The Story of a First-Time eCommerce Entrepreneur - From Zero to $1M in 8 Months [Irwin Dominguez]

That’s the top recommendation of one of the most successful Oberlo‘s user Irwin Dominguez from San Diego, California. Irwin started his dropshipping business early this year and has already topped $1,000,000 in sales.

Dominguez strongly believes that if he had started even just one year earlier, his sales would have grown much higher. “There just wouldn’t be so much competition,” says Irwin. But he agrees that there are still plenty of opportunities.

With the correct mindset and a little bit of creativity, anything is possible. “I can’t find a reason why people don’t try themselves in eCommerce. With all the technology it costs no money to get started and it can’t be any simpler. You literally have nothing to lose. And I’m surprised people don’t use this to their benefit.” argues Dominguez.

Tell us how did you get started in dropshipping eCommerce?
A very good friend of mine started doing it a few months before I even heard of it. When he started telling me the numbers he was putting up, it made me want to try cashing in on the opportunity.

I literally just opened a Shopify account, created my store, added a few dropshipped products with Oberlo and that’s it. I didn’t do a lot of reading or researching because I always try to learn by doing. Dropshipping requires very little capital and allows you to experiment a lot. And this is what I love about it the most.

I do have to admit, though, that I Google a lot of questions that come up as I’m learning while doing.
 
What were you doing before?
Before dropshipping I was a local marketing consultant helping landscapers and plastic surgeons find more customers on the Internet.

And just for the record, I don’t miss local consulting ONE BIT.

Do you remember your first sale or where it came from?
Yeah, it came just 3 days after my store launch. Like most of my site traffic, it came from Facebook Ads.

Honestly, I wasn’t super-excited. I was doing Facebook Ads and somehow expected I would eventually receive an order. Also, spending way too much on ads to get that first sale deflated any first-order “high” I might have felt.

What was your experience with Facebook Ads before? How did you learn it?I have dabbled with Facebook advertising over the years but never really “tried” until recently. Now, I can’t live without it!

The most difficult part for me was actually getting started running Facebook ads — I’ve listened to so many webinars and read so many blog posts over the years, but never really focused on Facebook ads until I got started with Dropshipping. I told myself this time around that I had to change my attitude about it and in just a few short months I feel like a brand new person. I believe this is the biggest reason I experienced success with Facebook advertising. I’m so glad I didn’t give up!

Facebook is awesome because the targeting is super-awesome. It just takes time to crack the code so your earnings cover the advertising costs.

What keeps you motivated?
My inspiration is my wife — I wouldn’t be doing the things I’m doing if it wasn’t for her. I have a really down-to-earth approach of making a living. I’m not chasing luxury cars or glitzy mansions, I just want to provide for my family so we never worry about money and so my wife doesn’t need to work if she doesn’t want to.

What is your sales-per-day record?
What are your revenues? The record was around $30,000 in one day, I hit it while scaling a hot selling product. Current revenues right now are around $10,000 per day, but I hope I will get it back up shortly.

There are always ups and downs. You find a target audience that loves your product, but eventually you reach them all and have to look for another audience or offer them another product. Especially in small businesses, that search takes time and creates sales fluctuations.
 
If you started all over again, what would you do differently?
Have processes in place as soon as you can. You should usually start thinking about them just after validating your product idea and making a few sales.

The beauty of the internet is you can sell to most people on the planet right now, and if you find the right offer and right audience you can generate a lot of sales quickly — something I was able to experience, but because I wasn’t ready for the flood of orders we received we messed up a lot of orders and made a lot of customers upset. So try and have your processes in place as soon as possible.
 
What’s your top recommendation to new store-owners?
If I started eCommerce all over again, I would start sooner. I waited a full month-and-a-half after my good friend told me about his success. It costs no money to launch a store and it’s so “simple” to get started with all the technology available right now — just get started, you literally have nothing to lose.

Opportunity, yes — I wish I started this earlier because if I were doing this even just one year earlier, there would’ve been a lot less competition; I would’ve made a lot more money; and I could have established myself in other niches. But overall, there are still plenty of opportunities — you just have to be a little more creative with marketing.