eCom Success Academy Review: 19 Things to Know Before You Buy Adrian Morrison’s Course

1. What is eCom Success Academy?

Okay, so this is one of the original O.G. courses on dropshipping.

It dropped (yes, pun intended) back in 2016.

eCom Success Academy (ESA) is a comprehensive dropshipping course with the coveted "Shopify Education Partner Approve Course" distinction.

There's a private Facebook group - although it's limited in interaction so it's not really all that helpful.

Most of the posts suggest to be on the live power hours, and it's hard to find any meaningful interaction between group members.

Before we delve deeper, let's see who the man behind the moniker of being the O.G. of dropshipping is...

2. Who is Adrian Morrison?

Adrian is the quintessential rags to riches story...
Born and raised in Mississippi, he was told many times that he'd never amount to much.
The only job he could find was washing cars for $5:15 an hour.

He met a beautiful waitress who, earning more than he did at that point, took care of most of their expenses earlier on in the relationship.

She supported him through a failed attempt to get into law school before he decided to throw himself into eCommerce and dropshipping.

He's authored a couple of books about eCommerce and started to build a solid reputation for dropshipping, and developed a relationship with Shopify that would prove valuable in his positioning in the training and education market.

Fast forward, and now he owns a handful of online businesses.

He's built several of them with his brother Anthony.

Many of these businesses are tied into the eCom Success Academy.

There are a upsells, additional training programs, and various plugins for Shopify users who pay monthly subscription fees to use them.

Adrian still lives in Mississippi, albeit at a very swanky home by a lake, and has a beach pad in Destin, Florida.

He's a collector of expensive cars, cool artwork, and jewelry.

Oh, and a flamethrower...

Because, well...I mean shouldn't everyone have a flamethrower?

Anyway, Adrian's dogs are very dear to his heart.

In the middle of a Livestream, everything suddenly shut off and left viewers wondering what happened.

Later that evening, Adrian hopped back onto Facebook profusely apologizing and explaining that one of his dogs got really sick. Not knowing what was wrong, Adrian had dropped everything and rushed the poor little guy to the vet to get help. Thankfully, everything turned out okay.

He jumped back onto Facebook to apologize, but you could tell he was literally shaken up by the experience and kept apologizing to the viewers.

There's a ton of skeptiscm around all these info selling guru's and in some cases its very much justified with all the fake hype out there.

Still, that fact that he went from washing cars for other people to own some of the most expensive cars on the market means he must be doing something right.

And yes, it seems he not above washing his own cars from time to time.

It's refreshing to hear Adrian push his students to be ethical and transparent.

Especially with dropshipping and eCommerce being considered high-risk by many in the financial industry.

It saves a ton of time and stress later on when dealing with merchants and customers.

Just in case your new to dropshipping and wondering what it is...

3. How does Dropshipping Work?

Simply put, you set up an online store, find a product to sell and promote the hell out of it - usually through paid advertising.

When you make a sale, you have your supplier package it and mail it to your customer for you.

Here's the thing, you never actually handle the product yourself.

The good news is it save you time and you don't need to buy inventory or worry about storage.

However, the bad news is you don't have much quality control and there's plenty to go wrong...missing or damaged packages, fake or poor quality products, and let's not forget that suppliers have gone rogue too.

4. Is Dropshipping Legit or a Scam?

Dropshipping is legit - after all, it's the dropshipper is just a middleman connect supplier with customer and taking a 'sliver to deliver'.

It's worth keeping in mind that the dropshipping fad is dying out and people are moving more to an eCommerce model if they want to run a successful online store.

Adrian encourages his students to be ethical in their dealing with customers. 

And I applaud him for making this clear.

However, like anything that is online these day, there are scammers and criminal lurking at every corner to take advantage.

Admittedly, dropshipping can look super appealing with it's insane sales numbers that gurus throw around.

Those are just vanity metrics.

Ask them about their true profit margin and how much they get keep when all is said and done.

Let me tell you something...most people who try dropshipping would make more working a minimum wage job.

And without nearly as much stress.

5. How much does Adrian Morrison's Course Cost? Any Specials?

While there's more expensive options on the market, Adrian Morrison's eCom Success Academy will set you back a sizeable chunk of cash.

The retail price is a whopping $2,995.

If you pay it all up front it's $2,495 and you'll qualify for a $500 instant saving.

Plus he'll throw in his eCom Domination Course as a bonus.

At this time there's no other discounts beyond the bonus for paying in full when signing up.

6. Adrian's Credibility in the Dropshipping World

Adrian Morrison is known as one of the first true dropshippers to share his knowledge in a training course.

That fact that Shopify have given eCom Success Academy the nod stands out as a huge mark of credibility.

They have only selected a fraction of the courses available and Adrian's was one of the first to be credited.

That speaks volumes because Shopify is the most commonly used platform by dropshippers.

7. Quality Production & Over-the-Shoulder Teaching Style

The word on the street is Morrison put over a million dollars into producing the course, not sure how accurate that is.

It's definitely a high quality course. 

The platform is easy to navigate and visually appealing.

The modules are easy to follow, the sound is consistent in quality, and it's easy to find what you're looking for with clear labels and well organized modules.

You're watching Adrian's screen as he walks you through the step-by-step process of setting up your store, Facebook Ads, email campaigns on MailChimp and more.

The idea is for you to implement the same steps as you watch.

8. Extensive Product Sourcing Section

Adrian proves his deep knowledge here with over 20 videos walking you through not only his strategies but things to be aware of to avoid costly decisions.

What will you learn for product sourcing:

Clothing and print-on-demand has been a big winner for Adrian and he opens the curtain on his thought process in picking winning designs and how he sets up his store.

Although Adrian recommends AliExpress for beginners, he does show how to transition to Alibaba and fulfillment set up when you're ready to scale.

He includes some really key info on when you should scale too.

Adrian also dive into The Pillow Profits.

It's an app created by one of his 'pals' that serves a type of print on demand store with the emphasis on bundling products.

With Pillow Profits, you upload your own designs and sell them like any other print-on-demand service. The folk behind the app take care of production and shipping for you.

At 1.5 hours long, this case study provides everything you need to get started.

IMO the key here is to focus on one area at a time.

If you were to try all 3 at once, you're likely to fail or be average at best - choose one things and learn that 1st.

9. Solid Email Marketing Tactics

Everyone seems to focus only on Facebook for marketing but Morrison gives trains a killer emailing strategy to eek out more profits from repeat customers.

He walks you through how to set up your own customer email list through MailChimp and connect it to your Shopify store.

You'll also learn how to set up offers with the intent to capture email addresses of potential customers and to up-sell your current customers.

Adrian shares a lot of the theory and structure to his emailing methods.

Although I'd have preferred to see more of a walk-through in exactly how theory is applied, the concepts here are solid.

Plus, he also brings in a guest to share an email bonus section.

10. It's Pricey & Absolutely NO Refunds

Can you find more expensive dropshipping courses?

Yes you can.

However, ESA will set you back a sizable chunk of money.

Here's the major problem with that - you need another chunk of money for Ad spent (& goods you sell).

It can take a couple of thousand to test your ads to find what's going to work and then be able to scale.

Not sure what you think but my math says it makes a lot more sense to buy something like Hatchett's eCom Elites for $297 and use the remaining $2200 on Ads.

Here's the important thing to keep in mind:

- You have to spend money to make money

But with dropshipping, there is no guarantee that you'll make money for what you spend.

And let's say you realize you've made an expensive mistake.

Well, you're S**t  out of luck, unfortunately.

There's a very clear policy on no refunds.

11. Missing the Facebook Ads Bidding Strategy

So this was a real disappointment 🙁

Although I kind of understand why - bidding strategies can differ depending on the product and what works for one, isn't guaranteed to work for another.

That said, Justin Woll isn't shy when it comes to sharing his bidding strategies - both in his course and in his FB group.

At the end of the day, I'd have like to have seen Adrian give a bit more here given the insane sales numbers he's pulled in.

12. Not the Most Up To Date

If you've been around the paid ad space in 2021, you may have seen the war waging between Facebook and Apple.

Apple's recent IOS update has left many dropshippers with nightmares over meager conversation ratios.

Granted, eCom Success Academy comes with email marketing tutorials but you need people landing at your store 1st to have any chance of getting that email address.

BUT whether Adrian will, or even if he can, update the Facebook ads training is an unknown.

Without it, you're going to be left figuring out a lot of this on your own.

13. Not a Recommended Business Model for 2021

Most people have heard of Amazon and their Prime member shipping.

(which is usually the bane of most dropshippers if they're trying to sell the same item).

But did you know Walmart also decided to invest heavy into the online platform and being able to offer fast shipping?

So while dropshippers continue to stress about dodgy suppliers, long shipping times and all the customer service headaches, 1 of the biggest retail companies just positioned themselves to go head to head with Amazon.

Between the 2 of them, this leaves slim pickings for dropshippers unless you can really find a way to differentiate yourself from the masses.

Who knows what other companies will enter the space that have competitive advantages you just can't do anything about.

If I'm in your shoes, I'm looking for a business I know has a long-term future and can provide steady income.

14. Do Adrian's Students Actually Make Money?

There are examples of students who say they've made money - there is for every course though so does that qualify this one any differently to most of it's competition?

On the other hand, there are plenty of examples in the FB group of students who are struggling too.

I like the idea that Adrian has a student success wall for eCom Success Academy - there's a lot of organizations gamifying their systems because it can help with loyalty and motivation.

That's smart innovation right there!

My biggest gripe here is that making $100k in sales doesn't mean you're running a successful business or even making any money.

I'd like to have seen this have some metric of gross profit instead of relying on vanity metrics.

TBH, the vanity and fakeness is something that plagues dropshipping and I'm not sure it will ever change - especially when people need to sell courses.

15. Who's a Good Fit for eCom Success Academy?

Firstly, you need to be someone who can come up with $2500 for the course and additional money for advertising and the various expenses that go into getting started.

The cold hard truth is that people get drawn in by the promise of making huge sums of money and think it's going to be super easy.

Make no mistake, building a successful business is hard. And it takes REAL work.

Yes, it's worth it, but it's not going to be handed to you.
If you're looking for a get-rich-quick opportunity, you're going to be disappointed here and have thrown away $2500 or more.

There's the private Facebook group, which, in theory, might help if you're stuck, you're going to have to watch and learn from Adrian's teaching and hope the answer to your problem is discussed.

16. What alternatives are there to Adrian's eCom Success Academy?

It seems like someone new is creating a dropshipping course every week.

Let's look at some of the more credible options I've had the opportunity to review. 

eCom Elites

For depth of content, Hatchett's eCom Elites is probably the best course out there when factoring in the cost.

It's by far offering the most bang for your buck of all the dropshipping courses.

There's two packages available:

$197 gets you started with everything a newbie could need and much more. There's a comprehensive Facebook module, real-world examples, product research strategies and there's updated content.

The top package is $297 and comes with advanced strategies like adding sales funnels and chatbots.

Another alternative is Justin Woll's eCommerce University.

Justin course places a big emphasis on advertising channels and bidding strategies. 

While there's the key info here for a beginner, like product research and store creation, the dude from the Jersey Shore delivers some of the best Facebook ads training available.

Add to this a very active Facebook group and plenty of live training from Justin himself, and this could be a highly effective course for someone with the money to invest.

At $997, it's also much cheaper than Morrison's course and given his willingness to be accessible on lives to his students, Woll might be a safer bet.

Pros and Cons of [Course Title]

The Good and Bad of [Course Creator's Name]'s Course

I have my reservations on ESA.

The content is good and there's no doubt Adrian knows his stuff.

However, I can't get past the expense of the course compared to some of the other options that have just as much to offer.

The lack of support in the Facebook group is also concerning and the suggestions given by other members could cause more problems than they solve.

Yes, Adrian provides weekly livestreams but for the investment in the course, I'd expect him to be interacting more with the discussion.

For the most part it's just group members, presumably moderators, who post to remind you there's a livestream coming up.

The course itself is high quality.

It has almost everything you need but you'll have to find another way to learn the Facebook Ad bidding.

My biggest concern is whether dropshipping is really a smart move for 2021 and beyond. The profit margins have really dried up in recent years and with more and more people pouring into the market, the situation is only getting worse.