You want me to blog? Okay, here goes!

byDavid4618

137 followers

6 years ago

I'm not a person who blogs. There's just not enough going on in my life to bother. I have kept a yearly diary for the last 31 years but again, as the years go by and I age, there's just not much to blather about, plus the things that get me excited, might not necessarily matter to anyone else. However, it seem that blogging is one of those things you "must" do here at WA, you asked for it, so here we go!

Ever since I bought my first computer back in 2001, I was determined to make money online - somehow. In those early days I joined up with paid-to-click services, plus the usual take-surveys-get-paid crowd; my fellow Australians may well be familiar with Nine Rewards, now called Purkle, and Emailcash, now called Rewards Central. Around 2005 I discovered HYIPs and thought I was on a winner there; again, many of you may remember a payment processor called Stormpay, who collapsed in a heap, followed by Profits 4 U, where I was due to receive a payment of $1000+ after X-number of days - they folded, I lost the lot.

Meanwhile, I've been selling on eBay Australia for 10+ years, with 100% positive feedback, but I've gone from making two sales per month, to being lucky if I make a sale every two or three months: and it's been like that for about the last 18 months... until recently.

One of the many software sites I follow is MajorGeeks.com - they have a deals site. One such deal, sometime in early May I think, was a free 30 day trial on Shopify. I sat on that for a bit, before signing up on May 26 - not knowing exactly what I was doing but going with it anyway. I very quickly discovered "dropshipping", which I quite liked the sound of, as the kind of products I sell on eBay aren't the kind you'd normally see on Shopify, and I have nothing else of value. Three weeks go by, I'm not making any sales, but then my store isn't looking that flash anyway; I then discovered you could sync your products with eBay, so I do that, and voila!, I made a sale. Which was when I discovered that around half of what you make, goes back to the dropshipping supplier... yeah, otherwise how do *they* make *their* money, right? I ended up having to cancel the order and refund my buyer, primarily owing to banking issues my end... mostly my fault, somewhat complicated story.

Fast-forward to this weekend just gone. It's taken me until about halfway through this month to format my store to what *I* consider to be a pretty neat look, but I'm still not making any sales - and according to my analytics, over 1000 ppl had visited my store! Again, I thought I'd sync my products with eBay AU: and over the course of this last weekend, I made $512+ in sales; $400+ of that came from selling two Samsung phones. My dropshipping supplier was Dropwow, which has its own "Wallet", and therein lay my problem. The Wallet needs to be loaded with USD, but I don't know how much I need in order to fulfill my orders. Well, guess what: the $512+ I made in sales, was exactly what I needed to pay out, WHAT THE?! And it needed to be in USD, which means even more in AUD: which I don't have! Long story short, I cancel all the orders and refund some, but not all, of my eBay buyers, and now have to deal with said buyers wondering why I had to cancel & refund their orders.

Now, if I was any kind of person other than who I actually am, I could've taken that $512+ and run, and then have to deal with the negative feedback and disputes which would inevitably arise from doing so - but I'm not that kind of person, no matter how much I actually need that bloody money right now! As it is, I've had to hold on to $200, which I'd already transferred from Paypal to my bank account, as without it, I'd be seriously destitute for the remainder of this pay fortnight. Maybe you can imagine, maybe you cannot - right now I am ROYALLY PISSED OFF with myself, Shopify, Dropwow, dropshipping, online entrepreneurship, the world and the universe in general. I just DON'T HAVE THE MONEY to back me up, unlike I suspect the significant majority of the folk here at WA - and I've been saying something along that theme for the past two months.

Prior to discovering WA, I was looking at Dropship University, followed by Dropship Lifestyle, followed by Dropship for Sale, all of whom were offering that magic bullet but boy, did you have to pay for it or what! With that last one, I was seriously considering handing over my AUD133 to buy a ready-made dropship store: at least all the hard work would've been done and winning products already found, etc.

I discovered WA last week, all thanks to Jimbo, who had followed my business page on Instagram. I checked out his page and clicked through to the info on Wealthy Affiliates, and thought: maybe THIS is the magic bullet! I see and appreciate how easy it appears to be to set up a website or two or 25... I haven't actually got that far yet, I'm still trying to work out what my niche actually is: on Shopify, it's eclectic/fun/quirky, which obviously doesn't sell, or at least not for me.

HOWEVER: I'm not 100% fully convinced WA is for me, especially as far as Premium membership is concerned. Yes, I switched to Premium, at the "special price" I suspect all newcomers must receive, but beyond the first month I cannot see how I can possibly justify $49 per month, which equates to some AUD62 in today's money. I'm looking at this from the "Poverty/Scarcity Mindset" that I apparently have, according to Storyspeaker on Instagram: "you act like you don't have enough money," she said. Yeah, well, after 27 years of not having very much money, you kind of get used to it, right? I'm so used to not having any money, that the idea of making anything beyond about $2500 - which is the most I've seen at once, which goes a long way to show you just what sort of person am - is frankly foreign to me.

Last year, thanks to my severe anxiety, I had to remove myself from my workplace: a community radio station which is staffed entirely by volunteers, where at the time not only was I an announcer, I was also assistant manager admin. I pulled out in March, not knowing how long I was actually going to stay away, but spoiler alert - it was not until December that I started going back there. In the intervening months, I was trying to think of something to do with my life, something new, that I'd never done before, and I hit on the idea of going on an overseas holiday. Not just any holiday, mind you: one to Phuket! In order to do that, I needed $5000 - which I obviously didn't have.

Fast-forward to now, and I still haven't seen my $5000 & so still haven't been to Phuket. My credit rating is shot to hell, so I can't get help from any loan specialists. So with Shopify and WA, if I can make that first $5000, I'll be on my way - not necessarily to Phuket, mind, as $3100+ of that money is needed to pay off the debts which have caused my credit rating to fall apart.

Given that it's taken me two months of ANGUISH over Shopify, and apparently it takes 3 months before you make any money on WA, I'm just not going to get to Phuket, at least not this year. Plus I haven't yet discovered HOW we're supposed to populate our WA websites with products: can anyone tell me this??? I've put my Shopify store on hold until I work out all the kinks as well as how much profit I need to make versus the cost of sending products.

Annnnnnnd... that's about it for me. Once I get going, it's hard to stop me :) Thanks for reading!