How Dropshipping Improved our Family Life

Wouldn’t it be great to do more with your kids than just tuck them in at night?

To be in control of your work hours and focus on what’s important in life?

Have enough to make ends meet and then some?

Take your family on regular holidays?

Life in the day to day grind doesn’t often look like this. Long hours, limited family time and restrictive holiday allowances aren’t exactly a recipe for a great work-life balance. And unfortunately, you might still be living paycheck to paycheck at the end of the day. Just enough to pay the bills and buy groceries, just enough to keep things ticking over. But starting a college fund or putting aside for bigger investments - or even a holiday? That’s hard.

Is it really too much to ask to want more than this? To actually have energy and time left for your kids and loved ones. Because in the end – what else are we really working for?

There are lots of ideas out there for side hustles to top up income and businesses you can easily start from home. You could start a blog, become an influencer, sell stock photos or be a YouTuber. But the one area that seems to show the most promise is online retail. Total eCommerce sales in 2023 are predicted to come to $5.5 trillion (!!) and grow to $7.3 trillion by 2025. That’s crazy money!

Enter Dropshipping.

By far the easiest and most low-cost way of getting into online retail is dropshipping, because you don’t need to pay lots of money to buy stock upfront. The way dropshipping works, you just provide the storefront and the supplier directly ships the products to your customers. Pretty handy right? You don’t have to deal with products cluttering your house and you also get to build a business without much startup capital. Sure, it means that you don’t get the cheaper wholesale prices, but most dropshippers still make a healthy 15-20% of the sales price anyway. And that can still be a lot depending on how you price your products.

You can run a dropshipping online store either as a full-time business, or as a side hustle that grows and develops until you feel comfortable leaving your 9-5.

Free Holiday Anyone?

Or, if you’re like Jeff Moriarty, you might just let your passive dropshipping income keep rolling in and pay for a yearly holiday. Because of his busy schedule, he knew that storing his own inventory and dealing with shipping wouldn’t be an option for him and his family: “I needed to be able to do it during my off-hours and I didn’t want to get burned out in the process. Dropshipping makes it so much easier to multitask.”

Today, his store DogChristmasStockings.com throws off about $10k in profits each year – the perfect amount to pay for the family’s holidays – and pretty much runs itself. It’s the ideal solution for Jeff, because he doesn’t have to break his back trying to make an extra 10k at his day job to make traveling possible for the family. When asked about the future of his store, he says: “I’m sure if I ever wanted to make it really go somewhere, I could quit my job and work on it 40 hours a week, but I like what I do and this side hustle gives us a nice vacation each year.” Seems like he’s found the perfect balance for giving his family the life they deserve.

No More Debt.

Becky living her best life

A side hustle might not always be enough to get you your dream life though – especially if you’re stuck in a 60h+ a week job like Becky was. After having to return to work after only 3 months maternity leave, she knew it just wasn’t what she wanted for herself. “I was tired every day”, she says. “I wanted to find a way to stay home with my son and not have to go back to work.”

After learning about dropshipping on YouTube, she got stuck into research and training videos and soon opened her first online dropshipping store, focusing on women’s fashion. She made $1,000 in her first month and quit her job to pursue the business full-time. That was three years ago and she’s not looked back. Her journey wasn’t without bumps along the way of course, but over the course of the first year of business she ended up making $100,000 in sales.

I earned double the salary of my full-time job in my first year!
I was able to pay off all my family's debt by the second
year of dropshipping.

Some challenges Becky faced were dealing with negative customer emails complaining about shipping times and settling on exactly the right product niche, after trying her hand at a couple. The customer experience and quality of the products is directly related to the trustworthiness of your suppliers, so it really pays to do your research before choosing. Since SaleHoo pre-vets all of its suppliers, it’s a great starting point for new business owners and takes some of the legwork away. “It is hard work to run a business – it’s not a get rich quick scheme. You get what you put into it”, Becky says about her journey as an entrepreneur.

And while running your own business isn’t a walk in the park by any stretch of the imagination, it has given Becky exactly what she always wanted: the flexibility, time and money to spend quality time with her son and be in control of her own life.

Interested? Start with SaleHoo.

If you like the sound of dropshipping and how it could make your dream life a reality too, you’ve come to the right place. At SaleHoo we have oodles of free resources to help you get started on your journey.

For example, you might want to start thinking about some products or niches that might work for you. Do you have any interests or hobbies that could take you in the right direction? It’s always handy to already have a bit of insider knowledge on whatever you’re selling, as this will help you out in picking your exact product range.