Shopping Empires Review (Karianne Gagnon Course)
Today, we’ll be going through Karianne Gagnon’s Shopping Empires. It’s currently priced at $497, and its main focus revolves around WooCommerce, Shopify, and Google Ads Shopping.
As always, the sales page sells you wonders, and its design is very flashy and professional. It provides several comments and testimonials from both students and other gurus, which I’ve reviewed in the past, as backing for its claims.
However, as you probably know, that’s a standard (in one way or another) among eCommerce courses, so it’s not a selling point.
The content is, though, so let’s get right into it.
Who’s the author?
One has to look thoroughly to find out who’s Karianne. There’s not much information available besides a software released back in 2016. She does, however, claim to own various 7-figure brands on Shopify and consistently making $1,000 every day.
She seems to be a former student from Franklin Hatchett’s eCom Profit Masterclass, starring Richard Telfeja’s mentorship. However, Franklin ended this partnership a while ago, but it’s still a good sign.
Karianne is offering her own course, offering a break from Facebook Ads to focus on Google Shopping Ads, implementing it with a store on Shopify and WooCommerce.
Of course, the sales page has some warning signs. These include zero mentions on the actual profits she makes, and instead opts to talk solely about her revenue. Making millions in sales doesn’t mean a lot since marketing and maintenance costs can be quite big.
There’s also how she says you can make a living off dropshipping and Google Ads without investing any money. Even if you somehow get Google advertising for free, you still need to pay for hosting, domain, or a Shopify subscription besides a good internet connection and mobile data to always be on the lookout for news.
Of course, you also want to test the products before offering them, and that’s an extra expense.
Reviewing Shopping Empires
It’s confusing to figure out the actual content from just the course’s sales page. Setting up a store on WooCommerce or Shopify and scaling it with Google Ads is something, but the sales page is quite hyped for it to be just that.
Besides, the price tag is a significant $497, and it’s promised to raise all the way to $997, so it really contradicts the relative simplicity of this course. Given the imminent raise and the positive testimonials, buying it before it increased seemed like the right choice, so I decided to take a look.
The members’ area was another section that seemed confusing, even for someone who’s seen countless courses like me.
This course breaks down into a main section with 12 modules and 22 PDFs complementing them. Surprisingly, there aren’t videos nor audio books on the course, which is admittedly rare in today’s courses.
You just get a bunch of PDFs and feedback documents. Besides, the modules are fairly standard with today’s courses.
They cover the preparations for your store: domain, hosting, planning, etc. It takes you into two modules after that: one on WooCommerce and another one on Shopify for setting up your store on one of the two platforms.
It then goes into website speed and tech stuff before going into product research. You have a module on data feed before the actual Google Shopping Ads module.
I want to make a pause here and state how disappointingly short the Google Ads section is. It’s supposed to be one of the main selling points of this course, yet it provides basic content with a few good (but not enough) insights. It’s fine to get you started, but it’s not a masterclass like it was sold to be.
The rest is management stuff: testing, calculating your actual profits, and scaling your business by hiring virtual assistants.
The first and lass modules were exceptionally short, just a PDF with basic steps or information. It’s really just content you can get for free on YouTube.
Bonuses
The first “bonus” is just access to the private Facebook group, which isn’t really a bonus since it’s offered in all courses, even the lower-end ones. You can also access a public group with over 200 members, and it’s actually quite active and interesting at times.
However, there’s a significant quantity of posts complaining about the reduced profits you get if you stick with Google Shopping and mess up your keywords. It’s logical since Google Shopping is all about precision, and randomly choosing keywords will burn your budget.
The first actual bonus is a strategy for your email marketing and recovering up to 20% of the income you may have lost. Another bonus comes as a cashback tip for AliExpress, but it’s mostly common knowledge. The third bonus is how you can prevent from getting on Google’s Merchant Center’s wrong side. The forth bonus is an extra module about Facebook retargeting, and the last one is access to Karianne’s supplier.
As you can see, there’s quantity but not enough quality. The Facebook group and extra module should be a given in every course. The AliExpress isn’t groundbreaking, and the others are nice, but they don’t offer enough impact to your success.
Final Verdict
The course simply isn’t worth spending $497 despite what the sales pages and testimonials on it may tell you. You can get a much better course for just $297 by heading over to eCom Elites (from her supposed mentor), and receive actual videos instead of PDFs, so that’s another selling point for those who hate reading.
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 Shopping Empires Review and I wish you the best of luck.
Hey, I am Mike and I am a full-time affiliate marketer! Nowadays there’s a lot of people promoting guru courses and overall bad software products. I am absolutely tired of people pushing their overpriced and crappy products and courses out to everyone to take advantage of you. My mission is to review and call out bad products, software, and courses whilst recommending only the best there is! You can read a little more about my journey here!
