly every month. I didn't have that desperation. Now, that's important because I knew I wanted to build something long term, you know, a real asset, a real business that was going to sustain me for years in the future. And to do that, you've got to view it very differently from something that's just a quick cash grab for a couple of weeks or so or a few months. You have to really put foundations in that can get you to grow a business to the scale that I would be happy with, to reach the goals that I had. And so I needed to spend time to build the business properly. And so I wasn't rushing through that process because I had that income coming in gradually every single day. Because the key for me was to build something for the long term. It wasn't about needing to quit a job immediately. It was about something that I wanted to do over time. How about for yourself, Louis? What was the situation where you started dropshipping? Did you have that 9 to 5 job as well, that stability? Yeah, absolutely, I did. I did exactly this. I had a stable job and I wasn't made redundant. I wasn't fired. I wasn't even. Like, my job wasn't even at risk. It just. I just knew that if I stayed there, I would probably continue on a path that ultimately didn't inspire me. And I had a deep feeling that I was made for more and that I could achieve more and have more autonomy and control. And I've talked about this on previous episodes where We've dived deeper into my own story. But at the time, I wasn't a parent. I didn't have children yet I now do. And back then I saw myself in the future as like, what kind of dad do I want to be? What kind of parent do I want to be to my children? And I thought, I want to be a present parent. I want to be able to be there and give them the greatest gift of all, which is time. And, and that, yeah, that experience that I could share with them. In growing up, I wanted to be able to, I guess, do the things that I do now, like I just dropped my son off at school, you know, and whatever it is, nine o' clock in the morning, and the ability to do that and not have to justify that to a boss and not have to ask if I can start the job a little bit later on that day. Like, those were really important things for me back then. Even so, I'm, I'm grateful to myself that I had the foresight into what my future self would, would want, because now I've got to that point and I'm happy that I, I made that decision. But yeah, to start with, I think if I'd have, I don't know if I'd have had, if I'd have quit my job and then gone all in on this, that would have added a lot of unnecessary pressure because I think this doesn't take like all of the hours of the day. There will be things that are time consuming, but there's also things that you're kind of waiting on other people for. And like when you set your ads live, it's not like you suddenly get a flurry of thousands of sales and then you've got no time. Like they take. It takes time for customers to search your products online and then to click the ad and then to buy them. So as long as you can dedicate a couple of hours a day, whether that's batching the tasks before work or in the evening, I used to do exactly that. I'd go to the gym really early in the morning, get a couple of hours work done before my day job started, work through until five, go home, have some dinner, and then work on it for a couple of hours in the evening as well and just replace, you know, the evening Netflix routine or whatever it was that I was doing at the time with this because I was more passionate about it and I was building my future. And I'm very grateful that I did because now this has become my full time. And so I can now run not just the E commerce business but other types of businesses as well whilst being in control of my, my time and it's created a lot of that autonomy that I was seeking at the time. So yeah, I think we were in a similar position there and initially we. Had that patience to build something of real note because we had the income coming in to fund us. And a few examples that being really tangible now of if you are rushing, the kind of mistakes that you could make would be you would probably sign a supplier that was just quick and easy to sign because you wanted to get money coming in the door straight away and that supplier might not have the best quality products, there might be low ticket products, there might be a supplier that everyone's working with because you're just rushing. Another example would be throwing loads of ad spend very quickly into an ad account with like 100 pound a day budget or just really needing the sales to come in quickly. So you rush how much you spend and again that can be a mistake. If you haven't got the profitable roas from the start, then you're throwing money away so you can make mistakes. If you, if you're rushing or if you're doing things out of desperation, it's always best to come from a place of ambition rather than desperation. That's certainly the way that I approached it. But that begs the question, well, like you just alluded to Louis, if you've got a full time job, you've then got those, those requirements, those commitments to work on your job and also build this along the side. And it's quite common for people to come to us, get started alongside their job and ask around the community how people are managing it alongside their 9 to 5 job. So let's, let's hear it from yourself, Louis. How did you approach it alongside a 9 to 5 job and building a business on the side? Well, I think it comes down, it's not like some question where there's like a secret answer and it's like, oh, if you, you know, do this, this and this, then suddenly you've got four hours. It's, it's how much does it matter to you? How much do you want it? Are you willing to get up a bit earlier? Are you willing to go to bed a little bit later to do this, to build a scenario that you create out of thin air where you never have to work a job again? For me the answer was a resounding yes, like absolutely. I will sacrifice six months, a year of short term pain even though I don't see it as painful because it's exciting. I'm building my own business. But in society's eyes, I guess like working another job alongside your own job could be perceived as painful. But I think it ultimately comes down to priorities. How much do you really want it? And that's why I think people who treat it as like a bit of a side hustle and I've got one foot in the water and let's see if it works. If it doesn't, you know, it's not the end of the world. So, no, if you really want this, you have to commit to it and go all in and say, no, I'm doing this properly and I'm going to figure out the answers to the problems that arise along the way. And once you've, I think it's once you've like, come to terms with that and settled with and, and accepted that answer, that you don't have all the answers yet, but you are able now to figure them out along the way and that you will succeed regardless of the hurdles and obstacles that come your way is actually quite exciting and liberating because as empowering because then you, you know, like, okay, just, just a path now, it's just a process. And, and if you can navigate that path by avoiding the mistakes that other people have made along the way by working in a mentorship programme like ours, and it's going to speed up your journey significantly, make it a lot more clear and certain and a lot less costly because you won't be wasting money on, you know, things that aren't proven and don't work and ad strategies that don't perform. But also just making sure that you do a bit of a time audit. And look at like, well, how much Netflix or TV do I watch in the evening? How much time do I spend on YouTube? YouTube? How much time, like, and even if you're working solid hours and you just can't find spare time and in the evening, it's just completely unrealistic for you to do anymore. Could you take a week of annual leave? Do you have to go on holiday during that annual leave or would you be able to dedicate some of it to getting a business up and running, it might force your hand actually to outsource things a little bit sooner as well than maybe you would otherwise if you're in such a busy job because you don't have the time. So therefore you might say, well, actually, the only way of me multiplying my time output here is bringing in someone else that can do it. And you bring in a virtual assistant who can help upload products, answer customer phone calls, fulfil your orders and suddenly you've now, with a fraction of your current monthly salary from your day job, you've employed someone to basically multiply your time and be doing the things to get you to the point where you're making sales and can replace your income. So I think, yeah, all of that to say it comes down to the question, how much do you really want this? Because if you really want it, you'll make time. Because time is something that we can create and make and make time for. Yeah. And that's why it's so crucial at the start of the programme, Louis, you, you really drill down into the destination that people are really doing this for and the reason why. So that when times tough, when you've got short on time and you finish a day at work, you reconnect to what's really important. So you think, okay, yeah, it is worth half an hour of my time now, rather than sitting on the sofa, because that's going to give me half, half an hour closer to my dream life. And half an hour can make a huge difference. You know, when you're following the next step in the programme and you're doing that next action that takes you along the proven path to success, just short time like that, half an hour here, an hour there, two hours there, makes a huge difference to your progress. And something that was key to me was momentum. So even just doing an hour before work or one task like that took half an hour before I started work. I noticed if I did that every day, even if it's just a short amount, that got me so much close to my goal. Because every day I was excited to do the next action versus making an insurmountable amount of work for myself to do on the weekend, like a six, seven hour shift of work was a lot more intimidating. So I'd rather just break that up into one action per day. And that gave me the momentum to really start building. So on that topic there. So momentum, I think it's something we see a lot in the programme. The most, the most successful members, they have a lot of momentum. They keep revisiting day to day. Did momentum play a part in, in your, your journey as building your business? Yeah, definitely. It's vital that you keep that momentum up and you make sure that you kind of bounce from one win springboard onto the next. So like whatever that micro win is, when, even if it's like I'VE just set up a homepage that I'm proud of on Shopify. And you're like, great, amazing. Onto the next one. I'm doing my collection page now. I'm doing my products page. I've got a logo that I'm proud of. Okay, amazing. Let's move on to contacting suppliers. And like, there's a very sequential order of these steps which we lay out in the programme. But just really making sure that you take time to. Yeah. To celebrate those wins, pat yourself on the back and be like, I did it. I did that one thing today that I'm proud of. And move the needle forward. And eventually that becomes like, I made three sales today. And you look down at your phone under your desk at work and you think, I just made more in profit today than I would have done in three days working in this job. And over time, that pendulum starts to swing towards, actually, maybe I can do this full time. And you start to the scales shift and you realise, like, is this an efficient use of my time anymore? Or like doing this job where I'm trading my time for money? Or is my identity just too tied into this part of my life? Because that's what I've always done and that's kind of what I've all my friends and colleagues do. And sometimes you've got to be the odd one out and have the guts to be able to say, I think it's time now that I really dedicated this because if I can create this kind of income as a, a side venture. I don't say side hustle because I treat this as like a real business, but I've done it on the side of working a job. Imagine what I could do if I did it full time. And it's that headspace that it gives you when you eventually do go full time that I think no one can prepare you for. Because as soon as you've. You wake up on that Monday morning and they're like, wow, I'm looking at a completely empty white space calendar. It's exciting because you think, well, now I can do whatever I want all week. You know, whether that's stuff that you want to do outside of, of working and, you know, social activities and stuff. Or if it's just like, no, I really want to focus all my time and effort on scaling this business up, building it to the point where it's fully automated, where I'm free of it completely. It takes up none of my time and I've got this amazing income generating. Machine that I've built super exciting time. I remember that first Monday morning when I woke up and realised all of the time that I put into working today was going to be towards my own future benefit because I had no longer put in all that time. I already had a work ethic. I was just putting that work ethic previously towards a job that was not really benefiting me in the long term. Now I could put all of that work ethic into my own business. And I knew everything I did from that moment on was going to grow my business. And it really shot on when I left my job. But there's a few questions about when is the right time to leave your job. So I'm not sure when it was for you, Lewis, but I'll say what it was for me. For me it was when I had three months consistent income that matched or beat my salary from my job, from my dropshipping E Commerce business that gave me the confidence to hand in my notice that month at work to go in full time. When, when would it be for you, Liz? When do you think people, or when do you suggest that people have the confidence to leave their job now that their business is up and running? Yeah, I think that part is personal. And it comes down to your partly your like risk tolerance and also what you see as like a comfortable buffer and also like your lifestyle and your dependencies like people who, or dependents, you know, people who depend on you or things that depend on you having a good income there. So I guess there's a few signs to look for and that then you can take that relative to your situation. So if your store is generating consistent revenue, consistent profit, that's a good sign, you know, and like you say over three months, over six months, whatever your kind of risk threshold is where you. Because at first, I think in the first month you just feel complete imposter syndrome. And you're like, what? I can't. Like I just made money off the Internet like that. This still doesn't feel right. And then month two, you feel a little bit less of an imposter because you're like, okay, I've now made it the two months in a row. And then month three, you look at it and think this is, this is happening every month now. And month four, you know, I mean, this is like now I'm starting to what should I do with the extra profit I've got here? Like maybe, you know, you start thinking about putting it into ISIS and putting it into, you know, investments and things like that. And I think once you Start to build that tread, that treasure chest or war chest, I guess they call it, right of, you know, and the rainy day fund or whatever you want to call it, like your buffer, your safety net. Eventually you can start to be like, well, I've got, you know, six months of income here, that even if I left my job today, handed in my notice and then just everything went to pot and it just fell apart and everything stopped working tomorrow, like, just by chance, I would still be okay for six months. And in that time I'd back myself to either be able to fix this or. Or I'd make sure I get another job. So that's kind of the way I thought of it. And the way we did it was actually to try to extend that Runway and take the pressure off financially is we were in our flat in London at the time, and my wife and I decided to both leave our jobs. We just. We're about to get married. So we got married, went off on our honeymoon, and then handed in our notices. It was before we had children. And we decided we were going to move to Chiang Mai in Thailand and to live a really nice quality of life, amazing weather, great digital nomad community around us without the pressure of the uk high expenses, and be able to use that, extend our Runway effectively of the funds that we had coming in, so that it just took the pressure off a little bit and we were able to kind of bank a little bit more money as we went. And obviously I made some mistakes and things were rocky, and I'm glad that we did move to Chiang Mai because that that pressure was off a little bit. We rented out our flat in London in the meantime, so we had that kind of residual income coming in as well. And so, yeah, I think there are things even when you've left your job that you can do to reduce your expenses and to make sure that you kind of reduce your risk. The other thing is probably systems and making sure that you've built systems that can run without you as well. So maybe you might not be fully automated, but make sure that, you know, you at least, I'd say have automated the Pro. Or you have systems in place for, like, fulfilling orders and things like that, so that you could bring someone in to answer the phones and fulfil orders each day. So that effectively your job now is to just sign suppliers, maybe keep an eye on the advertising and optimise your website every now and then. But, you know, there's not much other stuff you have to worry about. And if you can take that financial Pressure off a little bit as well. Then with a buffer saved, ideally you can start to then really build something that's sustainable. So yeah, I think that's the, probably the way to look at it. That threshold and that's that buffer that you want in your business bank account before you make that call will be down to personal preference. So it's really what would make you comfortable and just aim for that, set that target and then when it gets to that point you got to just at some point just go for it, you know, or fit like the time will never feel right. And I felt very weird pounding in my notice at a job that was very stable, I'd been there for nearly 10 years and I'm handing back the keys to the company car and the medical insurance, you know, I'm basically giving that away and like all of these perks that they give you in kind of the golden handcuffs of the corporate world to make you feel very secure and very safe and very looked after. I felt really bad. I was like, is this the right thing? And like parents were worried about whether I was doing the right move. But then you kind of look at it and you're like, well, I can get another car and I could choose whatever car, not just one that was on the company car list. I could get private medical insurance and just self fund it through my own company. I could get, you know, all the. There weren't many things that at the end of it that I couldn't just find my own version of. And I think sometimes you've just got to be willing to go and explore that and look for it and make the jump. At some point you have to make the jump and it's reconnecting to why you started in the first place. Even if it feels difficult to hand over the reins of all that safety blanket that we've been given by the corporate world, there is a point at which you realise that the upsides of the corporate world just don't equate to the upsides of leaving and having complete autonomy to travel like you did Louis, or yeah. Build other projects or scale your business further. I found that a lot more exciting than I did staying in my 9 to 5 career for the long term. But. But yeah, it's a personal choice at that point. But I think if you've started alongside your job, you've then got the option. Some people like to carry on their job while they have a business on the side, but others, like myself, wanted to make it my main thing and change my lifestyle completely. So I've been able to travel around the world for the last 12 months back in the UK now. But if you watch these podcasts frequently on YouTube, it's almost like guess the background every time I jump on these podcasts because they tend to be different every other week as I travel to different countries. So that's perhaps a game we'll play for the next one. Okay, so with that said, Louis, any final thoughts? Somebody that wants to get started but it's got a full time job and wants to know what's the best way to start alongside that job. Yeah, don't trick yourself or limit yourself into thinking that you need eight hours a day to do this. You just need consistency. If you have a proven plan and you've got belief that you are building something that can change your life and you've got that level of excitement and that spark is there, you will find the time. If it's important enough for you and your priorities are set where this is a priority for you, you will find the time. So trust yourself for that. And if you want that plan laid out for you step by step, along with expert support and a community of people doing it right alongside you, head over to dropship unlocked.com forward/start. Are you enjoying the podcast? We'd love to hear from you. Leave a comment or a review and we might feature it in an upcoming episode. And for detailed show notes and resources, visit dropshipunlock.com podcast. If you found value in any episode of this podcast, please could you take just 10 seconds to leave us a quick five star review on your favourite podcast app? It helps us more than you can imagine. And who knows, you might just hear your comments read out on the show. Thanks for being a part of our community. Your support helps us keep delivering new episodes to you every week. Now it's that part of the episode where we're going to answer a question that we've received from a listener. So if you've had any questions come to mind while you've been listening or watching the episode today, then all you need to do is comment beneath the YouTube video version of this episode, let us know what you thought and ask your question in there and it might be featured on an upcoming episode. Now that is exactly what Freddy V4Z 2N has done with their YouTube handle. So I'll ask you Freddie's question now. So he said, hey Louis, do you create a company for each store that you have or do you just put all stores under one company? Yeah, it's a great Question Freddie. And it kind of depends on your intentions with the business. So if you were thinking I want to build this business and I want to sell it and then sell the limited company and you know, know six months to a year, then it might be neater to do everything as an individual limited company. And then you can literally transfer ownership of that limited company later on if you wanted to sell it. It doesn't have to be done that way. You can sell a store without selling the entire limited company, but it keeps the finances a little bit neater if everything's just fully separate. However, a lot of people will just do it under one limited company even if they were going to sell the business. And because you don't need separate companies to have two different trading names, as long as you're still in like E commerce, it's going to be roughly the same SIC code. Unless you're selling like dramatically different products. It's going to be like you're selling products through online retail, which will be the same sic company code on Companies House, which just kind of states what that company does. So yeah, you can run multiple stores under one company. That's why you'll see certain companies where it's like, and the limited company name trading as the brand name or T slash A they put it as sometimes. So you can treat each store as a separate project, but you can have them as like separate items, I guess, and, and separate columns within a set of company accounts so that you can kind of easily track the profit and loss. And yeah, have your accountant keep clear records. You might want to have separate business bank accounts even though you can have the same business bank. That makes sense. So you're banking with the same bank, but you might want to separate the two accounts so that sales for one store go into one account and sales for the other store go into the other account. Because then you can have your ad spend from each store pay for those individual ad accounts as well to make sure that all the revenue and ad spend and profit is kept separate so you know exactly how well each one is performing. And having one company keeps things fair, fairly simple. At the top level, you haven't got to pay for multiple sets of accounts and things like that and you just have like one VAT bill or one corporation tax bill to pay. And yeah, your accountants will be very used to doing things like that. It's, it's easy to manage things legally, financially and will keep costs down for you in terms of working with an accountant. So yeah, there's various reasons why you might want to split it. So do have a chat with an accountant. Um, if that's a consideration. But to start with, yeah, I typically would would go under one limited company if it's just two separate online stores. Brilliant. Yeah, great question and love the ambition there as well to get multiple stores up and running. Nothing to stop you doing that as well. Okay, now on to highlighting a review that we've had because we'd love to give you a shout out on the podcast if you say something nice. Um, and that's exactly what Swap Neil has done. So Swap Neil. She's left a nice comment under the YouTube video of a previous episode and they've said a great insight into how to narrow down into one niche. Thank you so much for your review, swapnilt. Really appreciate it and yeah, it means a huge amount to us. So thank you for sharing that nice review. Now, as we wrap up today's episode, one question I have for you is who do you know that could benefit from hearing this one? Open up your phone, click Share, and maybe on WhatsApp, send them a link to this episode and just say something like, I thought you might enjoy this one. That tiny little gesture could be the thing that changes the direction of that person's life for the better. Thank you for joining us on this episode of the Dropship Unlocked podcast. We hope you are leaving with new insights and inspiration to fuel your entrepreneurial. Journey to kickstart your e commerce business. Head over to dropshipunlocked.com start. It's the perfect place to start and get access to resources that will help you build your business from the ground up. And don't forget to hit that subscribe button for more episodes packed with strategies, tips and success stories. Plus, if you enjoyed this episode today, a five star review would mean the world to us. And you might even get a shout out on the next episode. Thank you for choosing to spend your time with us today. We can't wait to bring you more insights on the next episode of the Dropship Unlocked podcast.