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How Much Money I Make from Dropshipping (Actual Net Profit)

It's been an amazing journey these past couple of years running my dropshipping stores and it was the first online business that made me more than $1,000 a month and allowed me to live and travel as a digital nomad in cheap countries such as Thailand. Since then I've scaled some of those stores up to making as much as $5,600 a month in net profit and have made even more selling the stores after they've been built! Best of all from the skills and experience I learned from starting and running my dropshipping stores, its given be both the skills and confidence to make money teaching, blogging, podcasting, investing and work on other projects.

I had my virtual assistant go over my accounting for the past year to tally up exactly how money I earned from running my actual dropshipping stores, versus how much money I made with my courses, as an affiliate and with my other projects. In the past 12 months I've made a total of $90,419.77 in profit from running my actual dropshipping stores. I've since updated this post to include running and selling my second store. Here's how I did it, how much I earned from dropshipping and how much money I've made from my other projects as well! 


dropshipping

How I did it!



The grand total was the amount of take home profit from both of my stores combined for the past twelve months plus the amount I took home from the sale of my main store which ended up being around $57,500 after the transaction charges. That means that I earned $32,919.77 in take home profit from running my actual stores this year. Last year in 2015 that number was more than double as I was earning income from both stores and actively managing them and growing them. Honestly, if I focused on nothing but growing my dropshipping stores, I might have doubled my dropshipping income for this year as last year I made even more! 

Aside from the first couple of months of the year, immidently after selling my store, I took off to Europe and hardly logged into my stores at all for the rest of the year. If you know anyone else that can make $32,919.77 working less than 4 hours a week with something they set up over Christmas break two years ago, let me know, I'd love to learn from them. Especially if it has the upside of being able to sell that business off for almost $60,000 down the road.







Double Dipping the Profit



A lot of you don't' realize this, but I actually have a course called Dropship Lab where I teach people who already have a profitable dropshipping store how to scale up their income and make potentially 10X what they are making today with it. If someone is making $1,000 a month in profit from their stores, the modules inside the course show you how to could potentially 10X that income into $10,000 a month, but it only works for people who already have a store built and profitable, which is why I don't mention it often and refer people just starting out, wanting to build their first store to Anton's Dropshipping Course instead, as that's how I learned how to built my first store, choose a niche, find suppliers, get traffic, and become profitable.


I wish I could have a hard number on exactly how big of an impact I've made from openly sharing and teaching what's worked for me with dropshipping, but the fact is, I don't hear from 98% of the people I reach, and often it's the haters and people who have never actually signed up for Anton's course and launched their own stores that complain and say that dropshipping doesn't work. Well, now in 2017 while updating this, I am tempted to write a post called, "Ha! I Told You So!" and point out how many people are making money dropshipping nowadays even when two years ago people said it was dead or no longer worked. Seeing how many newbies are starting stores and becoming profitable I am now 100% confident that dropshipping isn't going anywhere and that there will be many more profitable store owners built every month. 

It's also awesome knowing how many friends I have that are now location independent and traveling around the world with me just because I linked them to this post on starting a dropshipping store and the fact that I get emails like this all of the time on top of the random people who come up to me once a year at the Dropshipping Retreat and even sometimes on the street and at airports telling me how successful they've become after following my recommendations. For me personally, ever since I started my store in 2013 I've been making sales and for the past couple years it really sky rocketed. Here is a screenshot of one of my store's dashboards for the past few years.








Replying to Haters



Normally I just ignore people who write negative comments as most of them are either trolls or just misinformed and looking for excuses on why something doesn't work. I never reply to them as it gives them a soapbox to stand on and scream frantically more. But my biggest fear is that people who genuinely want to find a way to make money online by starting a business will get scared off or start having doubt if it really works or not because of idiots like this that have no idea what they're talking about. The other reason why I don't reply to these comments and correct their mistakes is because they don't actually want to know the answer, they just want ammunition to hate more. But I've written posts replying to the founder of Nomad List, Pieter Levels and even general blog posts years ago explaining why and how dropshipping is not a scam but some people never want to listen as they secretly want an excuse on why their life sucks and why they shouldn't even try because nothing works. 

But since normal people are reading this and are curious, here's why these guys have no idea what they're talking about. The first point that I don't make "jackshit" from my core business model of dropshipping must not consider making $90,419.77 a significant amount of money. Secondly, I don't make $18,000+ a month from promoting Anton's course as an affiliate. Honestly I wish I did as it's genuinely a really amazing course and by people signing up for it because of me it's a win/win/win since the student gets to learn a proven way to build a successful dropshipping store, I get credit for referring them, and Anton the course creator makes money for taking the time to teach people what he spent years figuring out on his own. The truth is my affiliate commissions come from around ten different sources are include web hosting, books, travel gear, Muay Thai gear, software products, a bunch of different courses that I've recommended ranging from Amazon FBA courses, Kindle Publishing, Ebay Arbitrage, Podcast Production, etc. If you want to know exactly how much money I make promoting affiliate products and how you can do the same, check out my course Income Boss.  

As for the other guy claiming my screenshots are photoshopped or doctored, he's an idiot. When running reports, sometimes things don't' refresh correctly. So instead, here's a live video recording of inside my Shopify dashboard where you can see me refreshing with the F5 key in real time.






Who I've Helped



I know that there will always be naysayers, people who hate everything and even a few people who may have actually tried it and failed. But instead of focusing my energy on them, I focus on the ones that really gave it 100% effort and made it happen. I focus on messages like this that I got a few months ago: 

"I know in your blog you talk about being 30 broke and not sure what to do well trying be me 36, broke, living at home with the parents, bankrupt from gambling and now trying to get out of Australia for a fresh start in life, the only thing that keeps me positive and saving money is knowing I need the money to leave (a goal). 

Majority of people would see this is a failure I see it as a positive as things happen for a reason maybe I wasn't meant to buy a house, get married and have kids by this point in my life like we are all told to! as if I did I wouldn't have the ability to pack up and leave Australia, I see it as a calling to get out and explore the world and change my life. " Brent T.

These are guys that I really feel like need a chance and alternative option to jobs that are normally available. I answered his email, gave him a bit of guidance, pointed him towards Anton's course and this is the email I got a few days ago:





Final Thoughts



The reason why I focus more of my energy and time on my podcasts, blogs, and in person events is because that's what I enjoy doing and what I'm good at. A lot of people assume I'm the "king of dropshipping" just because I talk about it openly, but I've never once tried to claim that title nor do I actually want it. Just a quick scroll through the private member forums or group for Anton's course shows that there are plenty of people doing just as well as I am, they just don't talk about it openly.

My strengths as an ESTJ Personality type are creating, organizing and getting people together not doing it myself. My only goal was to make enough money from my dropshipping stores to save up $30,000 in the bank, then move onto something I enjoy doing more. Since I've way surpassed that, don't expect me to grind away until 2am calling suppliers or uploading products anymore. I've done it myself, made a ton of money doing it, proven that it works, and now I've moved onto following my passions. The reason why I still tell people to start with dropshipping and not to jump straight into anything else is because it's way easier to start by selling physical products than digital ones and the lessons you're learn from it will help you in any business you get into later on.


Dropshipping Sales are paid via Shopify/Stripe/Paypal


This is the reason why I recomend Anton's course to those starting out, I know it works, and without it, I'd have $90,000 less in my bank account, and more importantly, have never of had the capital, confidence or skill set to be able to do everything else I do today. I wish you all the best of luck. Please bookmark and link this post to anyone who you see online talking trash, saying dropshipping is a scam, or otherwise hating on the business model.

The worst thing we can do is stay silent and let the trolls scare others into not taking action, just because they themselves are content with being broke, unhappy and assuming nothing works as it's easier to make themselves feel better about their own crappy lives. Don't be one of them, and don't let them hold you or anyone else back in life. Become the hero of your own life!

"Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you." - Marianne Williamson


Edit: 2017 Update



This original post was written on December 16th, 2016. Since then I've officially flipped my 2nd dropshipping store for $60,335.64, giving half of it to Larissa to help her buy a house, as she helped me build and run the store these past couple of years.

All together, the grand total for the actual take home profit I've personally made and deposited into my bank account has been $203,728.15. This is in net profit so far and it's still going up as I still have my partner stores that were recently launched and just starting to turn a profit.

The total revenue, or total sales for all of the stores combined were around $1 Million. But since revenue doesn't mean profit, I don't count that or even mention it often. Net profit is the actual profit left over after all expenses including costs of goods, shipping, credit card fees, and other expenses. Watch this video for a breakdown of how we made this amount of money dropshipping and take a look inside the dashboards of our shopify store.







Here's the full breakdown:


It's interesting to see how much money was made from running the stores, and how much we got from selling the store at a 27X return. If you watched both videos above, you'll know what it was a win/win for both us and the buyer of the store to have it valued at a 2.5 year profits up front. 

For us, we could have 2.5 years of money up front to do whatever we wanted with. And for them, they got to take over a working store that was generating between $1,000-$5,000 a month in profit. Here's the breakdown of how much net profit I personally made after all expenses and partner shares. 

Net Profit from Running Store #1: $87,140.42
Net Profit from Running Store #2: $57,539.82 (split 50/50 with Larissa)
Net Profit from Selling Store #1: $57,650.00
Net Profit from Selling Store #2: $60,335.64 (split 50/50 with Larissa)
Net Profit from Other Stores: $10,000+ (estimated, not yet counted)

Grand Total Net Profit: $203,728.15

*This means that I've personally deposited $203k into my bank account from running my actual dropshipping stores. This doesn't include the money I've made with my other online businesses, blogging, selling courses, books, or ebooks.


successful dropshipper dropshipping


I hope this post inspires some of you to put in the hard work and dedication necessarily to build your own stores. I personally never even heard the term drop shipping and didn't know what it was until I met Anton and took his dropshipping course just a few years ago. It showed me step by step how to build a store, pick a niche, get approved by U.S. based suppliers, get traffic, and run a profitable business.

 It's crazy to me whenever I hear anyone doubt online business works, or that dropshipping isn't a viable business. I think I've proven not only to myself, but to everyone reading this by building not just one, but multiple dropshipping stores from scratch in different niches that it's not only possible, but it can also make a ton of money. Even though I've now retired and am focusing my time on other projects, I'm grateful everyday that I started my online business journey through drop shipping as it's given me the money, freedom, and knowledge of being an entrperenuer.

I wish everyone the best of luck with your stores and your journey. Feel free to ask any questions below, I'm happy to help, to get you started, here are a couple of completely free videos that I make to share my knowledge with everyone.




Video for those wanting to find U.S. Suppliers




Video for those wanting to dropship from China!




Video answering the problems with shipping from China!



Here'a  free webinar on how to build a dropshipping store with Shopify!


I sincerely hope everyone the best of luck with your dropshipping journey. Starting my first dropshipping store really was the starting point to a better life for me and in this post, I've shared all of my tools on how to do the same. If you want more help getting started, here is everything I use to start my own dropshipping stores, including a 20% off coupon for Shopify inside this downloadable PDF. 


Warm Regards,


Johnny FD



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  1. John Scales is the biggest hater man. Don't even worry.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Johnny awesome post! I recently have been following you and love your style, approach and transparency. I have been researching DS vs FBA and seem to be at a cross roads with which way to go. With DS you need to drive your own traffic correct? With FBA you are already in an open market of purchase minded customers correct? Is it a fair assumption that FBA would be a shorter path to profits or am I missing something? Thanks and keep up the great work!

      Matt B

      Delete
    2. Hey Matt, happy to be able to share openly. There are pros and cons with both dropshipping and FBA. One benefit of FBA is that there is already a huge audience of customers waiting to buy on Amazon. However, they will never see your product unless you make it to the first 2 pages of Amazon listings which takes time, a marketing plan, including getting a lot of reviews, most of which require some money upfront to get, either by giving away free products (now discouraged by Amazon), buying reviews (also now banned from Amazon) or other methods.

      Also with FBA it takes a few months to actually get the items physically imported from China to your FBA warehouse, especially if you take the time to get samples first to make sure the products are what you are expecting, which is recommended.

      With dropshipping using Anton's model, you get traffic through paid ads primarily, which means once your store is setup, you can potentially start making sales within the first 24 hours of your store being live. All of my stores started making sales within the first few days of ads being run.

      Delete
  2. I don't know how you came across that quote by Marianna Williamson, but it is EPIC and incredibly relevant! Also, I think mindset plays a huge role in all of this, and in success with our individual endeavors. For me, your blogs and podcasts provided me with a different perspective. They helped me develop a mindset that allowed me to discover and pursue my true values, which turns out to be much more than just money. I imagine trolls might think they're looking at some kind of get rich quick scheme and not doing the research. Everyone who follows you, or is part of something like DSL knows what the true value is because we're actually putting in the hard work and research.

    What haters are seeing is the perspective of people who are just absolutely crushing it in life!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey Jason, I randomly came across it almost 10 years ago and it's resonated with me ever since. It's actually tattooed across my left forearm. Thanks for the comment and being part of the journey Jason!

      Delete
  3. I've been following your blog ever since I heard about dropshipping. You're an inspiration to me. Nevermind those whiners, all they could do is complain about their life situation and actually not putting any hard work at all to elevate it. That's what they're good at. More blessing and successful years to you Johnny.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey thanks for the thoughts Sui, I hope your year is going well!

      Delete
  4. Hey Johnny,

    Im incredibly glad to have come across some of your posts. I have been working towards quitting my job that pays about 70k a year, and through drop shipping, I now will be focusing on creating a life for myself that doesnt require me working 50+ hours a week. It's gonna be 15 hour days starting today with Anton's Method to get my dropshipping store up and profitable. I want to click on the link for antons course that will also give me access to your optimizing course for free. Also do you recommend just going with the premium option instead of the done for you method? I feel it may be best to learn the ropes rather than pay to have everything set up for me. Thanks man!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey Alex, I've been meaning to make a post on the options, but yes it's way better to do it yourself and learn the ropes if you're willing to watch tutorials on how to do things like resize images, copy and paste tiny bits of code here and there, simple things but require patience.

      The done for you is good for people who don't want to learn the basics of web design at all. Either way, best of luck with your journey, here's my link to get access to the Jump Start course when you sign up: http://www.AntonMethod.com

      See you in the member forums!

      Delete
  5. Hi Johnny,
    I'm a huge fan of your blog/podcast and all that you put out. To be honest, I was also wondering the same thing as Jon regarding Dropshipping. Thanks for clarifying!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey Roots, I'm glad to have taken the time to write this then! It's really for people like you who just genuinely want to know!

      Delete
  6. YO Johnny!

    Found you on YT when I was doing some research on living in Thailand. I have set a plan in place to be in Thailand with my family by 2018. Travelling, hustling online and relaxing.

    What a coincidence that I am also an aspiring digital entrepreneur! I have experience in both affiliate and client SEO and Kindle.

    I am shifting away from Client SEO and moving towards Affiliate as it appears to be more passive.

    I have been interested in DS and Ecom for a while now and while I was searching through Udemy's courses I seen a drop shipping course and considered purchasing..

    It wasn't until I seen your mugshot (no disrespect lol) that I thought, "hey I recognize that bald head!"...

    So I checked out DSL and came to your site, which I checked out once previously after watching you in Thailand.

    I have just finished reading through your Store in 30 days challenge to get a solid overview of what's inside DSL, or at least the process...

    I am confident in technical design, SEO etc.. The only part of the puzzle I believe i'm lacking experience in is the finding suppliers part..

    I'm wondering if you have your own course on DS?

    Anyway, you're awesome man and I'll be watching your site closely for updates.

    I'm gutted i wouldn't make the cut for being part of your store building group as I am not a member of DSL and I don't have an established DS site.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey Beau, that's awesome you've been following along the journey for so long and you want to move out to Thailand with the family. I don't have my own dropshipping course but recomend Anton's (http://www.AntonMethod.com) as it's the best course I've seen out there and is how I learned everything I know.

      Delete
    2. Thanks for the reply..

      Sweet as, I will hustle my way towards the 2.5k required to grab the course :)

      Delete
  7. Johnny,

    Thank you for your inspiring work in entrepreneurship, digital nomadism, and lifestyle design!! The concepts I've already learned from you (and the 4 Hour Work Week 😉 ) have absolutely changed my life. I have been doing AirBnB rental arbitrage, started a basic blog, working in venture capital, and been building online businesses as a student for the last couple of years, and would like to start expanding my knowledge base.

    Just thought I would reach out to you and see if perhaps there is any chance you might be interested in partnering on business deals in rental arbitrage or startups/venture capital? There are many opportunities in these spaces which I would love to share with you should it be of interest.

    Thanks again, and please let me know if we could talk here or over the phone for a brief introduction whenever is convenient for you!!

    Best,
    Tyler Ettner

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey Tyler, glad to have you following the journey and doing it yourself with success! Big congrats to you! I won't be partnering or investing in anything new for a while, but keep it up and let me know how it goes!

      Delete
  8. It's crazy to me whenever I hear anyone talks about online business that works.
    I thought ,it is like a dream that can't be reached .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Listen to the Travel Like a Boss Podcast. I've now interviewed over 200 people who have different online businesses that they have made work!

      Delete
  9. I read the article you shared, it was awesome and left a deep impression on me, thank you for sharing this great article and meaning.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Johnny,

    How do you choose the products you plan to sell?

    -Dana

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey Dana, I follow Anton's method of dropshipping, in his course he has you write down a list of everything that fits his criteria, example products that average $300-$1,000 then has you go through the competitors to see if they dropship and if you can compete with them or if that niche is too saturated. His course is at www.AntonMethod.com if you want to follow it as well.

      Delete
  11. Love your post! I haven't started drop shipping because it is something I am mostly planning on starting later (long story, but I'm focusing mostly on my blog at the moment). I'm curious to know what methods of marketing and advertising that you use for when you create stores? Do you only do Google and/or facebook ads? Do you build social media profiles or always use influencers? Of course it depends on the product and the audience, but I guess I was wanting more information on advertising/marketing from your own experience.

    If you have a link to a blog post, that would be great!

    ReplyDelete
  12. "Dropshipping isn't going anywhere"....???

    What, the business is dying?

    ReplyDelete

Please take a second to log in before you comment. I've turned off the anonymous commenting option. I'm open and respectful with you, please be the same back. Stay positive, trolls and spam comments will be automatically deleted.

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