Simplified Shopify Review (Scott Hilse Course)
Simplified Shopify is an online course by Scott Hilse, claiming to teach you all your brain requires for launching a single product dropshipping venture on Shopify to earn thousands every week. His start product is an iPhone case that somehow has let him travel around the world.
I’ll go through the content in this review, and we’ll reach a conclusion on whether you should spend your money on it or not. However, it’s nice to see it towards the price range I prefer with a $297 tag.
First off, I need to point out how Scott first bought a trademarked domain to host his course. Shopify has strict policies with this, and it often ends up in warnings from the platform and rebrandings to avoid issues.
Rocky beginning
After a while from its release, the course got rebranded, so it seems he couldn’t escape that issue. Now, that’s something that could happen to anyone who hasn’t read the terms and conditions thoroughly, and with little experience overall regarding domain selling and branding.
Now, the question is: would you buy a business course from someone fitting that description?
His sales page is your usual sales page: a sales pitch and revenue figures. The good thing is that I can respect his motivation, and him being invited to the 300 group from Tai Lopez gives him credibility. The bad thing was the revenue figures which never mean anything.
Scott seems to be your run-of-the-mill guru, talking about revenue without accounting for his business expenses and his actual profits. Making $1,000 in a day is all great and very possible, but remember that comes after your marketing, hired staff, refunds, and any other costs you have.
The standard profit from dropshipping is around 20% of your revenue, and while $200 daily is nothing to scoff at, it’s not the $1,000 you’re being sold. Moreover, single product stores are definitely profitable, but the hundreds of thousands he’s selling you are probably overshot.
Reviewing Simplified Shopify
Before starting any videos, I was already underwhelmed by the actual length offered in this course. My first look at the video list gathered about 26 videos with different durations. Luckily, Scott’s presentation from the sales page is also presented in his videos.
You can also download videos to watch them offline, and you can download some complementary slides as well.
The first video goes into a look of his store, and it’s nice to see he doesn’t blank his dashboard like most courses out there. You can see his Shopify URL as well as the actual store it redirects to. In it, you get to see his legendary phone case making him 6 figures in just 7 months. It’s priced at $10 and offers worldwide shipping for $4.
However, this video shows you the issue with Scott’s selling: misleading. The title of the video is “$1600 per day template”, yet the dashboard clearly shows us $256 as the day’s revenue. Going into the store’s stats evidences how the store actually makes around $450 daily, and his $1,600 revenue was a single day back in December 2017.
The video then goes into a view of a premium theme, but it’s really not the one you want to use. I’d recommend you go with a much better (and cheap!) one like eCom Turbo before moving on.
The following video goes into setting up your store’s backend and some basic Shopify administration like your refund policy. The backend stuff is especially useful since many people don’t really know what to do with that. This section is complemented by the next video on domain linking.
The 4th and 5th sections are about Facebook Ads. This is where we learn how Scott actually sends traffic to his business. Can you notice how this is an expense he fails to deduct from his sales revenue on the sales page?
Anyways, you learn how to setup your page and business account as well as installing your pixel. It’s basic stuff, but the explanations given by Scott somewhat make up for it.
Next up, we learn about how Scott researches his products, and it’s nothing you can’t find for free online, but it’s also something many people won’t really think unless they search for it. You have your usual Facebook search, info section, and a few tools.
Then, there’s how to import and test your products with your FB pixel, and while it’s fairly basic, beginners will definitely learn from it.
The 9th module goes into something called “freedom funnel”, coined by Scott. Once you watch the video, you learn it’s just a bunch of apps recommended by Scott for boosting your conversions and optimize your store. It’s nice to see they’re free, but if you can pay for eCom Turbo, you’ll get all these features as soon as you install it.
There’s another video on how you can get lots of interactions on Facebook. It’s just Scott advising you to get your friends to like your page, but unless all your friends agree to liking it (and you have as many friends as Scott), it’s not a valuable tip. There’s also a view of My Luxury Rings, another store by Scott, but it’s closed with barely 18 likes.
The next module goes back into Facebook Ads, and it’s about creating your first campaign. It goes over what you want to keep an eye on to keep your campaigns successful. He also shows you some of his methods, including making videos.
There are some brief videos about fulfillment next. There’s not much here, and you’re better off using Oberlo as you start before saving money and scaling to Dropified.
The next video is about when you want to get your LLC. This won’t do much for people outside the US or dropshipping to it from China. However, if you’re based on USA or thinking about offshoring in Wyoming or Delaware to work with US suppliers, then you’ll be glad this is here.
The next video is how you can go to 10,000 orders from just 100 with FB Ads. However, some of you may also notice how this has to be taken from someone else’s. 10,000 sales a day would quickly make him around 100,000 in revenue in just one day, and this course would have a completely different marketing approach.
Finally, you have some videos on outsourcing, manual bidding, getting traffic for free (neat), converting into a niche, and when you should sell your store. It’s an assortment of different topics, but they’re quite good.
Facebook group
You have your standard Facebook group, and you can interact with other students and Scott through it. He posts now and then, and there’s usually people talking every day, but it’s definitely not the largest group, at least at the time I checked it.
Refunds
There’s not any information on refund availability or whether or not you have to prove or meet any requirements if you want to request a refund. That’s always a red flag, but with the course’s content and value, I wouldn’t call it a scam –just a reason to be careful about buying this course.
Final Verdict
Overall, Simplified Shopify isn’t the largest course you can get for a low price, but it does have good value in it, and some beginners might even feel like they got their money’s worth.
Of course, you should be concerned about the sales figures and the revenue claims, like failing to account for his expenses or the claims not matching the real figures made. Another concern is that Scott’s success doesn’t mean you should replicate his approach.
There are courses like eCom Elites, which offer up to 6 times the amount of content your getting here for quite less. For example, eCom Elites offers over 200 videos filled with many approaches, tips, and value.
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 Simplified Shopify 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!
