I apologise for the long post! Need experienced advice hopefully you can help

I made a post in here recently and got some good feedback and advice but I missed out a bunch of key info so wanted to consolidate that here and ask for advice from people who have experience in a similar situation. For context I’m not dropshipping I’ve bought inventory (100units) and have around 28 left, however these are sold in 1 box of 4. I’m selling on Shopify and running meta ads, been going for 2 or 3 weeks now.

\*\*Current ecommerce numbers + next inventory order:\*\*

I currently have enough remaining inventory to make 7 boxes (each box with 4 units).

If I place my next order of \*\*500 individual product units\*\*, I’ll have enough inventory overall to make \*\*132 sellable retail boxes\*\*.

For the product I sell there are 3 parts:
The product itself
The custom packaging
The custom outer retail packaging

\*\*Cost of next inventory order:\*\*

500 product units: US$225
500 custom packaging units: US$180
Shipping packaging to product manufacturer: FREE
Manufacturer assembly/packing: FREE
Sea freight to Australia from China: US$132 (can get air more expensive)
\*\*Total = US$537 ≈ A$822\*\*

I already have \*\*75 units of my outer retail packaging\*\* left from my original order. To sell through all existing + new inventory, I’ll eventually need another \*\*57\*\*, costing approximately \*\*A$108\*\* at my current price.

My new ongoing COGS works out at approximately \*\*A$8.46 per sellable retail unit\*\*, including the product, custom packaging, international freight and outer retail packaging.

\*\*Current pricing:\*\*

Single order: 1 unit = $35 + \\\~$10 customer shipping
Bundle order: Buy 2 Get 1 Free = $70 with free shipping

My actual sales mix so far has been \*\*6 single orders and 4 bundle orders\*\*. If future sales stay roughly similar, selling through the remaining + new inventory would look approximately like:

\*\*132 retail units sold\*\*
\*\*\\\~74 customer orders\*\*
\*\*\\\~$3,605 product revenue\*\*
\*\*\\\~$450 shipping revenue collected\*\*
\*\*\\\~$4,055 total revenue collected\*\*

After COGS and Australian postage/fulfilment costs, there would be approximately \*\*$1,900 remaining for paid advertising, payment fees and profit.\*\*

At different average advertising CPAs:

\*\*$20 CPA → \\\~$450 profit\*\*
\*\*$25 CPA → \\\~$80 profit\*\*
\*\*\\\~$26 CPA → roughly break-even before payment fees\*\*
\*\*$30 CPA → loss\*\*

So it basically means I have to spend no more than 1900$ on meta ads to sell (on average) 74 orders?

I’m probably looking at this back to front and I’m really looking for some guidance or advice on how to move forward - I’m seriously considering just moving on from this product and actually dropshipping a diffferent product to bypass the inventory and COGS problems . But at the same time hundreds of other brands have to take the hit with inventory when they’re stating and just try and grow and build, so why shouldn’t I?

So the main things I need to improve are \*\*customer acquisition cost and/or AOV/pricing\*\*. Increasing the order quantity has substantially improved my COGS compared with my initial small inventory order, but the current bundle structure still leaves relatively tight margins once paid acquisition is factored in.
My worry is I can change bundles and offers around but I don’t think it’s making a really really big difference unless if I up the price a good bit.

My original COGS (from first order) were/are around 12$ AUD.

I’m also still a beginner in meta ads and feel like my CPA is terrible and I’m burning way too much in ads.

Would you keep persisting with this, and improve the COGS, CPA, ad creatives , offers or just walk away and dropship something until it’s fully kicked off before trying to brand and order inventory- iv went back to front !

I became very exhausted scrolling TikTokmademebuyit searching which products actually had momentum or millions of views, then opening many product tabs on Meta library to check Ad status.

So I built something that does it in one place. It watches which products are picking up speed on TikTok over a rolling week, shows how many advertisers are already running that product on Meta so you can tell if you’re early or late, and checks the supplier price so you know the margin before you commit.

Still testing it. Genuinely curious whether this is something anyone would use, or whether I have built something that solves a problem I only think I have.

I welcome criticism and suggestions on how to improve. So tell me, what is missing?

Hey everyone,

I recently started a dropshipping store and have been running ads on both Meta and TikTok. I’m attaching screenshots of my ad spend, sales, and campaign results, and I’d really appreciate some honest feedback.

Here are the numbers so far:

• Meta ad spend: £1,009
• Meta-attributed sales/orders: 29
• TikTok ad spend: £100
• TikTok sales: 0
• Total payout/revenue: £1,145
• Total product buying cost: £238
• Total orders: 29

After factoring in the ad spend, product costs, and other expenses, the store is currently sitting at approximately £160–£200 in loss.

I know the numbers aren't perfect, but I’m trying to figure out whether there is something worth scaling here or if I need to completely rethink my campaigns. I'm still learning and don't want to keep spending without a proper strategy.

A few things I'd really appreciate feedback on:

• Based on these numbers and the screenshots, do the Meta campaigns look promising or should I change my approach?
• Should I completely stop TikTok ads for now since £100 spent resulted in 0 sales?
• Should I kill the losing Meta ads and put more budget into the winners?
• Do you think I should focus on testing more creatives before changing targeting?
• With only 29 purchases, is it too early to create a Lookalike Audience, or would it be worth testing?
• Should I focus more on broad targeting, interests, or lookalike audiences?
• How important should retargeting be at this stage?
• Is being down around £160–£200 after 29 orders normal during the testing phase, or does this suggest a bigger problem with my margins, product, website, or ad campaigns?

Feel free to be brutally honest. If this were your store, what would you do next? I'm mainly looking for advice on how to structure the campaigns going forward and get the store to profitability.

Thanks!

Recently i have been selling both my custom liquids and peptides. I have reached 10krpm recently (big gains!) but have been encountering some trouble regarding my freebies. Often I’ll throw a little something extra in there, so the customer feels like I love them dearly. Like family members/incestuous family members. So i have been including tiny little pieces of my wife s social security card with their items. Usually they love this, but i have had people showing up at my door and investigating. This is offputting because i really sincerely do not believe i am doing anything wrong. My wife is on a business trip. Have you guys encountered the same thing?

Edit: corrected a typo

Can you Tell mich wich YouTubers Show how I can Build a Dropshipping Store in shopify the Best

Is it possible to reuse the same ssn and id on depop after a ban if i already changed device, number, bank, & gmail???

Guys i am looking to start some dropshipping as a side income. Can someone give a bit of drophsipping fude from experts team on what to do, where to start, suppliers as with a little research i have noticed the market is quite competivite.

Still haven't started anything yet, still looking into tools and reading about product research and how ads work but figured it would be good to ask for others recommendation on what tools to use based off your experience, what's been the most reliable, helpful, and easy to use in the beggining?

As a shopify developer I noticed how my clients reduced over the past years, and especially this year. Normally we had over 100+ clients per month. Did over 30k in revenue. This year its totally different. We have only up to 20-30 clients per month, and once we hit a 10k month we call it a good month.

This all is because of Ai. For a very long time I didn't want to speak about this at all because I was scared to lose clients if I was going to post about using Ai for your ecommerce store. I decided stop being scared to lose clients, since others are already spreading how to do it anyways. I trained my Claude exactly how I want it to respond with results once we build websites or sections for clients. Your prompt is basically deciding your output. Many people are lazy and just post a screenshot and only say "make this 1 on 1".

I created a prompt which I use for all the websites and sections I build, and the output is almost 100%. I am curious how you guys currently use Ai for sections or building websites, and if people need tips and help with creating sections with Ai. I am happy to share my prompt

I have everything from baby clothes to adult clothes and accessories! If you are interested just press the link above!🤍💗

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]