Dropship Lifestyle Review – Is Anton Kraly a Scam?

If you’d like to start an online business, you might have watched Anton Kraly’s ads on social media platforms like Facebook or Youtube. 

Anton Kraly, the course creator said Drop Ship Lifestyle (DSL) is the best Shopify-approved dropshipping course. But does it live up to the hype? Or is Anton Kraly a scam?

As someone who has started a dropshipping business, I can share with you everything I know about the program. 

Since I am not affiliated with DSL or Anton Kraly, you can rest assured that my review is unbiased.

Dropship Lifestyle Review – Key Takeaways

• Course Name: Dropship Lifestyle
• Website: www.dropshiplifestyle.com 
• Price: $4,997
• Course Creator: Anton Kraly
• Pros: Actionable tips; one-on-one coaching; active online community
• Cons: Overpriced; poor refund policy; difficult business model
• Overall Rating: 2/5
• Verdict: An expensive dropshipping course that teaches you how to start a Shopify dropshipping business. 

Below is what I’ll be covering in the review of Anton Kraly and his course Dropship Lifestyle.

What is Dropship Lifestyle?

The Dropship Lifestyle is a dropshipping course Anton Kraly launched in 2013. Anton claims that the training program is a 7-step process for launching and growing a profitable dropshipping-based online store.

It is a one-stop shop that provides a blueprint, individual coaching, and a “done for you” service (which is usually a sales tactic that most gurus use to pitch their expensive upsell). 

Anton said he successfully built a dozen eCom stores from scratch by following a highly standardized, repeatable process, which is undoubtedly an overhyped claim. There is no absolutely repeatable process in business because everything changes, from the Facebook algorithm to the costs of products on AliExpress. 

Since its inception in 2013, the Dropship Lifestyle programme has evolved into a full culture, complete with international conventions and retreats (all of which you get to be a part of if you become a student).

Learn more: best dropshipping courses

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Who is Anton Kraly?

Anton is the founder of Drop Ship Lifestyle (DLS). He is a serial entrepreneur featured in an article for Forbes back in May of 2017.

After graduating from college in 2006, Kraly spent $25,000 to buy a delivery route to sell cookies in Merrick, N.Y., a Long Island community.

“I would basically drive on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway into Brooklyn every morning, load up this truck I bought, and go to big grocery stores and sell these products,” says Kraly.

Shortly thereafter, he began selling furniture and home goods imported from China. Within three years, the company had $1.2 million in sales. They sold it in the fourth year, 2011 when it achieved sales of $1.8 million.

Anton said his dropshipping business brought in $3.68 million in three years before he sold it. But you never know what the net profit is.

Kraly came up with his second business idea while participating in online forums about eCommerce businesses. He noticed that many people responded to his posts and then asked him privately for advice.

As a result, Kraly used his online posts to create content for Dropship Lifestyle, a website he launched with a partner as a new business in 2012. The site sells online courses and hosts live events for Internet retailers. He claims Dropship Lifestyle has generated $1 million in revenue in its third year and $3.5 million in 2016. 

In his personal blog, Anton states that he lives the laptop lifestyle while making money online by running eCommerce stores, and Amazon affiliate stores, promoting affiliate networks, and creating digital products, e.g. Dropship Lifestyle.

How does Dropship Lifestyle help you make money?

Dropship Lifestyle is a program that teaches you how to start a dropshipping business. 

Dropshipping is a method of retail fulfillment in which companies do not stock the products they sell. Dropshipping retailers buy products directly from manufacturers, wholesalers, or other retailers and ship them to customers.

When you use dropshipping, you essentially act as a storefront for your business. When customers place an order, they pay you and dropshippers bill you. You do not work with any merchandise.

Kraly will teach you how to pick a profitable niche, set 

The course shows you how to set up a Shopify store, find winning products, and drive traffic to your offers using social media ads.   

However, there’s no guarantee that you can make money from dropshipping. I’ll discuss the problems with this business model in the following section. 

Problems with Dropshipping Business

1. Difficult to maintain quality

Dropshipping can be a bit tricky when it comes to making sure the products you’re selling match up with their descriptions. Because you don’t get to physically check the items yourself, it can be a challenge to make sure they’re up to snuff. 

Plus, if something goes wrong – like late delivery, broken product, or missing item – your customers will come to you, not the supplier. 

So, if the supplier messes up, it could mean unhappy customers and lost sales for you. Just keep in mind that quality control is important when it comes to dropshipping.

2. Paid ads are very expensive

Advertising on platforms like Facebook, Google, and TikTok is getting pricey. According to Business Insider, the cost of ads on these platforms is going up every year. And get this, it’s partly because of some recent changes Apple made to ad targeting. 

Apparently, Facebook’s CPM has gone up by 61%, Google’s CPM has increased by 75%, and TikTok’s CPM has skyrocketed by 185%. 

Even though TikTok is a newer and cheaper platform, it’s not looking like the ad cost is slowing down anytime soon. 

The reason for this is that more and more marketers and businesses are running ads on these platforms, so the competition is getting fierce. 

This means that as a beginner dropshipper, it might be harder for you to get started, and even if you’ve been dropshipping for a while, you might have to rethink your strategy.

3. Customer support is very time-consuming

In dropshipping, you have to spend a lot of time communicating with suppliers and dealing with customer service.

If your customer has any issues with the product, you have to wait for your supplier to help you. If your supplier is not helpful, you have to bear the loss yourself. Therefore, many dropshipping stores have poor customer reviews and no returning customers.

In the worst case, you would expect a lot of credit card chargebacks, which risk getting your payment gateway shut down.

4. A lot of work on product research 

For your store to keep making money, you always have to find a product that has the momentum to go viral in order that the ad costs can be covered.

In dropshipping, most products reach their peak in 1-2 months or even weeks. This is because many competitors will steal your product and create a better ad. Or increase their budgets on Facebook ads to outbid you.

Therefore, you need to keep finding new replacements to keep generating cash flow.

You might see people post revenues online but they don’t tell you the net revenue.

Some of them might be making money but it’s not sustainable.

The dropshipping business model is not as passive as you think. Most people who succeed in dropshipping are doing it full-time because it requires you to keep finding new products, creating new stores, testing new ads, and looking for new suppliers to make your income stable.

5. Low profit margin

Starting a dropshipping biz can be tough, especially if you’re starting from scratch. The key to success is all about getting lots of traffic to your website. But, when you’re first starting out, it can feel like you’re hitting a wall trying to build up your customer base.

One thing to keep in mind is that with dropshipping, you’ll likely be buying products one at a time instead of in bulk. This means that your profit margins might not be as good as they could be. 

And, you might have to pay extra fees to your wholesaler for things like selecting, packing, and shipping each customer order. 

So, don’t expect to make a ton of cash right away. You’ll probably need to scale up your biz and build a bigger customer base before you can start raising your prices.

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Dropship Lifestyle Course Breakdown

Anton Kraly’s course contains four different sections, including Drop Ship Blueprint, Adwords PPC Course, Paid Social Traffic Course, and Events. Each section comes with its own modules and sub-sections. 

There are a total of 151 videos with a total length of 33 hours and 30 minutes.

Section 01 – Drop Ship Blueprint

Section 1 includes 13 separate modules with a total of 77 videos with a total length of 15 hours and 31 minutes.

Anton begins this section with an introduction to his dropshipping model. What makes the difference is that he recommends you to find a single niche and sell “evergreen” products instead of looking for any hot products that are trending.

He believes there are dropship products that will never go out of style. In fact, he goes further by asking you to ignore suppliers in China and focus on “local” suppliers that can ship on your behalf.

I actually laughed when I heard this kind of advice from his students. Because everyone knows that even the so-called “local” suppliers import their products from China. In fact, most of them are just AliExpress suppliers who store their made-in-China products in the warehouses of the US, UK, Canada, Australia and other European major countries.

So, you can actually ship a Chinese product from the US. Then, why do you want to exclude Chinese suppliers who can offer you the cheapest prices?

After that, Anton gives you a walkthrough in the following modules:

• Select a niche and products,
• How to do market research
• Create a website from scratch
• Find out the best suppliers
• Optimise your store for conversion
• How to drive traffic
• Automate the operation of your store

In short, I found that Anton seldom mentions product research which is important to keep your business afloat. I wonder if he just wants you to buy his premium ultimate package, which provides you with the service of sourcing products, priced at $8,997.

This looks like a trap for newbies who don’t even know that they can google and find out most of the trending dropship products.

Besides, the Creating Your Website Module has some sound issues throughout its 3 hours and 57 minutes.

But since Anton is too busy with his dropship style on the beach, he might not have time to fix it, though you paid him $2,997 for the course.

Last but not least, why does Anton discourage you from finding Chinese suppliers? This should be a simple process of browsing through the website of AliExpress…

Section 02 – Google AdWords (pay-per-click)

Section 2 contains 3 separate modules with a total of 29 videos with a total length of 5 hours and 26 minutes.

This is a complete course on its own and the instructor is Michael Erickson from Search Scientists.

Search Scientists is a legitimate Google Certified Partner. On behalf of their clients, they spend more than a million dollars on Google ads every year.

In this section, Michael explains how Google ads work and how to set up a campaign.

In the end, he also teaches you how to use different types of ads to drive traffic.

Section 03 – Paid Social Traffic

Section 3 contains 6 separate modules with a total of 38 videos with a total length of 6 hours and 15 minutes.

This section is also taught by Michael Erickson and deals with social media marketing.

Module 1: Social Paid Traffic Marketing Fundamentals For eCommerce

The first module introduces to you the basics of advertising on social media. Micheal begins with the concepts of PPC, CPC, organic traffic.

Then he compares the difference between paid ads on Google and ads on social media platforms.

In the end, Michael will tell you the typical social media funnel but no example is provided.

Module 2: ​Facebook Ads

In this module, Micheal cautions against the mistakes of setting up and running Facebook ads campaigns.

He also shows you the layout of Facebook accounts, different Facebook ad strategies, ad formats, Facebook audiences and bidding types. Below are some of the details:

• Set up Facebook Business Manager and FB Ads Manager Accounts
• Install the FB Pixel, a product catalog and a Pixel for Dynamic Product Ads
• Set up the Product Catalog Tool and a Product Feed (used to create Dynamic Product Ads.)
• Create a campaign mapping spreadsheet

Michael then shows you how to set up a dynamic product ad and set up your targeted audiences.

He goes on to explain the dimensions and segments inside the FB Ads Reporting Tool and how to generate a report.

After that, you will learn how to get Ad/Campaign data from Power Editor and the FB Ads Manager.

Most of the time, he doesn’t provide any example. And if you are experienced with dropshipping, you can skip this section.

Module 3: ​​Instagram

In this very short 5 minute module, Michael teaches you how to set your Instagram Ad Campaigns up on Facebook.

Module 4: Pinterest

Michael teaches you the different types of Pinterest Ads and how to open a Pinterest Business Account.

He gives advice on what works on Pinterest and then shows you how to create Pinterest Ad Campaigns and how to track them.

Module 5: Twitter

Michael tells you some Twitter Targeting Methods, Ad Types, and Strategy.

This is followed by a Tour of Twitter’s Ads Analytics Dashboard. You will learn about Conversion Tracking, Follower Campaign Set up, Tailored Audience Building, and Website Conversion Campaign Setup.

Lastly, Michael teaches you how to interpret the data on Twitter.

Module ​6: Putting It All Together

In this module, Michael emphasizes the importance to follow the golden 3 x R’s rule in every single ad you run, across the board:

Target the Right Person, with the Right Offer, at the Right Time.

Michael also teaches you when to use retargeting ads and reminds you to keep an eye on your ad campaigns from time to time. If so, how can you lounge on the beach?

Section 4 – Events

Section 4 contains a total of 7 videos with a total length of 6 hours and 18 minutes.

This bonus section is a collection of videos featuring guest speakers at the DSL 2017 retreat.

The 2017 speakers talked about:

• Stalking prospective customers on Facebook
• Selling your online store
• How to balance work, life and family (seems irrelevant? )
• Influencer marketing (is it really useful to dropshipping?)
• Building a brand (but dropship products are generic)
• Alternative traffic sources
• Content marketing (more suitable for affiliate marketing?)

This section doesn’t contain anything that is inspiring. If you don’t want to sit through 6 hours of content, just skip it.

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Praise for Dropship Lifestyle

1. Private mentorship

After joining DSL, you will receive 3 months of private mentoring from Kraly’s Team coaches, who are successful entrepreneurs themselves. 

Indeed, that sounds pretty suspicious to me. If the coaches really made a six-figure income, why are they still working for Kraly for a measly salary?

2. Regular updates

While most dropshipping courses rarely update their content, Anton is always updating DLS material and recently released version 7.0. Dropshipping is constantly evolving. If you learn dropshipping the way it was done in 2016, you’re screwed.

3. The course includes Google ads

Anton goes a step further than the basic Facebook ads in most courses and shows you how to master Google Product Listing Ads. 

While Google search ads require advertisers to enter the keywords they want to be displayed for, Google Shopping automatically determines the keywords by pulling them from product titles and descriptions. 

However, Google has a much stricter policy for Google Shopping ads, and once your ad account is suspended, it is permanent.

4. DIY service

Anton claims that with this service he will help you build a sales-optimized Shopify store. However, everyone in online business knows that it is intuitive to create a Shopify store. 

You just need to choose a theme, set up a payment gateway, list your products and install a few plugins, and that’s all. 

You should not outsource this process because if your dropshipping store was closed by Shopify, you will have to set up a new store yourself. You must therefore learn the technical stuff yourself.

Criticism of Dropship Lifestyle

1. Lots of biased reviews from their affiliates

You probably have found some other reviews of Dropship Lifestyle and all of them are saying good words.

But all of them are actually paid to write, meaning they will receive a commission if you purchase Dropship Lifestyle via their links. Therefore, their words are often biased and not trustworthy.

Those reviews are simply sales pages and do not tell you the hidden costs and the difficulties of really making money.

By common sense, should you trust someone who has a conflict of interest that receives huge compensation by “reviewing” the course? Probably not. They are not reviewing, but selling!

Therefore, I recommend reading the reviews of those written by the non-affiliates of Dropship Lifestyle. For example, you can look at some real user reviews of Dropship Lifestyle on Trustpilot and Better Business Bureau.

But you have to be wary of fake positive reviews, which are usually short and sweet, and do not say much about how the course helped them build a successful business.

2. Poor refund policy

Dropship Lifestyle has a refund policy, but it’s not as easy as just asking for your money back. In order to get a refund, you have to show that you’ve completed a few tasks within 30 days. These tasks include choosing a niche, finding 20 suppliers, and building a website. If you can’t prove that you’ve done all of this, you won’t get your money back. No exceptions.

Keep in mind that 30 days isn’t a lot of time, and there are a ton of other dropshippers all looking for reliable suppliers too.

Even though Anton gives you a list of his preferred suppliers, you still have to contact them and follow the refund policy’s rules. And remember, you’ll also need to do your own research to figure out your niche and have a list of 50 to qualify.

This might be unrealistic for new dropshippers, depending on how much time you have, how you like to learn, and how well you understand the job. Unfortunately, the contract that Anton and his team have written up is legally binding. So, getting your money back is pretty much impossible.

So, before you sign anything, make sure you know what you’re getting into and that you can commit to finishing all of the tasks in 30 days.

On Trustpilot, a customer said he was pushed to buy the Dropship Lifestyle course but could not get a refund when he entered the course and found it unhelpful.

3. Not beginner-friendly

If you are a beginner, you will find the course pretty hard to follow. 

The course is not a well-organized step-by-step guide. 

According to one customer, he was unable to set up a dropshipping store within 21 days with the information Anton provided. 

4. Too expensive

DLS is much more expensive than other dropshipping courses.

The Unlimited package of the course is sold at a whopping $25 thousand! However, Dropship Lifestyle’s course is nothing more than a dropshipping course.

The so-called retreat included in the Unlimited bundle won’t help you much in launching a dropshipping business. It’s just an expensive trip to socialize with other students and listen to Anton brag about himself.

I don’t recommend investing so much money into a course when you have not made a penny. It’s risky to invest thousands of dollars when you are not sure whether it works or not.

It’s much cheaper and easier to get started when compared with the Dropship Lifestyle.

5. High-ticket dropshipping method is counterintuitive

My teacher Kraly teaches us to look for products between $200 and $2k, but the thing is, those big ticket items can be tough to sell. 

You know how with traditional dropshipping and low-ticket items, it’s all about following the latest trends and tapping into people’s emotions to get those impulse buys? 

High-ticket items are a whole different ballgame. People are more likely to want to shop around, think it over, or put off their purchase.

Certainly, you can make more money with high-ticket items because the margins are better. And you don’t have to sell as many to make a profit. But, you do have to put in more work when it comes to shipping and delivery. 

And, you need to have a product that people actually want to buy. A lot of dropshippers don’t have the patience for all that, so there’s less competition. 

But, you’ll also be going up against big brands like Ikea, Ashley Furniture and Joybird. These are huge companies with tons of money for marketing, so you’ll need to find a unique angle or a better offer to stand out. 

And don’t forget, you need to build a brand and gain your customer’s trust. 

Even then, sales can be inconsistent or non-existent. So, just keep in mind that it’s not a guaranteed win.

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How much does Dropship Lifestyle cost?

Dropship Lifestyle is very expensive. Below is an overview of the prices for different packages:

• Basic DSL course package (Premium+) costs $4,997;
• The Ultimate package costs $8,997. It includes 6 months of private mentoring instead of 3 months, an additional inbox funnel course, and 6 months of ready-made content marketing;
• The Unlimited package costs $25,000. It includes lifetime private mentoring, 12 months of ready-made content marketing, an additional inbox funnel course, and a ticket to this year’s Dropship Lifestyle Retreat in Prague.

However, the teaching quality of DSL is not better than others, so it doesn’t justify a higher price. 

If you are just starting out, you shouldn’t invest thousands of dollars in something that hasn’t been proven to work.

Refund Policy

Dropship Lifestyle offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, but you must first choose a niche, contact 20 suppliers, and create a website within that period. 

I doubt you can complete the course and do all these assignments in a month!

Is Anton Kraly a scam? 

Anton Kray is not a scam. His Dropship Lifestyle is a legitimate online training course on dropshipping. 

However, according to some customer reviews found on Trustpilot, Anton doesn’t seem to be a very honest guru.

Furthermore, DLS is a unique course since it ignores most of what you’ve heard about dropshipping.

For example, this course tells you not to waste time looking for new products. But in reality, the lifespan of any dropship product is so short that you need new replacements to keep the momentum of generating sales.

Anton Kraly also discourages you from selling new trending products. This goes against the basic sales principles.

Worse still, he tells you not to work with suppliers from China. But almost every dropship product is made in China…And you don’t have to stay alert on the shipping time? As far as I know, this is a headache for every dropshipper…why can you ignore it?

It’s not a bad idea to focus on a proven niche and save yourself the hassle of constantly looking for new products.

But the popularity of a niche can wax and wane over time, you might not be able to sustain a stable income without new products.

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Should you join Dropship Lifestyle?

According to the their, a ton of people have already joined Dropship Lifestyle – like, 14,000 people. That’s a lot of competition already using the same business model, niche selection, market research, supplier sourcing, advertising platform, formula, and even the same Shopify theme.

So, if you do decide to go for it, just keep in mind that you’ll probably be choosing the same specialty as a lot of other people, which means you may also be contacting the same suppliers, stocking the same products, and using the same Shopify layout. 

To really make it in dropshipping, you’ll need to find a way to stand out from the crowd. If you just do what everyone else is doing, you’re setting yourself up for a tough time.

But, don’t get discouraged! There are plenty of other ways to make money online. I’ll fill you in on the details in the next section.

Alternatives to Dropship Lifestyle

eCom Elites

Looking for a better deal on a dropshipping course? Check out eCom Elites. It’s got everything you need to know to build a successful biz, and it’s one of the cheapest options out there. Just don’t expect it to give you a secret formula for making six figures.

There’s a ton of useful stuff in here, like info on paid advertising and how to make your shop perform better. 

Overall, the course packed with over 170 videos on everything from getting started to advanced strategies for using Google Ads and Instagram Ads.

Just a heads up though, the videos aren’t super detailed and you’ll have to do some figuring out on your own. And honestly, the course isn’t the easiest thing to read or follow. 

But if you’re a self-learner, you should be able to use the info in this course to open a successful shop. Just keep in mind that success ain’t guaranteed.

eCom Success Academy

Ecom Success Academy, created by Adrian Morrison, teaches you everything you need to know to start your own dropshipping business using Shopify. 

From setting up your store and picking a niche to creating Facebook ads and scaling your business, this course covers it all.

The course is perfect for anyone looking to make money online through e-commerce, specifically dropshipping. 

The Ecom Success Academy comes with a one-time payment of $2,495 (or, if you prefer, 3 monthly payments of $997 each).

Is there a better alternative to dropshipping?

If you are new to online business, you may ask if there is a better business model that doesn’t need Facebook ads and can do it as a side hustle.

Yes, I would suggest you get started with affiliate marketing. It is far easier and less time-consuming as you don’t even need to handle customer service.

In affiliate marketing, you can run your business at almost zero cost. Most importantly, you don’t need to invest in creating and developing any products.

But How Much Can You Earn in Affiliate Marketing?

A 21-year-old student from my #1 recommended training platform of affiliate marketing was able to earn $7,395 in just 1 week, which means he made more than $1k a day…all while using free traffic methods and affiliate marketing.

Wealthy Affiliate has existed for more than 10 years and there are many success stories over the years.
To give you more examples, here are some of the other inspiring success stories of Wealthy Affiliate members.

Where to Join Wealthy Affiliate?

Wealthy Affiliate has a very simple pricing scheme. It has a free and premium membership.

If you want to feel about Wealthy Affiliate, you can sign up for the starter membership here (no credit card required). You can select to be a free member with no time limit.

And as a starter member, you can get instant access to the community, live chat, over 500 training modules, 2 classrooms, networking, commenting, 1 free website, and access to the keyword tool.

You can enjoy all these values without paying a penny.

So I strongly recommend you register a free account and see it yourself.

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