eCom Warrior Review: 19 Things to Know Before Buying Matt Lepre’s Course

Welcome to an honest review, the good and the bad, of Matthew Lapre’s eCom Warrior Academy. To be frank, it shrouded in mystery until you sign up, so it’s not surprising you’re poking around the web looking for a review to figure out what’s on offer.

There’s no shortage of gurus pitching courses for dropshipping and other ways to make money from the comfort of your own home. How do you know where to turn and what’s legit?

Well, I’ll break down my experience with Matt’s course and dig into the business model too. I’ve spent thousands on various programs that teach online business and take all the best bits to add to my own ventures over the years.

I’ve had several eCommerce stores, and some did really well. To be honest, I started having some doubts about dropshipping being the right business model a couple of years ago. It’s becoming such a saturated business, and the rising ad costs were really putting a squeeze on profits. When I came across Local Lead Gen, it just made more sense, and it’s been a very lucrative decision - if you want to know what it is, check this out.

Okay, let’s get back to our eCom Warrior Academy review.

2. Who is Matthew Lepre?

It takes a bit a research to figure out the man behind the course but let's find out what makes him unique.

He's from down-under, as they say.

Also, know as Australia.

Lapre dropped out of university at 23 years old and was devastated, thinking that was the end of his dream career and the opportunity to have a quality lifestyle.

Instead of staying down, he chose to take control of his destiny.

He broke away from society's expectations of getting a job, deciding to take the road less traveled instead.

Matthew found his way into eCommerce and dropshipping, learning as he went and scaling to success reasonably quickly.

(Check out that license plate)

And enjoying the laptop lifestyle with the luxury of travel and exploring.

He's now added a dropshipping course to his arsenal of incoming-generating businesses, helping others who want to follow in his footsteps.

He's got a decent following on social media and is reasonably active in posting videos and photos.

There's not a lot of dropshipping training on his Instagram. It's more about promoting the dropshipping lifestyle.

Matty does have plenty of training and great advice on his YouTube channel.

Admittedly, you’ll find that some of them are with Stallon, Matt’s right-hand dude, but the info is still high quality.

It seems Lapre has been experimenting with how to use the media to draw attention to income levels.

Who knows all that money would create such an unintended problem for him:

Posing as quite the eligible bachelor.

Maybe we'll see him as the star of the next Aussie Bachelor series?

I’m sure driving flashy cars and creating articles about the very issue isn’t helping his cause. 

But then, maybe it's all just a publicity stunt to attract attention for his business!

Anyway, in case you're new to this whole dropshipping thing...

3. How Does Dropshipping Work?

Dropshipping removes most of the entry barriers from the retail market, meaning that anyone with access to the internet can now get a piece of the action.

In a nutshell:

You find a product you want to sell from a supplier who works with dropshippers. 

Instead of needing a customer to go to your brick-and-mortar shop, they just go to your online store.

Meaning your potential market is now global instead of having a limited local number of people who can physically go to your store.

Once they order something, you approve it and send your payment to the supplier.

They ship it to the customer on your behalf for you.

The product arrives through the mail.

When you take the price you sold the item for and deduct all the costs and expenses; you get whatever profit remains. 

There’s also the risk that it can cost you more to sell an item than you make if you’re not careful.

4. Is Dropshipping Legit or a Scam?

In the big picture, dropshipping is a legitimate business model.

There are some big names involved in the dropshipping market.

So where do things go so wrong...

Dropshipping has developed a negative reputation from the many people who try to take advantage of the system or who just aren't handling their business professionally.

And remember, many products are being shipped over long distances internationally.

Naturally, if something has to pass through numerous hands plus customs, there's a good chance for things to get lost or damaged in the process.

Plus, English is one of the most challenging languages to learn.

Let’s just say that you see some “interesting” phrases or remarks when dealing with potential suppliers based out of Asia.

Some of the stuff I used to come across during my product research was hilarious...

Providing I do not have to rely on them to help me run my business, that is.

I'm sure you can imagine how frustrating it can get when these people are mailing packages to YOUR customers.

You don't get to check the quality of labeling with dropshipping before it lands on your customer's doorstep.

While dropshipping might seem easy, there are lots of problems and headaches to deal with.

Most of which are usually kept in the dark while people flaunt their sales volume posts.

Speaking from personal experience, dealing with supplier screw-ups and wacky customers was eating up too much time and creating more stress than the profit was worth.

That's precisely why I decided to find a better business model for long term wealth that doesn't eat up my time either (more on that later).

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

Great question...what’s the ecom warrior academy charge?

The best answer I could get was roughly $4,000.

That's some major coin you’ll need to invest.

Plus, you'll need more for ad spend and expenses to run your dropshipping stores.

Oh, and a word of warning;

Signing up for this course isn’t straightforward.

The first step is filling out their application form. 

There’s a question asking how much you are ready to invest in your dropshipping business. 

As you might have already guessed, they are pre-qualifying you for a sales call here. 

If you don’t enter a big enough number, you’ll be redirected to a cheaper intro course for $49 (sometimes it’s free).

It's an introductory course that helps prime your mindset to be ready to shell out on the main program.

Now, even though it's a bit overpriced and I'm not a massive fan of all the secrecy, there are some things I do like about eCom Warrior Academy.

Let's take a gander...

Pros of eCom Warrior Academy

6. Lapre's Mindset

While there are many question marks about the course, I really like Matthew's mindset as an entrepreneur.

BUT he comes across like he genuinely wants to help people develop an entrepreneurial mindset and have the confidence to live the life of their dreams.

There's lots of encouragement from Matthew everywhere you turn on his social media.

And he's not afraid to be vulnerable either, sharing the areas he struggles with or things he had to overcome from his past.

If you find someone who says they know everything and never make a mistake, you should run for the hills.

We all have our blind spots and weaknesses...credit to Matthew for coming across as relatable and imperfect, just like the rest of us. 

7. Matthew is an Active Dropshipper

Lapre looks to have his ducks in a row when it comes to making money and eCommerce.

It's taken him less than three years to build the kind of dropshipping empire that pays him while he sleeps or travels.

However, my question is that we don't know if this revenue from dropshipping OR from selling his dropshipping course to people like you and me.

8. There's Some Seriously Intensive Mentoring 

eCom Warrior Academy is part course and part mentorship program. 

There are daily mentoring calls you can jump on.

The calls are to keep you on track and provide hands-on guidance.

You even have to run your product choice by them for approval to make sure you're not picking a dud.

It should be noted that you DO NOT get mentored by Matthew Lapre.

His mate, Stallon Zayya, handles the mentoring and most of the day-to-day workload.

Seems like the young 22 year old has done really well for himself so far.

After listening to Stallon provide training, he definitely knows what he's talking about, so I'm sure Mathew feels his students are in good hands.

If you’re someone who needs that daily nudge to keep making progress, you’ll find this here. My impression of the crew is they are super competitive and hold you to high standards.

I will say however, that this lead gen course, is still being mentored by Dan who started coaching in 2014, he's still at it at 36 years old, showing up twice per week for his students even though he's already hit multi 7 figures.

9. Easy to Follow Lessons

The course is straightforward enough and takes you step-by-step through the usual steps of product research and store building.

There's nothing groundbreaking here that would warrant the price tag in comparison to other dropship course offerings.

Overall, it's kept pretty simple with a 1-product store as you learn the ropes.

 As part of the mentoring process, you have to get your product choice approved by Stallon, and then he will guide you through how to advertise it.

eCom Warrior Academy really is designed to take a total newbie all the way through the process, taking the majority of the guesswork away.

Sometimes keepin' it simple is the key.

But there are some concerns...

Cons of eCom Warrior Academy  

10. It's very cloak & dagger 

They make you go through quite the process to sign up.

And it's really not 100% clear what you're agreeing to in return to parting with your credit card number. It feels like a bit of a gamble at first.

Oh, and they're going to make sure you're ready to spend before even jumping on a sales call with you too.

They're not even clear on how much it will cost for the program. 

The best response I could get "around 4k"

There is nowhere that they make the price available in print.

Personally, I prefer dealing with people who are straightforward and transparent in business.

11. It's Very Expensive

That's a lot of money to shell out.

And there's no guarantee you'll hit the jackpot with eCom Warrior Academy.

There are other quality dropshipping courses available for less.

For example, Ecom Elites is only $197 and there's a lot of students that have reached success.

And don't forget to take into account that you'll need money for ad spend, store fees, and various other expenses on top too after purchasing any course.

Most people have to invest around $10-$15K in Facebook ads just to master everything form ad copy, ad management & conversions.       

12. Lack of Interaction or Mentoring Matthew Himself

Matthew does teach in the videos, but it's his sidekick, Stallon, who does the mentoring and leading the weekly calls with students.

The young fella appears to be doing very well for himself. 

One of the biggest gripes about all these dropshipping gurus is whether these guys are making MORE money from selling their courses than they do from their actual dropshipping stores.

If you think about it...

Profit margins on ecom stores are maybe 10-25% if they're profitable at all.

BUT the profit margin on a $4,000 course once it's produced...probably in the region of 75-90%. Which would you prefer to sell?

Now, at least Stallon and Matthew appear to still be in the dropshipping game - which is more than can be said for some of the other guys peddling dropshipping programs.

Still, for $4,000 that a mighty investment to make thinking you’re learning from Matty. They could be a lot clearer on who does the hands on mentoring.

13. Not a Recommended Business Model for 2021

Ah, where to begin?

2020 has been an interesting year, to say the least, and unless you've been living under a rock since March, you already know what I'm talking about. 

BUT have you kept up with how all of this is going to affect the economy?

Dropshipping thrives when people keep spending and spending.

We already know there's a crisis with rising unemployment and major companies are going under or laying off employees in droves.

Why is this a problem?

With more people stuck on unemployment benefits or worried about the likelihood of being laid off from their jobs soon, how likely do you think they are to be buying non-essential items?

Yes, there will still be some sales to be had, but are the glory days of dropshipping long-gone?

How much longer will people stay in conservation mode where they're are continually worried about where their next pay check is gonna come from?

When you're under fear, will you feel inclined to click on an ad that's trying to sell you a gizmo or new pair of under pants?

Again this is why I love local lead gen in 2021 more than ever because businesses will always need leads. And we can provide those leads to essential services like a plumber, roofer, electrician...

Concluding Thoughts

14. Do Matthew's Students Actually Make Money?

There are examples on Lapre's social media and the eCom Warrior Academy sales pages showing students generating sales revenue on their stores.

It's very goal-orientated where students set targets to hit, then another one and another one.

Matthew and Stallon both post similar images on their Instagram stories.

We see these shopify images of income everywhere on the internet but keep in mind profit margins in dropshipping is 10-15%

Sometimes these stores broke even or lost money for the month.

Even at $17K of topline revenue

Your profit at 10% profit margin is $1700

Which may not be stable enough income to quit your job.

Especially because these numbers fluctuate so greatly using Facebook ads.

And ever changing trends that greatly impact sales of physical goods.

Also just from seeing their IG posts, its still unclear what % of their students actually make any money.

It’s essential to go into any business model with an accurate idea of profit margins, cost, demand, saturation & initial investment.

There's more to dropshipping than what these revenue screenshots portray.

At the end of the day, profit is ALL that matters. Not revenue.

If your business does not generate profits, you don't eat.

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

If you're looking for real, hands-on mentoring as a beginner, this is probably as close as you'll get to it.

Now, they're not going to build your store for you, but you'll be getting plenty of guidance and feedback every step of the way.

At least Mathew's sidekick Stallon checks over your store pick for you.

It does come at a hefty cost, and the product research & selection is still something that has great risk because even if you do everything they tell you.

Your product can still fail.

eCom Warrior Academy is best for someone who's okay with using the generic suppliers that most dropshippers go with.

BUT they want to dial in the marketing strategies to get ahead of the pack.

With eCom Warrior Academy, you'll learn how to do what the majority of dropshippers are doing, only much, much better. 

Matthew and Stallon have made a knack of studying the best competitors for their target product and then dialing it up a notch to see even better results from their own store.

That being said, it's not clear if those are white hat strategies or do they veer to the dark side and implement some more dubious grey or black hat methods.

It's not clear.

16. What alternatives are there to Matthew's eCom Warrior Academy?

There's lots of choices if you're wanting to get into eCommerce, or more specifically, dropshipping.

If you're trying to pick the best fit, check out my top dropshipping courses list here. (That we're updating on-goingly)

In the meantime, a couple of my top recommendations are:

Kevin Zhang's eCommerce Millionaire Mastery is half the price at $2,000 when paid in full at the time of sign up. 

Kevin is another young stud in the dropship training game who's had quick success.

He's approached dropshipping in a slightly different way to the crowd by:

There's no shortage of content from Kevin.

He also hosts weekly Q&As for his students.

One of the things that set Zhang's eCommerce Millionaire Mastery apart is his team’s access to finding products, better shipping, and white labeling. 

If you’re going all-in, there is even an option to manufacture your own stuff if you want to.

Adrian Morrison's eCom Success Academy will set you back a cool $2,495. Still, it is considered by many as the "Gold Standard" for dropshipping courses.

This was one of the first on the market, and even Shopify have given it their seal of approval.

It's comprehensive and covers almost everything you need as a beginner to dropshipping.

My only problem with this course is that Adrian doesn't teach Facebook Ads bidding strategies.

Btw, that's the very thing that makes or breaks a Facebook Ad campaign when scaling.

Getting it right, and you'll hit the jackpot.

Get it wrong, and it will be like throwing your money on the barbie and watching it go up in flames.

Parting Thoughts on eCom Warrior Academy

There's something with eCom Warrior Academy that gives me more confidence in Matthew and Stallon than most of the other courses where you're just provided with a set of videos to follow and expected to be able to figure it out for yourself.

Both Matthew and Stallon seem to know their stuff. They genuinely seem to care about helping people find success as entrepreneurs.

Where I have significant concerns is the financial side of eCom Warriors Academy.

It's one of the more expensive options on the market. It’s hard to find any terms of the agreement on precisely what you can expect in return for handing over your cash or a refund policy if it all goes south.

Finally, because of where the economy is heading with the looming recession. 

This isn't the right time to gamble on whether people are going to keep making impulse purchases and buying non-essentials if they're unemployed or fearing the threat of being laid off.

I simply can't recommend going into dropshipping when there's a better business model that is recession-proof and has much better profit margins.

Let me share a little-known secret with you...

How Does Dropshipping Stand up to Others? Like Lead Generation?

With people trying to plug all these 'laptop lifestyle' online businesses, how do you decide which ones have real merit?

Have you read The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco yet?

If not, I highly recommend picking up a copy to learn from the master himself.

One of the highlights of the book is how DeMarco measures the validity of business opportunities using his C.E.N.T.S. model:

Let me show you the process with a couple of examples for picking the best opportunities on the table:

18. Entry

If pretty much anyone can offer the exact same product, the only differentiator becomes price.

That's a race to the bottom and sliced profit margins.

There's always going to be the next person will to cut a percent or two more.

Following the herd never leads to success...

Therefore you want to avoid businesses with Low-Barrier to Entry.

Lead Generation, on the other hand, is like an open road...

Its an open road because once you have the skill of ranking websites (SEO) you have free reign on so many markets you can go into and dominate.

Because SEO is not a skill that too many people know about.

Where as Facebook ads, they've made that platform so easy that anyone can do, because that's how FB make their money.

Google makes their money on you being clueless about how their ranking algorithm works because then you'd buy their Google Adwords.

This is barrier of entry.

In business you don't want things to be so easy that anyone can pick up and enter the game to compete with you.

Also we are far from saturation with local lead generation. Here's why.

In local its much easier to compete in Dayton, OH versus trying to sell a dropshipping product versus suppliers from China and all over the world.

With local lead gen, I get to be the big fish in a lil' pond.

In the USA, there's over 45,000 zipcodes and each zipcode is a new market.

Therefore even though we currently have 6700 student in our lead gen program, saturation is still not a complaint from ANY of our students.

Especially when you have superior SEO ranking skills like we have, these local companies & their biz owners are no match, giving us an unfair advantage.

19. Need

This one is pretty straightforward...

There has to be demand for the product or service you're selling.

Suppose there's a shortage of buyers or too many sellers compared to the number of possible buyers. In that case, common sense suggests that isn't going to end well for the sellers.

As already mentioned, the excessive consumption patterns that have fueled eCommerce and retail stores are in MASSIVE danger of grinding to a halt if the experts predicting the economic recession are reading the signs correctly.

Sure, you may still find some success level if you find the right product and can promote it much better than everyone else.

Just remember, you're entering an already saturated market.

And against competitors who have vastly more experience than you and probably more resources to scale and snatch customers away before they even see your store.

Seasoned dropshippers of the past have become serious E-commerce tycoons today that now manage their own warehouses in the USA and have the financial resources to hold big inventory and innovate on their own unique product & branding which makes it very difficult for newbie dropshippers to compete with.

Lead generation still provides an evergreen business model, where new students are able to quit their jobs in less than a year.

People will always NEED certain essential services.

Think about it...if your car breaks down, you need a tow truck.

If your AC unit breaks in the middle of the summer, you're going to have to call someone out to repair it.

And the best part?

There are hungry business owners who are desperate to be connected with these customers because they don't know how to get leads for themselves.

When done right, lead generation is not only a lucrative business model; you also get to help people in the process.

Conclusion

Hey, I hope you enjoyed the review of Matthew's course and mentoring program. It’s abundantly clear that this course is here for people who want to get results. It’s not going to happen overnight, but you will be pushed to move much faster than you would just following along with some videos. 

For any worthwhile business, you have to be prepared to invest time and resources. Dropshipping and ecommerce are no different.

As I mentioned in the intro, I liked dropshipping a few years ago, but the profit margins were getting squeezed big time. With issues like people stealing my creatives to use as their own and stressing over my Facebook Ads account getting suspended adding to my woes, I knew there had to be something better out there.

When I discovered Local Lead Generation, it was a no-brainer. 

Once the property is set up, it’s almost entirely passive from then on. 

And the profit margins are legit, with zero ad spend needed.

If you’re looking to build a real, online business where you can rinse and repeat to scale your income, do yourself a huge favor and check this out below.