Digit Clicks

How to Make a Real Estate Listing Video Using Content Samurai

July 16, 2019July 15, 2019 by Darren

Hey, its Darren.

Google is always updating their algorithms which makes SEO more difficult to gain traction especially if you’re new to digital marketing space.

However, there are other methods of generating more traffic. This can be accomplished by video marketing.

In today’s post, I will show you how you can Content Samurai to create your own real estate listing videos quickly.

If you’re a real estate agent, you can use these videos to promote your business and market your listings on your social media profiles.

Video is becoming more popular and it’s a quick way to grab your audience’s attention when they’re scrolling through their newsfeeds.

Let’s dive in!

How to Create a Real Estate Listing Video using Content Samurai

Step 1

Find a real estate listing to use for your video.

Most real estate listings will include images and copy which you can easily add to Content Samurai.

Step 2

From the dashboard, click Create A New Video.

On the left side panel, click Property listing video.

You will now see all the templates you can use on the right side of your screen.

You can also choose between the standard landscape template or squared template for social media platforms.

Clicking on a template thumbnail will show you a demo video.

For this demonstration, I will use the square template.

Just click on the template and then hit the Use This Template button to get started.

Step 3

Now, from the property listing, just highlight the copy and paste it into the text field in Content Samurai.

You can also enter a title for your video.

Tip: Make sure each sentence is on a new line. This will tell the app to start a new slide.

Once you’re done, click Edit Scenes.

Step 4

Content Samurai will automatically add their own media files. We don’t want to use this so we will upload our own content.

Head back to the property listing and save the images directly onto your desktop.

In Content Samurai, click on the Uploads tab > Images.

You can click Upload Image or drag them into the Drop Images Here.

Step 5

Now it’s the fun part.

Once the images have finished uploading, you can select which images you would like to use in each scene.

You can also adjust the color and position of the text.

Clicking the Grid will show you the position of the text.

For this example, I changed the text highlight color by simply using the color picker tool.

You can also edit the Transition effect by clicking the checkered icon.

Once you have finished, click Add Voice Track To Your Video.

Step 6

This next step is optional.

You can add a music clip to the video and also an automated voice to read the text of each slide.

If you don’t like how the automated voice sounds, you can record your own voice over as long as you have a high-quality microphone.

For this demonstration, I’ll just add music only.

Hit Preview Your Video when you’re done.

Step 7

If you have a business logo, you can upload it and it will automatically display on each scene.

For this demo, I made a quick logo to show you how easy it is to add a watermark to your video.

You can also adjust the scale and opacity of the watermark.

Positioning is very easy by simply dragging the logo with the mouse.

Hit Save Watermark when you’re happy with the settings.

If you find each scene are playing too slow, you can adjust the scene timer.

You can also use our own music track by clicking on the My Music tab and Upload Music from your desktop.

For this video demo, I will stick to the default music tracks supplied by Content Samurai.

While previewing, if you noticed there’s an error on one of the scenes, you can hit the Scenes tab on the left side panel.

This will allow you to edit each scene directly without adjusting the script again.

Once you’re happy with everything, click Looks Good, Continue…

Step 8

Now you should see a Generate Your Video button.

Click that button and the Content Samurai app will start rendering your video.

This may take a few minutes.

Sometimes the app may freeze, just hit refresh on your browser and it should restart the rendering process again, but this time it won’t freeze.

Step 9

Once the video has finished rendering, you will see Download Your Video button.

Click that button and save your video.

Now you’re all done! How easy was that? Within a few minutes, we have video content that we can use to promote on our social media profiles.

Conclusion

So what do you think about Content Samurai? Pretty cool right?

Within a few minutes, we have made a professional real estate listing video.

I have uploaded the demo video for you to check out just to prove that this app works.

You can even make these videos for other local businesses in your area such as coffee shops, hairdressers, child care centers etc…

It’s a great side hustle to make some extra money which you can use to invest back into your affiliate marketing or dropshipping business.

⇒ If you’re interested in Content Samurai, you can check out my in depth review here.

⇒ You can also sign up to a 7-day free trial here.

15 Common Dropshipping Mistakes and How to Avoid Them as a Beginner

July 3, 2019July 3, 2019 by Darren

1. Do your research with paid advertising

For many dropshipping beginners, you will be focused on using Facebook ads to drive traffic to your store. It’s important to understand the different campaigns, adets and objectives.

When I first started dropshipping, I made the mistake of setting up my Facebook Ads campaign objective around Traffic.

I was getting a significant number of visitors to my store each day.

I was spending $20 a day even scaling my budget to $50 a day to see if I can make a small return just to break even at this point.

However, I did not make a single sale… Why is that?

The traffic that was coming from Facebook wasn’t targeted at people who are actively shopping online. I was literally pouring money down the drain and feeding Facebook’s wallet.

I recommend playing around with the Facebook ads dashboard to familiarize yourself with the platform before investing your money in paid ads.

YouTube and blog articles are great resources to educate yourself. Keep your budget small if you’re a beginner.

To be successful with paid ads, you will have to test, test and test to find out what works best for you.

You can increase your ad budget when you scale winning ad sets.

2. Selling Tradmarked Products

Selling trademarked products on your store is a recipe for disaster.

There are hundreds of products you can find on Aliexpress with Star Wars, Rick and Morty and Harry Potter designs and branding.

These products are much easier to sell since the brands are already established with a passionate fan base.

However, selling these trademarked products on your store may get you into some trouble.

When I first started out with dropshipping, I use to sell anime related products that were trademarked on my store.

Things were going well until Shopify payments, Stripe, PayPal and Facebook banned me from using their services. Just like that, I was wiped out.

Even though making sales was easy, it’s really not worth the headache. At the time, it was very unfortunate but it was a great lesson learnt.

An easy way for beginners to find products to sell is to look for products that are problem solvers.

3. Always Test New Ads

Facebook is constantly being updated with new ways to display ads on their platform.

Testing new ads will help optimize your adsets to find what works best for your store and your customers. It also keeps your brand fresh by using new ad creatives.

Have a look at small and big brands to find inspiration. Analyze their copywriting and visual elements. Are people commenting, sharing and liking the ad?

Right now, if you check your Facebook feed and engage with an ad, I guarantee you will see a different version of that ad targeting you again.

That’s because they are constantly trying new ads to see what makes the most ROI.

Knowing which ads works best for your customers will allow you to make better decisions when you invest in paid advertising.

4. Wrong Expectations

Most dropshipping beginners expect to make thousands of dollars by running $5 Facebook adsets.

I’m not going to lie, I thought it was going to be easy at the start but I was wrong.

Dropshipping is a business and you will have to treat it like a real business to see the right results.

Many marketing gurus make dropshipping sound easy so that people will buy their courses.

The hard truth is, most of these gurus don’t make their money from dropshipping but from selling people their courses.

There’s a saying, when there is a gold rush, sell shovels.

5. Giving up to soon

Similar to the previous point, if you have the wrong expectations from the start, you are setting yourself up for disappointment.

Many beginners give up too early in their dropshipping journey and claim dropshipping is a scam or its “dead”.

There can be a variety of reasons why your store isn’t converting the way you want it to. It can also be your ad sets and how your marketing your products.

To make any business work, whether its a traditional brick and mortar or online store, you will have to focus, be determined and persistent in order to achieve success.

6. Spending too much time deciding between a general and niche store

There’s going to be mixed opinions about starting with a general store versus a niche store.

If you’re a beginner, I highly recommend you start off with a general store so that you have the opportunity to test multiple products from different niches.

Once you find a winning product, you can branch out and start another store around that niche.

This is where you can scale your dropshipping business by ordering in bulk and letting a fulfillment center process your orders.

As a result, you will have your own branded products and more control over shipping times.

7. Know your audience

Understanding who your customers are will help you target the right people who would benefit the most from purchasing your products or services.

Knowing these small details about your customers will help you create marketing content that resonates with their pain points thus easier to convert them on your store.

This also helps with lowering your adspend when your ads are placed in front of the right people.

8. Poor customer support

This is a common problem I see many dropshippers fail to get right.

They are too focused with making sales and ignore their customers who are asking questions or making a complaint about their recent order.

If you have a Facebook page for your store, please communicate with your customers like talking to a friend and avoid copying and pasting your product page URL when it’s not relevant to the customers enquiry.

9. Having the wrong mindset

I get it, you started a dropshipping business to make money. But if you’re constantly chasing the money, you will eventually burn out and lose interest in your business.

Use your dropshipping business as an opportunity to help solve your customers’ pain points. Promote high quality products and be passionate about your customer service.

When I changed my mindset from wanting to make money to helping and providing value for my customers, it kept me motivated and more focused with my dropshipping business.

10. Find trustworthy suppliers

There are thousands of suppliers on Aliexpress and it can be a bit overhwelming finding the right ones to rely on.

Don’t make the mistake of choosing any supplier and finding out later they haent shipped out your customers orders or become silent when you try to contact them.

Here are a few things I look for when selecting a vendor or supplier to work with:

Are they responsive to your questions?
Are the products high quality? (Check past customer reviews or order the product to test for yourself just to make sure)
Do they ship on time and honor their refund and return policy?
How old is their store and what is their overall rating?
Do they have high quality images?
Do they have related products for upsells?

It’s always a good idea to build a relationship with your supplier so that you can do business with them long term. You can also negotiate prices and even faster shipping times.

11. Be clear with your Shipping and Handling details

Its important to display your shipping and handling times throughout your store and product pages.

You don’t want a customer to freak out when they haven’t received their order in a few days.

Being transparent and upfront will reduce the number of emails from ing from angry customers asking about their package.

You can offer your customers a flat rate shipping price to make it easier for you and your customers.

12. Not enough branding

You want your brand to be seen throughout your store to increase brand loyalty and retain more customers long term.

Avoid using colors or fonts that does not match your branding. I have seen many stores use bright fluro colors with fonts that make is very difficult to read text on their store.

Make sure you have a high quality logo on your homepage and checkout page to ensure your brand is seen throughout the shopping experience.

Some suppliers also offer custom packaging and branded packing slips printed with your logo.

You can also send a follow up email to say thank you and ask the customer to fill out a survey about their shopping experience.

13. Supplier Marketing Material

When a customer places an order on your store, it is your duty to make sure you process the order as soon as possible to avoid any delays.

One thing you should not forget is to leave a little note for the supplier to not include their own marketing material when they ship your customers package.

You don’t want to confuse your customers or raise any red flags when they open up their package.

14. Not optimizing for Mobile

Many beginners focus on optimizing their store on desktop but forget to optimize for mobile devices.

They often use images that are too big which takes forever to load on smaller devices. Let’s not forget about the plugins and extra apps that need to load every time a user refreshes the page.

Since you will be using Facebook to run ads, most of your customers will be viewing your store on mobile.

If you’re on a budget at the start you can opt of a free Shopify theme that works pretty decent for both desktop and mobile.

But if you have some extra cash, I highly recommend investing in a premium theme and I guarantee it will make a huge difference in improving your store’s user experience on desktop and mobile.

Most premium themes include marketing plugins that will help you save money long-term compared to using a standard theme and installing apps which you have to pay a monthly fee to use.

This can quickly add up and affect your profits.

15. Be clear with your refund and return policy

Be organized and have a system in place to handle refunds and returns. It’s important to work with trustworthy suppliers and selecting high quality products to minimize your returns and refund rate.

You can state in your store’s policy that you do not offer any returns on items that are on sale.

If they are very unsatisfied with their purchase, just refund their money, no questions asked.

Sometimes you will have to take a loss and move on as it’s not worth dealing with an aggressive customer.

15 Side Hustle Ideas To Make You Extra Money In 2019

July 3, 2019July 3, 2019 by Darren

One of the best ways to earn some extra cash is a side hustle.

Side hustles can help improve your finances since they do not require large, upfront investments or specialized skills to start.

For example, I was able to pay off my credit card debt by buying and flipping items on eBay for a profit.

In today’s post, I have compiled a list of 15 side hustle ideas which you can help you make some extra money.

Side Hustle Ideas to Make Extra Money From Home

1. Amazon Flex

amazon-flex

If you don’t mind driving, you can consider becoming a delivery partner with Amazon Flex.

With Amazon Flex, you get to work around your own schedule. You can make up to $18 to $25 delivering packages for Amazon.

All you need is your own transportation and a smartphone to install the Amazon flex app.

Pros

You get to choose when you work.
Flexible hours

Cons

Wear and tear on your car
Delivering to apartments with gates and gated communities can be challenging.
High chance of being chased by dogs
Weather conditions
Support is only available through email

2. Charging Scooters

recharging-scooters

The next gig involves picking up scooters and recharging them.

If you live in the right place, this is something anyone can do. The two most popular scooter brands are Bird and Lime.

For Bird, they can pay you between $3 to $30 per scooter. The pay rate will be based on when the scooter was last charged and becomes available again.

With Lime, they will pay you $5 per scooter. It may seem like a small amount, but over time the money will add up.

If you live in a city with many scooters available, one way to recharge them is to collect them on your way home from work, charge them over night and drop them off on the way to work.

You will need a smartphone to install the app to find available scooters to pick up and recharge. If you have a large vehicle, you can pick up as many scooters as you like.

Pros

Flexible with your work schedule.
Chargers are similar to the ones we use for laptops. They are interchangeable with different companies.
Small costs of recharging a scooter
Scooters are eco-friendly.

Cons

Wear and tear on your car
Hoarders can make it difficult for you to find scooters

3. Providing a service locally (e.g car washing, car detailing, mowing lawns)

local-service

Do you have skills in certain areas that can be used to help others solve their problems?

For example, I see one person in a Facebook group about cars advertising his car detailing business. The best part about this marketing method is it’s for free. he pays $0 and has access to a niche with passionate people.

How much you can earn really depends on your skills and experience. In the beginning, you might have to charge people a bit less to get your foot through the door.

It’s a great way to build your own brand and also make money doing what you love.

Pros

Get paid for doing what you love and good at
Great way to develop a brand locally
You can set your work schedule

Cons

Depending on your expertise, you may have to invest some money in tools and a vehicle for transportation.
Can take some time to find customers and establish a brand

4. Flipping items on eBay

selling-on-ebay

The next side hustle idea has been around for ages. This is one of my favorite methods of making some extra cash on the side.

You can go to garage sales or thrift stores to find items people want and list them on eBay for a profit.

There’s a small community of full-time eBay resellers on YouTube who teaches their audience about flipping items.

You can also use the Facebook marketplace to find items locally which you can pick up and resell.

The amount of money you can earn will depend on the items you list. You will have to take calculate your expenses which include packaging material, shipping costs, and eBay fees.

Overall, eBay is a trusted marketplace and the traffic is already there. All you can start off with selling items lying around your house which you don’t need. It’s a great way for you to learn how to sell things online.

Pros

Anyone can sign up to eBay and start selling today. User-friendly interface.
Great for introverts (like me!)
Develop skills for running your own business. You will have to package, ship and answer customer inquiries.
Fees are not as high as Amazon

Cons

Can be time-consuming. You will have to source products, take pictures and list them on eBay
Scams can happen from time to time. A customer will receive their product and claim they’ve received an incorrect item and make a claim with PayPal.
There is a learning curve when you’re first starting out but it gets quite easy over time.
Selling items does take some time. Certain products may sell faster.
Customer service and dealing with negative feedback.

5. Dropshipping – E-commerce Business

dropshipping-e-commerce (1)

Dropshipping is another side hustle you can consider. As a dropshipper, you are the middle man who connects a customer to a supplier.

The beauty with the dropshipping model is you do not have to worry about an inventory or warehousing costs. All you have to do is create an e-commerce website and send traffic to your offers.

How much you earn will depend on how much money and time you want to invest.

Dropshipping can be side hustle or scaled up to a full-time business.

To start a dropshipping side hustle, all you need is just a laptop and an internet connection.

There is a learning curve in the beginning and will take some time to get use to the tools and software you will need.

You’re most likely a one-man team and will be required of doing many tasks and learn new skills along the way.

If you’re interested with learning how to start your own dropshipping business, click here to read my eCom Elites review.

Pros

Minimum upfront costs (domain name, website, internet connection and a desktop/laptop)
You don’t have to worry about inventory and warehousing expenses.
There are many great business skills you can develop with running your own e-commerce business.
Many tasks can be outsourced.
Potential of developing a long term brand.

Cons

You will need some money to spend on paid ads to drive traffic.
There is a learning curve and you will be required to develop new skills.
You don’t have control over product quality and shipping times.

6. Renting out your car

renting-out-car

The next side hustle is kind of like Airbnb for cars. Instead of renting out a spare room, you are renting out a car instead.

If your household has multiple cars, you can make use of the ones that don’t get driven as much by renting them out to other people.

You can use a peer to peer service like Turo to list your car. The amount of money you can earn from renting out your car will vary.

You will have to make sure your car is well maintained and kept clean.

Pros

Rent out your can to make extra money when you’re not using it.
You can choose who can rent your car.
Services like Turo provides insurance for your car.

Cons

If your car becomes totaled or stolen it is possible you won’t see your car for an extended period.
Increase costs in car maintenance and wear and tear.

7. Online Chat Support

chat-support

Providing customer service online. You can work from home as long as you have access to a computer and internet connection.

You can up to $9 to $18 depending on the company and you will have to be able to type quickly with little error.

Pros

You can work almost anywhere as long as you have an internet connection.
Schedule is flexible
No commute to and from work

Cons

Be ready to deal with rude people
You may have to work an odd shift

8. Food delivery e.g Ubereats

uber-eats

The next side hustle idea is becoming more popular around the globe with more people ordering food online.

You can sign up and become a delivery partner with Uber or other similar food delivery services.

How much you can earn will vary from different companies. Depending on the location you live, this can be a great side hustle you can do in your spare time.

If you like to drive, you can use your car or if you like to save some gas money, a motorcycle or bicycle can do the job as well.

Pros

You can work your own hours and decide how many times a day you want to work.
There is no limit to the hours you drive.
There is no limit to how long you work for UberEats. The contract is an independent contractor, so you are not an UberEats employee, and as long as your ratings are high, you will continue to work for them for as long as you decide.
You don’t have a boss or supervisor
Pay can be instant depending on the company your representing.
Learn how to navigate the city
Referral bonuses, when you add a customer or driver, you get a cash bonus, usually a discount of $5 for the first order, and you also get a discount, so it’s worthwhile using your referral code as often as possible.

Cons

The Uber fee is taken off your income
Waiting times at restaurants: you still have to wait for the food to be prepared and packaged. You also have to check to see if the order is full and correct and make sure there are condiments and utensils.
factor in depreciation, gas and other yearly costs for maintaining a car
You are not allowed to take tips
you have to deal with weird locations and finding a door in a building complex
Dealing with traffic

9. Private Parking Space – Kerb

renting-out-car

Do you have space in your front yard that you don’t use and would like to make some extra cash?

Well, you can consider renting out space on your driveway that doesn’t get much use.

This is a side hustle anyone can do since it’s so easy!

If you live in a certain area that is close to the train station or airport, this gig maybe for you.

There are people who are looking to park conveniently close to their workplace or spectators who need to park near to a concert or entertainment venue.

Depending on where you live, different rental agencies will offer different pay rates.

Pros

Can potentially make good money for little effort
No big investment required before you start earning
You don’t necessarily need to be at home when the tenant arrives
Helps relieve pressure on street parking in heavily congested areas
less intrusive and personal than letting a room or space inside your home
You are performing a useful public service by helping to meet the demand for parking
Flexible pricing means you can compete with commercial car parks and still turn a healthy profit

Cons

Your parking space may not be suitable
Possible home insurance and/or mortgage complications
Rental spots in low-demand areas may not be very profitable
If access is restricted, you may need to be available to give tenants entry
You won’t be able to use the space yourself while it is being used by a customer
You need to regularly monitor bookings, and respond to communications and queries

10. Freelancing e.g Writing content

freelancing-upwork

Helping others with your specialized skills is a great way to generate some extra cash on the side.

You can sign up to platforms like Fiverr and Upwork and list your services as a freelancer.

The best part about freelancing is the opportunity to do what you love and get paid for it.

Pros

Flexible schedule, hours and location
You are the boss in control
You can select and choose clients you like to work with
Unlimited earning potential
No commute or commuting costs
Getting to pursue your passion projects
No office politics or annual performance reviews
Casual work attire
Learning new skills with running your freelance business
variety of projects and clients

Cons

Hustling for new gigs
Inconsistent work and cash flow
Juggling multiple clients
Answering to multiple clients
No paid time off, no maternity/paternity leave
No company-sponsored health benefits
No one to back you up if you’re sick or injured
Running every business aspect
Feeling scattered/unfocused and lacking structure

11. Rent-a-friend

rent-a-friend

Did you know you can rent a friend? This side hustle is great for those who are outgoing and adventurous.

If you have some spare time and would like to meet new people, you can rent out your time at an hourly rate.

A website like rentafriend.com and can help you connect with others who are looking for friends to accompany them in social activities.

Pros

Opportunities to meet new people locally and from around the world.
As the person rented, you get to make money all the while having fun and exploring new places.
You can make long term friendships

Cons

You don’t know the person’s intention until you meet up with them.
As the person getting hired, your safety is not always assured.
Sometimes the needs the clients might be risky.

12. Domain Flipping

domain-flipping

Domain flipping is a money making method that involves purchasing domain names and then reselling the names for a profit. You can flip cars or even houses for a profit.

I recommend using a website like justdropped and sign up to their email list to be notified of domains that have recently expired which you can purchase and resell for a profit.

Domain flipping does take time to see returns and you will be required to spend some money to purchase these domains.

Depends on how much someone is willing to pay for the domain name. Some things you need to consider when purchasing a domain is things like the length of the domain name, age and authority and domain extension.All you need is an internet connection and some key skills when searching for domains to flip.

Cons

Time Consuming: This is the main challenge when it comes to domain flipping. You will need time to do research before purchasing any domains. As a domain flipper you will need patience and should not be expecting sales in the first few months. Some domains can take years to see a significant return on your investment.
Might Feel Discouraged: Domain flipping is not easy when you first start and not seeing any money in your bank account can be discouraging. Just be patient and stay focused on what you’re doing and you will see results, don’t quit.
It Involves Risk: Every online business involves risk. Some people buy domain names without even knowing who the buyer will be. Sometimes you might buy domains that violate trademarks or with bad back links which no one light be interested in. You can minimize your risk by setting up a good plan and strategy.
Consumes Cash: If you like eating pizza while working you might need to give it a halt when starting your flipping business. At the start you need to put in cash in buying domain and if possible getting some email marketing tool or auto responder for your promotions and campaigns. This is just for the start, no one like to be broke. With time you might get back to your usual life style if things are done the right way.
You are Likely to Make Many Mistakes: This is very common with newbies in the flipping business. Some common mistakes you can make as a domain flipper includes: Include buying many domains, buying the wring domain, selling at a cheaper rate and more. In the next part we will see some mistakes which you must avoid when it comes to flipping domains.

13. Pet Sitting

pet-sitting

Similar to babysitting, pet sitting is simply taking care of pets in their own home while their owner is away.

If you love being around animals, this side hustle is right down your alley!

Pros

Your pet gets to stay within the comfort of their own home and can stick to their everyday routine
Sitters can do the housesitting chores in addition to caring for the pet
Visits will be done on your requested schedule.
Pet is getting one-on-one attention and care.
Less risk for the pet to be exposed to contagious illnesses that may be lurking in a kennel.

Cons

The pet sitter will be in your home while you’re away. Make sure you choose a pet sitting company that thoroughly screens their sitters.
Could be stressful for pets that are used to having company throughout their day.

14. Rent out your place on Airbnb

air-bnb

If you have an investment property or a spare room you would like to generate some extra income, you can rent out your space on platforms like Airbnb.

These services make it easier for tenants to find accommodation when traveling.

Pros

More Flexibility: you can block off certain dates on your Airbnb calendar in case you’re not in town or on vacation, friends or family staying in town or you need to repair something and require a bit of time.
More Control: By listing your place on Airbnb, you can check on your home regularly to make sure your tenants do not cause any damage to your property. When a tenant makes a booking for your place, you will receive payment straight away.
More Income: It’s possible to make more money monthly compared to listing your place for rent traditionally. If you live in the right area with enough demand, you can make more money as a host on Airbnb compared to being a landlord.

Cons

Less Certainty: You’re not guaranteed to make a steady income each month.
Less Freedom: Depending on your lifestyle, you will have to dedicate some time to cleaning and preparing your place for the next tenants.
Less Early Profits: You will have to spend some money upfront to furnish your home and make it more welcoming for new guests.

15. Help someone with an odd task

help-with-odd-task

Similar to Uber, you can sign up to platforms like Airtasker or Taskrabbit that connects people who need help with completing a task with people who are ready to work.

Pros

Being your own boss and choosing when you want to work.
Negotiate how much you are paid for each task you complete.
You can decline certain tasks you do not want to do. However, canceling often can affect your account negatively.

Cons

Getting into contact with support can be challenging and time-consuming.
Hours can be limited to how much you can work.
Can be labor intensive.
More competition means a reduced amount of work you can find.

How to Invest Your First $1000 in 2019: 7 Ways to Make Passive Income

July 2, 2019July 2, 2019 by Darren

In today’s post, I will share with you 7 ways you can invest your first $1000 to make passive income in the future.

7 Ways You can Make Passive Income at Home

1. Financial Literacy

“The most important investment you can make is in yourself.” – Warren Buffet

First on the is financial literacy. You might be thinking, “why do I need to care about financial literacy?”.

You would be surprised with the number of people who do not understand about managing their finances and end up swimming in a sea of debt when they are adults.

As I started to reach my mid 20’s I was in a lot of debt which restricted my cash flow. I felt like I was stuck in the mud.

I wanted to use my hard earned money to invest in my side hustles but I couldn’t since I had to pay back my debt plus interest on top! Month after month it felt like this debt was never going to leave me.

I realised school did not teach me about saving money, distinguish between a need and a want, managing budgets, paying bills on time or planning for retirement.

Instead, they force you to learn subjects that have little value once you’re in the real adult world.

Financial literacy provides you with the information you need to adjust your lifestyle and help you create a roadmap for better financial decisions.

You can read books and blogs about managing your finances. Your local library is also a great source of information. Spend a day at your local library, you will be surprised at the content you can find for free.

You can also purchase ebooks from Amazon, online video courses and attend community college courses.

Watching videos on YouTube is a quick and cost effective way of educating yourself about finance.

Becoming a financially responsible adult will free you from debt and provide you with enough money for you to enjoy when you retire.

2. Blogging

You can start a blog for less than $100. All you need is a domain, hosting and a simple WordPress theme. It’s a great online business model to make money online for beginners.

Decide what niche you’re interested in. It will help if you’re passionate about the content you will be creating.

You will have to do some keyword research and find out what your audience’s pain points are and how you can add value and help solve their problems.

Overtime as your blog ranks in the search engines and traffic starts to come in, you can monetize your blog to make more money. If you don’t like to write your own content, I recommend outsourcing this task to freelancers on Upwork or iWriter.

Creating your own blog is super easy. You can check out my tutorial here.

Pros and Cons of Blogging

Advantages

Business Opportunity: You have the potential to monetise your blog and turn it into a full-time business.
Flexibility: You can work from anywhere as long as you have a laptop and an internet connection.
Purpose: If you have a business website or e-commerce store, adding a blog and consistently updating your blog with quality content will help search engines rank your website and attract more visitors.
Daily Journal: Great platform to document your journey and business.
Outreach: When you create informative and engaging posts, your visitors are more likely to share your content with their friends. In return, you will gain new followers and subscribers.

Disadvantages

Laziness: Having a flexible workplace can often lead to laziness if you’re not careful. It’s always a good idea to have a clean workspace free from clutter and remember to take regular breaks so you’re not indoors for long periods of time.
SEO: You will have to learn SEO and it does take time to master. There’s no point of creating amazing posts if no one is going to read them. Google is constantly changing their algorithms so its important to constantly learn new techniques to optimize your blog.
It’s a business: If you take your blog seriously and treat it as a business, you will be able to turn it into a full time business. It’s important to always optimize the user experience on your blog by making it easier for your audience to digest content. You want your audience to stay engaged with your content and keeps them coming back for more.
It takes time: Blogging is not a get rich quick scheme. To create a sustainable blog that will continuously make you money in the future will take time, patience and discipline. You will have to add value first by providing quality content which connects to your audience and then the money will follow eventually.

3. Start an e-commerce store

Another way of investing your first $1000 is starting your own e-commerce store.

But you’re probably thinking, “what do I sell and where do I find this stuff”?

If you’re a beginner you can do this two ways. The first method is to dropship products from a supplier individually or you can purchase items at wholesale.

For beginners who would like to sell stuff online, I recommend the dropshipping method.

E-commerce platforms like Shopify have made it super easy for beginners to set up their first store.

Pros and Cons of Dropshipping

Advantages

Low start-up costs: You only have to buy the items once you make a sale. Even if you didn’t have money to start off with, you can use a credit card to pay for the items.
Less risk: You don’t have to worry about keeping inventory you can’t sell.
No storage needed: You don’t have to worry about finding a place to store your inventory or warehouse expenses.
Hands-free: All the packaging and shipping is done by the supplier. You don’t have to make regular trips to your local post office.

Disadvantages

Low Profit Margins: With dropshipping, your profit margins will be lower compared to purchasing items at wholesale.
Unreliable suppliers: Your goal as a dropshipper is to drive traffic to you store and convert your visitors into paying customers. A bad supplier can take your money and not send out the goods to your customers. When you receive too many negative reviews, it can destroy your business reputation. It’s important to research trustworthy suppliers.
Takes time: this is not a get rich scheme.

If you would like to learn how to create your own profitable dropshipping business, you can check out my eCom Elites course review here.

4. Pay off your debt!

You can’t go too far ahead if you’re stuck in the mud. Pay off your credit card debt with the most interest rate first.

There’s no point investing your money if you have debt you need to pay off. The interest you have to pay overtime will

To be financially independent, it’s important to have a financial game plan so that you stay positive cash flow.

Pros and Cons of Paying off Your Debt Fast

Advantages

Save money in interest: Taking out a loan or using a credit card will involve interest payments. The longer you take to pay off your debts, the more interest you will have to pay overtime.
Free up cash: Having debt will prevent you from having financial flexibility. Paying off your debt off quickly will help free up some cash that can be used for a rainy day.
Sleep Better: Knowing you have debt from month to month can drain you physically and mentally. Paying off your debt quickly will reduce your stress and anxiety. You will also have the peace of mind, knowing you’re not burdened by debt.

Disadvantages

Depleting Emergency Fund: Paying off all your debt is ideal, but you need to be careful where the money is coming from. Make sure you have at least three months of living expenses saved away. When you have no money left, it can be difficult to cover medical emergencies or losing a job. Using different funds: At times, you may have to dig into your savings and other funds you may have in order to keep up with debt repayments. Paying off debt early can also decrease your investment funds and opportunities.
No Money Back: Lenders will not send you your money back if you change your mind. Once the debt is paid for, your money is gone.
Credit Rating: Paying off your debt early can potentially hurt your credit rating. Consistent repayments is the best way to build credit.

5. Buy and Resell on eBay

User Friendly: Flipping things on eBay is very easy. All you need is an item, take some photos of it, list it on eBay and configure the shipping details. You can also set the handling time to suit your lifestyle in case you would like to take some time off to go on vacations.
Flexible: You can sell almost anything on eBay besides illegal stuff like weapons and drugs. It’s a great way to test different niches to see what your customers love to buy. I have sold products from books, clothes and electronics.
Vast Audience: One of the best things about selling stuff on eBay is the potential to reach more customers. eBay is an established e-commerce platform with millions of shoppers looking for products to buy making it easier for you to attract new customers.
Gain new customers: Making a sale is one of the best feelings you can experience as an entrepreneur. It’s also a great opportunity to entice your customers to check out your eBay store for repeat purchases.
Second Chances: When you’re selling things on eBay, it gives the item a second chance. You will be helping the environment by recycling stuff but also making money in return. It’s a win win!

Disadvantages

Motivation: You are your own boss and you are responsible for everything that happens in your eBay business. Its very easy to be distracted and side tracked with our environment You will be required to find and list items on your store. However, if you keep practicing, you will get better and faster as time progresses.
Time: With any side hustle, you will have to develop new skills. It will take time and patience to master these skills . You will learn how to use the eBay to list your items, how to find profitable products to sell and how to package and ship your order. Some products may sell faster than others so dont expect to make a return over night.
Seller Fees: It’s important to understand the eBay fees that may affect your profit margins on certain items. Make sure you do some research to see how much your item has sold for in the past before listing it on eBay. You don’t want to waste your time by listing an item and later not making much profit after eBay fees have been deducted.
Customer Service: With any e-commerce type of business, you will have to deal with answering your customers questions and resolving any problems they have with their order. There was one time I had sold a set of keyrings to a customer which got lost in the mail. Instead of the customer contacting me directly to resolve their issue, they left a negative review which affected my store ratings. When customers don’t see 100% positive feedback on your store, they are less likely to buy from you. I reached out to the customers explaining to them I have sent another set of keyrings and they should have contacted me first instead. Lucky enough, eBay was able to remove that negative feedback!
Tracking Inventory: As your store gets bigger, you will need a process or system in place to track your inventory. Let’s not forget you’re most likely going to store a lot of your items in your own home so it’s important to keep them organized and easily accessible.
Competition: Depending on your item and niche you’re selling in, certain products will have more competition than others. Its always a good idea to do some research before listing any items. You will have to find ways to make your listings stand out from the crowd. This can be as simple as taking better photos, improving product titles and descriptions.

6. Create an Online Course

Everyday I see a YouTube or Facebook ad promoting a new course from some expert living across the world.

Selling online courses are currently trending and is a great way of leveraging your expertise and knowledge.

Platforms like Teachable and Udemy make it super easy to create and sell courses online.

They handle most things like web hosting and payment processing so that you have more time to focus on creating awesome courses.

The Pros and Cons of selling your own course

Advantages

Revenue and Profit: You can serve multiple clients at the same time and make more money while keeping costs low.
Engaged Learning: Being able to deliver your content in different formats can offer more educational opportunities for a wider audience. Some people learn better by seeing visuals or listening to audio instead of just reading.
Ownership: You own and earn 100% of the profits. You can use your course as a way to reach more people and increase brand exposure. Top marketers all have their own courses and products which helps them stand out from the crowd.

Disadvantages

Technology Costs: Creating your own course will require the use of software and services which includes a monthly fee. You will also need time to learn how to use them.
Marketing Costs: Utililizing your own email list to drive traffic to your course is a great way to make your first few sales. However, if you do not have an email list to market to, you will have to utilize other marketing methods like PPC advertising, guest posting, affiliate programs etc. This can easily drive up your marketing costs if you’re conversion rates are low.
Difficult to Protect: One of the downsides of creating an online course is the difficulty to protect your course from being redistributed over the internet. There are many tools and tricks available that people can use to download your course and re-upload and sell them for a cheaper price.
Takes Time: Creating and developing a course will take time and patience. If you’re producing video and audio content, you may need professional equipment and this can cost you more money.
Pricing: Deciding how much you should charge for your course is not a simple task. You will have to include costs of reformatting existing material, promoting the course and profit margins need to be considered. Conducting competitor analysis is a great way to see what is currently on the market.
Sales Funnels: Some marketers use their online course as part of their sales funnel. This leaves a bad reputation for online courses as more people are skeptical of marketers who flash their expensive cars and lavish lifestyle in their ads.

7. Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is one of my favorite side hustles which I highly recommend for beginners looking to generate another income stream online.

All you have to do is, recommend products and you will make a commission every time someone buys using your affiliate link.

There are many marketplaces you can sign up to find products to promote. These include Clickbank, Amazon, MarketHealth and many more.

If you would like to learn more about affiliate marketing, you can check out my Savage Affiliates review here.

The Pros and Cons of Affiliate Marketing

Advantages

Low Cost: To start your own affiliate marketing side hustle, all you need is a domain name, hosting and a website. It’s very easy to setup your very first WordPress website which I have shown here.
No inventory: You don’t have to worry about storing inventory or dealing with packaging and shipping. Your goal as an affiliate marketer is to drive traffic, collect leads and recommend products to help your audience solve their pain points.
Customer service: If you’re an introvert like me, you don’t have to worry about dealing with any customers when you’re an affiliate marketer. The vendor will be responsible for dealing with customer enquiries on the backend.
Adding Value: Becoming an affiliate marketer is a great way for you to add value back to the world. You can create content that documents your own experiences which can be shared to millions of people.
Scaling: You can leverage multiple platforms such as social media, forums, organic and paid traffic sources to promote your affiliate programs. You can also collect emails to build your email list which you can later market to through email marketing to make more commissions in the back end. Your email list is your money printing machine so its important to collect emails as soon as possible!
Cost effective: Your startup costs are almost non existent in the beginning of your affiliate marketing journey. All you need is electricity, an internet connection and a computer. You also have the flexibility to work from home or remotely. Compared to other business models, you don’t have to worry about hiring employees or paying for a workspace at the start.
Secondary Income Stream: As an affiliate marketer, you don’t have to quit your day job as you grow your side projects. This ensures you have a steady which you can use to invest in your affiliate marketing projects.
Independence: Another reason why I love affiliate marketing is the independence and freedom to do what you want and when you want. I can work on my blogs wearing my pyjamas while playing classical music in the background without anyone interrupting. Compared to a regular job with rules and regulations, you have to put up with other people’s bad habits and a loud workspace.
Passive income: With affiliate marketing, you can make money while you sleep. One of the best feelings you can experience is checking your affiliate programs to see that you were able to generate money without lifting a finger. Passive income is possible if you put in the hard work at the start and reap the rewards later in the future.

Disadvantages

Slow progress: This is where most people give up in their affiliate marketing journey and often say making money online is a scam. Affiliate marketing will take some time at the start before you see progress as there is a learning curve and many skills you have to learn and master. I must admit, I was also sceptical about affiliate marketing when I first started out. However, when I made my first commission, I knew affiliate marketing was going to be my freedom from the conventional 9-5 lifestyle. It may take you months and even years before you will see any returns. The key is to stay persistent and develop the right habits that’s going to keep you focused for the next couple of years.
Additional Costs: With any trade, you will need tools to help you run your business smoothly. This includes email marketing software and outsourcing tasks that you can offload to someone else while you focus on the important stuff that takes your business to the next level.
Relying on the vendor: You don’t have control over the affiliate program. You will have to adhere to the vendor/merchants rules and any changes they implement. For example, changes with commission rates or removing certain products.
Competition: Depending on your niche and industry, there can be a lot of competition created by other affiliate marketers. However, don’t let competition scare you. As an affiliate marketer, your hard work and persistence will help you get a piece of the pie. All you have to do is take action.

Final Thoughts

When you hear people talk about investing money, its either in stocks, real estate or crypto currency.

However, I find investing your first $1000 into a side hustle is more profitable and sustainable in the long run.

The key is to choose one side hustle, focus and master it before you hop onto the next.

Its very easy to be distracted and fall for the shiny object syndrome. Stick to one idea, focus and stay persistent. Your results is an indicator of how much effort you put in.

What side hustles are you currently focused on? Let me know in the comments below, I would love to hear from you!

Clipman 2.0 Review: Does This Video Software Really Work in 2019?

June 15, 2019June 15, 2019 by Darren

Are you searching for an honest Clipman review? I’m glad you stopped by.

In today’s post, I will give my thoughts and opinions on Clipman and to help you make an informed decision.

I will also recommend an alternative so make sure you keep reading till the end.

Clipman 2.0 Review

You can spend hours upon hours editing and fine-tuning a video, only to find out Facebook won’t accept it because there’s just too much text.

I have spent countless hours late at night waiting for my video to render only to be rejected by Facebook!

But why is video content important and why should you care?

Whether you are in e-commerce or real estate, creating video content will help your business with reaching a wider audience.

If you’re a dropshipper, you need exciting and engaging videos to attract new customers to your store. This is where Clipman steps in to help business owners create video ads seamlessly.

Click here to check out Clipman 2.0 <

What is Clipman 2.0

Clipman 2.0 is a cloud-based video editing software which allows you to produce high converting and engaging marketing videos. You can turn

If you own a Shopify dropshipping business, you can copy the URL of a product page, paste it into Clipman and it will use the content from the link to generate a video for you.

Clipman helps e-commerce entrepreneurs produce affordable and high-quality videos with just a few clicks of their mouse. You can edit the video to display specific details about your offer.

As a dropshipper, you will be testing a lot of products…

Who created Clipman?

Josh Ratta is the creator of Clipman.

He is known for creating internet marketing products and software such as iGloo Reloaded, Vidgeos, Vidinfusion, VIDELLO and many more.

What are the features?

Clipman helps you create engaging videos within a few minutes.

Here’s a list of features included:

Create videos from URLs: Clipman has made it easy to create videos for your e-commerce products. You can copy and paste the product page URL and Clipman will take care of the rest.

These templates are eye-catching and high quality to grab your customers attention when they are browsing through their Facebook newsfeed.

Create Multiple Videos: You can create multiple ad videos from using just one product URL. This saves you time with creating ads for split testing.

Lifetime Access: Unlimited life-time access to Clipman.

3000+ Audio Tracks: With many audio tracks ready to use, you do not have to worry about buying another audio track ever again.

30+ Ready-made Templates: You can choose from a variety of professional templates ready to be customized to suit your branding.

HD Video Renders: Videos rendered will be HD quality to ensure your stands out on your customer’s newsfeed.

Create and Post on Facebook: You can create videos in Clipman and publish them directly to Facebook in the same dashboard.

Saves Money and Time: You don’t need to invest a lot of money for fancy cameras or editing software. Clipman makes the process of creating professional video ads from e-commerce in a few clicks.

How to create video ads using Clipman

When you first log in you will see the main dashboard.

There are two ways to create videos using Clipman. The first is using a product URL or you can start with a new template.

I will show you the Product Page To Video method to demonstrate how easy it is to create your own videos using Clipman.

Product Page To Video

Click on Product Page To Video > Select a product > Copy and paste the URL > Click Continue

Pick a template to match your product > Click Continue

Upload your content. This can only be images of your product. > Edit text

Choose your background audio > Click Continue

Add titles, prices, and call to actions > Click Continue

Render your video > Promote on Facebook or share on social media. Simple as that!

How much does it cost?

You can sign up for a 7-day free trial with Clipman.

After the trial has finished, it will cost $37 each month.

Money Back Guarantee

Clipman comes with a 7-day money back guarantee if you are not happy with their service. I think using the free trial should be enough for you to decide whether or not you want to continue using this product.

FAQ’s

Does Clipman work on Mac?

According to their website, Clipman does work on Mac. Not only that, but Clipman can also be used on smartphones, tablets, Linux operating system and Chromebooks. Clipman is a cloud-based software so as long as you have an internet connection and web browser, you can create videos almost anywhere you go.

Is there any training included?

When you sign up to Clipman, you will have access to a basic video ads training course by Australian Video Ads master John Hutchison.

How long does it take to render a video?

Clipman is a cloud-based software so rendering times will vary depending on how many people are using their service.

The more people on the server, the longer your video will take to render. This can range from 30 seconds to a couple of minutes.

My own experience

I found out about Clipman as a recommendation from a YouTuber that I followed and trust.

The software looked promising with high-quality templates you can use for Facebook Ads.

However, I did not know it was a Kickstarter project and the software was still in beta.

The software did not work as I thought it would. I noticed a lot of reviews on Google praising Clipman, but in reality, the product is not what I expected. When I tried to preview my video with the audio file, it did not work so I had to constantly refresh my browser or start again from the start.

Making small edits to my video template wasn’t a smooth process and would take multiple tries until I was satisfied.

Overall, the user experience is very glitchy and not user-friendly as they claim.

I personally do not use Clipman to create my videos anymore and I do not recommend using it for your own business.

Instead, I use Content Samurai. Click here to check out my review.

What are users saying about Clipman

Dashboard interface is not intuitive and there are no tutorials to help you understand how it all works.

If you contact their support team, they will provide you with a short, low-quality video to help you.

The video templates are very restrictive. It’s very difficult to modify font sizes, font types and the position of the text on the screen.

Some users have reported some of the templates cannot be accessed that were part of their subscription plan. They have to pay extra in order to use these templates.

Video quality is very poor. The page will freeze when trying to render videos and you will have to restart from the beginning.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Integrated with Facebook
Integrated with most e-commerce platforms
User-friendly interface
Professional ready-made templates to save you time
Cost-effective solution for creating video ads

Cons

Rendering videos can take a while depending on their servers
Templates are not very customizable
The user interface can take some time to get used to
Rendered videos can turn out with low quality than expected
You cannot upload your own videos, only images

Recommended Alternative – Content Samurai

As promised, if you’re looking for a video editing software to help you with marketing your content, I recommend you check out Content Samurai.

Content Samurai is also a cloud-based software and takes your content and turns it into a professional video without the need for technical skills.

You can create a stunning video with just a few clicks. The user experience is intuitive which makes creating videos easy and fun.

Click here to read my full Content Samurai review. <

Final Thoughts

Overall, I will give Clipman a 3 out of a 5-star rating. I have always found it challenging to create videos on my own since it takes a lot of time and skills.

Clipman does offer some great features to save you time and money, but the inconsistency with the user experience makes it fall short compared to its competitors.

Another downside is not being able to upload your own video clips.

If you’re a dropshipping beginner, you’re most likely using Facebook as one of your main traffic sources.

Clipman will make this process easier by providing you with ready-made templates and the software itself is integrated with Facebook.

You can create multiple video ads and have them uploaded to Facebook with just a couple of clicks

You can test out Clipman by signing up to their 7-day free trial.

If you do decide to sign up with Clipman after the trial, they also include a 30-day money back guarantee if you are not satisfied with their product.

Click here to check out Clipman 2.0 <

eCom Inner Circle Review – Is Arie Scherson’s Course Worth It?

June 12, 2019June 12, 2019 by Darren

Hey, Darren here.

Are you looking for an eCom Inner Circle course review?

In today’s post, I will share with you my honest opinions to help you make an informed decision whether or not the course is worth its price.

Can you really build a successful 6-figure e-commerce business by following what Arie teaches?

Keep reading to find out.

Who is Arie Scherson?

Dropshipping has seen a wave of popularity in 2018.

There has been an increase in the number of Shopify gurus claiming to be making hundreds and thousands of dollars from dropshipping products from China.

They often create videos flashing their expensive cars and to try and persuade you to buy their course.

These gurus will make it sound as though their course holds the secret to achieving the lavish lifestyle overnight.

On the other hand, you have genuine guys like Arie Scherson.

I’ve been following Arie on Youtube since his first videos about dropshipping and it’s great to him progress throughout the year.

Arie constantly delivers value to his followers and has the results to back up his teachings.

He consistently uploads fresh new content with actionable strategies for you to implement straight away in your own business.

I remember he shared one of his stores used as a case study which he had to close down because many of his followers were copying exactly what he was doing.

His eCom Inner-Circle course is currently priced at $397 and is accessible on the Teachable platform.

Teachable is an amazing platform with high quality videos to provide you with the best learning new skills.

You can watch all the videos of a course on most devices as long as you have an internet connection.

Even though $397 is not a cheap price for the average person, it does however deliver a lot of value compared to other courses priced at $997+.

To access the eCom Inner-Circle sales page, you can find a link on one of Arie’s YouTube videos which links you to the sales page.

Its clean, simple and explains what to expect when purchasing his course.

eCom Inner Circle Review

Module 1: Warm Welcome!

In the first module, Arie welcomes you with a few videos and introduces you to the course and what to expect.

It is also great to see Arie mentioning about updating his course and Facebook strategies regularly.

You will only pay a one time fee and receive unlimited updates from Arie.

He does not charge any extra fees for updated strategies which shows that he cares about his students instead of making a quick dollar.

When learning any new skill, it’s important to make notes and take action rather than rushing through the course.

I made the same mistake of trying to consume as much information as I can and not taking action.

This lead to information overload which made everything much more overwhelming.

Analysis paralysis is real people!

Module 2: Store Setup

In the next module of the course, Arie will teach you how to setup your dropshipping store.

He further explains whether you should start a general or niche store.

He breaks down the information so that it is easy to understand and digest.

Similar to other dropshipping courses I have come across, I’ve learnt you should start off with a general store to find winning products before investing money into a niche specific store.

Arie shows different examples of other e-commerce business to give you ideas and inspiration for your own store.

Module 3: Product Research – Finding 4,5 and 6 Figure Products

Aire teaches you how to find winning products. The strategies will help you find products that can make you 4,5 or even 6 figures.

In total, Arie will show you six different methods for finding profitable products.

In the first few videos, the strategies covered are suitable for beginners with the extra videos covering more advanced methods.

Arie also shares some information on how to find relatable products to increase your store inventory and make you more sales through upsells.

Arie also recommends a software called ProductListGenie.io which costs $97 per month.

If you’re just starting out with dropshipping, you don’t really need this software.

Update: Arie does not own this software. It is currently owned by Gabriel Beltran and his partner Coach Gianny.

In one of the final videos, Arie will discuss about the difficulties of finding your first winning product. This is to give you a heads up in case you do not see the results you expected from the course.

Module 4: Instagram Influencer Marketing

Update: Arie has updated this section to include Instagram Influencer Marketing

In this section, you will learn about Instagram influencer marketing and how to find the profitable influencers to collaborate with.

He also shows you how you can get the best ROI from your influencer shoutouts.

This section is very short and the videos are straight to the point.

Module 5: Understanding Facebook Ads

This module is more theory based. Arie will give an overview as to why Facebook Ads is his preferred traffic source for dropshipping.

He also shows you an overview of how you will test your products, how to budget and organize your adsets so that you can easily understand the data and analytics.

Arie also teaches you how to manage failing campaigns.

He also explains what BEP is and why it is important. I haven’t seen any other courses that cover this.

In the last few videos, Arie will show you the importance of product cost percentage and the best ways to get consistent results with Facebook Ads by lowering your ad spend.

Although he does provide a lot of value in this section about Facebook but it is more limited compared to eCom Elites by Franklin Hatchett.

Module 6: Facebook Ads

This module is more of an introduction to Facebook Ads.

If you’re a complete beginner, Arie will walk you through the process of setting up your business account and installing a Facebook pixel for tracking user data.

He then shows you how to create a Facebook Page for your store followed by a video ad tutorial.

Knowing how to create high engaging ad videos is very important with driving targeted and lowering your ad spend.

Facebook loves to reward video content with lots of user engagement.

Arie also includes and over the shoulder demonstration of creating your first campaign and what kinds of data you should look for after 3 days of testing ads.

There’s also a video about split testing ad copy and thumbnails followed by videos about scaling winning ads and how to lower ad cost and everything there is to know about PPE.

Module 7: Advanced Facebook Ads – Going From 5 Figures To 6 Figures

This section of the course is a follow up to the previous module.

This module is more for dropshippers who have started making money through Facebook Ads.

Arie will teach you how to setup your campaigns for optimal scaling.

He will also teach you how to create custom and lookalike audiences, how to retarget, micro testing to scale your store from 5 to 6 figures and manual bidding.

There’s also a few videos about caste study which can be used for some inspiration.

Module 8: Maximizing Profits With Back-End Systems

In this module, Arie will teach you how you can make more money in the back end of your business.

He will show you how to use Shopify plugins to increase your sales and profits.

Arie will also show you how to setup an email sequence for people abandoning their cart.

Abandon carts will always happen on any e-commerce store so it is important to win those customers back.

There’s also a video about using Manychat to retarget Facebook users with no extra costs.

This is an interesting tip I haven’t seen mentioned in other e-commerce courses.

Arie also shows you how you can double your sales using Zipify.

Module 9: Building A Long Term Brand

Building a brand is very important for long term success with any business.

A brand helps you stand out from your competitors.

Arie only recommends building a brand once you have found winning products from your general stores.

He will also teach you how to outsource and create a team of virtual assistants to help you scale your store.

Arie also shows you how to private label your own branded products so that you can sell these products for a higher profit margin.

Arie also teaches you how to incorporate an affiliate program to your store to help with building brand awareness and generate organic traffic to your store.

Module 10: Resources

In this section of the course, Arie provides you with some case studies and templates which you can use as a guide.

Facebook Mastermind

Signing up to the course will give you access to a private Facebook group.

You can ask questions and interact with other like minded members, even Arie himself.

Its also a great place to fall back on incase you’re stuck.

How Much Does eCom Inner Circle Cost

At the time of publishing this post, the price for eCom Inner Circle has increased to $397 and $997 for the VIP Mastermind package.

Money Back Guarantee

You can try eCom Inner Circle risk free for 30 days. If you’re not satisfied with the course, you will have a 30 day money back guarantee as long as you do not view more than 20% of the course.

Final Thoughts

Overall, Arie does provide a lot of value and quality content throughout his course. The only thing I found kind of strange is the use of PowerPoint slides to show stats instead of showing the audience the data from his Facebook Ads manager.

With the current price tag of $397 and $997 for the VIP package can be a little steep for beginners.

As an alternative, I highly recommend eCom Elites by Franklin Hatchett.

eCom Elties is perfect for beginners who would like to learn more about e-commerce and dropshipping.

The course itself has hours upon hours of valuable content for only $197. Franklin also updates his course regularly so that you are always aware of the latest marketing strategies and changes to the ad platforms.

If you have any questions about the eCom Inner Circle course, leave a comment below.

Super Affiliate System 2.0 Review: Is John Creastani’s Course Worth The Money?

June 9, 2019June 9, 2019 by Darren

Hey, its Darren. In today’s post, I will be reviewing John Cerstani’s Super Affiliate System and if it is worth $997 price tag.

It’s great to see that you are doing the research to make informed decisions. I know that feeling of spending your hard earned money on products which deliver little value or any at all.

If you would like to know more about affiliate marketing and building your own profitable website, click here.

Who is John Crestani?

To keep this section short, John Crestani is an expert at online marketing and has built his success through multiple online businesses.

He shares a lot of his knowledge and techniques with using paid advertising for affiliate marketing. This includes Google Ads, YouTube Ads, Facebook Ads, and Native advertising networks.

Super Affiliate System 2.0 Review

In this review, my goal is to give you my honest thoughts and where or not you should invest your money in this type of course.

John has updated this course and rebranded his product but is better and most importantly, is it really worth the $997 price tag?

The course is split up into 6 weeks and has over 50 hours of recorded training. The goal of this course is to make you a successful marketer with paid traffic.

Each week will be focused on a different topic. You can go through the course faster, but I recommend taking your time and understand what you’re learning instead of skipping over the content.

In the first two weeks, you will learn about the business model, the mindset required to be successful, how to set up tracking software and creating landing pages for your affiliate websites.

Let’s take a closer look at Super Affiliate System 2.0 modules.

Click here to access the free webinar. <

Click here to access the Super Affiliate System sales page. <

Week 1 – Introduction and System Setup

Topics covered in this module include:

Setting your goals
How to join affiliate networks and getting approved
Setting up your site and elements of your business
How to setup your presell page and affiliate links
How to setup your Facebook Ads
How to best work with Affiliate Networks

If you’re a beginner with affiliate marketing, this module will be very useful to you.

If you’re an experienced affiliate marketer, this module can be a recap of what you probably know already.

It’s always good to go back to the basics once in a while.

Week 2: Success Skills

Topics covered in this module include:

The Successful Entrepreneur Mindset
How to research your niche
How to choose the best affiliate offers
How to choose the right Ad network
Researching Niches Online
How to Network Effectively
Understanding User Intent

This module focuses on strategy and planning. John will show you how you can research and find what is already working out there in your niche.

He will also show you how you can and reverse engineer what is successful and how you can use this for your own marketing campaigns.

It’s interesting to see John covering topics about the mindset you will need in order to become successful with affiliate marketing.

For most people, they give up to early and call something a scam when it doesn’t work for them. Taking your affiliate marketing business seriously will give you the results you want to achieve.

Week 3: Marketing Skills

In this weeks module, you will learn the valuable skills of copywriting and the psychology behind successful ads. You will learn John’s copywriting formula and how to talk to the reptilian part of the brain.

I found this module very interesting and how words can change a person’s thoughts and emotions. I’m not a copywriter but I did pick up some tips that I can use to improve my writing skills.

Topics covered in this module include:

Advanced copywriting tactics with 7-Figure copywriter Ronnie Sandlin
John’s 17 step copywriting formula
How to optimize your ads for more ROI
Advanced Optimization Tactics

Week 4: Facebook & Google Ads

You will learn everything you need to know to make the biggest returns with Facebook Ads and Google Ads. John will teach you how to use Facebook and Google to drive traffic to your affiliate offers.

Topics covered in this module include:

Facebook ads
Facebook ad compliance
Important Metrics in Advertising
Google Adwords – Part 1 & Part 2
Facebook Ads taught by Brian Pfeiffer

Week 5: Native & YouTube Ads

In the week 5 module, you will learn about the different ad networks and how to drive traffic to your offer using these networks.

John will walk you through each platform and shows you who to target and how to target potential leads.

The more people that can see your ad, the more commissions you will make.

Topics covered in this module include:

How to setup MGID Native Ads
How to setup Outbrain Native Ads
How to setup Voluum DSP Native Ads
How to Setup YouTube ads

Week 6: Scaling and Outsourcing

In this module, you will learn how to scale and automate your business.

After learning the marketing skills and paid traffic methods, you should have campaigns running profitably.

Topics covered in this module include:

How to use survey funnels to boost your conversions
Case Studies
How to utilize Media Buyers
Student loan consolidation case study

Bonus

Included with the 6-week training, you will also get weekly live training. John will keep you up to date on the latest industry news and gives you tips on optimizing your ads.

He also provides valuable resources such as Targeting Data, Ad Swipes, Presell Pages, Affiliate Networks and Ad Networks.

Here is an overview of the member’s area when you purchase the course.

How Much Does the Super Affiliate System Cost?

The Super Affiliate System is a one-time payment of $997. Payment will be processed through the ClickBank.

Support

If you would like to get in contact with their support team you can use their Help Desk to find existing questions that have been answered before.

You can also raise a support ticket. You can send their support team an email for any inquiries.

There’s also a private Facebook group for you to connect with other like-minded individuals, however, the group is not very active.

What I Liked About the Super Affiliate System 2.0

The course is beginner friendly with step by step videos. There’s quite a lot of valuable content for beginners to get started quickly.

When you have finished going through the course, you will have a better understanding of using paid advertising like for promoting affiliate offers. John will show you how to leverage Facebook ads and Google Ads to increase your success rate.

Pre-built templates and landing pages will allow beginners to set up their ad campaigns quickly. However, using pre-built templates will limit your creativity.

The course comes with a 30-day money back guarantee if you are not satisfied with the course. It’s good to know you can get a refund for a product with a price tag of $997.

What I Didn’t Like About the Super Affiliate System 2.0

The course focuses solely on paid advertising. This can be challenging and expensive for beginners with smaller budgets. Not being able to test different ad campaigns will slow down your success rate. You have to spend a lot of money to see significant ROI.

There’s no mention of additional costs you will need like tools, domain name, and website hosting.

John also recommends external tools without including any instructions or tutorials on how to use them. It’s a clever way of getting you to purchase through his affiliate link where he makes more money.

There are no strategies for free traffic strategies like SEO. Even though SEO, takes time, it can be a valuable asset as part of the course.

If you’re a beginner, there will be a steep learning curve. It’s going to take some time to get used to using Facebook Ads and Google Ads platform. Don’t take the income claims too seriously, some of them are very unrealistic.

My Recommended Alternative for Beginners

If you would like to know how I learned about affiliate marketing, I highly recommend checking out Savage Affiliates. This course has helped me generate my first $100 in commissions.

You may be thinking that a small amount of money, however, it shows you the power and possibilities of affiliate marketing.

Savage Affiliates is created by Franklin Hatchett. He will teach you strategies on building funnels, email marketing, SEO, finding and choosing affiliate offers.

His course has helped me improve my marketing skills and earn more money with my affiliate websites.

Unlike the Super Affiliate System, Savage Affiliates is only $197.

Franklin focuses on providing value for his students thus keeping his course at an affordable price. Some of the modules alone are worth more than his asking price for his whole course.

You can check out my Savage Affiliates review here.

Final Thoughts

Is this course a scam?

No, it is not.

I wouldn’t recommend this course for beginners who are interested in affiliate marketing. It relies too much on paid advertising and a beginner can easily spend a lot of money without seeing any returns. The course itself is already $997 and that’s not including your advertising costs.

It’s not really beginner friendly, especially you will have to rely on paid advertising in order to see real returns.

Not to mention the other costs of setting up and hosting a website, as well as the tools you will need to succeed with paid advertising and affiliate marketing.

Shopify Konversion Theme Review: Is This The Best Theme to Boost Your Sales?

June 6, 2019June 6, 2019 by Darren

What is the Shopify Konversion theme?

Konversion Theme Review

Homepage Features

The first feature you will notice on the Konversion theme is the promotional banner at the top of the template.

You can use this section to let your customers know about special offers, coupon codes or a quirky message to welcome new visitors.

You can display social media icons on either side of the page. There’s also an option to show the Facebook share and like button which can help build social proof and trust with new visitors.

You can also have a currency switcher displayed in the same area which I found kind of strange. You will be able to adjust the currency switcher settings to edit the types of currencies to show and how they appear on your store (with or without the currency symbol).

Below the promotional banner, is the main menu navigation which contains links to your inner pages and a search bar.

You can choose up to three different menu styles and how they look on your home page.

The menu can be left or center aligned and will be reduced to a hamburger menu style when viewed on a mobile device. There is also an area for you to upload and display your own logo.

On the right side, you can have the shopping cart and link to the users’ account.

Under the navigation, you can display a full-width slideshow to draw your customer’s attention to specific promotions. The developers have made it easy to customize the banner height, content title and subtitle, button color and size, frequency, overlay opacity and many more.

Just below the slideshow is a content block which can be used to demonstrate your unique value proposition. This helps you stand out from your competitors and lets your customers know why you’re better the rest. You can use the built-in icons included with the theme or you can upload your own.

Scrolling below the fold, you can display featured products and collections. Featured products can also be displayed in a single row or grid layout.

The user can toggle through products by clicking on the navigation icons. When hovering over a product tile, the image will change which is great for encouraging interaction with your website.

You can also display customer testimonials on your homepage to build trust and social proof. Testimonials can be showcased as a block, a slider or a grid.

There’s also a newsletter form you can enable to collect your customers’ email addresses. Growing an email list is necessary for an e-commerce store to make more sales and profits in the backend.

Other features you can display on your home page for more conversions include an Instagram feed, Google Maps, and Loox reviews.

Having an Instagram feed on your homepage will build social proof and brand exposure. This is also an opportunity to gain new followers.

If you have a physical store with an address, let your customers know by displaying Google Maps. Some customers like to see and touch the item physically before they make a purchase.

Another great feature to increase trust and conversions on your store is by displaying customer reviews. Konversion theme has integrated the Loox Visual Reviews widget to make it easier for you to showcase reviews on your store.

If you would like to make your homepage look more dynamic, the Koversion theme lets you embed a YouTube video by simply copying and pasting the video URL in your settings. You can modify how the video looks on the homepage by choosing the alignment, column width, video width and height.

You can use video content in your store to engage with your customers and let them know more about your brand’s story.

Most of the content on the homepage can be customized to suit your business needs and overall vision. I used one store as example to demonstrate the potential of the Konversion theme. You can see more examples of the Konversion theme used here.

Click here to check out the Konversion theme. <

Collection Page Features

What makes the Konversion theme different from standard Shopify themes is the ability to customize the collections page. You will be able to modify your page with breadcrumbs, left sidebar or dropdowns with tag filters and sorting options.

You can also choose where to place the ATC button, make your products look more attractive by showing a secondary product image, switch pagination for infinite scroll and configure the layout on desktop and mobile.

You can change the location of the title and description and how they will appear. This can be above, below, left or right on the collections page. There is also an option to add a custom menu in a left sidebar or inside a dropdown in the top-right. You can edit the menu links inside Shopify.

With each collection, you also have the ability to display a banner image and can be hidden on desktop or mobile. You can customize the banner by changing the collection title, subtitle, alignment, color, size and gradient effects.

It’s really impressive with the number of features and customizations this theme that you won’t be able to find with other Shopify themes.

Product Page Features

One important aspect to keep in mind when purchasing a Shopify theme is having a high-converting product page. There is no point in spending money on advertising and sending traffic to your product page that isn’t optimized for conversions. An important selling factor for any product page is having high-quality images.

With the image gallery, you can enable a zoom effect when a customer hovers or clicks on an image, display the thumbnail gallery vertically on the left or horizontally under the main image. The user can switch between images by clicking on the arrows.

You can place product options inside swatches or dropdowns, move the Add-to-Cart button above or below and hide the variant picker for products with only one option. You can also display the quantity selector, vendor, tags, collections, SKU, product type, social share icons, and a dynamic checkout button.

Additional features such as related products can be displayed to encourage your customers to purchase more than one item. You can manually select which products you want to be displayed. Adding secure payment badges, trust icons and a sticky add-to-cart button will help make it easier for customers to make a purchase on your store.

If you’re selling products with a lot of technical information, using tabs is an easy way to organize the information in the product page. Tabs can be used to display size charts, shipping info, guarantee policy and reviews. You can set the tabs can be hidden on mobile

The Konversion theme has made it super easy for you to display reviews. The theme is compatible with most review apps like Loox, Ryviu and Yotpo. Reviews can be displayed in the product tab or under the product description.

Most of the features you see on the product page can be customized for both desktop and mobile. This makes sure your store is responsive and works flawlessly on a range of devices.

Cart Page Features

The Cart page has many features you can modify to increase your conversions. You can display a checkout note, enable an animation when a customer adds a product to their cart, a continue shopping link, a banner image, logo, title and you can change the layout of the cart page.

You can also display related products right before the customer checks out. This helps generate more sales from upsells. You can also add trust badges to further increase trust add more content to your cart page using the custom content and HTML box.

Customers can estimate their shipping costs using the live shipping rates calculator.

Contact Page Features

The contact page is usually the second most visited page in your store. You will have the ability to customize the contact form, modify the submit button, add a contact number, form title, and a description.

You can also promote a featured product on the Contact page and enable Google Map if you have a physical address for your business.

Footer Features

In the footer area, you can display links to your inner pages, a block of text, contact information, CTA buttons, insert images like a logo or trust badge.

You can also enable a Facebook Like widget, embed a video from Youtube or display reviews from social media profiles.

You can include a sub-footer to show any copyright, trademarks, social and payment icons.

My recommendation is to keep the footer clean and easy to navigate. You don’t want to confuse your customers with different widgets and features that create more clutter.

Page Loading Times

A common problem with standard Shopify themes is once you start to install third-party apps, the page will take longer to load. Your website will need to collect data from different sources before it can display all your content.

Installing the Konversion theme will ensure Your website will load fast every time. Even though it has over 20 plugins and widgets included within the theme itself.

Custom Features

The Konversion theme comes with over 20 custom features including:

Page builder
Currency switcher
Countdown Timer
Deal of the day
Newsletter Popup
Announcement popup
Upsell popup
Integrated with Uploadery app

If you would like to build your own page from scratch using the Page Builder tool. You can adjust the layout with columns, set the page width, add a menu, images, contact form or page break.

You can display a currency switcher in the header to automatically change the default currency based on the visitor’s location. You can edit the list of currencies you would like to show on your website as well as show or hide the currency symbol.

The countdown timer can be displayed inside the add-to-cart button. Unlike other scarcity plugins which applies the feature throughout your store, Konversion’s countdown timer can be applied to specific products you choose. You can do that by simply tagging the products you want the timer to appear.

The deal of the day feature is a widget that appears on your home page and product page. It’s a unique feature which sets the Konversion theme apart from its rivals. You can use this feature to promote products that are on sale to increase your customer’s cart size.

Popups can be a useful tool for e-commerce stores when used correctly. Having too many popups is an easy way to annoy your customers. With the Konversion theme, you can display a newsletter popup, announcement popup, and an upsell popup. You can customize the popup size, color, text size and edit the button.

Theme Support & Updates

The Konversion theme is regularly updated to ensure your store is compatible with the constant changes in technology and software. You will have access to unlimited updates without any extra costs.

Since the launch of the first release, 1.0.0, the has been updated 27 times at the time of publishing this review. You can find more information about their new features and list of updates here.

The Konversion theme is easy to install and customize, but if you do need help with setting up your store, you can submit a support ticket or access their knowledge base for tutorials. There’s also a forum for you to ask the community questions and interact with other members.

What Other Users are Saying

Konversion Theme Pricing

So how much does this all cost?

There are two packages you can choose from. For a single store license which costs $197. It is a cost-effective way to get your Shopify store up and running.

If you have multiple Shopify stores, you can choose the 3 license package which will cost $394. You will save $65.66 per license by purchasing them in a bundle.

Each package comes with free updates, one year of support included (renewing support will cost you $97/y) and a 15-day money back guarantees

Final Thoughts

To wrap up this Konversion theme review, I will give this theme a rating of 4.3 out of 5-star.

It has many built-in features and widgets to help you build a successful Shopify store.

Similar to the e-com turbo theme, the Konversion is built to maximize your conversions and performs wicked fast. The theme looks amazing on desktop and works flawlessly across smaller devices and tablets.

With many customizable features and options, it is very easy to go overboard with designing your store. What you think may look great, can look terrible from a customers’ point of view.

I recommend doing a bit of research to find other successful Shopify stores for some design inspiration and as a guide to model when you’re building your store.

Look at their homepage, product pages, product descriptions, and overall branding.

Look at how are they using images, color, and typefaces that make their store feel welcoming and professional.

I have seen many dropshipping stores using bright colors for their Add-To-Cart buttons titles, using multiple popups in a short span of time and over using fake scarcity timers.

I hope this review has given you an overview of the Konversion theme. If you have any questions, let me know in the comments below.

Click here to check out the Konversion theme. <

eCom Elites Dropshipping Course by Franklin Hatchett

Gain access to the complete A-Z guide for building and scaling a profitable, e-commerce business. Click here to read my review. <

Shopify Shoptimized Theme Review: Is This The Best Dropshipping Theme 2019?

June 4, 2019June 4, 2019 by Darren

Are you currently dropshipping with Shopify but you’re using a theme that isn’t making you sales or just looks out of date? Most likely, you’re using a theme that is not optimized for conversions.

In today’s post, I will review the Shoptimized Shopify theme and see if it is really the best theme for your Shopify store. We will also take a closer look at the features and find out how much you can be saving from using a premium theme like Shoptimized.

When I first found out about this theme in a dropshipping Facebook group, I remember it was much cheaper.

Currently, you can purchase a single license for $167, a 3 store license for $197 and a 10 store license for $597. They also state on their pricing plans that

Given the popularity of dropshipping with Shopify recently, the price has definitely gone up.

Each plan comes with one year of support, free updates and native English speaking support, 7-days a week. However, only the $197 and $597 plan will give you access to a 7-Figure Store Shopify training and a Facebook training course.

Shoptimzied Theme Review

Top Menu Navigation

The first thing I noticed on the Shoptimized template is the top menu navigation. On the left-hand side, you can display a Facebook Like and Share button. Next to the buttons is a geo IP message. This message will change depending on the user’s IP and current location. Having a tailored message is a nice personal touch and makes a customer feel more welcome on your site.

On the right-hand side, you can display a currency converter for international customers to change. Customers are more likely to complete a purchase if they are able to pay with their preferred currency and payment method.

Following the currency converter, you can display links to your inner pages. These pages can include Blog, About Us, Contact Us and My Account. Once a customer adds a product to their cart, the Cart will pop up in a modal and the user can edit the quantity number.

When hovering the mouse over the cart, it will display the items that have been added. I noticed the elements in the cart makes it look very busy and cluttered. There’s multiple buttons, trust badges, and a shipping message. Clicking on the Cart icon will expose a right side panel for quick editing. It also looks great on Desktop but I think the developers should put an opacity when viewed on Mobile, so there is a contrast between the Cart and background.

In the next row, you can display your business logo and a search bar aligned in the middle. The predictive search bar will display the search results based on the keywords a user types in. On the right, is your business contact information which can be customized to suit your store.

The final row is linked to your categories and products. Hovering over the links will automatically display a dropdown menu. You can change the dropdown to display a mega menu or a standard one.

Homepage Features

On the homepage, you can display a slideshow to showcase your products. You can upload high-quality lifestyle photos to highlight your brand’s personality.

You can also choose to show or hide the slideshow on desktop and mobile.

Under the slideshow, is a section for featured products and content tiles. You can include the current price, stock availability, product reviews and tags such as free shipping, pre-order or In Stock for each product tile.

Another cool feature is the option to have the header fixed at the top as a user scrolls down the page.

The top layer of the header will be hidden and will only show the business logo, search bar, and contact details are simplified to fit on one line.

Scrolling below the fold is the main content area. There is a section for content tiles which you can use to upload images of customers wearing or using your product.

You can also embed a YouTube or Vimeo video underneath. Below the videos is a section for your customer testimonials.

Displaying customer testimonials will help build trust and social proof with new visitors. Most of the content on the homepage can be toggled using the navigation.

Footer Features

Towards the bottom of the page, there is a section to display images and text about your store.

You can change the text and images for more consistency with your brand.

For example, you can upload an image to let your customers know about your Money Back Guarantee or unique selling points about your store to encourage new visitors to make a purchase.

You can also display trust badges to let customers know what type of payments you accept.

In the footer, on the left is a section for an email sign up form. You can offer your customer an incentive for signing up to your email list. For example, you can offer them special discounts, guides, cheat sheets and much more. Growing an email list is important for making more money in the backend of your e-commerce store.

In the center of the footer, you can display quick links to your inner pages. Some of these pages can contain important information about your business. For example, your Privacy Policy, Terms of Service, FAQ’s and Contact Us page.

On the right-hand side, you can display your business contact details and opening hours.

There is also a sub-footer included for you to show social media icons and your trademark or copyright information. You can link your social media profiles to your website to build social proof as well as gain new followers.

Product Page Features

Let’s take a closer look at the product pages and see what you get with the Shoptimized theme.

Your product page is where your customers will make most of their purchases, so it is important to optimize your product page for conversions. You want to make their shopping experience from start to finish as smooth as possible.

The first thing I noticed on the product page is the hero image. It’s huge and eye-catching. Your customers can zoom into the image by hovering their mouse on top. This feature is great for smaller products with fine details like jewelry or handmade accessories. It looks like you can add tags like Top Rated on top of the product images to let your customers know your best products.

Under the main image, are the secondary images that can be toggled by simply clicking on the image. Below the thumbnails are social sharing icons for your customers to easily share your products with their friends and family.

The title and price are nice and bold. However, there’s quite a lot of elements going in between the product title and Add To Cart button. You can display the number of items sold in the past 24 hours with a flashing emoji. This can get quite annoying if you’re also using the built-in social proof pop up.

Beneath that you can include product reviews, unique selling points about your store and a built-in customization feature for customers to personalize their items. This saves you money each year without having to install a similar app.

The theme also lets you display trust badges under the Add To Cart button which I don’t think is really necessary. The call to action button is fully customizable to make it easy for users to test different button colors, sizes and text.

Under the call to action button is the fake quantity countdown timer. This can be used as a scarcity tactic to motivate customers to make a purchase more quickly so that they do not miss out on a great deal. Just simply add a tag to a product you want to display a countdown timer. You can customize the number of days and hours the timer will start to count down from.

Just below the quantity countdown timer, you can also display a fake live visitor counter to increase your conversions. New visitors who land on your product page will need some convincing before they spend any money on your store. If they can see there are other people browsing your store, it helps build trust and social proof that your online business is legitimate.

There’s also a shipping time estimator to let your customers know when they can expect their item to be delivered. This is a similar feature Amazon uses to increase their conversions.

You can also display icons to talk about your business’s value proposition and why you’re better than your competitor’s. You can use the theme’s set of default icons which i do not recommend, or upload your own.

Below the fold is your main product details and business information. The information is displayed in a tab format. Your customers can toggle the information they see by clicking on the tab. Tabs helps to keep the product page clean and organized.

Scrolling further down the page, you can display related products which automatically cycles through by itself. You can choose which products you want to display or they can be completely random. This is followed by customer testimonials to build trust and social proof.

An interesting feature I noticed while on the product page is the floating bar which appears when you scroll further down the page. The bar displays the name, price and reviews about the product and an Add To Cart button. I haven’t seen this feature used on many stores, so it’s great to test it out and see if it makes any difference in your conversions with it on.

Cart Page Features

Adding a product to the cart will activate a Cart modal. Customers can choose to edit their item quantity, Continue Shopping, view their cart or Secure Checkout. There also a shipping message letting the user know that they qualify for free shipping.

Clicking on the View My Cart button will take you to the cart page. It’s a standard cart page similar to the default Shopify layout. You can display a fake cart expiry countdown timer to persuade your customers to make their purchase before the time runs out.

Clicking on the Secure Checkout button will take the customer to the standard Shopify checkout page.

Upsell pop up

Shoptimized Theme Support & Updates

The Shoptimized theme is regularly updated to make sure your store continues to be compatible with Shopify’s software.

Purchasing one license will give you unlimited updates for one year. There also a supported portable which can only be accessed in the member’s area.

If you’re a busy entrepreneur, they also offer a one-time setup service for $99.

They also offer a done for you package which is $597 and includes the theme license. This price is a bit expensive for a beginner and I’m not too sure on the quality. It’s best to invest in a course and figure this out on your own.

Shoptimized Theme Pricing

The Shoptimized theme is currently $167 for a single store license. $197 for a 3 store license and $597 for a 10 store license.

There’s no coupon or discounts available for this theme. Be Careful of websites claiming there is.

The pricing for the Shoptimized theme does place it on the premium Shopify theme side, however, the features and functionality on desktop and mobile makes it all worth it.

When you make a purchase, it is only a one-time fee.

What are Other Users Saying?

Pros

Responsiveness: works and looks great on desktop and mobile –
Over 30 different features: saves money on recurring fees from third-party apps
Marketing integrations: No need to hire a developer. Integrating popular tools to grow your business is done with a simple copy and paste into your settings.
Speed: Shoptimized theme claims to load 38% faster than a competitor theme.

Cons

Font: The typeface used on the demo is ineligible. Reading text is more difficult, especially on smaller screens.
Overuse of fake scarcity timers: Makes the product page look very cluttered and non-user friendly.
Pop-Ups: These are annoying combined with the fake visitor counter.
Default icons look terrible: Do not use these for your store. Hire a graphic designer off Fiverr to make you new ones if you can’t design your own. You want your store to look consistent throughout the whole buying process.

Final Thoughts

To wrap up this Shoptimized theme review, I will give it a rating of 4 out of a 5-star rating.

It’s an excellent theme and works great on desktop, tablet, and mobile. The over 30 features included with the theme that will save you money from recurring monthly fees compared to using themes that rely on extra plugins and apps.

There are only a few things which I did not like about the theme. The font used throughout the theme is too thin and tall. It made it more difficult for me to read the text on my monitor and iPhone. It also made the demo store look very cheap and outdated.

There use of fake scarcity features can make your store look like all the other stores using the same theme. I recommend split testing your product pages to see if these scarcity features increase your conversions or not.

I also recommend not using any of the default trust badges or icons. They look terrible so its best to design your own icons to match your brand.

For the current price tag, I would recommend you check out eCom Turbo or the Responsive theme.