In this article, we are going to analyze both free and paid ways to quickly test dropshipping.
In Dropshipping, the testing phase is the period where you promote a product and analyze its marketability.
During the testing phase, if you discover that a product is profitable and marketable, you graduate from the testing phase, to scale the product.
Scaling the product means concentrating on the promotion and optimization of a tested product to generate more sales.
However, when you test a product and discover that the product is non marketable and unprofitable, then you’ll have to move over to testing another product.
How long you remain in the testing phase depends on how soon you’re able to find a product that is profitable and marketable to a target audience.
Testing a product requires promoting that product, generating traffic to your store to be able to analyze data and visitor behavior.
We have tried to test our product both free and paid ways; that is organically and through paid ads. We will be discussing these case studies, the methods we’ve attempted and the results!
Test Dropshipping products on Instagram;
You can test Dropshipping products on instagram organically or via paid ads. You simply promote the product on instagram, target an audience demographic and see if the product sells.
If it doesn’t make sales, you can try promoting with a different content, ad copy, or to a different target audience then analyze the data to see what works and what doesn’t. Meanwhile Fiverr is a site where you can find freelancers to make affordable ad videos for your campaign.
Can you test dropshipping products on instagram for free? (our case study)
We tried this with two of our stores! We created two instagram pages to test two different dropshipping products organically.
For one of the stores we started with a brand new instagram account. We were not able to send enough traffic to the store organically and so we couldn’t test the products.
For the second store, we used an already existing instagram account with about 500 followers.
We would like to state that we didn’t buy that instagram account, we built it organically some years ago. The instagram page was first designed to promote small businesses for free and in turn the businesses promoted the page as well. The page grew organically to about 500 followers.
When we wanted to use the page to test our dropshipping product, we quickly rebranded the page to fit our dropshipping business.
We followed the followers of our competitor pages on instagram and luckily for us, some followed us!
For the first 2-3months, we promoted our product organically but got no conversions! Although the product was getting views!
We then decided to bundle related the product up and offer it at a discount! That was the game changer! our already existing followers started making orders for our products!
The lesson we got from testing our dropshipping product on instagram organically (for free).
The lesson we got from our case study is that it is possible to test dropshipping products on Instagram for free by simply promoting the products organically.
However, it’s not a walk in the park, it takes time, great content and focus! It helps to use an existing instagram account with at least some followers. Do not rely on the existing follower, make an effort to grow new targeted followers.
The one advantage of using an instagram with some followers is that it creates an appearance for your profile as a professional or trusted business!
Test Dropshipping product on Tiktok
You can test Dropshipping products on tiktok by running paid ads on tiktok! Analyzing the data, identify what content, product, ad copy and targeted audience generates more sales!
The challenge with tiktok is the limitation with geo targeting. For example, if you’re in Africa or Europe, you can’t target the United States!
We tried a bunch of suggestions to see if there was a way to navigate this challenge. We tried clearing the browser cache, using a VPN, using incognito browser, using a virtual US phone number and address but none of that worked!
What if we built a US TikTok following organically to test our dropshipping product and sell to US targeted audience?
It seems like such daunting work but we hopped on it!
Can you test drop shipping products on tiktok for free? (our case study)
In our case study we created a tiktok account, created and posted tiktok content from a product we knew was trending in the United States! We included a relatable hashtag to our post captions!
We looked at our competitor’s pages on Tiktok and followed and liked the accounts of their US followers in a deliberate attempt to reach a US audience!
The next day, the results we got were interesting! our tiktok posts that were product focused got 3 times more views than our posts which were informational!
At the time of this case study we were operating from the EU. Our deliberate attempt to trick the tiktok algorithm and reach the US audience failed! Most of our views and followings were coming from EU countries!
However, we got a few followers from the US, who literally just followed us back!
The lesson we got from testing our dropshipping product on tiktok organically (for free).
We looked through our tiktok analytics and were able to see what ads copy, location and product was performing well and driving sales!
Testing our product with tiktok organically (for free) took us about a week compared to instagram which took us 2-3 months.
We don’t know the reason for this. We speculate that it could be because tiktok is the latest social media sensation or it could be because we chose to test a trending product on tiktok.
Test Dropshipping products for free on Reddit (our case study)
To us this is the hot spot and hidden jewel of social media marketing! You can literally get thousands of traffic and a good conversion rate from marketing on reddit organically (for free) but be careful how you go about promoting on Reddit to avoid getting “Shadow banned”!
Promoting on reddit for free is one way to quickly drive traffic to your ecommerce store, analyze the data to see if your targeted audience are interested in the product you’re dropshipping!
A word of caution, don’t spam reddit
The lesson we got from testing our dropshipping product on Reddit organically (for free).
you can easily get down voted by redditors, get caught up on Reddit spam filters, get Shadowbanned or even get permanently banned on a sub reddit or throughout Reddit!
The best way to promote on Reddit is to build some karma by making meaningful and informational contributions to the subreddit where you want to promote your product eventually.
For example if you want to dropship couple costumes t-shirts from a supplier like printful, you can join the relationship subreddit. make useful contributions that aren’t sales pitches and do not include any link to your ecommerce store.
If your contributions are meaningful, redditors will start to upvote it! you’ll get some karma! Give it some time for your Reddit account to age for at least 2 weeks!
Once you have an aged Reddit account and some Karma then you can start to link to your ecommerce store on the comment section of a relevant reddit post.
Ensure that you are not just spamming Reddit but you’re providing helpful answers and only linking to your e-commerce store naturally where relevant within your answer.
You can also promote your store on a reddit post but be really careful about this. You want to make sure that you’ve taken time to engage and contribute to that subreddit where you want to make the post.
Ensure that you understand the rules of the subreddit and that linking to your store on the subreddit post will not be a violation of the subreddit rules!
Before making a subreddit post to promote your store, ensure that you’ve naturally promoted the store by commenting on other people’s posts and putting a link to your store only where relevant within your answer!
You want to take your time to study Redditor’s reactions to your comments before ever going ahead to make a post that promotes your store!
If you’re a helpful contributor within your subreddit and you’re not spamming but promoting your e-commerce store naturally within your answers.
You can easily drive tons of traffic to your store from Reddit to test your dropshipping products and even generate sales!
Test Dropshipping product on Facebook.
Facebook is very saturated. We attempted to promote our dropshipping product on a Facebook group but we noticed a lot of spam bots in these groups instead of real humans! And most of the real humans present on Facebook groups, don’t want to interact, they want to sell you something as well! It’s just way too many clustered ads that it’s almost discouraging these days to test a product on Facebook organically!
By creating a Facebook business page, you’ll be able to reach people organically but it’s almost like the Facebook algorithm is programmed to limit your business page organic reach and force you to advertise!
So testing dropshipping products on Facebook organically and for free has not worked for us! We know it’s possible but it’s taking a lot of time and focus to generate organic traffic on Facebook that isn’t worth it to us! So when testing products on Facebook, our best route is to use paid ads.
You can check our article on testing dropshipping products using Facebook ads.
How do we know to stop testing a product and move to another one?
We set the rules depending on what is worth it to us! We set both time and monetary budget and if we have exhausted the set amount on time and monetary budget and the product tested hasn’t made profits, then we move over to testing another product!
