Dropshipping guru Robert Nikic: How he reshaped dropshipping forever

When Robert Nikic first arrived in the United States, he had never even heard of dropshipping. Robert didn’t know what ecommerce was. Today, Robert Nikic is a self-made millionaire because the company he founded, Why Unified, which completely changed the dropshipping and ecommerce industry. Robert’s success didn’t come easily, though, and he suffered through numerous failures before he finally got it right.

Today, we have an interview with Robert Nikic to gain insight into how he has reshaped the dropshipping industry, forever. Robert hopes to help would-be entrepreneurs learn from his mistakes by providing them with advice and the right tools to make their dropshipping dreams a reality.

What’s the #1 reason dropshippers give up?

Robert Nikic: As of the time of writing, roughly 90% of every dropshipping startup will ultimately fail. Most of those fail within the first 30 days, and in my experience, they seem to fail for the same reasons over and over again. When I designed Why Unified, I made sure that I designed it with these reasons in mind.

Most people who get started in dropshipping – including myself – have very little knowledge of ecommerce. Maybe they saw a video on TikTok, or maybe they read an article on Forbes that claimed dropshipping is the key to business success, so they jumped right in headfirst. There’s quite a bit that goes into it, from marketing to choosing suppliers and even understanding the fees associated with selling products. Most people have no idea what they’re getting into when they start, and it overwhelms them to the point that they just give up.

What role does patience play with dropshipping?

Robert Nikic: We live in a day and age of technology. About a quarter of the global population shops online regularly, and if there’s one thing people love, it’s having plenty of variety and choice. When you start dropshipping, you are up against dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of other stores in your same industry. Marketing is vital, but it isn’t instant. It takes time to build a brand for yourself, and it takes time for consumers to trust you enough to give you their money. Many dropshippers fail because it takes longer than they thought to earn enough to quit their full-time jobs. They just don’t have the patience.

What do you believe are big misconceptions in dropshipping?

Robert Nikic: My personal pet peeve when it comes to dropshipping is the number of influencers across social media telling people that they can get rich tomorrow if they will just buy that influencer’s eBook or download their sponsor’s tools or subscribe to their channel for more information. Some of the negative Why Unified reviews you’ll find across the web are based on these misunderstandings that have been perpetuated by influencers who are trying to earn more money themselves. Dropshipping can be a lucrative business, but no matter what you do, it is not going to make you rich overnight.

How does dedication and work ethic play into dropshipping?

Robert Nikic: One of the worst things I see that leads to failure in dropshipping is a lack of dedication and work ethic. It isn’t that people are lazy; it’s more that they aren’t treating it like the business it is. If you want to succeed in dropshipping, you have to get up every morning determined to give your business 110%. You can’t just download a plugin, make a social media post, and expect your store to blow up. You need to dedicate yourself to it and stick with it.

What do define as success v/s failure with dropshipping?

Robert Nikic: Before any entrepreneur can truly decide whether they’ve failed or been successful, they must first define what success means to them. Success can mean many things. For some, success is becoming a millionaire. For others, success is being able to earn enough profit to quit working a traditional nine-to-five job. For still others, success is earning enough to sock into a savings account that will pay for their kids’ college educations.

Define what success means to you. If your definition of success means becoming a millionaire, you may firmly believe you’ve failed if you only earned $600,000 your first year. If your definition of success is building a solid savings account for your kids’ education and you end up earning $2 million, then you’ve succeeded beyond your wildest dreams.

Finally, I like to tell people this: if you are still able to cover the operational costs of your online store, and if you still have the time to invest in helping it grow, you have not failed. Even if growth has been stagnant for years, you have not failed. There are plenty of things you can do to jumpstart your growth and start seeing more profits than ever before.

How does Why Unified reduce the failures you’ve mentioned?

When I was building Why Unified, my goal wasn’t to help people get rich quickly. It was to reduce the number of ecommerce stores that were failing and to provide people with a suite of tools that truly benefited them. Why Unified offers features that none of our competitors can offer, including:

• Access to American suppliers. It’s shocking that nobody had reached out to American suppliers to form agreements for dropshipping. Why Unified put in the time and effort to do this, and our clients continue to reap the benefits.
• Access to brand name products. Many of our American suppliers are brand-name wholesalers. We have agreements with dozens of suppliers of brands that aren’t available anywhere else.
• Access to two-day shipping. Because our suppliers are located in the United States, we can offer our clients the ability to ship goods to their customers in just two days. This helps them compete with Walmart, Amazon, and other ecommerce giants who have leveraged the market with low prices and fast shipping times.
• The ability to dropship on Amazon. For years, people believed that it was just illegal to dropship on Amazon at all. That turned out to be false. Amazon has some strict rules that describe how people can use the platform for dropshipping, but dropshipping itself is allowed. Only Why Unified offers the features that make Amazon dropshipping possible.
• A fully-managed experience that requires very little of the dropshipper’s time. Our Dropship LITE and Dropship PLUS plans were designed with busy people in mind. We know it can take some time to ramp up sales to the point where you can walk away from your full-time job, but running and growing an ecommerce store is a full-time job, too. Our amazing team at Why Unified headquarters manages every aspect of our clients’ accounts, from choosing the products to feature on the website to processing returns and handling customer service.

Failure in dropshipping is unfortunately very common, but I hope to give people the opportunity to succeed with tools that were built to overcome the issues that our competitors’ plugins create. With Why Unified, dropshipping is different, and we firmly believe that with the right mindset, anyone can be successful – even if they’ve never even heard of dropshipping until today.