Arad is a Queen’s student and CEO of Bridge Marketing, founded in August 2018. With the help of his 14 employees scattered across the globe, Arad runs a few successful drop shipping Shopify stores. We sat down with him to learn about the drop shipping industry, what factors contributed to his success, and how he scaled his side hustle into a multimillion dollar business.
Q: Tell us a little about yourself?
I’ve always been really interested in entrepreneurship because of my parents – they immigrated to Canada and started their own jewelry company. Growing up around them, I saw firsthand that entrepreneurship was a real option and how fulfilling it was to be your own boss.
I think the biggest thing that helped me with entrepreneurship is my curiosity. I can spend hours on the internet watching YouTube and browsing Google for just about any topic. I feel like this curiosity allowed me to stumble across e-commerce and helped me thrive.
Q: Can you introduce us a bit more to your business?
My company is called Bridge Marketing Inc. and we are an a e-commerce company that runs a number of different Shopify stores for different niches. For example, one store could be for people who love dogs, while another could be for people who love the beach lifestyle. We try and find unique products that don’t already have wide distribution, and give them a kick start with a marketing refresh. I find my most successful products are targeted to a very specific niche customer and solves a real problem in their lives.
Although we run e-commerce stores, I like to think of the business as a marketing company because 80% of our day-to-day work is on marketing, not product discovery.
Q: How do you find these products?
We source our products from China. When we first find a product, usually the only information available is a couple pictures and a short description, often in broken English. We take these products and touch up their marketing. We’ll shoot a commercial, write a compelling product description, reshoot the product photos and get in touch with a couple of websites to review the products.
I’d say we typically identify 10-30 products a month that we want to sell online. After we put all that effort in, I’d say the success rate is probably 5-10%. But the products that do succeed can really blow up, whether it’s 5, 6 or 7 figures in sales.
Because we don’t have exclusive agreements with most of our manufacturers, we really have to differentiate based on our marketing message. It’s a really competitive space, and the risk of being ripped off and having competing shopify stores selling the same product is quite high. That’s why we have an Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) to prevent talking about the specific products we are selling.
Q: What was your inspiration for starting Bridge Marketing?
Funny you should ask. I was watching YouTube one night, and an ad came on saying “learn how to make money online, drop shipping”. I was inspired by the video and started reading more about drop shipping and Shopify. I started a couple of Shopify stores that weren’t very successful as I was learning about the industry. My first store actually had zero sales. But I learned from my mistakes and started new, more successful stores. Fast forward to now, where we passed $4 million in sales.
Q: Why do you think some of your stores were successful, while others weren’t?
I think there’s two main factors. The most important thing is product market fit. Have we found a product that properly solves a problem for our target market? Is the price point good? Is the product compelling? The second thing is, once you’ve identified the fit, is your marketing effective? Does the commercial properly highlight product benefits? Is your branding consistent and effective at communicating information? If you have these two, you get a much higher rate of success, but of course nothing is ever guaranteed.
Q: What marketing strategies help drive your success?
99% of my ad spend is on Facebook and Instagram. When we advertise with these platforms, it’s really powerful because of how much they know about the customer. It’s actually kind of scary if I’m being honest. When we target our ad’s it’s important to target the most passionate members of your target market. For example, if we’re selling cat products, we could target people who like ‘Cats’ on Facebook. But a more effective strategy would be targeting people who like cats, read pet magazines, go to cat shows and buy premium cat food brands.
Then, once the ad is in front of our target market, we encourage them to share it and tag their friends, to expand the reach of the ad. Since we launched, we’ve spent over $1 million on advertising and our ads have been seen by 53.5 million people worldwide.
Q: If you could pinpoint one thing you like best about being entrepreneur, what would it be?
I really like the feeling of being my own boss. Being able to make my own decisions, and think for myself instead of being told what to do. It’s great to be able to learn about a concept in class and be able to go home in the evening and apply it to my stores. It’s also a great way to make a passive income for while you’re at school or in the evening’s after work.
Q: How do you find a balance between working on this and school?
You really do your best, but often it’s not pretty. In the beginning, there isn’t really a balance. You have to work long hours to succeed, and you’ll have to make some compromises. But as the business develops more and you hire a team to help you, it’s really important to be able to trust your partners and employees and offload some of your responsibility.
Q: Do you have any advice for people who want to start their own small business?
For anyone wanting to start a business, the first thing I would do is check out the government resources available to you. In our country and province, there are a lot of organizations that are trying to get people our age to be entrepreneurial, so you should definitely take advantage of those. This summer, I participated in this program called Ontario Summer Company. They give entrepreneurs $3,000 to work on their business over the summer. You feel responsibility to work hard because it’s someone else’s money.
The second piece of advice I have is to find a mentor in the industry. It helps so much to have someone guiding you, and the teaching you to learn from their mistakes rather than making them again yourself. You learn much quicker, develop better habits and will be much more effective overall.