Trends come and go in waves.
If you haven’t given it any thought, think about it now. Think about all the things you’ve seen rise in popularity, and then get tossed by the wayside. That includes tech, fashion, and celebrities.
One of the more recent trends has been airpods. We’ve seen tons of businesses cropping up that dropship them, simply because they’re so popular.
We’re going to show you exactly why dropshipping fake airpods and cases won’t work. Because we want you to learn, we’ll also explain what you should do instead for more consistent success.
If you’d rather listen to us talk about this out loud, click the thumbnail below to skip the reading.
Why You Shouldn’t Dropship Airpods
Reason 1: Airpods are a trend.
As we mentioned previously, airpods have been a trend for the past couple years. But like other trends, how long will it last?
Apple is even already developing new models. Aside from that, electronics get outdated famously fast, so everything you’re doing to try and sell them will also get outdated rapidly.
It’s also incredibly difficult to figure out how to automate your business or hire people when you’re chasing trends. You can’t guarantee you’re going to be generating the same profits month after month, because you don’t know how long that trend is going to last. With that uncertainty, you can’t assume you’ll have the cash flow to maintain the expenses you need to perform day-to-day functions.
If you’re looking to build an evergreen business that’s reliable and consistent, this isn’t the way to do it.
Reason 2: Airpods are inexpensive, so you’re not making a lot of profit on them.
One of the first videos I found on YouTube regarding dropshipping airpods was from someone who had supposedly made over $100,000 dropshipping them. At a glance, that sounds like an amazing number. It’s an obvious clickbait title, but it caught our eye and would probably catch yours, too, because of that figure.
However, that figure is just a revenue number. It doesn’t tell you how much the person actually made after you factor in what they put in to advertise, as well as their other expenses.
Furthermore, just because they made $111,000 one month, doesn’t mean they’re going to keep making anywhere near that number in future months.
On top of that, you need to sell a lot more airpods to make whatever profit you can. Consider that figure of $111,000 revenue again. Whoever made that much selling airpods had to make tons of sales to get there, which takes way more effort.
We look for businesses that can generate years of consistent numbers and sales figures. Take a look at our screenshots that we post, and you’ll see those years of dependable numbers. We don’t need to spend an insane amount on ads to achieve that, either – it just takes some systematic maintenance.
Now let’s compare that $111,000 revenue to one of our high-ticket dropshipping stores with a similar figure. In one of our stores, we made approximately $95,000. How many sales did that take us? 33.
That’s kind of a higher end site, though, so we’ll give you more numbers by comparing it with another one of our stores. This second store has around $40,000 in revenue with 26 orders.
The point we’re making here is that, if you use our methods, you can get to over $100,000 in revenue with fewer than 100 sales dependably. If you’re looking to become your own boss and form your own online business, you need that kind of stability and potential for long-term growth.
Read Also: Dropshipping Do’s and Don’ts to Reach $2,342,061.36 for a Single Store
Reason 3: Using platforms like Aliexpress to sell airpods could result in angry customers.
Many people who are dropshipping airpods are using Aliexpress to get them cheaply. There’s a huge issue with this: the quality of the airpods you’re shipping is low.
This is abundantly clear when you compare them with airpods backed up by a trusted name brand, like Apple. When you’re selling a cheap version of something, maybe you’ll make $111,000 in revenue…but we promise you that a large number of your customers will be angry with the quality of what they receive.
Then you’re going to have tons of returns to handle, losing a large portion of any profit you actually made after that revenue.
If you want to get into the potential intricacies of return polices for dropshipping companies, we’ve discussed it all here.
Reason 4: You’re not targeting a specific audience.
If you’re using Aliexpress (and we recommend that you don’t), it’s important you build up a specific audience and keep in touch with them.
Like many trends, however, airpods are extremely generalized. Anyone will buy them. Teenagers, adults, kids – there isn’t a specific marketable audience for buying them.
You might think it’s a good idea to have such a broad spectrum of potential customers, but it’s honestly not. That’s because of future growth prospects. Again, you can’t sell airpods forever because they’re going to be left in the dust by the next technological equivalent.
So what are you going to do when that happens? If you had a more specific audience, you might have an idea of what they want to see from you next.
For example, say you’re selling products geared towards people who own dogs. You’re able to expand into other dog-related products, knowing that dog owners will potentially be interested in them.
This is the best way of making a low-ticket dropshipping business, like one that would sell airpods, successful. You need to be able to cultivate an audience with interests you can keep tapping into.
Query vs Intent-Based Marketing (and Which One You Should Do)
Speaking of targeting a specific audience, we’re going to discuss how you can market your products a little more successfully. This is where we’ll talk about what we like to do as opposed to chasing trends that will just die out quickly.
Intent/Interest-Based Marketing
Many people do something called intent-based marketing. It usually takes the form of social media advertising that allows them to reach out to certain groups of people.
The ultimate goal is for your ad to end up in the newsfeed of someone who might be interested in your product based on their demographics, search history, and passions. The keyword in that last sentence, though, is “might.”
We’ll give you an example that you can confirm yourself. The next time you’re scrolling through your Facebook app on your phone, find an ad in your newsfeed. Click the three little dots in the upper right-hand corner of that ad, then choose the option that says, “Why am I seeing this ad?” You’ll be brought to a little page that shows you the demographics that ad is targeting.
Think about that ad for a moment. Chances are, it targets a very large audience that you happen to be a part of. Now consider this: were you even slightly interested in the product?
When you market this way, you’re giving yourself way more work. There’s only a possibility the person who saw your ad will want to buy your product. It’s up to you to convince them to make a purchase from you.
Read Also: Influencer Marketing for Dropshipping Doesn’t Work (Do This Instead)
Query-Based Marketing
Pretend for a moment that you’re ready to buy something right now. It can be anything you want, as long as you’d feel more inclined to look for it online. What’s the first thing you’d do?
We bet the first thing you’d probably do is pull up your browser and search for that product. That’s what query-based marketing is: looking for people like you who are searching for a specific thing already.
Unlike intent-based marketing, half the work is already done for you. The person doing the searching has most likely already decided that they’re looking to make a purchase. They’ve got their credit card info ready, and they’re just scoping out what their options are.
All you need to do is make sure your store is front and center, ready to sell them what they want. No convincing necessary, because like we said before, they already want to buy – it’s just a matter of who they’re buying from now.
That is precisely the reason why we typically avoid Facebook ads. (We’ve even written about just that at length here.) We personally prefer using Google ads.
Wrap Up
If nothing else, we hope you’ve learned that riding on the coattails of trends isn’t the way to make a business that will work for you in the long-run.
To build a solid portfolio online, you need to fill it with businesses that can last for years to come. A trend that’s here one day and gone the next will not give that to you.
Try to ignore the flashiness of the latest trend. Focus instead on building something people will be passionate about for a long time.
Looking for some more guidance on developing an online business from the ground up? You can get our free Online Assets Playbook or enroll in our Instant eCommerce Assets course.