Contents

1. What is Dropshipping? 

2. Setting Up Shopify 

3. Selecting a Niche & Products 

4. Fulfilment Automation 

5. Optimising Your Store 

a. Removing “Shipping and Taxes Calculated At Checkout 

b. Removing Order Notes 

c. Removing “Powered by Shopify 

d. Adding Trust Badges to Product Page 

e. Customising ATC Button 

6. Extra Resources! 
What is Dropshipping?
 
Firstly, in order to successfully dropship like a pro, you need to understand the 
business model itself.  
 
To explain the model in a nutshell, dropshipping is an ever-growing online 
business model (or fulfilment method, if you want to be specific) based on a 
third-party merchant shipping products direct to your customers. You 
specifically manage the storefront, which includes the profit margins you 
personally take as the middle-man. 
 

 
 
The most attractive aspect to dropshipping when I personally started out, 
including many others, is the fact you don’t need to hold a single piece of 
inventory and the barriers to entry is extremely low – this is exactly why you’re 
seeing the skyrocketing popularity of dropshipping to this day in the age of the 
online entrepreneur. This is exactly why you should get started TODAY, and lucky 
for you you’re in the right place! 
 
Like I’ve said in my first YouTube video, I was just as skeptical as you, I was wary of 
dropshipping and whether I could establish passive income with such a simple 
business model but fast forward to this point in time and the dream has become 
a reality. If you haven’t seen my first video titled “​How I Made $10,000 in my FIRST 
WEEK Dropshipping!​” I’ve indeed made five digits within the first week I launched 
the store, but bear in mind I’m a certified digital marketer and I’ve obtained a 
degree in marketing at a prestigious university – in other words, I have lots of 
experience.  
 
My goal is to share some of that knowledge to you so you too can live life on your 
terms.  
 
So enjoy my free beginner’s guide to dropshipping, and let’s get stuck into the 
exact 5 steps you need to take and execute on ion order to get you on the right 
path to dropshipping success and ultimately a passive income lifestyle! Let's 
start with number one... 

1.Setting Up Shopify

Selecting a Plan

A common question I get is “Hey Ethan, which Shopify plan should I go for?” 
Honestly, if you’re a complete beginner, save your money and stick to the Basic 
Shopify Plan at only $29 per month.  
 

 
 
 
When should you upgrade your plan though? Simply when you’re receiving a 
large number of orders – over 100 a month and more as your customers are 
charged lower credit card surcharge rate the higher the plan. You also get 
access to more staff accounts, which of course is an important element when 
scaling and hiring more Virtual Assistants to manage your store. 
 
At the second tier, “Shopify” you do get access to their abandoned cart recovery 
tool, which may justify the increase in monthly fees again pending how many 
orders/traffic you’re seeing come through. Of course you can download a paid 
app to cover this tool, but Shopify’s in-built abandoned cart recovery is 
significantly better than all third-party apps available.  
 
Either way, I’ve worked with Shopify to get you a free extended trial – rather than 
a fortnight, I’ve extended this to a full free month for you! ​Click here to start your 
free month on any of the above plans!  
 
 
Setting Up Your Domain Name

Never ​use the default domain name Shopify provides to you ie. myshopify.com 
link. This looks extremely unprofessional and although some may try to advise 
that small details such as the URL does not matter, no actually, it does matter. 
Not only does it affect the credibility of the store, it’ll affect conversions and the 
SEO ranking of the store on Google as it does not rank “myshopify.com” URLs well 
or favorably.  
 

 
 
So, the absolute first thing you want to do once you’ve activated your store is to 
get yourself a ​custom domain name! 
 
I highly recommend ​Bluehost​ for this as I’ve used them time and time again for 
custom domain names and web hosting. Not only does Bluehost provide free 
domain names on their package, they also provide WordPress webhosting, which 
gives you the ability to create and start a powerful blog, exactly like my blog 
www.ethanzeng.com​ – and there’s plenty of perks to hosting a content blog in 
terms of marketing strategy for your Shopify store. But anyway, this content 
strategy is a whole different topic.   
 
Click here for a limited time Bluehost offer​, which includes a discounted rate of 
only $3.95 a month, free domain name, website builder and full support. 
 
Which Theme Should I Use? 

Yet another extremely common question I receive and a good question to be fair. 
Themes do lay the initial foundation of your store and if you’ve ever watched my 
other videos​ you’ll know just how much I stress the importance of the appearance 
of your store. Compared to Amazon FBA where Amazon not only owns your data 
but also owns the entire platform you sell on so there’s very little customisation, 
Shopify dropshipping allows you to completely customise your store to the tee.  
  
So, there are a few options when it comes to selecting a theme:  
1. Free Shopify Themes  
2. Paid Shopify Themes  
3. Paid Third-Party Themes  
4. Custom Build  
 
If you’re on a budget, the free themes will serve you well and on this, if you’re 
going down the ​Print on Demand route​ and simply selling a handful of designs 
over hoodies, t-shirts etc. you can get away with the clean “Simple” theme until 
you branch out with your products.  
 
Otherwise for larger product collections, I do always recommend the “Venture” 
theme, which is rather popular. I’ve had multiple stores run on this theme and it 
has always worked a charm. 
 

 
 
On the other hand, if this is your second, third or fourth Shopify store or you’re a 
marketer and you know what you’re doing then I’d recommend a paid option. 
Reason being, the more your store looks unique and does NOT look like every 
other dropshipping store, the better for your brand and sale conversions.  
 
If you have the budget but not the expertise, I highly recommend hiring a creative 
designer to create and build your store from scratch. This will allow you to 
achieve an advanced and potentially complex store to your exact liking.  
 
At the end of the day, don’t get too bogged down in the theme if you’re 
undecided. The most important thing is to ​just do ​rather than procrastinate.  

2.Selecting a Niche & Products

Beginners often overcomplicate niche and product selection, overwhelmed by 
the number of choices out there. Now, I’m going to share a small secret of mine 
when it comes to selecting a niche and product.  
 
There’s a Shopify-approved tool that I utilise as a “spy tool” and best of all, it’s 
completely free to use. This tool reveals incredible and authentic Shopify data on 
specific stores including the revenue/profit break down, marketing strategies the 
store has used, the themes they’ve purchased etc.  
 
The tool I’m referring to, is ​Shopify Exchange​. Usually only used to sell, flip and 
buy Shopfiy stores, many oversee the extremely useful data it holds. If you head 
over the website you’ll know exactly what I mean by the amazing amount of data 
the platform provides to inform your niche and product selection.  
Get yourself familiar with the platform and use it as a spy tool. Filter down the 
stores on sale, take a look at the data and inform your decision that way. It’s the 
perfect tool for conventional dropshipping and print on demand stores! Be sure 
to also check back on a daily basis as the stores are being updated hourly with 
new stores popping up and old stores being sold.  
 
Check out the free video tutorial I’ve created on leveraging the Shopify Exchange 
platform to find your ideal niche and products here – ​The FREE & POWERFUL 
Shopify Store Spy Tool – Products, Niches, Profit and MORE!​.  
 
Finding Products – AliExpress?

If you’re a complete beginner to the world of dropshipping - and I’m assuming 

you are if you’re reading this! - then your best bet with product selection is on 
AliExpress.  
 
What is ​AliExpress​? It’s essentially a giant Chinese marketplace with a wide 
selection of products from socks to canoes and everything you can imagine in 
between. AliExpress makes it extremely convenient to find products to sell on 
your store without having to worry about buying physical inventory upfront or 
shipping. 
 
So, AliExpress is the usual path of choice for the vast majority of beginners, if not 
all beginners. But again, I’ll let you in on a useful advanced tip – AliExpress isn’t 
the be all or end all of dropshipping vendors. You need to realise dropshipping is 
a business model, you can dropship from literally any vendor as long as they 
agree to the set up, dropshipping isn’t simply “AliExpress dropshipping”.  
 
Here’s the secret so many people overlook in the game. You can literally dropship 
from eBay, Amazon and DHGate and they have many perks over AliExpress, most 
importantly cutting shipping times by over a half. The only thing AliExpress has 
over the aforementioned options is the fact that it is the most accessible and the 
prices are usually the cheapest. 
 
Dropshipping from eBay, Amazon and DHGate allows you to:  
● Select products from a wider range, often of higher quality  
● Cuts shipping times dramatically (the most important point)  
● Shop from a credible and local address 
 
If you’re interested, again I’ve created a free video tutorial on the alternate 
AliExpress options, which you can find here: ​AliExpress Dropshipping Alternatives 
– FAST Delivery & BEST Product Quality!  
 

3.Fulfilment Automation
If you’re going down the path of dropshipping with AliExpress, then I highly 
recommend downloading ​Oberlo as a free app on Shopify​. Oberlo is essentially 
an app that makes importing products and fulfilling products (once your 
customers begin to order) so easy!  
 

 
 
It’s the perfect dropshipping partner for beginners and I’d go as far as to say a 
must-have, especially when it’s free. Go ahead and download the app once you’ve 
installed Shopify and additionally, the Google Chrome plugin so you’re able to 
import AliExpresss products with a click of a button.  
 
If you’re thinking of dropshipping from eBay, Amazon or DHGate, then this is a 
little more complicated. At the time of writing, there’s no piece of software that 
supports fulfilment and product import for these platforms.  
 
If you start to see high amount of orders from the three aforementioned 
platforms, the only viable way to manage these orders at scale is to hire a virtual 
assistant to manually fulfil the orders on a daily basis. I’ve kept a spreadsheet of 
daily orders I pull from Shopify and then send it on to the VA to be ordered. It’s 
not as simple but it does the trick and saves me hours from my day to focus on 
my business.  
 
Now is the fun part, go ahead and fill out your store with your favorite products, 
deck out and design your store! Once this is done, get ready to open your doors 
to the world and begin your path ​towards total passive income.   
 4.Optimising Your Store
 
Why Optimising Your Store is Important 

So now you’re on the right track, one of the most important aspects to a 
beginner’s strategy is optimising your store so it has the best possible chance to 
convert and increase sales. 
 
Other than selecting products and marketing strategies, making sure your 
shopfront is the best it can be before pushing a whole load of traffic on to the 
store is critical – I can’t stress this enough. Many YouTube “gurus” have said in the 
past the look and feel of your store doesn’t matter as long as you select the right 
niche and product, but this just IS NOT true. 
 
Your shopfront is one of the most important and useful aspects of Shopify 
Dropshipping, why do you think huge brands like ASOS or Apple have squeaky 
clean and appealing websites? Why do spend literally millions of dollars 
employing specialists to manage the website and update it daily? Your store look 
is SO IMPORTANT.

 
Quick Tricks to Optimise Your Store Today!  

So of course, I’m not going to tell you how important optimising your store is and 
not show you how!   
So, I thought I’d share a few tips on things you should change (if you haven’t 
already of course) on your ​Shopify store​ to immediately improve your conversion 
percentage. I’ve labelled these out below, but have also uploaded a video if you’d 
like a more in-depth run through – ​3 Fast Tricks To Increase Shopify Sales​. 

Generally, these changes focus on store trust and credibility, but have a pretty 
big impact. Personally when I first started off, I made the below changes and saw 
an increase of roughly five or so additional sales per day. Quite profitable 
especially if your Average Sales Price is high. 

Removing “Shipping and Taxes Calculated At Checkout

* In your Shopify Admin search panel, search for “Language” 

* Scroll down and search for “Manage Checkout Language” 

* Click on the “Cart” tab at the top of the page 

* Scroll down and find the sentence, either deleting it or altering it. 

Psychologically, customers do not like seeing a potential fee on top of the 

product cost after they’ve added the product to cart. Personally, I like running 
free shipping campaigns, so I found success in changing the line to “FREE 
Shipping Included”, which obviously gives them further incentive to proceed to 
the next step, checkout and ultimately convert. 

Removing Order Notes

* Find “Theme Settings” in your Shopify admin panel 

* Click on “Settings” 

* Click on “Cart” in the left-hand side theme pane 

* Uncheck “Order Notes” 

NB: This may vary in certain Shopify themes 

Unless you’re in a business wherein notes are required before purchase eg. SAAS, 
I’d recommend removing this box all together as again, it’s an unnecessary item 
that may deter the customer from converting. The cleaner and simpler the 
checkout process, the better. 

Removing “Powered by Shopify

* From your Shopify admin panel, go to “Online Store” 

* Go to “Themes” 

* Click “Actions > Edit Code” 

* In the sections folder, open the footer.liquid file 

* Ctrl + F and search for {{ powered_by_link }}, or just search “powered” 

* Delete the tag. 

Simple one but keeps the website looking professional and standalone. It also 
links out to Shopify’s website , which is great for Shopify but not for our business. 

Adding Trust Badges to Product Page

* From your Shopify admin panel, go to “Online Store” 

* Go to “Themes” 

* Click “Actions > Edit Code” 

* In the sections folder, open the “Product Template Liquid File” 

* Find “addtocart”, usually at line 100 or so depending on your template file 

* Below this piece of code, you want to add your trust seal image hosted on 
CDN/Cloudfront. I’ve uploaded a specific piece of code with the image hosted 
already, which you can find in the YouTube video description (linked above) and 
copy paste. 
Side note, be sure not to overload the site with trust badges either. I’ve seen 
stores with trust badges littered all over the screen and it looks very unappealing 
and ironically, more dodgy than ever! 

Customising ATC Button

From your Shopify admin panel, go to “Online Store” 

* Go to “Themes” 

* Click “Actions > Edit Code” 

* In the sections folder, open the “theme.scss.liquid” file 

* Ctrl + F and find “Link and Button Styles” – do note certain themes name this 
section differently such as the Supply theme, so you’ll need to do some digging 
around for the section 

* At the bottom of this section, just before the next section, type the following in: 

Code: 
 
#AddToCart { 

width: 380px; 

} 

* Note: A hashtag should be included before “AddToCart” (couldn’t insert it due to 
Reddit Markdown formatting). Also, the “380”px should be altered to properly fit 
your own store layout. 

This one’s often missed even when trust badges are added to the product page. 
It’s essential to change the size of the ATC button in order for it to remain a focal 
point of the product page as we obviously want as many customers to click on 
this. 
Also worth adding trust badges to the header and checkout header by editing 
your logo in Photoshop and adding in trust badges manually.  

Like I said, it may be tough to follow on so I’ve made a free video tutorial to 
guiding you through the above step by step – ​3 Fast Tricks To Increase Shopify 
Sales​. 

5.Extra Resources!  
Looking for a Mentor?  

So there we have it, I’ve given you all the tools to kickstart your dropshipping 
adventure and it’s now up to you to put in the hard yards and late nights to 
create passive income while you sleep – it truly is a potential reality.  
 
What I’ve given you above is the basics and keep in mind, the dropshipping game 
is complex unlike many who say otherwise. It requires a lot of marketing expertise 
to execute correctly and to build a long term asset.  
 
I also know how tough it is to find a suitable mentor when first starting out. 
There’s only a small pool of relevant, reliable and legitimate mentors for each 
niche and getting a slice of their time is a tough challenge. I’ve been asked 
countless times to mentor someone or someone’s project and that’s why I’ve set 
up a ​mentorship program.​ This is perfect for the beginners who’re just starting 
out or the experienced dropshippers who’re looking to scale or direction from an 
established digital marketing expert.  
 
On top of this, I’ve put together a ​free resources page​ on my website with my 
recommendations on tools and other useful elements to help you on your 
dropshipping adventure. 
 
Free Webinar – Learn to Create Marketing Funnels

Marketing funnels is arguably one of the most important techniques you’ll learn. 
It’s the difference between a good marketer and a ​great ​marketer. Funnels will 
allow you to ‘funnel’ your potential buyers across a range of platforms in a 
seamless journey to maximise profits.   
 
Now, this is a whole beast in itself and it’s definitely a crucial element of 
dropshipping or any campaign related to marketing, so a webinar I recommend 
is the ​Funnels Hack Webclass​ and once again, the best thing is it’s completely 
free. Be sure to check it out if you’re keen to invest in yourself and learn more 
before starting. 
 
Keep In Touch or Have Feedback?

YouTube: ​www.youtube.com/c/ethanzeng
Instagram: ​www.instagram.com/ethan.zeng
Website: ​www.ethanzeng.com
Email: ​ethanzeng.co@gmail.com

______ 

Copyright © 2018 by Ethan Zeng. All rights reserved. This e-book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced 
or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of 
brief quotations in a book review.  

First Printing, 2018 

www.EthanZeng.com