Blogging and dropshipping are 2 of the business that really took off during COVID-19. Now, If you are planning to start one, Which one should you choose?

Blogging and Dropshipping are intended for two different types of audiences. Blogging is for those people who like writing articles and has the willingness to work consistently for a couple of months. On the other hand, Dropshipping is for those people who are good at marketing and love selling products.

What’s Blogging?

Blogging is a way by which individuals/publishers create informational articles to publish on their website.

It’s a way of presenting your views and ideas to the public through the internet.

Blogs were first created in 1994 and have evolved since then. It has now become a necessity for every online business.

Related Article – 7 Passive Income Website Ideas for 2021

How much money do you need to start Blogging?

Blogging is one of the few online businesses that require a very low amount of money to start. You just need a domain and a place to host your website. This will cost just about $3.95/month.

Bluehost is what I recommend for this. They give you a free domain and an SSL certificate when you host your website with them. (That’s about $14 saved).

That’s literally all you need to start blogging. If you want, you can buy a theme too, but that’s optional!

Now, some “gurus” may recommend you to buy SEO tools like Ahrefs, Semrush etc, but please don’t buy it because they are of no use.

Related Article – Is Squarespace Good for Blogging?

How to start Blogging?

Blogging is very easy to start. If you are good in English, you are almost ready to start your blogging journey.

It would be great, if you could learn a bit about SEO before you start.

The first thing to do is to choose a niche. Choosing a niche is very important. Never start blogging about you or your life because no one cares. Choose a niche that you love, it can be a hobby or something you are interested in.

After that, go to Bluehost.com and buy a hosting plan. It costs just $3.95/month. Then choose a domain name for your blog.

WordPress comes preinstalled with Bluehost and this is how your admin dashboard will look like once you log in.

You can now start writing articles.

If you want an in-depth tutorial, you can join my free training where I teach you how to start a successful blog.

Advantages of Blogging

1. No Risk

There’s absolutely no risk in starting your own blog since you don’t need to spend money on ads, orto test different products.

It’s perfect for people who do not want to take risks in their life.

2. Very low entry barrier

As I have said, starting a blog is literally very affordable and will only cost you around $3.95/month.

3. Low Maintenance

Starting a blog and managing it is relatively easy. You don’t need to test out different products, nor do you need to handle customer care.

All you have to do is create a content publishing plan where you publish one or two articles per week.

Related Article – Is Wix Good for Blogging?

Disadvantages of Blogging

1. Patience is key

The only thing that I believe you need to have before you start a blog is Patience. This is because your blog can take a lot of time(more than 6 months) to bring in some real traffic.

A lot of people quit in the first 2-3 months of blogging because of this.

So, if you are someone who doesn’t have patience, never try blogging.

2. SEO can be tricky

SEO is something that you need to learn if you ever intend to start a blog. It’s simple but a lot of people on the internet makes it look like some crazy complex thing.

If you ever start your own blog, I’d recommend you follow Income School on YouTube, they are the best in this industry.

Related Article – 10 Killer Tips To Write an Engaging Blog Post

What’s Dropshipping?

Dropshipping is an online business model where you act as a middle man between the customer and the supplier. When your customer places an order from you (On your online store), you send the order details to your supplier and he ships it directly to your customer.

The difference between the customer purchase amount and the actual cost of goods becomes your profit.

Dropshipping is quite saturated now with a lot of people starting this business. However, this doesn’t mean that it’s dead, it just means that dropshipping has become quite competitive and the cost of running this business has increased.

Related Article – Is Print on Demand Profitable in 2021?

How much money do you need to start dropshipping?

These are the things that you would need inorder to start dropshipping

• Shopify account – $29/month
• Domain – $14/year
• Ad budget – minimum $500

That means you would need around $550 to start this business.

And yes, you really need at least $500 for ads. This is so important. A lot of people start with just $10 – $50 and complain that dropshipping is dead and it doesn’t work.

So, make sure you have at least $500 to start with.

How to start Dropshipping?

Dropshipping can be a bit complex when compared with Blogging.

The first thing to do is to find a winner product. I usually find winning products using the below strategy.

• Go to Facebook.com and search for terms like “Order now”, “50% Off”, “Free shipping”, etc. These terms are usually used by Dropshippers and searching for them will give you their dropshipping video ads.
• On the result page, look for product videos which have over 500K views.
• Note down those pages and their URLs
• Then go to their pages one-by-one and then look for something which says “page transparency”. Click on that.
• Then click on Ad library. (Ad library shows you the different ads a particular page is running.)
• A new window will open and then change the filter attribute – country to all.
• If you see ads which have been running for more than a week or two, that product will probably be a winner for them.

Once you have a product, you can choose to create a general store (which sells everything) or you could create a niche store (which has products related to a specific niche).

For a beginner, I would recommend you start with a general store so that you can test out different products and find winning ones.

Choose a brandable name and then create a store with Shopify using that name. Make sure that you buy a domain along with it.

Once logged in, your store dashboard will look almost like this.

You can then design your website by going to Online store -> Themes -> Customize.

After your store is done, you will have to start marketing your product, there are a lot of ways to do it. I highly recommend that you watch a Youtube video for this. There are a lot of fake gurus out there, so just be aware of them. And also please do not buy their courses. Almost everything can be learned from Youtube itself.

Anyway here are some youtube channels that you should check out if you are starting your own dropshipping store – Biaheza, The Ecom King and Sharif Mohsin. These people are some of the legit people in this space.

Advantages of Dropshipping

1. If followed correctly, you can start making money within a week

I am not saying this is a get-rich-quick scheme. But if implemented perfectly, you could start making money within a few days.

But that’s pretty much unlikely especially if you are new to this business because it does take a lot of testing to get to that level.

2. No inventory needed

The most exciting thing about starting a dropshipping store is that you won’t need to have any inventory nor do you need to stock and pack anything. Everything is done by your supplier

3. Highly scalable

Dropshipping is highly scalable. With a reliable supplier(not Aliexpress!) and a perfect marketing strategy, you can scale your dropshipping business to the moon.

Related Article – Is Print On Demand Worth It? Can You Really Make Money From POD?

Disadvantages of Dropshipping

1. It’s Risky

Dropshipping is risky. The products that you choose and the marketing strategy that you use to promote it may not be profitable.

There’s also a big chance that you will fail miserably.

2. It’s a bit competitive nowadays

Dropshipping has become a lot more competitive than it was 2 years ago. The ad cost has gone up and it is hard to find good profitable products to sell.

3. Customer service

This can be a huge problem if you receive a crazy amount of orders every day. Customers will be emailing you every day asking about the product, shipping, refund, returns etc.

However, you can hire a freelancer to do this for you but make sure that he treats your customers perfectly.

Related Article – Is Amazon Dropshipping Profitable in 2021?

Blogging vs Dropshipping: Which One Should You Choose?

Blogging and dropshipping are 2 online business which has their own advantages and disadvantages. Both of them are intended for two different types of people.

If you have a bit of patience and like writing articles, I would highly recommend that you start with blogging.

But if you are someone who wants to make money within a short period, love eCommerce and is ready to take risks, I would recommend you try dropshipping.

Irrespective of what you choose, make sure that you put your maximum effort into it so that you can be successful at it.

And of course, Don’t quit!

So, that’s it, if you have questions, please feel free to comment down below and I would be happy to help you out.

Peace.