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Three questions expose almost every ecommerce get rich quick scheme: is the business model sustainable, does it provide any value, and are there real barriers to entry. A no to any of them means the opportunity has a short shelf life, and every scheme I have watched come and go has failed at least one.
In this solo episode I walk through the schemes I have seen promoted over the years, why each one collapsed, and why looking for the easy path is a natural instinct that reliably wastes your time.
Below is the test, the specific models it disqualifies, and what actually determines whether someone succeeds.
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Table of Contents
Key takeaways
- Three questions expose most schemes: sustainability, value added, and barriers to entry.
- No barriers means instant flooding. Anything anyone can do with no money attracts everyone.
- Most ecommerce schemes involve some form of dropshipping, which is worth noticing as a signal.
- Loophole-dependent models die when the loophole closes, which they always do.
- I have wasted time on these too, including directory submission services and ad network shortcuts.
- Comparing your timeline to other people’s assumes success follows a blueprint, and it does not.
- Sleep on it and ask a friend before signing up for anything promising fast riches.
- Fast success usually follows a prior failure, because the experience came from somewhere.
Why the get rich quick instinct is normal
Looking for the fastest path to any goal is human nature rather than a character flaw.
I am not immune to it. When I was chasing six pack abs, I spent real time researching magical shakes and secret exercises, and bought the supplements being promoted at the time.
The same instinct shaped my early business decisions. I thought this blog could work by leveraging social media, joining ad networks, and putting ads in the sidebar for passive income.
For our store, I paid for a directory submission service expecting instant traffic.
All of it was wasted time, and each detour returned me to the same conclusion. Success requires consistent work over a long period.
The three-question test for any opportunity
Ask whether the model is sustainable, whether it adds value, and whether barriers to entry exist.
Sustainability asks whether this can still work in two years, or whether it depends on conditions that will change.
Value asks what the end customer actually receives that they could not get otherwise.
Barriers to entry is the one people skip and matters most. Anything requiring no money and no skill attracts unlimited competitors, which destroys the margin quickly.
A no on any of the three means the window is short.
Why dropshipping from Amazon to eBay failed
The model was copying Amazon listings onto eBay at higher prices and fulfilling from Amazon when someone bought.
Running the test on it: the value added to the customer was a higher price and nothing else.
Sustainability was zero, and eBay banned the practice within roughly a year of it becoming popular.
Barriers to entry were nonexistent. Anyone could start with no money, which meant the market flooded immediately.
Why dropshipping from AliExpress failed
The AliExpress version worked the same way with a different supplier, and depended entirely on a shipping loophole.
That loophole was a postal arrangement making shipping from China to a US customer cheaper than shipping domestically within the US.
The arrangement was renegotiated and those shipping costs rose substantially, which removed the entire economic basis for the model.
The customer experience was poor regardless. Little or no quality control on products, and shipping times running up to a month.
Anything built on a loophole is waiting for the loophole to close.
Why drop surfing is dropshipping with better marketing
Drop surfing means finding a trending product with multiple suppliers, then buying from whichever is cheapest when an order comes in.
What I found looking at drop surfing businesses is consistent. The product is almost always a cheap generic item sold by many Chinese manufacturers.
Quality control is absent, which produces heavy customer complaints.
Because the product is trending, many people sell the identical item, and the market floods fast.
The model also has no rest state. You are permanently hunting for the next hot product, because each one has a short window before the margin disappears.
How the schemes compare
Running all three through the same test produces the same answer each time.
| Model | Sustainable? | Value added? | Barriers to entry? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon to eBay dropshipping | No, banned within a year | None, higher prices only | None |
| AliExpress dropshipping | No, depended on a shipping loophole | Minimal, poor quality and slow delivery | None |
| Drop surfing | No, requires constant product hunting | Minimal, generic products with no quality control | None |
The pattern worth noticing is that most ecommerce schemes involve dropshipping in some form.
That does not make dropshipping itself a scam. Plenty of legitimate dropshipping businesses exist, and all of them require real work.
Why SEO and social media shortcut services do not work
Services promising fast rankings or instant follower growth fail for the same reasons.
The only durable way to rank is publishing something people actually want to read.
Services that spam backlinks to your site do active damage rather than nothing, which is worse than wasting the money.
Buying social media followers produces a number and no audience, and the engagement rate that follows tells the real story.
Why comparing your timeline to other people’s is a mistake
A student in my course once asked what the success rate was and how long it took people to get there.
My honest answer is that not everyone succeeds, and your first product may not be a winner.
The question itself contains an assumption worth examining. Asking how long it takes others implies success follows a blueprint, when the variables sit almost entirely with you.
The largest variable is how much time and dedication you actually commit.
The second is your willingness to pivot based on what the data tells you rather than what you hoped.
I can show the process and cannot act on anyone’s behalf.
What separates the students who succeed
The ones who make it past the get rich quick phase think differently about the whole endeavor.
They plan for businesses built to last rather than for a fast return.
They trust their own judgment rather than following a formula.
They treat experiments and failures as information rather than as verdicts.
One student who reached that point described failing at three prior online businesses despite running a successful brick and mortar operation for a decade, and attributed the difference to finally getting guidance from someone actually operating a successful business.
His advice was to go through everything rather than skipping ahead. Cruising past what you do not understand is how you set yourself up to fail.
His framing on guarantees is the right one. The only guarantee that means anything is the one you give yourself.
Why systems do not produce success on their own
The promise that a system will do the work is what the schemes are actually selling.
The language is recognizable once you know it. Plug into the system, ten minutes a day, effortless income.
Large companies sell versions of this too, including the idea that buying a franchise guarantees an outcome through a turnkey operation.
A system can facilitate success and cannot produce it. What produces it is applying yourself consistently, having the right work ethic, identifying what you need to learn, and doing the work to learn it.
The differentiator is willingness to do the boring, difficult work that most people avoid.
Why failure is part of the process
People who have only ever worked for someone else often have not considered what happens when something does not work.
Picking the wrong niche and failing is a normal outcome rather than a disqualifying one.
The response that ends the attempt is deciding you cannot do it. With that reaction, business ownership was never going to work.
Failure is where the analysis happens. You examine what went wrong, learn from it, and apply that to the next attempt.
The relationship between intelligence and experience is worth naming plainly. Smarter people need less experience to get there, and everyone else can still succeed by failing more and learning what not to do.
Can you actually get rich quick?
Yes, and almost everyone who does had a prior failure that nobody sees.
Fast success as a complete beginner is possible and unlikely, because the experience that produced the speed came from somewhere.
Everyone pays their dues at some point in the sequence.
The way to shorten the timeline legitimately is finding a mentor you trust to navigate the process, rather than looking for a system that removes the work.
Before signing up for anything promising fast riches, sleep on it and ask a friend. Decisions made inside the emotion of imagined wealth are the ones that go badly.
Frequently asked questions
How do you spot a get rich quick scheme?
Ask three questions: is the model sustainable, does it add value for the customer, and are there real barriers to entry. A no on any of them means the window is short, and most schemes fail all three.
Why did dropshipping from Amazon to eBay stop working?
It added no value beyond a higher price and required nothing to start, so the market flooded immediately. eBay banned the practice within roughly a year of it becoming popular.
What happened to AliExpress dropshipping?
It depended on a postal arrangement making shipping from China cheaper than shipping within the US. That arrangement was renegotiated, costs rose, and the economic basis disappeared.
Is drop surfing legitimate?
It is dropshipping with better marketing. The products are generic items with no quality control, many sellers offer the identical item, and you are permanently hunting for the next trending product.
Does buying backlinks or followers work?
Backlink spam does active harm rather than nothing, which is worse than wasting the money. Bought followers produce a number without an audience, and the engagement rate exposes it immediately.
How long should it take to succeed in ecommerce?
Asking how long it took others assumes success follows a blueprint. The variables that matter most are how much time you commit and how willing you are to pivot based on what the data shows.
Is failing a normal part of starting a business?
Yes. Picking the wrong niche and failing is ordinary rather than disqualifying. The reaction that ends things is deciding you cannot do it, since failure is where the useful analysis happens.
Can anyone actually get rich quickly?
Yes, and almost everyone who does had a prior failure nobody sees. The experience producing the speed came from somewhere, which is why fast success as a complete beginner is possible but unlikely.
