Isabella Kotsias amassed her six-figure fortune selling everything from cushions to lamps online – and dubs her earnings “WiFi money”.
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The 26-year-old says she started out with £10 in the bank and believes anyone can “build their dream life” if they work for it.
Isabella decided to put all of her energy into her business in 2020 while studying to become a dental nurse.
Now, she earns around £60,000 a month selling homeware, accessories and bundles to consumers without ever seeing any of the products.
That’s because she sells through a plug-and-play business model named dropshipping.
In a nutshell, dropshippers sell goods through a website or online marketplace but don’t ever see the products they’re flogging.
Instead, the stock is stored and shipped by a third-party supplier.
Dropshippers are a middleman between suppliers and customers – and depending on the mark-up on their goods, they can make a pretty penny.
The reduction in overhead costs means setting up a dropshipping business is relatively easy to do, given you have the right tools and resources.
That includes Isabella, who says she started her six-figure business from her phone.
Before getting into dropshipping, she was flogging plushies, key rings and fidget toys out of her bedroom.
But she ditched this when she learnt she could sell products without having to store them herself.
Thanks to her dropshipping success, Isabella took her first business class flight in December 2022 and hasn’t gone back to economy success.
What is dropshipping?
Dropshipping is an online business model where the seller doesn’t keep inventory on hand.
Instead, they purchase items from a third-party wholesaler or manufacturer.
You still get the profit and financial benefit of owning an online store without many of the upfront costs that manufacturing and shipping entails.
The work is predominantly work from your laptop at home, and you can constantly add items to your portfolio without paying more to sell them.
However, there is still a risk of difficult supplier relationships and your profit margins becoming lower if your supply chain is too long.
You also have low control over customer experience.
“I always had side hustles. I just didn’t believe in myself to actually dive into them and do them full time,” she told Fox Business.
“So when I restarted my e-commerce journey and opened up another business in 2020, the second month I had one viral TikTok.
“And because of that one viral TikTok, it basically took me from having no audience and no followers to having a $20,000 (£15,700) month my second month.”
Trolls have told Isabella that her success is based on luck, but she argues there was lots of graft and late nights.