eCom Challenges Review (Thaddeus Strickland Course)

Today, we’ll be reviewing Thaddeus Strickland’s eCom Challenges course on dropshipping. It sells as a single stop to learn all the knowledge you need to start and scale your own eCommerce venture.

After reading this review, you’ll be able to tell if that’s statement is true or not. As always, you can jump right into my conclusion, but I’d recommend you read the entire review to make a more informed choice.

Who’s the author?

According to Thaddy, he’s a “serial entrepreneur”, and he’s from the US. He creates content and store as well as software he sells as is source of income. This course works as an in-depth extension of the content provided by his videos on YouTube.

His popularity has grown quite a bit in recent months, and if you’re used to watching dropshipping content, you’ve probably seen his channel among your recommendations. He’s nearing the 40,000 subscribers mark, and his content focuses on tutorials and strategies for making money through dropshipping.

His Instagram account @thaddy is also quite active, and he passed the 43,000 subscribers milestone months ago. His content there is somewhat more personal in that he mostly shares the luxurious lifestyle he’s been able to afford with his ventures.

You can see different advertisements and posts promoting his course on Instagram if you’re used to following this business style.

Reviewing eCom Challenges

eCom Challenges features 92 different videos among 23 modules, so it’s a bit on the longer side of dropshipping courses. You can pay and access the course on Teachables, so the videos are high quality and responsive.

The course itself presents as a challenge, and the idea is to provide you with a more entertaining approach to learning the business model.

Intro

Module 1 introduces you to the program. It’s your basic overview of what you can expect and the invitation to join the FB group, where you can post any doubts you might have for other students to help you.

Thaddy’s approach

This module offers 3 videos showing you how Thaddy creates his ventures. You learn different methods for creating your store, how to pick your theme, which widgets Thaddy recommends, among other things.

Recommended programs

In the 3^rd module, you’re recommended several tools you can use to make your store more effective. Included here, we have Facebook and its advertisements to attract more customers. You have a lesson on how to test your ads (run several at the same time) and how you can catch visitor leads to reduce your workload automating and driving your sales.

Finding and validating products

This is your product research module, and Thaddy explains here how you can find products with certainty that they’ll sell. You also learn how to move said products into your store from online marketplaces (i.e. AliExpress), and he also goes into tools to facilitate this task, like Oberlo.

There’s also a lesson on using data from AliExpress to validate your ideas, one on how to look for new chances with Google Trends, and a last one on how to use Facebook’s search bar to look for the items that other stores are selling with success.

Marketing

Module 5 is just 2 videos on how you can market your store through Instagram.

It goes into how to use influencers on the platform to sell to their already-built audiences. There are also lessons now other Instagram-related strategies to expose your products to potential customers.

Optimizing your pages

You have 2 videos with a strategy on each to improve the pages for your products. The first one teaches you how you can find the best stock images using AliExpress.

The second one is about the lifecycle of your products. That’s basically what you can expect from your products when you list and sell them through a store.

Launch preparations

This module’s purpose is to go through what to do regarding orders, before and after they start coming in.

The lessons cover how to fulfill your orders, how your Instagram funnel should be (it’s essentially just the entire process your customers go through from your ad to buying your offer), the proper way to price your listings, and when/how to scale your store.

Important considerations

Modules 8 and 9 go into different scenarios and considerations you should keep in mind while running your business. It’s a very interesting section, but it’s more theory than anything you can actually put into practice.

You have lessons on what you should do if your store doesn’t get conversions, how using influencers has evolved through time, how to spot good influencers, a simplification of the dropshipping business model, and comparison between low, mid, and high ticket items.

You also have a lesson on how to make your store look clean and flawless, and a few theoretical videos responding questions like why you should use free+shiping, why working with large influencers, and why the most important sales quarter of the year is Q4 (October, November, December)

Facebook strategies

This module introduces us to Noah, who’s been invited to provide the Facebook training with a few advertising tactics.

The first approach you learn is how to use lookalike purchases to increase your conversions. There are also 3 videos explaining the process of setting up a funnel on Facebook to ensure sales for the products you promote through Facebook.

Product photos

This is a short module on how to take great-looking photos for under $10. You learn why the white background matters and how to speed up your photos.

Designing

This is kind of the continuation of the previous module, and it goes into editing and altering your photos as well as your store’s logo and design in general.

You have lessons on presets, manually editing your photos, how Thaddy designed his first logo, and why you want to pay attention to dimensions if you want to display your images properly.

Payments

Module 13 talks about payments in 2 videos. You have one about Shopify’s issue of holding payments (when Shopify keeps your money on hold after customers buy from you) and how to solve it, and the other one is about setting up your payments properly to get your funds faster.

Facebook Ads types

This lesson goes into the different types of Facebook ads you have at your disposure for marketing your products.

You learn about how to set up your Facebook Pixel, carousel and dynamic ads, retargeting ads, and custom and lookalike audiences.

I get why this content wasn’t included in the previous Facebook Ads module, but it definitely feels off to have them separated by 3 modules with nothing to do with the topic.

Facebook Ads strategies (again, it seems)

And it gets worse since then you have another module discussing strategies you can employ with the different types of Facebook ads you already learned. I was really distracted by this, but I doubt this will be a problem for everyone.

I just don’t like when courses’ structures look random.

Anyways, here you learn about a “3-ad objective” strategy, how you can stop spending money marketing to individuals who aren’t likely to buy, and how to get ideas for your images and captions.

Bull-rush

This module goes into a strategy used by Thaddy to boost his conversions. It revolves around analyzing your data, and the lessons explain to you what the strategy actually is and what requisites you need to meet if you want to use it.

Scaling

Module 16 is about why you want to outsource your work and how to do it. It’s essentially how you get to scale your store and spend less time on it while generating more money.

You learn how to test, self-scale, and some software that you can use to run your ads with less time and effort when testing. You can apply this knowledge yourself, but there’s also content on how to hire others to do this for you so you can focus on other tasks.

Influencers

This is the most substantial module in the course, and it focuses on Facebook and Instagram, as you might have seen coming throughout the course. However, FB influencers are a lot more underestimated than Instagram’s.

You’re introduced to another friend of Thaddy, whom he calls JT. The claim is that he made $45,000 in just one day, and this module gives you a motivational message from JT, but it also gives you a summary of how he did it. He focused on influencers.

You basically learn what they are and how you can find the most effective, both paid and free. You also learn how to reach out to them and get them to shout out your products.

The final videos are about how to work into a long-term partnership and how you can use the 2 platforms discussed efficiently.

Again, I don’t see why this section was separated from the other two. The Instagram marketing section was around 3 modules before the first Facebook strategies, and some of you might get lost with all the content in-between.

And there’s a final hit.

How to use Instagram

The closing 2 modules of the course are about how to use Instagram effectively, right after you learn how to use it with influencers, and 14 modules after the one about Instagram marketing.

You learn how to decide if you should automate your process and how to do so, using automated direct messaging, “Shadowbans” and how to avoid them, using hashtags efficiently, how to manage your growth, leveraging Instagram highlights and making logos or covers for them, how other brands are using highlights effectively, how to set up autocomment, and getting free traffic.

Bonuses

The bonuses come with a handful of guides and files you can use to make your entrepreneurship easier.

You have a directory with over 150 dropshipping companies in the US, a checklist, a list of the best 500 stores on Shopify, Thaddy’s favorite 30 influencers on Instagram, and some presets for both mobile and desktop you can use on your site.

Final Verdict

I hope you found this review useful and if you have any questions, please comment down below. I’ll be more than happy to assist you.

Once again, thanks for reading my eCom Challenges Review and I wish you the best of luck.