Learn From Their Losses: 3 E-Com Founders, 3 Painful Mistakes

You can learn a lot from success stories.

But failures? They usually hit harder.

Dropshipping isn’t the straight path to easy money that gurus love to sell. It takes hard work, trial and error, and plenty of lessons learned the painful way.

That’s why we’re sharing 3 of the most common (and most deadly) mistakes dropshippers make, straight from 3 founders who’ve built multiple 7-figure dropshipping businesses. Learn from their losses before you repeat them.

Mistake #1: Competing On Price

Lewis Smith quote on pricing dropshipping products at a stable level so every sale stays profitable

When Lewis launched his first high-ticket dropshipping store in 2017, he spotted a competitor undercutting everyone else on price.

So he decided to lower his own prices to match them. At first, it felt like the right move because sales spiked. But soon he realized those “wins” came at a cost: He was making far less profit on every order.

It was not looking good for the competitor either, cause a few months later their store shut down.

Here’s how Lewis sees it now: “I’d rather price my product at a stable level that ensures when I do make sales, they’re actually profitable.”

At the end of the day, even if your topline revenue looks great, disappearing margins will take your business down with it.

Key takeaway:

Profit > revenue. Don’t slash your prices just to keep up.
Instead of cutting prices, add value that makes customers happy to pay your price.

Mistake #2: Relying Too Much On One Channel

Jordan West quote card warning that no diversification of marketing channels means no safety net

Most 7-figure brands just choose to do more of what worked and skip diversification. And that always ends in disaster.

Jordan West learned this the hard way in 2021, when nearly 90% of his traffic came from paid ads.

As Jordan recalls: “Meta ads just stopped working, our CPAs rose, we panicked. The things that worked before just weren’t continuing to work.”

When you rely on a single channel, your whole business is completely vulnerable to algorithm shifts, policy changes, or platform issues. And in eCommerce space, those hits aren’t rare.

Jordan recommends running at least 3 channels that bring in customers at any given time. And these could be:

Organic (SEO, social media, etc.)
Retention (email, SMS, customer loyalty programs)
Community (building engaged customer communities)
Different paid ad channels (not just Meta, but also Google, TikTok, YouTube, etc.)

Mistake #3:Losing Sight of Your Costs

Harry Chu quote card saying tracking ecommerce costs isn't optional, it's survival

It’s tempting to treat costs as an afterthought when all your energy is going into driving sales.

In Harry’s first few months of dropshipping, that’s exactly what happened: “At the end of the month, I’d open my P&L and realize there was barely anything left. Costs had eaten everything while I wasn’t looking.”

Dropshipping has hundreds of moving parts when it comes to expenses, which is why, as Harry puts it, “Tracking costs isn’t optional. It’s survival.”

He also highlights 3 costs that demand constant attention:

Ad spend: The most dangerous one. It fluctuates daily and can eat through margins before you realize.
COGS: Tricky to pin down since prices shift with order quantities, supplier terms, etc.
Transaction fees: Small percentages that sneak up on you and quietly add up to thousands.

What frustrated Harry most was that no existing tool could track all costs efficiently, and spreadsheets were far too clunky for a fast-moving business.

So Harry decided to take matters into his own hands and built TrueProfit, a tool designed to help eCom sellers track every cost and profit number accurately & in real time.

Today, TrueProfit is the #1 profit-tracking app for Shopify sellers who want to monitor profits with precision, catch problems before they snowball, and scale with confidence knowing their bottom line is protected.

Curious? You can try TrueProfit free and see the difference it makes for your business.

TRY APP FOR FREE

Milo Tran

Content Marketer at TrueProfit & eCommerce Operator

I’m part of the TrueProfit content team, but before that, I’m an eCom nerd with 3 years of hands-on experience. I’ve done a bit of everything, but running high-performing ads and making sense of the numbers? That’s my thing. If it’s written here, it’s because I’ve lived it.