when you're drop shipping, you get an order like this one. And instead of packing it like I'm doing right now, you send the order to the manufacturer. Manufacturer then makes it and sends it to the customer directly for you. You don't have the inventory in house. You haven't prepaid or pre purchased anything. You only buy inventory when a customer makes an order. In theory, that sounds like a really good idea. In practice, I'm not a fan. Here's why.
if you sell this mixing bit and another person sells this exact same thing, it is now a competition on price and the customer is going to buy from whoever has a lower price. That's why I don't like dropshipping because it's a competition on price you are all ordering from the same factories, getting the same products from the same places and selling to the same groups of people. However, there are some people that are successful doing dropshipping.
There are ways that you can make it work, but eventually they all lead you towards one path, which is building your own brand with unique products. that are specifically created by you. So when I say unique products, what's really important to understand is that it doesn't have to be like a world breaking new technology, this new thing no one's ever heard of before.
It could be just a slight improvement on something that exists already, like a yoga mat with a carrying strap or, or like an ax handle that has something hidden inside for survival. Like there's all kinds of use cases out there, but that's the point I want to make. And the distinction I want to make is that drop shipping is a race to the bottom, especially on Amazon. Let's pause for a second and talk about that because Amazon has a terms of service.
And so if you've ever looked at Amazon's terms of service, which I don't imagine you have because very few people do because why it's a lot of legal mumbo jumbo and it doesn't really serve you, but Hey, that's why you have me. They don't allow drop shipping of any kind. You'll get booted from the platform really, really quickly. So dropshipping on Amazon, off the table.
That means you have to be using Shopify, eBay, uh, Etsy, another one of these payment processing or fulfillment channels or selling channels. Because you can't. It's against the terms of service. You just can't use it. So that limits your, your reach. Because remember, Amazon is demand capture. You're capturing the demand of people that are already on the platform searching for stuff. Whereas all the other stuff is demand generation.
You could put Etsy and eBay in the same category as Amazon for sure. It's all demand capture. You're basically capturing the existing demand on those platforms, but anything other than that, Shopify, WordPress, That's demand generation. And if you don't get customers to visit your website, they will never learn that you exist. They will never buy from you. You will never make money. You will never move product. No one's just gonna randomly discover your website.
And that's where all dropshippers are competing. On their website on Shopify. And I'm sure you've seen the ads and I'm sure you've seen people put up the courses and talk about it on the internet. You just sell the product and China will ship it to your customer for you. You don't even have to touch it. Okay, let's get into that for a second now too, because that's not all it's cracked up to be not touching the product. That's not a good thing.
Because that means you haven't had a chance to inspect it and get your hands on it and touch and feel it. You don't get to do any quality checks and make sure that it's up to standards. Not being able to touch and feel the product means that you don't get to make little tiny improvements and changes that would make the customer experience even better. It's even better than what it is. Therefore another strike against drop shipping.
Now let's talk about that shipping time Because if you're having China ship the product, then that means it's going to come from all the way overseas to the United States of America. Then it has to hit our maelstrom. Then it can be sold and distributed. That's takes a long time. The last time you had a shipment take two weeks, you were probably feeling like you weren't going to get your stuff. Extrapolate that out.
Yeah. Most people get pretty upset when their stuff doesn't arrive within a couple of days. Amazon's really set the bar, really set the standard. So when Amazon's shipping in like two days, sometimes two hours and you're taking two weeks, you're going to start to get a lot of chargebacks. You're going to start to get people that are upset and unhappy and want their money back. You're going to a lot of people asking for a refund.
And customer service is going to become something that you really need to put effort and energy into. And if you're going to put a bunch of energy and effort into customer service, you might as well put that energy and effort into your own brand, your own products, instead of competing with other people on price. See what I mean? It's just, the math isn't mathing in my opinion. Okay. Let's talk about the fact that other people sell the exact same thing as you because that's what dropshipping is.
Unless you can find someone who isn't a factory who hasn't made it for anyone else and won't make it for anyone else. That's a little bit different. That's definitely a plus. And then, and don't worry, we are going to talk about some people that are successful with dropshipping and how it can work. So I'm not like, Trying to polarize you and stay on one side completely. I'll give you a couple other opinions and perspectives to consider. I think that's important.
However, let's talk about working with the factories because when you're working with the Chinese factory, they will often be making the same things for many, many people. They don't want to change anything. They just want to put your label on it. And ship it off and get the sale. That's their sale, their B2B. Um, and a lot of people will make the mistake of doing searches and looking online or listening to courses or, or gurus or people that tell everybody the same thing.
And then you've got a bunch of people competing on these, you know, touch lamps and everybody loses their ass because they're all competing for the same customers. That's, uh, that's, that's tough. It's tough. And there's no way for you to really know if a factory is going to sell to another customer. There's no way for you to really enforce it because China looks at intellectual property differently. You see China's split up into what's called economic opportunity zones.
Um, so, you know, you'll see places in mainland China, like Shenzhen province or Guangzhou. And these are all specific areas. geographic areas that have been sectioned off for different types of activities. Um, let's say in one case it's shoes, another case, toys, and all of the factories that make toys and shoes are all in the same area. They're in the same economic opportunity zone. That means the business owners, they talk. They see each other. They communicate.
They talk about what they're making for their customers in the United States. They talk about the innovations that they've experienced and they all share information. They really do look at technology as open source, whether that's technology for a wood burning marker, or whether that's PCB and microchip. They look at it as shared open source technology. And so when one person learns of something that's selling well or doing well, they share it with everybody else.
And it's easy for them to share it because they're in the same area, the same vicinity. Like imagine just standing in line. At your lunch break and you get to meet someone in line who does the exact same thing as you in a slightly different, you know, area of your industry. And you guys strike up a conversation, you start talking about what you're working on. Like it's that, it's literally like that. They're really close.
Lastly, China's courts don't really care that much about our intellectual property laws. You know, US has very stringent, very strict , intellectual property laws, meaning IP or the, , things that you've created, the way something looks, the way something works. And they just, they don't look at it the same way because they look at it as open source. They don't think to do any type of.
playing by the rules according to American standards prior to the point where they get sued or get in trouble or their listing gets taken down. So. It's just, it's hard to compete with that. It's hard to compete with people who don't play by the same rules. It's a, just a classic way to get an upper hand. Not saying they're doing it intentionally. I don't know. I can't say, but what I do know is that when you don't have to play by the rules, you absolutely have an advantage.
Now the last thing that I want to bring up is that if you're competing with Chinese sellers on the same products That's even worse Now I know you've seen it. You've got on it. You get on Amazon and you see the Well, let me put it this way. Let's say that you're a factory that makes toys and this new toys come out and it is just taken off. It is going great for some of your American resellers, right? You've made this adaptation and they're ordering 10, 20, 50, a hundred thousand units at a time.
And you're like, what the heck is going on? This thing is successful and you're the factory and you're making it. Well, selling on Amazon from China has never been easier. So what's going to stop that factory from taking your product and selling it right alongside you on Amazon? Nothing. And I've seen it happen time and time again to people who have great products. They get ripped off. They get ripped off.
I mean, so the factory is like, okay, I'm selling to this person, but I could double my price, ship everything from China to us. sell it on Amazon and profit. That's hard to compete with, especially when you hear my last point. Now, this last point is contentious and it's not necessarily true and I don't have any proof. It's hearsay, conjecture, and speculation. So let me just get that out of the way. But there are a few things that I know are true.
And one of those is that you are only allowed to sell so much yuan every year. Yuan is the Chinese currency. The government doesn't allow it. They won't allow you to sell more than a certain amount of their currency because they want to keep it in their economy and they don't want people getting rich in China and taking their wealth over to places like the United States, Great Britain, Australia, Canada, etc. So they say you're only allowed to sell this much yuan per year.
And it really hamstrings a lot of people, especially the ones that are really rich and want to invest in other countries, etc. So, because of that, Chinese citizens have to figure out another way to get their money out of China and into the U. S. money system. They can't just sell their yuan, they're not allowed to, and they will be heavily pursued and punished by the government. So how do they do it? And that's where a form of money laundering comes into play.
These Chinese sellers will sell products on Amazon that are commoditized that they can move large amounts of, And they will sell them for extraordinarily cheap. They will compete on price with American sellers, race to the bottom, beat them, grab all of the market share, and intentionally lose money. You know how you see some stuff on Amazon? You're like, how is that only 1. 99? There's no way you're making money on this. There's no way. You can't be. And you're right. They aren't.
They are losing money. They are spending Chinese Yuan to buy the inventory. They are sending it to America. They are earning U. S. dollars. And they are keeping those U. S. dollars in the United States banking system and then using it to invest in China. in properties or whatever they want to spend their money on. So they're literally taking a bath financially to get U S dollars. , I can't imagine the exchange rate is very good, especially when you're losing money on Amazon.
And so basically Amazon is the middleman in these transactions, allowing Chinese sellers to undercut American sellers, take a bath financially and launder money out of the country for into United States, so that they can have money to spend in our economy. Those are some of the bigger reasons I don't like drop shipping and I don't think it's a good idea. Now, there are others that we can get into, but those are the real big ones. Um, competition on price is not ideal.
Selling the same product as somebody else is a race to the bottom. Shipping times are really, really long. Not being able to touch, see, feel, and get close to your product causes issues with not just product development, but overall customer satisfaction. And then, if you have to compete with Chinese sellers, whew, that's tough. Not to mention intellectual property. That's why I'm not a huge fan of dropshipping, and I think that it's not worth your time.
It's not worth my time, so I don't do it. And when people reach out to me, I'm like, okay. And I ask them questions about their business, and I find out they're dropshipping, I'm like, hey, just to be clear, like, I'm not a dropshipping guy, like, I don't know that game. I don't know it. I haven't studied it. I haven't been successful at it. I don't know how to do it.
So if you're looking for help with drop shipping, like I'm not your guy, if you want to watch YouTube videos about building a brand, an e commerce brand about a product that you've created, that's uniquely yours that you've invented. Great. would love to be a sounding board for you and lend a hand in any way. . There are still some people out there that drop ship and make a ton of money. So let's talk about that. What is it that they're doing that allows them to be successful?
Well, they've got great relationships with the factory. They probably aren't competing on price specifically on that exact item because the factory is not going to sell it or they have some sort of agreement. That prevents the factory from selling it. They have great shipping times. They have really high converting ads, like really high converting ads return on ad spend, double digits, really high. They've got a really high margin product.
So cause they can afford to spend all the money to advertise, to move the product. And they're right place, right time, because eventually all of this stuff will even out. Everybody will figure out what's working and what's not working. And other people are going to sell the same exact thing. So if you're going to have to change products, why not just build a brand from the start? Why not improve upon something that you use, know, and love? Regularly.
So that brings me to my last and my final point is, okay, that's all well and good. Evan, you say drop shipping isn't a good idea and to build a brand, but what the hell do I build a brand around? I don't have any ideas. I don't know what product to launch. I don't know what to put out there into the world. Like where do I even start with that? Do I do product research or like, I don't even, I don't even know.
If I was in that position and I knew that I wanted to build a brand, a legacy, something that would last, a product that people would love, enjoy, want, I would start with where I spend my time and my money, and I would take a deep, hard look at the products that I use in my life. I would look at the stuff that I use every day. I would look at the stuff that I use every single week.
I would look at the stuff that I think about and I tell my wife like, Hey, could we order some more of this please? Like, that would be great if we could get some more like those items right there. Let's say you're a dog groomer and you have a specific type of shears or hose attachment that you use all the time and you can't live without it. Boom. Competitive advantage. What if you're a stonemason? What if you've been cleaning pools your whole life?
What if you had really bad skin and then you fixed it with by making your own soap and you want to share that with the world. All of these are little finger holds to, you know, get under a corner and then start going down that pathway. What I'm getting at is that everybody has expertise of some type. Everybody knows a little bit more about something than somebody else, whether it's poker or horses, or bikes or bicycle pumps or electric bikes.
There's so many unique ways that you can have a competitive advantage, but you see it, that competitive advantage only typically happens with experience, with life experience, with career experience.
With work experience, so you have to go work in a field or in a career for a little while to get that experience and see what it's like working with other people, see what the industry's like, learn about the things, you know, aerospace industry, frickin You know, the food service industry, consumer packaged goods, e commerce, whatever the case may be, you can become an expert in just about anything, but what you need is time under the bar.
So let's put ourselves in a drastic scenario where You don't have a business, you don't have a job, you need to make some money, you need to provide for your family, but at the same time, you want a career path that's going to get you closer to your goal of ultimately building a brand. Just like we've talked about in this podcast. Okay, what would I do? Well, I would start by choosing a job where I can earn and learn at the same time.
Ideally something where I could put in extra work and earn more money. That has overtime opportunities or commission opportunities. Ideally commission opportunities. Cause, uh, that's, you know, even higher swings, but some people don't have the discipline for that. So, you know, either or can work. For me it was the fire department and I had enough time to be able to work on my business while we were in between running 911 calls.
And then I also had the opportunity to work overtime, which allowed me to make extra money to get ahead. Because that's what we got to do. We've got to get ahead. We've got to build up enough of a nut to be able to invest it and be able to take bigger swings. Because if you're living paycheck to paycheck every month, where are you going to get the money for the first batch of inventory? You won't have it.
and it's too risky to put it all on a credit card because we don't know if it's going to sell. And we'll talk about bootstrapping here in a minute so you can see how this all ties together. And so you've got to get a job. You got to get a job working in an industry that interests you. that you want to learn and earn in. So if you want to build video games and create the next greatest game, like, okay, start watching YouTube videos and try and get a job working on a game.
Build up your skillset, build up your network of people. Get to know people in your industry. Schmooze, rub elbows. Get people in your corner. Meet people of influence. That is all like, and if you want to know how I do that stuff and what works really well for me, read the book How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Skip chapter one, it's all fluff. But after that, killer book.
Listen to it anytime you're on your way to a networking event or have people to go talk to and meet. Yeah. It, it works. I can tell you that much right now. Alright. So we gotta get a job in our industry. Then what? Then, you gotta be the best. You got to own it, earn it, and do everything in your power to excel and crush everyone else in that role or in that field. Why haven't, can't I just chill?
Not if you want to build a brand and be great, because what this will do is it will teach you the discipline and the skills needed to go to push it, to go above and beyond, because you're not going to be successful selling products. If you're not willing to put in extra work, it's hard guys. It is not easy. It takes a ton of effort and energy to build a brand is incredibly difficult. It's incredibly time consuming. It's very stressful. Nobody will thank you.
Nobody will recognize you for your achievements and everybody's going to want something, including the government. It's not always easy. In fact, it's almost never easy, but we make money while we sleep. That is special. That is very rare. There's very few things you can do in this world that make you money while you sleep. Owning a business is one of them. Owning an e commerce brand is next level, man. Let me tell ya. It is a special, special thing.
Okay, so you're earning, you're learning, you're doing it. Then what? It takes about 10, 000 hours to really get good at something or master something. There we go. I'll take it. That'll work. That's a long ass time. Yeah, it is about five years. That's about how long it takes to really truly understand your industry and get good at it and master it and learn it. But that's just the way that it is. And we need to start that clock sometime or another. So I suggest starting it as soon as possible.
And while you're in that job, pay attention, pay attention to what's going on, to the nuance of the industry and how things are done and what the standards are and you know, what things are like, because man, I'll tell you, if I had known more about the craft industry, when I started Scorchmarker, I would be so much better right now. But I'm not because I had to learn a bunch of stuff that I wasn't familiar with. New industry.
And now that I'm, you know, so many years into it, there ain't no way in hell I'm starting over. That'd be crazy talk. Be crazy. Okay, let's see if we can get this to work. Let's turn the RPMs way down. Okay, so it starts slow. Okay, adjustable on the fly. You see this? This is pretty cool. Okay, cool. We're looking pretty good guys. It's working It's working We've got a mixing machine. Ooh, I really hope this chuck is big enough. I don't know if it is.
I don't even know if this thing will have enough torque. Yes! Okay, it'll fit. So what I'll do is I'll end up cutting this rod off to make sure that it fits in the five gallon bucket, but otherwise I think we're going to be good. So basically this, uh, machine goes right here like so, and then I've got a five gallon bucket that's going to go underneath it right here. This is going to go off center on the side. and uh, spin a mixing bit and mix up the scorch paint.
So I've got this new mixer because I was tired of using my large drill press. Um, and also I needed something to bring over to the new warehouse. So it looks like we got what we need. This is going to be great. And it was like a hundred bucks, so I'll take it. That's not bad at all. Drill press is going to be expensive too. And it's something I can make a video about. So win win, right? Okay. This, I'm not sure what this thing is. I don't know how it works.
Oh, this goes down here to hold, we're missing a piece. Okay. That goes down there. That's a little grabber to hold the beaker. I mean, obviously we're not using beakers. But I want to at least get it set up. That would make sense. I'm going to look for it. All right. So now that you have the job and you're earning and learning in your industry, okay, there we go. That set aside. Then I want you to think about all those products that you know, use and love.
Think about all those things that you use on the daily, that you can't live without, that you must have, that you get worried about when you run out of that stuff. Now, once you know what that is, and you're like, this thing's amazing. Then you need to improve on it and make it even better. That's how we build a brand. We take an existing product that we are experts in know use and love all the time and we enhance it by making some positive changes, changes that we've always wanted to see.
Because there's a good chance, not a good chance because you are your customer. If there's something that you've created and improved upon, I can guarantee you that there are other people who would find value in that as well. We're not unique. We're not that, we're not that special. You know, we're a lot more similar than many people think. So, there's something to be said for selling improvements to existing items that you've made better. Plus, it's way easier to do it that way.
If you're selling something, you don't have to invent anything. Yeah, sure, maybe you could change some design aspects or a mold or whatever, but it's not like you have to start from scratch like I did with the scorch marker. That's, it was hard. It was hard. I made it way harder on myself than it needed to be. So you can totally skip that part and just not have to deal with all that. but then what? Now I have something that I know I want to make, but where do I start content?
Remember how we talked about demand generation and demand capture earlier? If you don't get the interest and attention of people, you will never sell a product. You have to get attention and everybody knows this deep down, but a lot just seem to refuse to believe it. You have to get attention if you want to make sales. No one is going to just randomly discover you make a purchase and have that happen at a regular enough rate for you to have anything substantial. It's just not going to happen.
So then we think about that. What are some of the ways that we can get attention for our stuff? Well, obviously you could tap into existing markets like Amazon and Etsy and eBay, right? That's where demand capture comes into play. But if you're selling anywhere else other than those platforms, your own website, et cetera. You have to get attention.
You have to tell people about your product so that they will come to your website and they will buy from you so that they will trust you enough to make a purchase and try what you've created. So it really helps if you have created a unique product that no one else has. It makes all the difference in the world. Founder led content is by far the most powerful form of getting attention right now. And I can see it being that way for the foreseeable future.
And the reason why it hasn't been a thing in the past is because we haven't always had the chance as founders. to have access to making content and distributing it as easily as it has been with the internet and everything else that's happened with social media. Short form content, like TikTok, that changed the game for businesses and content creators and people and, you know, Consumers and founders can tap into that if you just practice making content.
Now, obviously it's not easy and there's nuance to it and you have to practice and you have to get good at it and it takes time but as someone who's posted for 10, 000 videos and had, you know, hundreds of millions of views, millions of subscribers and followers, I can tell you that it's a skill that is worth developing. Because I don't have to pay an agency to make content for me. I don't have to go to UGC creators. I have content that I can post.
three times a day, every day for years, I can get reps in. I can get to know my customers and what works and what doesn't work. And I can really take it to the next level in terms of getting attention. I can do it all myself, which cuts down on marketing expenses, which allows me to get more repetitions in, which allows me to get better. And it creates this self fulfilling cycle, this prophecy that just makes business easier. Well, I don't know if easier is the right word.
I would probably use efficient. It would make business more efficient. Um, because you know how hard it is to get videos. You know how hard it is to create and get the stuff done. It's painful to say the least. Now imagine if you had that skill and you didn't have to rely on another human to get attention for your product. You've now solved one of the big challenges of e commerce. Getting attention. Okay. So what do you actually mean though by make content?
Because this doesn't make a ton of sense, Evan. Well, you got to start creating valuable stuff for your audience so that they can get to know you so that when you do have a solution to a problem in those people's lives, your life, they'll buy from you and you can solve it.
You know It's crazy because most people think that they have to come up with a product first and that's what they'll do They'll create this amazing product and they'll spend millions of dollars or millions of hours Researching and trying to make this thing great and then they go to launch and nobody buys it They don't know how to market. They don't know who they're marketing to they don't know who it's for They just know they've made a great product It doesn't work.
You can't just have a great product. You've got to have the whole package. And it sucks because there's so many great products out there and I get it because I was that person. You just, it just doesn't work though. You have to have both. You have to have the attention and the great product and the problem to solve. It's all gotta be together. that means We need to start making content, getting attention for what we've created, what we're working on, and we need to build a list.
A list of people that are interested, that are willing and open to purchase from us and follow along of our journey as we build what we are building. that is the best way to do it. To get attention throughout the process, to build in public, to document. And that's hard for a lot of people, because they're like, I don't even have a product yet, why would I get attention? And I'm like, so you can have a list of people ready to buy from you when you launch.
So you can be like, we did it, and they can get in on it, and they can support you, and they can purchase, and they can leave you reviews, and they can drive traffic to your Amazon store, or your website, and they can get you those sales on day one, because Everybody that doesn't do that, they turn their listing on, they start selling a product and it's crickets. Nobody buys and then they get disheartened and then they might not come back to it. because that happened to me.
I did all these things wrong, guys. All of these lessons were learned the hard way. So you've got to get attention. You've got to have a great product. It's gotta be unique. Can't be drop shipping because then you can't really document and create this whole hype thing Otherwise, it's just about money not about solving a problem. And that's not really fair to say it can still be about solving a problem Drop shipping. It's just it's just harder.
Then you need a way to get that product to somebody and if you're using Drop shipping you can't sell on Amazon and Amazon is a great place to start and validate and prove your idea It really is. It's incredibly difficult to launch a brand dropshipping on Shopify because the only way that you're going to be able to get the attention is with content. That means you'll need to pay for it or you'll need to make it yourself.
And if you're going to do either one of those things, you might as well invest in assets that are going to last you long term and build a brand. And that brings me to my last and final point, compounding. If you have to start the process over because you can't sell an item anymore because it's the market's been too saturated or because you've raced to the bottom with a bunch of other sellers. And you have to switch to a new industry or a new product.
You are now restarting the compounding process because when you're building a business, you get better every single rep, whether that's years, whether that's months, whether it's weeks or days, you get better every single day you're operating the business. You get better, but as soon as you restart and go to a new business or another idea, you start over. I used to start over all the time. It's called shiny object syndrome. Alex Hormozi refers to it as a woman in the red dress.
You start over and every time you start over, you start the whole compounding process over again. And if you're anything like me, you understand the premise of investing in the S and P 500, you know, just putting money away and index funds for 30 years and letting it compound. It's the compounding that creates the growth. It's the time in that specific industry and role.
They don't say, invest in the S& P, sell it, and then go invest in the Dow Jones, and then sell it, and then go invest in ARK, and then sell it, and then go invest in Facebook. That's not how it works. Compounding in regardless of what you've chosen, just sticking with it. And, to be honest with you, most shit's not gonna happen until like 5, 6, 7 years in. It's gonna suck for a really long time. But the good news is that it doesn't take nearly as long as it would to earn a pension.
Not going to take 30 years. It might take 15 or 20, but it's not going to take 30 and you'll have something that you own and you'll have something that the compounding directly affects your net worth. You'll have something that makes you money while you sleep and you will have an opportunity vehicle to build the skills that will turn you into a freaking superhuman operating a business, especially a business where you sell products. We'll turn you into a killer of a human being.
You will learn people, you will learn all of the skills like cashflow management and inventory and production and selling and advertising and content. All of these are available to you and you will have a chance to learn them and apply them to something that you're actively doing. And what this does is it shapes you into the person that you are capable of becoming. It's the most slept on part of operating a business is the work that the business does on you.
You work on the business, the business works on you. You grow, the business grows. You get better. The business gets better. You learn things through the business and you apply them to your life like patience and kindness and gratitude and planning and forethought and budgeting. Um, all of these things have a massive impact on your life. That is why building a brand is so special because you can keep that compounding process going and you won't have to start it over.
There is, um, there's money to be made in dropshipping. You can do it. There are ways to figure things out. There are people that know some stuff and they will kill it, but I promise you, it won't last more than five years. It won't show me a dropshipping. product that has lasted more than five years profitably. I just don't think that it exists because the market eventually evens out.
So if I had to rank these, characteristics of selling products, I would say that the opportunity vehicle, the business working on you is that the top top second is being able to make sales while you're while you're sleeping. Okay. And then you have being able to compound the process and solve problems for people long term and get really, really good at this industry and become just a massive expert. And then you have everything else below that.
Like those are just so key and crucial and it's really hard to begin those pathways with dropshipping because they don't last as long as a brand does. Don't get me wrong. Not all brands are going to work. Not every product is going to work. I've launched like 18 products and only like two or three of them are successful. But you get better each time. And with each iteration and each alteration and change that you make, your products become better and you become better.
And it's, it's, it's really special that's why I don't believe in dropshipping. That's why I believe building a brand is the best way to do things. Um, not necessarily for short term money, but longterm. And for you and for your mind and for your family, I just, it's a, it's a better way to go in my opinion. And yeah, there will be competitors and people will knock you off. That will happen.
It's happened to me many times and you deal with it, you roll with it and you take it in stride knowing that the pie is ever increasing and there's plenty to go around. While we're on that subject, I want to talk about Relay. It's a banking platform that I use for Scorchmarker and vanader. I really like them because they combine all of the best features of all the other banks that I've tried into one platform. I'm able to send checks online from their platform.
I can set up multiple accounts and automate profit first, which saves me a ton of time. I can do all the transfers and ACH and send all the money, pay all the suppliers, receive all the money, all of it. It works. In Fact, after I started using relay, I, I fell in love with it. I'm like, this is great. So I reached out to their team and I was like, Hey, let's do some, some sponsored content together because more people need to know about you.
I want to get the word out, but I also, you know, want to get paid for sharing the word too. And I'm really glad they said yes, because now you know about a business banking platform that is better than all the others. And I've had a chance to stress test it for you. Plus it's free. The application is easy. They've got credit cards and debit cards and all the things that you will need for your business.
So. if you don't have a bank account, use relay, there's a link in the description for you to put in your application. I think you'll really like the interface and the platform and switching everything over is, is never going to be easier than it is, right now So big thanks to relay for sponsoring and that's why I believe in building a brand over a drop shipping because of all of those reasons. These are our sales numbers going back 30 days from November 18th, 2024.
And remember we're in Q4 right now. So these numbers are going to be higher than normal. This is our busy season. On Shopify over the last 30 days, we did a total of 35, 784. 31. That's at a conversion rate of 1. 77%. On Amazon, we did a total of 71, 052. 43 at a 14. 34 percent conversion rate. Retail, total income for the last 30 days is 23, 730. 50, no conversion rate there. That brings our total 30 day sales numbers to 130, 567. 24. Now remember, these are sales numbers, the big number.
This is not profits, this is not the money that's left over. This is the biggest number possible. which can be misleading because it costs money to make that money. But you at least have a baseline to see where we're operating out, what kind of money we're making and what our conversion rates are for each channel in the craft industry. I'll update you with the most recent 30 day sales numbers at the end of the next podcast. I'll see you there.