Who Is Scott Hilse?
Most would recognize Scott Hilse from his YouTube channel and appearances in the tutorial videos of Oberlo.
He has a sizable social media audience, especially on YouTube, where he has nearly 61k followers.
He is the guy who introduces the “One-Product Approach” and “Location Neutral Income Automation.”
The idea is to focus on just one product (One-Product Approach) and being able to work anywhere, anytime (Location Neutral Income Automation).
It’s worth mentioning that Scott claims to be endorsed by Oberlo, Shopify, and Tai Lopez on his LinkedIn profile, which, quite frankly, is a bit shocking for me.
Scott is a member of the Tai Lopez 300 Party and has been featured in the Oberlo 101 Dropshipping Course, including some of their YouTube channel episodes.
To become a member of the 300 group, all you have to do is pay $697.
Simplified Dropshipping Course Overview
Rank: Ranked #8 out of 8 dropship courses
Length: 2 hours 49 minutes
Content: This is a basic dropshipping lesson. However, you are not required to pay for this. Most of the information you see here is available for free elsewhere.
Instagram Account: @dripshipingcourse28)
Rating: 3.0/5.0 stars
Price: $497 (January 2020)
What To Expect In This Course
Don’t expect to be taught for hours, as most comprehensive dropshipping courses do. The course’s overall length, including the Intro and Outro videos, is just under 3 hours.
So, if you want a quick course to get you started as soon as possible, this might be it.
Simplified Dropshipping promises to have the following:
Unlike most drop shippers, Scott Hilse insists that dropshipping stores should concentrate on a single item.
Yes, you read it correctly—just one thing. If, for instance, you have sunglasses as a product, Scott says to sell just a single kind of sunglasses, not a range of sunglasses.
Scott had three six-figure shops using this process in 2017.
Right now, a huge, flashing alarm light should be appearing in your mind. The key terms to note in that statement being “even possible.”
Yeah, it is possible to make the first sale within just 24 hours. It’s also likely that the United States men’s soccer team will win a FIFA World Cup during the next decade. It’s possible, but it’s very doubtful.
Most people still regard dropshipping as an easy-breezy eCommerce business venture, and people like Scott contribute to this misconception.
Claims of student outcomes, such as the one below, are also ineffective.
These images are entirely useless.
Why is this so? It’s because these do not show how much was spent. You can’t show the profits until you’ve shown the related expenditures.
The profits made are simply not seen in these screenshots.
You could well double or even triple the price, but it won’t put money in your wallet right away. You would still need to exclude all of the expenses, of which ads are the most expensive.
Revenue of 20% is considered excellent. However, I am aware of drop shippers who make revenues as little as 5%.
Go figure it out. Even if you operate at a 20% revenue, you’ll find that those numbers aren’t all that remarkable.
Because of the increasing cost of Facebook Ads and other advertisement sites, some drop shippers lose a lot of money after running expensive ad campaigns.
Don’t fall for these misleading promotional tactics intended to convince you to purchase a course.
It was much easier to make a fast few bucks with dropshipping in 2015, 2016, and even 2017.
But the playing field has changed. It’s much different for the gurus back then. They made their money by actual drop shipping, and now they do it through selling courses.
Four Keys to Scott’s One Product Store Strategy:
1. Dare to stand out.
In Scott’s exact words, he says this,
“I wouldn’t recommend the average general store. I’d recommend the one product format. I built my entire store in two hours, and I built everything else in four. I haven’t touched the website since. In 4–6 hours you can have this all set up.”
2. Start simply, be patient.
Uncomplicate stuff for yourself, particularly at the start when you’re trying to understand your audience. Scott goes on to say,
“My advice is to sell the cheapest product you can in your chosen niche market. Make it so you’re making at least a little money. But as you’re making sales, you will be seasoning your Facebook pixel and building your email list. It will boost your confidence and get the ball rolling.”
3. Optimize your site for Facebook.
Scott’s one-product strategy is all about instructing your Facebook pixel how your advertising should be optimized.
“If there’s simply just one product, users can’t really do anything else but just buy or leave, and that’s good for the pixel. And that’s good for you, too. It really funnels them down to this one thing.“
4. ‘Lookalike’ audiences are gold.
Scott uses a Purchase Lookalike Audience.
“My main goal from the beginning was to use a Purchase Lookalike Audience. The only way to do that is to get 100 purchases. I knew that once I got 100 purchases I could start doing the lookalike audience. When I got to that part, that’s when everything changed.”
Simplified Dropshipping 3.0
Scott’s course has recently been renamed Simplified Dropshipping 3.0. The price has been reduced to a one-time fee of $397.00. It consists of approximately 30 videos.
What I find a little annoying about dropshipping and ecommerce is that the gross margin is typically about 15-25 percent.
Scott just speaks about sales figures, leading you to believe it’s his profit. This is another strategy to deceive you, and although the stats might be correct, they mask the actual numbers by not mentioning the product spend, ad spend, and other related expenses.
Profits from ecommerce are much smaller than those from affiliate ads.
Simplified Shopify Review
The Simplified Shopify course is pretty limited, with much less material than I am used to seeing in a dropshipping course.
He has over 25 videos in the course, all of which are at varying lengths. The videos can be downloaded, making it convenient, so you can take the material with you while you’re not connected to the internet.
His website, 1dealatatime.com, is currently inaccessible. This is the shop where he forwards the domain from which he sold his iPhone case. I’m not sure what’s going on with that right now.
His material is deceptive, as shown by a video titled “$1600 Per Day Template.” Per day, to me, means every day, give or take a few dollars. He only made this for one day, with most days producing even less.
Scott shares themes in one video and shows you a luxury theme that you should consider buying. eCom Turbo, in my view, is much superior because conversions are its focus.
Scott teaches your online store can be set up as most dropshipping courses do. If you’ve previously purchased an eCommerce course, you’re probably already aware of this stuff.
Parts 4 and 5 include Facebook Advertising preparation. Scott shows you how your Facebook Ads account is created, including your Facebook page. The installation of your pixel is also part of it. The training video is very basic but efficient.
Product research is also part of the package. I usually like to see some new/ different approaches here since people usually get confused about this part.
However, you find nothing worth exploring here or something that could’ve added value. Nonetheless, if you are a beginner, this can be helpful.
Scott, in another module, shares the importance of using free apps to improve conversions and the optimization of your store. You can avoid the hassle of downloading these applications by purchasing a conversion-based theme, such as eCom Turbo, which has these apps built into the theme – along with instruction.
Training on Facebook Ad campaign is included in the course outline, and it discusses what you should be mindful of when making your ads. Creating a professional video is included, and you’ll also get a gold nugget of advice on how to get your circles to support your page. That’s something I’ve never considered before, haha.
Other video clips in his course include manual bidding, converting to a specialty store, outsourcing strategies, selling the store, and so on.
The Simplified Dropshipping Course Breakdown
This course includes 29 video lessons spanning 2 hours and 49 minutes of viewing time.
There is no traditional introduction to the course. There is no bio. There isn’t even an example of what dropshipping is or why you can do it.
Lesson 1: One Product Store $1600/day Template
Video length: 06:25
Scott gets right into it, showing you the blueprint he used to make $1,600 in one day.
He doesn’t say anything about it happening in 2017. And it was just a SINGLE DAY, not PER DAY, as the deceptive title suggests.
On average, it seems that the shop earned less than $300 a day.
Yeah, and while $1,6k a day (or 48k in 30 days) sounds incredible, Scott never discloses his expenses. What he illustrates is sales, not Profit.
If you search for his everything-summer.myshopify.com store or Scott’s flagship 1dealatatime.com store, you won’t find either.
They will warn you why their shops close – and that is because they are continually seeking new items in new niches.
It’s probably true.
But how do you create a brand if you’re constantly jumping ship and opening new sites? Most can tell you how critical branding is, but they don’t seem to follow what they teach.
It’s also likely that they’ve closed all of their stores. Why else will they supply you with obsolete figures from two or three years ago? Note that both gurus today make money by selling their online courses/ apps/ tools, not by dropshipping. (The exception is most definitely Franklin Hatchett.)
Anyway, let’s get back to the lesson: Scott withholds a lot of detail. In reality, a hundred other guys have covered all of this on YouTube.
He displays certain (old) statistics for you. Scott then goes on to show a phone case that he sold for a lot of money.
He also shows a template in Shopify which he uses or has used.
There’s nothing revolutionary or novel about this part.
Lesson 2: Inner Store Set-Up
Length: 16:38
Scott walks you through the process of launching your dropshipping store, which includes the following:
- General Store Configuration
- Checkout Options
- Terms of Use
- Privacy Policy and Return Policy
- Adding Pages (Contact pages, policies)
- Adding Menu items
- Shipping Zones
- Payment Providers, and
- Picking a Plan for your store.
I’m gonna be a bit critical here.
When you pay for a lesson, you want the teacher to share some insider knowledge with you.
Unfortunately, Scott simply repeats information that can be seen for free on YouTube.
If you are a total beginner, this material is clearly valuable, but it is not worth paying for. Nonetheless, let’s hope Scott comes through elsewhere.
Lesson 3: Buying & Connecting a Domain
Length: 5:57
Scott recommends utilizing Google Domains. He demonstrates how to find a domain name, register it, and link to your Shopify store.
Lesson 4: Setting Up Your Facebook Page
Length: 11:40
In this lesson, Scott shares how to build a FB Page (Business).
This includes how to use Canva to make a logo design for your profile picture, a banner for your cover photo.
The lesson also teaches you how to create a button that directs visitors to your website.
Lesson 5: Business Ad Account + Pixel Setup
Length: 05:02
Scott takes you through the steps of creating a new Facebook Business Account.
It’s a simple process that covers all of the basic stuff you need to know. Scott addresses the following topics in this lesson:
- Creating a Facebook Profile for your Business Account.
- Setting up a New Ad Account
- Adding a Facebook Pixel in your Shopify store.
Lesson 6: Product Research
Length: 22:09
Scott demonstrates how he conducts his research on winning products on Facebook, Google Trends, AliExpress, and Google (while looking for “drop shipping niches” no less!. That’s so ridiculous…).
To be honest, Scott does state that “the best niche to be in is the one you create yourself,” but these approaches do not motivate you to create your own.
There’s nothing new, really.
Lesson 7: Importing Your First Product
Length: 11:59
Scott walks you through the process of using Oberlo to import the first product into your Shopify store. Additionally, Scott tells you how to create and upload a video ad to promote your product.
Lesson 8: Testing Your Pixel
Length: 05:39
Scott explains in this lesson how to use Test Mode in Shopify Payment Providers.
This is another helpful addition to any dropshipping course, but nothing noteworthy here. This information is available and free elsewhere.
Lesson 9: The Freedom Funnel
Length: 13:20
Freedom Funnel is but a series of free software that Scott uses to increase conversions on his website.
Scott explains how to build applications such as a Countdown Timer app and an Abandoned Cart app.
It’s an excellent lesson if you’re new to dropshipping and have a limited marketing budget. However, after you’ve set up and sales start rolling in, you may want to consider investing in superior paid-for apps.
Lesson 10: Getting Tons of FREE Page Likes in Seconds
Length: 0:46
Yes, my friend, that’s 46 seconds – for reals.
Scott’s suggestion to get a significant number of free Facebook page likes in a matter of seconds? Request that all of your Facebook friends like it. It’s really a no-brainer.
Lesson 11: Understand This Before Proceeding to Facebook Ads
Length: 01:19
Now, let’s go say something about Scott’s disclaimer.
Scott warns that you must be able to risk money with FB Ads before you start.
It may seem weird, but it is really sound advice.
Making money with Facebook Ads is tricky at first. It has a high learning curve, and the best way to progress is to do a lot of testing. And you can’t do it without spending on it.
So, you’ve got to keep yourself in check because even experts make mistakes from time to time. If you took the Oberlo 101 training, you’d know that they invested more than $1,000 on ads over six weeks and got sales less than $100.
Lesson 12: Launching Your First Facebook Ad – Method #1
Length: 08:51
Scott explains how to make a Facebook video ad in this class. He goes over it quickly, so newbies will need to stop and often rewind to catch up.
Once you’ve finished your masterpiece, Scott teaches you how to launch it using Facebook Ads Manager.
Here, he shares the following:
- Choosing your Ad Objective
- Driving your target Audience
- Setting up your Budget and Schedule
It’s important to remember that these are optimization ads, not sales ads. You run these to pique your target audience’s interest.
Lesson 13: Launching Your First Facebook Ad – Method #2
Length: 06:45
Scott attempts to pique curiosity for your store using a video clip.
He employs humor this time in the hopes of gaining a large number of shares and the video going viral. He discovers an amusing niche-related YouTube video and uses it as an ad.
Lesson 14: Getting Tons of Facebook Targeted Page Likes From Your Ads
Length: 02:15
Scott attempts to pique curiosity for your store using a video clip. He employs humor this time to gain a large number of shares and turn the video viral. He discovers an amusing niche-related YouTube video and uses it as an ad.
Lesson 15: Order Fulfillment
Length: 02:46
Scott Hilse guides you step by step on how to place orders with vendors who use Oberlo.
Lesson 16: From 0 to 100 Orders: Facebook Ads Strategy
Length: 20:55
Scott teaches you how to target particular regions depending on the interactions you got with your video ad using the data from your video ad.
Top tip: Scott tells you exactly how he scales his ads based on timing and budget. Finally, we get here an insider tip that you won’t find on YouTube or elsewhere.
Lesson 17: When to Form an LLC
Length: 2:26
Scott tells you when to form an LLC. He also recommends a firm to use to file the LLC.
Lesson 18: When & How To Outsource
Length: 03:17
Scott tells you in this lesson when the best time of outsourcing any of the more repetitive duties to Virtual Assistants is. He also recommends a website to find one.
Lesson 19: From 100 to 10,000+ Orders: Advanced FB Ads Strategy (LAAs)
Length: 05:59
Warning: This is all theoretical. Scott would not show you that he has fulfilled over 10,000 orders.
Scott advises building Lookalike Viewers after you’ve earned 100 orders and teaches you how to scale this. The aim is for you to eventually reach 10,000 orders.
Scott does provide you with a spreadsheet outlining his (theoretical) scaling techniques.
Lesson 20: Manual Bidding
Length: 03:35
An insider tip: Scott explains how he manually bids on ads.
Lesson 21: Converting To A Niche Store
Length: 02:26
Scott recommends that you move to a niche store as soon as the product no longer sells.
In this lesson, Scott teaches you how to purchase a new domain and link it to your current Shopify store. You must also make a new Facebook Business Page.
Lesson 22: When & How to Sell Your Store
Length: 01:32
Scott discusses in this video the Shopify Trade Market and when it’s the best time to sell your store. He does NOT, however, show you how to list your business.
Lesson 23: What You Can Do With Results To Take On Clients (Extra Passive Income!)
Length: 02:00
When you finally get sales, it proves that your FB Advertising and methods are successful.
You could then train small companies to work on their Facebook advertisements or run their ads for them.
Again, this is just another speculation covered in less than two minutes, but there is no real advice for aspiring marketers interested in exploring this potential income source.
Lesson 24: Sam Walton’s Price/Steve Jobs Method
Length: 03:45
Scott believes that this would assist you in developing a structure in your pricing for your one product.
Scott explains his approach, which is a hybrid of lessons from Steve Jobs, Sam Walton, and Jeff Bezos.
It does not, however, show exactly how to price the items. It’s more of a set of strategies for you to consider when you’re pricing your products.
Lesson 25: Multiple Product Method
Length: 03:09
I’m not sure I understand this part. Scott has only dealt with “one-product stores” up until this time, and now there are several products.
He does not explain whether you will have several items or where you would integrate them into your shop.
It also has the worst video quality in the entire course.
Lesson 26: Managing Online Reputation
Length: 02:28
Scott tells you how to you can manage/ handle your online reputation using only your mobile devices. You simply go through all of the comments on your Facebook feeds and get rid of any bad ones.
Lesson 27: How to Get FREE Targeted Traffic
Length: 05:55
When you don’t have enough ad budget, you can use this approach. This is only for very niche-related impulse purchases, not for generic daily items like cellphone cases.
Scott advises that you enter niche-specific groups and post about your product.
Lesson 28: Outro
Length: 01:30
Scott extends his thanks to you for taking the course, wishes you luck, and invites you to continue studying.
He also recommends a few phone applications to make your life simpler.
BONUSES
You get access to his Facebook Group, where he offers, in his own words, to “personally guide you and answer all your questions.”
You will also participate in Weekly Q&A Live Calls.
Money Back Guarantee
Scott Hilse makes no mention of a refund policy for his drop ship lesson. There are also no conditions or restrictions for seeking a refund of the course fee. The course does not have a voucher or a discount code.
Is Dropshipping Still Relevant In 2023? Can You Still Make Money With It?
You need to ask yourself this before embarking on your dropshipping adventure.
Why am I saying this?
Consider how many dropshipping millionaires you’ve recently heard about. I mean during the last year when I say “recently.”
There aren’t many.
There were at least ten a year a few years back. If you earn six figures in a year today, you’re called a huge success.
The rules of the game have certainly changed.
So, what’s different now?
First off, competition has become tougher. And drop shippers all get their goods from the same locations and vendors.
Second, Facebook Ads have changed. Ad costs are more. And because similar products are being offered, there’s more competition.
This makes it much more difficult for new drop shippers to reap instant success as there is no longer such thing.
You can certainly make money with dropshipping, but if you’re gonna put in the amount of grueling work to become a dropshipper (which, trust me, isn’t easy), you might as well bring in some REAL money.
The program that helped skyrocket my online business to $50,000+ per month teaches some of the same dropshipping skills, but shows you how to monetize them in a much, MUCH more profitable way.
What Is The Alternative?
First, let me ask you:
Do you want to walk in the footsteps of others like a “sheep?”
Do you not want to take the initiative?
How about creating and building a long-term enterprise that you can expand and develop year after year?
Then lead generation, I say, is most definitely, NOT for you.
Lead generation is the best online business model I’ve come across.
Each business model has advantages and drawbacks, but lead generation far outperforms the rest.
I should be excited about an experience like this, where not everyone would be able to easily follow you.
It could pique your interest in learning and honing a new skill set – something set that is constantly in demand.
Lead generation has some significant benefits over dropshipping:
- Lead generation is the way to go if you’re hunting for an opening with potentially the highest ROI.
- Creating leads is a talent that requires experience to learn. Unlike dropshipping, it is not for all because it’s a whole new game, and it’s not that easy. Meaning there will be far less competition!
- As soon as you’ve worked out how to get the lead generation pages to rank number one on Google, it’s going to be easy to replicate.
- An additional benefit is that if you’ve risen to the top of the rankings, maintaining the position requires relatively little effort.
- You get the opportunity to interact with actual people, make connections with local business owners, and share in their delight as you assist their companies in growing!
- Local Lead Generation provides you with a laptop lifestyle in which you have the option of working from wherever and wherever you choose.
It earns me $50,000 a month, while drop shipping earned me $10,000 a month at its peak.
There just isn’t much competition.
Local lead generation is without a doubt my top market option for 2020 and beyond.
Is It A Worthwhile Course?
Scott is highly passionate about dropshipping. Well, I would be, too, if I could buy this in my early twenties.
He may have been a good drop shipper in the past. His course is way too general, and about 95% of the content can be viewed for free on YouTube.
Is the remaining 5% worth the $497 price tag?
No, it does not.
His story might convince you that it’s worth the try. I mean giving away your credit card number for this hefty price tag?
The answer is all up to you. ideas ideas type amazon credit card points readers cookies magic founder businesses browser views idea
Scott Hilse gives you insider information by showing you his exact formula for scaling his advertising, but he never backs up his arguments.
You believe him when he says his strategies work.
However, you might end up spending a lot of money on Facebook Ads. But that, my friend, is just how it works. What works one week will not work next week.
This is just one of the many reasons why I favor Lead Generation more than other business models out there.
Final Verdict: Is It A Scam?
It’s not a scam, let’s point that out quickly. Let me tell what the real issue here is.
Scott Hilse’s Simplified Shopify is just way shorter than it needs to be. Be that as it may, it still presents some value in some ways.
In my opinion, it’s a little alarming that the numbers listed in the course and on the sales page don’t line up or take into account company expenses.
Also, just because Scott Hilse was fortunate for one commodity does not guarantee that you will be.
The one thing that gets to me is the fact that there are numerous courses available online that have 6 times more content but for a much lesser cost, and free for most!
If you want to invest in Scott’s name/ brand, you’ll actually get decent value, but if you’re a novice or intermediate looking for a comprehensive A-to-Z course, this is not for you.
It is entirely possible to build a profitable, successful online business however.
Scam Risk’s #1 Recommended Way To Make Money Online In 2024
Our review team has come across a program in the real estate industry that is next level!
Although it’s not real estate in the traditional sense, it’s all digital.
Where Simplified Dropshipping falls short is in scalability.
You can’t realistically expect to be able to make passive income when you have to watch your store and manage ads all day.
But what if you leverage it?
With this Digital Leasing program, you can have the ability to completely walk away from the laptop because there is no ad management!
Sound too good to be true? Of course it does! But it isn’t…in fact, business owners wish they had this skill!
All you have to do is build and rank a website and forward the jobs off to a business owner in town, you could even email it to them!
This works for literally any service based business, tree service, plumbing, towing, etc.
How do you get paid and how much?
Simple, after you forward the jobs off to a business owner and he makes some money off of them, you simply ask to make the deal beneficial for each other.
A fair price to charge per lead, depending on the industry is 10-20%…let’s just use the tree service industry for example and go by worst case scenario.
Let’s say you build and rank the site and only 10 jobs a month come in. The average tree service job is anywhere from $500-$2000!
That means at bare minimum you have an asset worth $500 a month!
See why they call it Digital Leasing now? That’s a rent payment.
The great thing is how easy it is to scale. You don’t have to answer the phone…all you have to do is get the phone to ring.
Remember Simplified Dropshipping and all the small profit margins?
This one actually allows you to collect that without being on the laptop managing a store all day. Truly passive income!
The training program takes making money online to a whole other level. The owner of the program walks you through how to build and rank a site hand in hand, with the occasional voice over when he is sharing his screen.
You will learn the importance of keywords, website name, how to send call notifications via email, backlinking, etc.
Once the training program is completed you will also have access to a Facebook group much better than the Scott Hilse group in our opinion. This group is much more active.
Unlike Simplified Dropshipping, where you have to run ads all day and worry about getting a $5 profit off a $50 product 1,000 times over…. A business will always want more leads and another job. In fact it doesn’t even matter that the job isn’t coming from their website name…they see it as it is…expanding Digital Leasing.
Unlike Simplified Dropshipping, more people have been able to walk away from their 9-5 job as well.
Digital Leasing allows you to have total passive income with most of your day being spent OFF the laptop.
Now, I know you probably have tons of questions… So, check this out to learn more.
