How to Make Money with Dropshipping | How to Make Money Passive Income With AI
How to Make Money with Dropshipping
Making money online seems like a wild promise, right? You hear stories of people earning thousands a month, or landing $500 days, all from the comfort of their couch. But is it actually possible—or just marketing hype? I wanted to find out for myself, using only free AI tools, a total setup cost of $1, and just one hour. In this guide, I'm sharing the exact process I followed, the tools I used, what worked, what didn't, and how you can copy this method to build a real stream of passive income. No theory. All action.
How AI Dropshipping Makes Passive Income Possible
Dropshipping is one of the easiest ways to start a business online. You don't need to buy inventory upfront. You don’t handle shipping. You don’t even need much technical know-how. Instead, you set up an online store, list products from suppliers, and when a customer buys, the product ships directly from the supplier to the buyer. That means you keep the profit—without ever touching the product.
Now, with AI, this gets even easier. Instead of spending hours picking products, writing descriptions, or setting prices, artificial intelligence can do almost everything for you. You pick a niche, let the AI build a store on Shopify (the most popular e-commerce platform), and hook up an automation tool that fills your store with trending products.
Some people claim to make thousands per month, or $500 a day, with AI-powered dropshipping shops. But let’s be honest: many wonder if it’s too good to be true. Can anyone really start with almost no money? Here’s the real answer…
I put it to the test. Could I build a profitable Shopify store from scratch in under an hour, spending less than $1, and sell real products online? The results will surprise you.
The Three Rules I Set For This AI Dropshipping Experiment
To make this experiment fair and practical for almost anyone, I gave myself three clear rules:
- Only use free AI tools, with a total setup budget under $1.
- Do everything from my laptop—no extra tech, no visits to offices or warehouses.
- Finish the setup in less than one hour.
These rules kept me focused and made the experiment something you could try, even if you’re brand new to e-commerce.
Choosing the Best AI Tool and the Right Niche
The backbone of this whole process is finding reliable free AI software built for Shopify dropshipping. After some research, I found Build Your Store—a tool claiming to create a Shopify store for free and even automate your product sourcing.
Here’s how it worked:
- I went to the site, signed up, and picked “Build my free store.”
- After entering my name (Mark Tilbury), email, and setting a password, I had to choose a niche.
- Six options appeared:
- Fashion & Apparel
- Pets
- Electronics & Gadgets
- Home & Garden
- Sports & Fitness
- “I’m not sure”
I chose Sports & Fitness. Why? My son’s into boxing, gym workouts, running—you name it. And there’s a huge market, especially with younger people meeting up at running clubs instead of nightclubs.
Pros of Sports & Fitness:
- High demand, especially as fitness trends grow
- Lots of product variety (gear, accessories)
- Strong community for sponsored marketing
Cons:
- Competitive niche with lots of existing stores
- Trends may change quickly (must stay up to date)
If you’re following along, I suggest picking a niche you know and where there’s clear buyer demand.
Customizing The Store For Maximum Appeal
Once my niche was locked in, the AI tool presented six banner options to set the tone of my store. Here’s why this matters: the banner is the first thing shoppers see. It needs to match the products you’ll be selling and appeal to your main audience.
I skipped any banner that was product-specific (to avoid confusion) or skewed to just one gender. I settled on banners that looked bold, professional, and felt welcoming for both men and women—key for wide appeal.
Quick tip: When choosing store images, pick ones that reflect the full range of your audience, not just a narrow slice.
After picking the right banners, I hit continue and moved to the next setup stage.
Setting Up a Free Shopify Store
Shopify is the go-to platform for dropshippers. Getting started involves a simple process:
- Hit “Access Shopify” in Build Your Store—opens a new tab.
- Enter your email and start the free trial.
- Choose a password and create the account.
- Skip extra setup assistance—the AI will handle setup steps, saving precious time.
- Select the “Basic” Shopify plan for after the trial. This plan is low-cost and built for solo entrepreneurs, with the first 3 months at just $1/month.
- Enter payment details (no charge now; it won’t count towards your budget).
The dashboard can look overwhelming. But most of the heavy lifting is handled by the AI and integration apps, so don’t stress.
Automating Product Selection with AutoDS
To make the store profitable, you need winning products—items that are in demand, priced right, and ready to ship. For this, I used AutoDS—a tool that does the hard work:
- Finds trending products for your niche
- Sets competitive prices
- Uploads high-quality images and copy
- Automates orders and fulfillment
I registered for AutoDS via Build Your Store (important to use the same email for both accounts), picked the Shopify channel, and chose the…you guessed it…starter 500 plan at $0.99 for the first 30 days. This left me with one cent in my setup budget.
AutoDS added four initial products to my store:
- Breathing Trainer: Simulates high-altitude training, boosting red blood cells and endurance.
- Golf Club Bag Clips: Protects expensive golf gear from damage.
- Resistance Bands: Classic workout tool, always in demand.
- Warm Jogging Hat: Ideal for cold weather workouts.
AutoDS’s marketplace also lets you import more trending items with one click. I filtered for Sports & Fitness products, imported the ones I liked, tweaked descriptions, and photos—all super fast.
Pricing: Most dropshippers set prices at 2 to 2.5 times their supplier cost. For example, if a golf clip costs $6.84 delivered, list it at $13.68 or higher. This keeps your profit margin healthy, before ad and Shopify costs.
Optimizing The Store: Tweaks That Matter
Before launching, I checked each detail for trust and conversion:
- Product pages had strong images and clear, AI-written descriptions (with helpful emojis for quick scanning).
- Prices were competitive, with room to bump them higher.
- PayPal payment button included for extra trust (shoppers love this for security).
- Related product suggestions were shown for easy upselling.
- Footer included all major info—shipping policies, privacy, terms/conditions. Only a few blanks required filling in (store name, contact info).
Biggest catch: My default Shopify domain was a random string that looked unprofessional. I switched to a DOT STORE domain through Build Your Store AI. Studies show DOT STORE gets more traffic and higher Google rankings. Branding ideas like “Tilbury Fitness” help customers remember you and boost confidence.
Checklist before launch:
- Swap to custom domain
- Fill in legal page details
- Link social media accounts
- Review for spelling or broken design
Driving Sales: Why Micro-Influencers Are the Secret Sauce
Once the store was ready, it needed traffic. Instead of throwing cash at big ads, I used micro-influencers—Instagram users with 10-50K followers but high engagement.
Why not mega-influencers? Micro-influencers have up to 60% higher engagement and a 20% higher conversion rate. They feel more authentic, and their audience listens.
I reached out to The Graze Brothers, whose Instagram accounts focus on entertaining fitness content. We agreed on a script, and their Instagram Story was punchy and funny—it grabbed attention and highlighted the breathing trainer in action. That “relatable, slightly goofy” energy fit their audience and didn’t feel like spam.
Quality control: I ordered the main products to check before any promotion. The breathing trainer, hat, golf clips, and resistance bands all looked solid and ready for real buyers.
Tracking Results: Sales and Profit After the First Day
A day after the promotion, here are the results:
Item - Total Sold - Retail Price - Cost (incl. shipping) - Revenue - Cost - Profit
Breathing Trainer - 12 - $17.85 - $3.95 - $214.20 - $47.40 - See below
- Only 10 of these were true customer orders (the other 2 were my own test orders).
- Paid The Graze Brothers $50 for promotion.
- Shopify plan charged $1 after free days.
- AutoDS handled fulfillment, no extra cost.
Total expenses: $90.50
Final profit: $0.35
It might not sound like much, but let's keep it real: with only $1 spent to set up, and $50 on ads, everything else was automated. And that’s after just one promo!
If you scale this to more products or more influencers, you could bring in hundreds or thousands a month. The method works. The real magic is in the numbers: low effort, low cost, rapid results.
Get Started Today: Tools & Resources
Ready to kick off your own passive income journey—with or without video edit skills? Here are all the resources to help you get started (and yes, they’re affiliate links):
- Build Your Store AI – Free AI-built Shopify store
- AutoDS – Hands-off product sourcing & automation
- Shopify – Free trial and easy store setup
Want more detailed steps on How to Make Money with Video Edit or dropshipping with AI? Watch my follow-up videos, subscribe to stay updated, and don’t miss my next posts on scaling from $1 profit to thousands a month.
Action Steps:
- Pick a profitable niche that fits your interests and market needs
- Use a free AI store builder and automation tools
- Test product quality before running promotions
- Work with micro-influencers to boost sales efficiently
- Keep costs low so nearly all revenue turns into profit
If you’ve been looking for a real way to make money online—even as a complete beginner—this step-by-step playbook will help you get started. Small wins add up. The only question is: will you take action now?
